Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(89)

“Hello, Hello,” said Asil.




TWO WEEKS LATER



Charles was following his mate into his da’s kitchen when his da grabbed him and pulled him into the office. And that was how neither he nor the Marrok attended the first and last pack barbecue and music social.

By the time Charles came out of the office, Leah was just wiping down the countertops, and no one was around.

“I know we were in there for a few hours,” he told Leah, but weren’t there supposed to be activities until dark?”

It was not dark yet.

She looked at him. “Tag took out his bagpipes and played ‘The Wild Hunt.’ The new one, by The Tallest Man on Earth.”

Tag had gone through a new-folk phase, and The Tallest Man on Earth had been one of his favorites.

“On bagpipes?” He tried to imagine it. The effect would have been a lot different than the original. Especially with Tag playing. Tag could play—but he liked to embellish.

“It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “Not that good, mind you. But not that bad.”

“It didn’t drive everyone away?” Bagpipes weren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Especially if most of the people here were werewolves—bagpipes were loud. His da’s office had some serious soundproofing if they hadn’t heard bagpipes.

“No,” she said. “It made everyone want to go for a hunt. My backyard is full of piles of clothing. Anna and I pulled all the instruments inside—and then we turned the sprinklers on.”

She smiled in satisfaction—and Charles grinned at the thought of the two indignant women plotting how to get back at the people who spoiled the musical part of their barbecue.

He and Leah happened to be looking at each other when they smiled. Leah looked startled, and he imagined he did, too. It had probably happened, but he didn’t remember the two of them ever smiling at each other.

It would probably be a long time before it happened again.

“I take it that this will be a onetime thing?” he ventured.

She shrugged, “Maybe. Anna suggested we make Tag plan it next time.”

He started to go, but Brother Wolf prodded him.

“I have never told you, thank you,” he said.

Her eyebrows raised—though he knew very well she understood what he was talking about.

“If you had not come back,” he told her, “the skinwalker would have killed me.”

She folded up the wet cloth and hung it over the faucet to dry. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “You weren’t dead when we got there. If there is one thing that I have learned over the time I’ve spent here with your father, it is that it doesn’t do to underestimate you.”

He folded his arms and looked at his father’s mate, and for the first time the reason he was glad he had not had to execute her for being a traitor had more to do with Leah and less to do with his da.

“Thank you,” he said, “for coming back to help when I needed you.”

She considered it a moment. “I didn’t do it for you.” She opened a drawer and took out a clean dish towel and set it out beside the sink. With her back to him, she said, “I do not like you. I have never liked you—and it is not your fault. He loves you. And he does not love me.”

She turned around and looked at him with clear blue eyes and an expressionless face.

Charles thought about how his da’s wolf had fought Bran to a standstill in Spokane, unwilling to leave Leah to her fate. When Bran knew that the safest place for everyone, if Leah had been their traitor, would have been Africa. His father, who had controlled that wolf for a very, very long time.

Maybe it hadn’t been just the wolf who couldn’t leave.

“What,” Charles said carefully, because he tried very hard not to interfere in his da’s marriage “would be different if he loved you?”

She stared at him. “You cryptic son of a bitch,” she said.

And that’s why he didn’t interfere in his da’s marriage.

“Do you know where Anna is?”

“She left,” Leah said coolly, as if the brief moment of accord over wet clothing had not happened. “I presume she went home.”

? ? ?

HE FOUND HER working her little gelding in the arena—she pointedly ignored him. Anna stiffened a little, though, and when she asked the gelding for a transition from canter to trot, she bumped down on his back, off balance.

The cheery little gray took a few more strides—and when it was obvious she wasn’t fixing matters, he stopped.

“You forgot to sit a couple of strides before you started posting,” Charles said cautiously, climbing on top of the arena fence. If she was mad at him, greeting her with an instruction seemed to be a bad way to make things right—but he couldn’t help himself.

Rather than responding—or trying it again—she walked Heylight over to where Charles sat, and said, “Think carefully over your next answer. Your father’s life might just depend on it.”

He met her eyes, but he couldn’t tell how serious she was. “All right,” he said.

“Did he pull you into his study so neither of you had to participate tonight?”

“I will answer that,” Charles said. “But first let me say that the pack has been wounded by Sage and by the death of the wildlings. Badly wounded in some cases.”