Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(69)

“There is nothing like that in the Green family,” agreed Da.

“Carrie’s father was Daniel’s son, a man named Jude,” Charles said. “Her mother came from a witch family as well, but she had no power. Maybe whatever it was came to Carrie from her mother’s family. I’ll research it.”

“Is that all?” Da asked.

“Yes,” said Charles.

“Bright Things’s Zander is selling snow cones in Happy Camp,” Anna said.

“Really?” said his da, sounding dumbfounded. Apparently he knew who the photographer was as well. “What’s he doing there?”

“I know, right? I mean, he has to be somewhere, that makes sense.”

“But Happy Camp?” Bran agreed. He sounded almost as giddy as Anna did.

There was no reason to feel the slightest bit of jealousy over the pretty boy, Charles thought, looking at the excitement on his wife’s face. He had been able to tell that Zander had been flirting outrageously with Anna when he and Tag had interrupted them—but she had not been interested in the photographer that way. Charles wasn’t even sure that she’d noticed she was being flirted with.

It wasn’t jealousy, really, he decided, or not the suspicious kind of jealousy. Charles only wished that he could be like that boy for his wife—someone softer, gentler. Younger.

She is ours, Brother Wolf reminded him smugly. That one can find his own person. She already belongs to us.

“I didn’t ask,” Anna was saying to Bran. “Maybe he’s taking photos around the Klamath River, do you think? Anyway, he told me that he’s probably headed to Colorado as soon as the season passes.”

“Da,” said Charles. “What’s wrong?”

Silence filled the Suburban as they waited.

“Leah is gone,” Da said, finally. “She was gone this morning. I thought she had gone out running in the mountains. This business has been hard on her, and she’s taken to long runs. It wasn’t until she didn’t come in for lunch that I thought to look for her.”

“She’s coming here,” Charles said.

“Going to Wild Sign, I think,” Bran agreed. “That song she sang . . . it had the feel of a summons. I thought that— It doesn’t matter what I thought. Our bonds, pack and mating, are still intact, but I can’t open them further. Which is unusual. I am in the habit of keeping our bonds closed down, but I don’t usually have trouble opening them if I choose. I don’t have any sense of where she is.”

“The Singer messed with my ability to open our mating bond,” said Charles.

“Yes,” Da said. “You told me that.”

“I’ll head up to Wild Sign as soon as I drop Anna and Tag off at the hotel in Happy Camp,” Charles said. “I don’t want Anna up there again.”

“Leah won’t make it today,” Bran said. “I know she’s still in wolf form—it changes the shape of our bond.” He growled, and there was a crack as something wooden broke. In a velvet-soft voice he said, “I did not notice because it is my habit to leave our bonds closed. Has always been my habit.”

“You can fix that,” Charles said, “after we deal with the Singer. We’ll deal with the locker today—I don’t want to leave it any longer than we have to, because if there are any other artifacts there, they will start to attract attention now that I’ve taken down Carrie’s protections. Tomorrow morning, I’ll head up to Wild Sign. If Leah is running the whole way, she won’t get there before I will.” Even a werewolf had limits.

“I cannot leave here,” his da said raggedly. “Asil is in Billings, dealing with a lone wolf.”

There was no one else who could handle their pack.

“I will find her,” Charles promised. “She won’t get past us.”

“She is a ghost in the forest,” his da said. “If she doesn’t want you to know that she is there—”

“Pack bonds,” Charles reminded his da. “If I pay attention to the pack bonds, I’ll feel her as soon as she is within five miles of me.” Usually only an Alpha would be able to read pack bonds that well, but Charles could do it. His da was pretty upset to forget that.

“Yes,” his da said. And disconnected.

“First, we check on the grimoires at the hotel,” said Anna firmly. “Then we’ll go to the storage locker and get that taken care of. You’ll get a good sleep and go save Leah in the morning.”

She caught his sudden attention and shook her head. “I don’t think I should go up there, either. I opened myself up to that thing. I don’t know if it can get a hold on me again.”

Charles smiled, put a hand on her leg. “That’s not what surprised me,” he told her. His Anna was full of common sense. “It was your boundless confidence that I can save Leah.”

It had come out in her voice like truth.

Tag snorted in the back, but he was quiet enough about it that Charles could ignore him.

Anna grinned. “My hero,” she crooned—and that came out like truth, too. He wasn’t sure she knew that, but he and Tag did.

Charles felt his cheeks heat—which was ridiculous.





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