Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(19)

As he spoke of parallels between magic and music and how they both could be used by various evil creatures, she felt his body relax. Monsters, she thought with drowsy humor, were apparently less frightening than children.





CHAPTER





3


Anna found herself, not unexpectedly, at the wheel for the California trip. Charles actively disliked driving, and Tag . . . Tag drove with a joyous abandon that probably had not been as hazardous when the most common mode of transportation had been horses. A horse could decide not to run off a cliff or into a tree no matter what Tag did or failed to do. Automobiles tended to rely on their drivers to avoid accidents, so it was best if Tag didn’t drive.

They borrowed an SUV. Charles’s single-bench-seat truck would have had a hard time containing the three of them. Charles was a big man and Tag was even larger, nearly seven feet tall and wide as an ox. Tag currently drove a Ford Expedition that would have held them all with room to spare if it weren’t for the territoriality plaguing all dominant males. Tag could have ridden in Charles’s truck, had they all fit, because Charles was easily more dominant than Tag. But Charles could not ride in Tag’s vehicle—except, possibly, if he drove.

Anna had long since quit fretting about dominance issues except to be thankful she, as an Omega, was outside all of that. Bran had a small fleet of automobiles owned by the pack, and he made it available to them. The pack Suburban was neutral territory and plenty big enough for all of them. Charles rode shotgun and Tag stretched out in the backseat and went to sleep for most of the drive, for all the world as if he were a cat instead of a werewolf.

The first day had been mostly interstate, and they’d stopped shortly after crossing the California state line, staying in a hotel in Yreka. The second day, Anna found herself driving on a narrow highway barely two vehicles wide as it twisted through mountains only a little more civilized than those at home.

When she’d first moved to Montana, she’d driven these kinds of rural highways with a white-knuckled grip. Some of the roads around pack territory were little more than two ruts through the woods, so the narrow highway now only bothered her when they got stuck behind slow-moving RVs or semis.

They traveled along the edge of a mountain valley where the only sign of civilization was a few fence lines. She hadn’t realized that California had places that were so isolated. The road followed the edge of a mountain, so she had no warning when they rounded a curve and found what looked to be a gas station, though it was hard to tell because it was all but buried in trees.

“Pull in at this stop,” said Tag. His voice was high-pitched for a man as big as he was, and when he sang, he had a beautiful Irish tenor. Uncharacteristically he’d been upright and watching the scenery for the past half hour. The urgency in his voice made her wonder if he’d been keeping an eye out for a bathroom break.

Pulling into the gravel parking lot, Anna got her first clear view of the place. The battered, flat-roofed building sported a ruff of cedar shakes like a tonsured monk on top, and cheap paneling everywhere else. The siding was painted a blue that had once been dark but had faded to a blue gray.

There was a pair of old gas pumps out front wrapped in battered yellow caution tape, indicating that part of the business was no longer in service. The lighted beer signs in the small dirty windows obscured what lay beyond.

Despite the dilapidated appearance of the business, six cars filled the parking lot: four late-model SUVs, a pickup truck, and a dented, ancient Subaru. It might have been silver a few accidents ago but was now mostly primer gray. Anna pulled in on one end of the lot, her left wheels on grass instead of gravel.

“Is this a bar?” asked Anna.

“Sometimes,” Tag admitted, pulling on his boots and beginning to lace them up without hurry. “Was a gas station when I was here last.”

“You know this place?” asked Charles.

Tag grunted.

A Native American man opened the door of the business, whatever it was, and stepped out, staring at their SUV. He looked to be somewhere in his midfifties, though his short hair was still glossy and dark.

He was not overly tall, but when he stopped, folded his arms, and squared his stance, he looked pretty badass. Anna softly whistled the opening notes of the theme song of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

At the sound, Tag paused, looked up, and saw their observer. “Good. I was worried it might have passed to other hands.”

Apparently they weren’t here for a bathroom break.

Tag slanted a quick glance at Charles. “Do you mind if I go talk to him first? I think these folks might be useful, and they know me.”

Charles, his gaze pinned on the waiting stranger, said, “These are friends of yours?”

His tone was odd, something Anna couldn’t quite read. He’d seen something Anna had missed—or he knew something she didn’t.

“‘Friends’ would be stretching it a bit,” Tag said judiciously as he got out of the SUV, bringing a leather over-the-shoulder pack with him. “But we know each other.”

He didn’t bother to close his door as he strode over to the man who waited, so neither she nor Charles had to strain to hear, even with the sounds of the nearby river.

“Carrottop,” said the stranger. “Long time since you came this way.”

Tag said something in a liquid tongue Anna couldn’t pinpoint, and the other man laughed.