Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(64)

“Please have a seat,” Underwood said.

Anna perched on one of the leather armchairs, but Charles ignored Underwood’s suggestion and stood behind her. He reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder, his thumb brushing the skin of her neck.

With that touch, Charles swept away the last of Underwood’s spellweaving. It was not a great feat to give Anna a little protection at the same time, and it soothed Charles. If someone else wanted to bespell her, they would have to make a real effort now.

Which we will not allow, stated Brother Wolf.

No, they would not.

He waited for Underwood to react to Charles freeing Anna. But he’d overestimated the witch. Underwood continued pulling out his chair and settling in it without pause. He straightened his desk in a manner that seemed to be calculated to prove to himself that he was in control of the situation.

When he looked up, his friendly, fatherly persona was intact. Then he saw Charles standing behind Anna and frowned a little, as if surprised that Charles hadn’t followed his directive.

It might be, Charles thought, that with this place steeped in so much witchcraft, Underwood just wasn’t sensitive enough to tell what was going on with his own spells.

Such an unobservant man, noted Brother Wolf, working in a place like this is doomed. If we kill him now, we would just be doing him a favor.

Brother Wolf was a lot more talkative than usual. Charles couldn’t figure out if it was the emotional upheaval of the Singer’s attack on Anna or Underwood bespelling her—or if it was a side effect of all the magic in this place.

This is a very interesting place, Brother Wolf enlightened him. I have hope that we will kill some witches here before we go. This one would do.

“Anna and Charles Cornick,” Underwood said. “Your names are familiar to me. Very familiar.” He gave Anna a sad-eyed look, and a soft billow of magic puffed out to land upon both Anna and Charles. “Carrie Green was an only child and she was not married. You are not her sister-in-law. But the Cornick name is well-known among people who are witchborn.”

“Is it?” said Anna, who was, hit by Underwood’s magic, supposed to feel guilty. But for now, her politeness looked close enough to guilt for Underwood, because he looked faintly satisfied.

“Charles Cornick, the scourge of werewolves, the Marrok’s assassin—and the woman who rules him,” Underwood said.

Was that what the witches were saying about his Anna? True enough as far as that went. He wondered who else was saying that. Maybe that was why the FBI agents had concluded that Anna was the Marrok. If Anna had wanted to rule them all . . . Well, Charles couldn’t see his da giving over the care of his wolves to anyone while he lived, but Da listened to Anna. They all did.

She could have ruled them all, Charles thought, but only because she would never think to rule any of them. Being the ruler of all she surveyed was just not anything his Anna desired—which was one of the reasons they could let their guard down around her.

She was more than up to taking point against a second-rate witch like this. And she was better suited to get information out of him than Charles was. People liked to talk to Anna. People liked to run away from Charles. Both of those things pleased him.

“Yes?” Anna said in response to Underwood’s I-know-who-you-really-are reveal. Her mild tone made Underwood’s lips thin.

The best part, as far as Charles was concerned, was that the question in her tone meant that she wasn’t lying to the witch. It wouldn’t be her fault if Underwood misunderstood.

Witches couldn’t smell a lie, but they had their own ways of detecting untruths, not that Underwood was using any of them. If Charles were to hazard a guess, it would be that Underwood did not have the magic to spare. He wondered how much of Underwood’s magic went to just keeping him safe from the black witches who employed him.

As I told you, he would be better off if we killed him now, agreed Brother Wolf in a lazy tone that fooled Charles not a bit.

Underwood settled back in his chair and rocked it a little. “Did you think you could come here, into the heart of our power, and leave without a payment, Anna?”

Charles could feel Anna’s intention to produce Carrie Green’s check—though she knew full well that wasn’t the kind of payment that Underwood was talking about. He tightened his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

It could be dangerous to give something to a magical being, especially something like a check, which was, in essence, a payment for things owed. Magic tended to be symbolic. It was the reason that Anna’s gift of song in that amphitheater had allowed the Singer to attack her. She had offered a gift—and the Singer had taken her up on her offer.

He didn’t think Underwood was powerful enough for that to be a real threat. But Charles was here to guard Anna against any possibility of harm—and Underwood wasn’t the only witch in play here.

As if in answer to that thought, Charles heard someone cat-footing it down the hallway. Like everything else in this place, they did not stink of black magic, but the power that one carried . . . the last time he’d faced someone that strong, he’d nearly died. And witches only gained that weighty realness, the kind he could sense in his skin, from stealing death and pain from their victims.

Anna, apparently unaware of the more dangerous opponent approaching, asked, “What do you want from us, Dr. Underwood?”

The footsteps stopped. Whoever was out there—and he’d lay odds it was a woman, both because of the power she held and because of the faint smell of some flowery perfume—was listening on the other side of the door.