Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(104)

“I’ll see that she gets it,” Charles promised. He knew that Anna would want to check on Dr. Connors before they left for home anyway. This would be a good excuse.

“Why didn’t it protect Carrie?” Anna asked. “It’s protection from evil, right?”

Coyote gave her an exasperated huff. “Two questions. Two. We might as well sit down and have an entire conversation. Ah well, I don’t like rules very much anyway. The necklace is protection from black witches who want to steal your magic. That’s all.”

Anna nodded at him. “You spoke to her? To Carrie Green?” There was a wobble in her voice.

Charles put his hand on her shoulder.

Coyote nodded and gave Anna that sweet smile again. “They are all safe now.” He tipped his head up toward the sun, closing his eyes. “We’re done now. You go away. I think I will sit on this rock and digest my breakfast. Maybe dream a bit, who knows?”

Charles knew stories of Coyote. “Isn’t that dangerous?” he said.

Coyote smiled at Charles this time, his eyes laughing. “You do have a sense of humor. I knew it.” He turned his back on them both, wrapping his arms around his knees as he stared out over the river.

As they headed back to the hotel, Charles heard Coyote singing “We Will Rock You.” He decided he wasn’t going to think too hard about what that might mean.



* * *



*

THAT NIGHT, THE coyote easily hopped over the stone wall that encased the garden. He trotted over to the raised pool, looked at his reflection backlit by the moon for a moment, and drank. When he had drunk his fill, he hopped on the ledge—no longer a coyote, but Coyote in his human guise.

He hadn’t lied to Charles and Anna, but he had concealed this thing from them. All of the Singer’s children had not died. This one last child had survived.

“Heya,” he told the listening garden. “I am Coyote. I think we should talk.”



* * *



*

    LEAH LEFT TAG sleeping in the guest bedroom. He would recover, though it would be a week or more before he was up and moving with anything like his old strength. She was distantly glad of it. The pack was safer with Tag in it.

For lack of other tasks, she wandered into her bedroom and caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. She walked over and stared.

She’d showered and put on makeup. Like Tag, she had weight she needed to regain—though nowhere near the same amount. Outside of the gauntness and a hollowness in her eyes that might only be her imagination, she didn’t look any different than she ever had.

But now she remembered. The moment the Singer died, she had remembered everything. And yet that woman in the mirror was more of a stranger than she had ever been. She reached up and put her fingertips against her jawbone, just to make sure that it was really her.

Bran didn’t make any sound approaching her room, though like the good werewolf she was, she knew he was there. Of course she knew. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to find a center of normalcy. But she had killed her own son and used his heart to kill a god. She wasn’t sure where normal was in that.

“We need to talk,” her mate said.

And that quickly, she couldn’t breathe. She did not want to have this talk with him. With anyone. Her chest ached as she forced herself to calm.

She might be a stranger to herself, but she knew Bran. Her mate. He had violated his own rules when he had forced her to live through her Change and convinced her to be his mate. For two centuries both of them had ignored that. These last few days had shoved his sins down his throat. Now he would need to fix it. And that terrified her.

“I don’t want to talk now,” she told him truthfully. She looked down at her fingers and regretted painting her nails red. Like blood. It had seemed fitting at the time—but she regretted it now.

“Nevertheless,” he said.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes, but forced herself not to hug her chest, too. He would already know how unhappy and defensive she was, but she didn’t need to shove it in his face.

She inhaled to give herself strength and could have cursed because her breath hitched. Damn it.

She turned around.

He hadn’t come all the way into the room, but leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. He watched her with hooded eyes. Started to say something and clearly reconsidered.

“You have been greatly wronged,” he said finally. “Not just by me, but I did my part. And I don’t want to lose you.”

That first part she had expected, but not the second. She would have to be very stupid not to have understood that he did not particularly like her. He needed her—or someone in her place. Someone to balance his fierce and too-powerful wolf—and also someone to bear some of the burden of his various offices: Marrok, Alpha, guardian of the wildlings. She was useful.

She’d thought that he would take this opportunity to set her aside “for her own sake.” He had wronged her, forced her because she had not been in any condition to give consent, either to being Changed or to mating with him. She deserved better. She should go out in the real world and find better. And then he could find someone he’d be happier with.

Maybe she could convince him that she wanted things to stay as they were because she was ambitious. Any role she held after being the Marrok’s mate would be lowering her position. Both of those things were true.