Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(37)

She started to shake her head, then realized that she could. That he was not lying, or at least he believed what he said.

“Yes,” she said. But how could Justin be dead? Had whatever magic that transported her to wherever she was now, had that killed him? And how would this man know? Had this stranger teleported her here somehow?

Deep in her gut, something was trying to tell her she had this situation wrong. But she didn’t know how or in what way—and she had to deal with the present danger first. The present danger who was sitting twenty feet away from her, doing the best that he could to look nonthreatening. It wasn’t a good act, but it mattered that he was trying.

The seated man caught and held her gaze again. Instead of scaring her, as all of her previous experience told her it should, for some reason his regard made her feel better, more centered.

“Justin is dead,” he said again. “Leo is dead. They cannot hurt you anymore.”

And from the certainty in his voice, she knew that to be true. Even if she’d just seen Justin, just seen Leo. She knew they were dead because this man told her it was so. How did this stranger know about Justin and Leo?

“I killed Isabelle,” Anna said, her mouth so dry she could barely force the words out. Her head hurt with a sudden, eye-watering pain. She didn’t know where the words had come from.

“Anna?” he said, and she focused on his voice. One true thing in a sea of jumbled events.

“You sang for me,” she whispered, knowing it was true, though not what it meant.

“Yes,” he agreed.

She opened her mouth to say something else, and that flash of pain struck her again.



* * *



*

CHARLES CAUGHT HER before she hit the ground. Doing it when he’d had to start from a sitting position meant he mostly just managed to put himself under her rather than keeping her from falling.

Though he could hear her heartbeat, feel the life in her body, he still put his hand on her pulse for reassurance. He avoided touching the bite marks.

She’d had them when she turned around after the music had died. She hadn’t had them when she put the recorder to her lips, and he didn’t know where she’d gotten them from. He hadn’t smelled the blood until she’d turned around. They were human teeth marks, healing now, but they had been deep. The blood was smeared all over her neck and shirt.

He didn’t understand what was happening. Justin had been dead for years, and if he had to pick out regrets from his long life, the fact that someone else had killed Justin before Charles had had the chance to do it was first on the list.

He pulled her limp body into his lap, curling around her protectively. Shuddering with the effort not to go kill something, someone, anyone. If there had been a physical enemy present, he would not have been able to hold Brother Wolf back.

Because Charles wanted to kill someone, too. He just didn’t know who or what his enemy was. Was the recorder some sort of artifact? Whatever had happened to Anna had had something to do with the music, that much was obvious. He was very aware Ford had told them that the symbol on the stones and trees around this place, the one that kept the very guardians of the forest away, represented a musical instrument being played. It didn’t take a genius to make a connection.

Brother Wolf warned him that Anna was recovering consciousness. He knew that he should set her down and give her space. She’d been afraid of him.

Of him.

He could not make himself let her go. She would have to push him away herself. If she pushed him away, if she was frightened, even Brother Wolf would release her. Charles only hoped that he could force himself to do the same.

She stirred. He made himself look away from her, giving her as much space as he could, knowing that it was not enough. He was going to scare her again.

He felt the sudden tension of her muscles as she woke. Felt a tremendous shiver travel through her body and the instinctive way she drew into the fetal position.

Brother Wolf howled inside him. They would find this thing that had hurt their mate and make it very, very sorry. He waited for her to struggle.

Instead, she burrowed against him with a wild sob, wiggling to get closer to him with frantic need. She made a noise, a guttural heart-wrenching sound that he couldn’t understand. He wasn’t sure that she was using words.

He held her while she buried her face against him and shook, grabbing his shirt so hard that she ripped the shoulder. He rocked her gently. Had they not been in the middle of this place that he distrusted, he would have sung to her.

Gradually she relaxed against him, her body shuddering now and then, like a child who had cried too hard to stop all at once.

“Anna?”

She pressed her head more tightly against him, but she didn’t say anything.

He jerked his head up as a scent came to his attention, this one more real than the one he’d started to identify with their unknown enemy. This one he smelled, but it was the same scent. When he took in a deep breath, he could not smell it again. But he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

Deciding that he wanted to get Anna out of Wild Sign, he stood up, holding her tightly to him, and headed back up the trail.

Tag was waiting for them at the sign at the top of the trail. He had shifted to wolf, which Charles appreciated. Tag’s wolf could be counted on—not to be less ferocious or less crazy, but the wolf obeyed orders. Sometimes Tag had trouble with that when he walked on two feet. Charles could deal with Tag, but he’d rather not have to while he was trying to protect Anna. He didn’t want to kill Tag by accident.