Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(46)

He glanced again at Anna—but this time she was awake. She sat up and pulled off her shirt.

“No,” he said. “You need to rest.”

She gave him an imperious look that made Brother Wolf want to roll with joy. She wasn’t afraid of him. The terror on her face before she’d run this morning . . . he would happily go to his grave if he never saw her look at him with that expression again.

“I need you,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve felt good all day. All that I need now, to feel like myself, is for you to wipe away the feel of Justin’s hands.” She covered herself and shivered, looking away, whispering, “I have been smelling him on my skin all day.”

He gathered her up and rearranged the sleeping bag so that they were both on the soft inner surface. Then he laid her back down with care.

“Where do you smell him?” he asked, instead of telling her that she only smelled of herself. He’d smelled Justin last night, too. If she could still scent that old hurt, he would not argue with her.

She raised her right hand and showed him her wrist.

He brought it to him and brushed his cheek against it before kissing it gently. He touched her wrist with his nose, watching her as he took in the scent of her skin. Just them. He brought it to her nose for inspection.

“Better?” he asked.

She closed her eyes, concentrating. Then she looked at him and nodded.

It took time. He would have thought it to be a seduction game had it not been for their mating bond, because by the time she acknowledged that she could neither smell nor feel Justin on her skin, they both were flushed and taut with desire. But they were mated, and he could feel her distress, feel it lessen gradually as he touched, kissed, and licked his way over her body.

He did not enter her until their bond was free of the shadow of spirit, and that tested his patience to the breaking point. Hers, too. As he slid into her, wet and swollen for him, he felt her delight break free and was forced to bite his cheek hard not to follow her immediately.

He was not some pup who thought only of his own pleasure. He was an old wolf. Controlled. But it was a near thing.

When they were finished, she lay on top of him, as limp and wrung out as he himself felt. Brother Wolf, satisfied at last, slept deep so that it was only Charles who held their mate.

Only Charles who growled low in his throat at the memory of the thing that had tried to take his Anna away. It would not hurt her ever again.

He would make sure of it.





CHAPTER





7


Anna stopped at the other campground, the one with the showers. She was not going to face Dr. Connors while smelling of fear, exertion, and sweat.

Charles might be able to take care of that for himself by shifting back and forth, and Tag smelled of nothing more noxious than the evergreen he’d apparently spent the night under. But Anna felt the need for hot water to clean herself physically and metaphysically. Showers, she informed Charles, despite the fact that he wasn’t arguing with her, were not a luxury but a necessity.

The shower building at the lower campground bore a large sign that read Bathrooms are for registered campers only. Anna, pulling towels out of one of the general supply bags in the back of the SUV and handing them out, reflected that she used to be a rule follower. She would once have gone dirty rather than ignore that sign. Being a werewolf had been good for her in many ways—from a certain perspective, anyway.

No one gave them a second look. By chance, Anna had the women’s side of the showers all to herself. She could have stayed under the hot water for a week, feeling clean inside and out as the water drained away by her feet. She contented herself with briskly scrubbing her hair and feet and everything in between.

The men’s side of the showers was silent by the time she turned off the water. But she didn’t hurry just because Tag and Charles were doubtless both done and waiting for her. Dr. Connors had sounded formidable, and, in Anna’s experience, women judged others by their appearance.

Anna briefly considered going for very casual, sending a message of “I’m so sure of myself I don’t care what I look like.” But the events of the past two days had left her unsettled. She felt like she needed all the armament at her disposal—that meant foundation and lipstick, as well as the carry gun tucked in the small of her back.

She was pretty sure that she was breaking California law with her gun. But Wild Sign looked as though it had been a colony of white witches. Dr. Connors’s father had been one of the people living there. It did not mean that he himself was a witch, but it did mean that he consorted with them. If his daughter did the same, if she was a witch, there was no guarantee that she was a white witch.

Anna had had enough dealings with witches not to go in unarmed if she could help it—breaking the law or not. Especially since it would take a foolhardy officer of the law to try to arrest Charles Cornick’s mate. She tried to feel guilty about the knowledge that there was no chance Charles would let her suffer for breaking the law. Or, if not guilty, at least not quite so smug about it. But she didn’t quite succeed.

She tucked her deep green silk shirt into black slacks, and then donned the holster and gun. To cover the P365, she slipped on a sandy linen jacket she’d brought along for that purpose. The jacket didn’t look entirely out of place, though it would have been better if she’d brought brown slacks instead of the black. She was just glad that she’d gotten into the habit of packing nice clothes wherever they went. Charles’s being the son of the Marrok meant that they often found themselves in unexpected formal situations.