Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(77)

“She’s following a trail,” Jericho said. “I know where it comes out—there’s a shortcut. If they don’t stop her before she gets that far, we can take her at the other end.”

Charles and Anna made short work of climbing the slope until they were up on the path the wildlings were on. It didn’t take them long to catch up. Jericho was not in an apparent hurry because he waited for them.

As they neared, Jericho tilted his head and frowned at Anna. “I don’t know you,” he said. “Should I know you?”

“Hello,” Anna said as they drew close. “We haven’t met. I’m Anna, Charles’s wife.”

Jericho looked at her with blue eyes that shifted from wolf to human with an unhealthy speed. “The Omega?”

She nodded.

Without tightening his muscles in warning, without a word or a sign, he jumped her.

They rolled down the steep side of the mountain so quickly that Devon and Charles didn’t catch up with them until they were nearly to the bottom. They rolled up against a tree and slammed into it, Anna letting out a grunt that had more startle than pain in it.

Charles would have snapped Jericho’s neck if Devon hadn’t knocked him sideways, then stood in front of the tangle of bodies. His head was lowered, tilted submissively, his tail was tucked, and he was shaking like a wet horse in a snowstorm, but he still stood between them.

“Second time in one day,” Anna complained with a tremor of shock in her voice. “What is it with people? Did they forget their manners? Hello, how are you? No, I get the full tackle like I was a quarterback.”

If she was complaining, she wasn’t badly hurt—though rolling down that rocky mountainside wouldn’t have done her any good.

“No manners at all,” said Jericho’s muffled voice. “Oh God. Oh God. You don’t parade surcease like this in front of wildlings, you young idiot. What were you thinking?”

It took Charles a second to realize that he was the young idiot Jericho was talking about.

Charles growled.

Jericho gave a shaky half laugh that was full of tears. “I’m sorry. So sorry. God. I can think. I can breathe.” There was a little pause, and he said, in a lost voice with a touch of panic, “What I can’t do is let go. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Well, I hurt,” Anna said in a grumpier voice than before. “We just rolled down the side of a mountain.” This time there was a thread of panic in her voice. “Don’t get me wrong, but I would really, really be grateful if you would let me up.”

“I can’t,” Jericho said.

They were so fragile, these wildlings of his da’s. Dangerous as all get out, but they were fragile.

He is frightening our mate, growled Brother Wolf. If he doesn’t stop, it won’t matter how dangerous or fragile he is—he will be dead.

Devon whined anxiously—and Brother Wolf nosed him to reassure him that they wouldn’t kill Jericho unless they had to.

Talking seemed like a good idea if no one was to die, so Charles changed. He let his human shape come upon him more slowly than usual. That way he could do one more quick change if he needed to be wolf again without pulling on the pack.

Fully human again, though the stress of the last minute or so showed in that he was wearing buckskin and moccasins instead of jeans and boots, he stood up and shoved Devon aside.

“It’s okay,” he told Devon, “But I need to sort this out.”

Anna’s eyes were panicky, and he could see that she’d about reached her limit. Understandably, she didn’t like anyone on top of her at the best of times. Brother Wolf would have just killed Jericho and been done with it. Death was coming for that one sooner rather than later anyway.

But with his stepmother’s accurate assessment of Bran’s sorrow at losing another wildling and the understanding that probably, unless Leah beat him to it, he was going to have to kill Sage, Charles had little taste for more death. Though at least, he thought with some relief, he would not have to kill Leah nor meet his da in mortal combat.

Not yet.

Instead of killing Jericho, Charles peeled the werewolf off his mate while Anna helped by scrambling body parts out of reach as soon as he’d freed them. When Jericho’s skin lost contact with Anna’s, he screamed, his whole body locking up in agony. Charles finally took him all the way to the ground and pinned him, facedown.

Wrestling with werewolves was complicated by the fact that weight didn’t hold a werewolf unless his opponent was the size of an elephant, maybe. Joint locks still worked, though.

“Move again,” Charles snarled, letting Brother Wolf’s dominance color his voice, “and I’ll break your neck, and you won’t have to worry about touching my mate ever again.”

Devon made a soft, frightened sound.

Anna, on her feet and winded, said, “Don’t worry, Devon. He doesn’t mean it.”

But he did. Fortunately, the right person believed him, and Jericho subsided, panting and sweating. And sobbing.

Anna crouched and touched the skin on his arm with her fingers. She frowned a little, reaching with her other hand to touch Charles. Her pulse was still fast, and her grip was just a little too hard—she was using Charles to calm herself down.

Jericho was lucky Charles didn’t break his neck anyway for the way the wildling had made his Anna’s heart race with reflexive panic.