Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega #1)(15)

As they neared the front of the church, she realized she'd been wrong about its being completely packed. The first pew on the left was entirely empty except for Bran.

He sat looking for all the world as if he was waiting for a bus rather than a funeral, despite the designer charcoal suit he wore. His arms were spread to either side of him, elbows hanging over the back of the pew; his legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankle, eyes focused either on the railing in front of him, or on infinity. His face revealed no more than Charles's usual expression, which was wrong. She hadn't known him long, but the Marrok's face was a mobile one, not designed to be so still.

He looked isolated, and Anna remembered that the man the whole town had turned out to mourn had been killed by Bran. A friend, he'd said.

Beside her, Charles let out a low growl that caught his father's attention. Bran looked over at them, and one eyebrow climbed up his face, robbing it of its blankness. He patted the bench beside him as he asked his son, "What? You expected them to be happy with me?"

Charles turned on his heel, so Anna was abruptly face to chest with him. But he wasn't looking at her, he was looking at everyone else in the sanctuary-who once again looked away. As his power swept the church in a boiling rush, silence fell abruptly.

"Fools," he said, loud enough that everyone in the church would hear him.

Bran laughed. "Come sit down before you scare them all silly. I'm not a politician to worry about what they think of me, as long as they obey."

After a moment, Charles complied, and Anna found herself sitting between them.

As soon as Charles was facing the front of the church, the whispering began, built up speed, and regained its previous level. There were undercurrents here, thick enough to choke on. Anna felt distinctly like an outsider.

"Where's Samuel?" Charles looked over her head at his father.

"He's coming in right now." Bran said it without looking behind him, but Charles turned around so Anna did, too.

The man strolling up the aisle was almost as tall as Charles, his features a rougher version of Bran's. That roughness made them not so bland or young-looking as his father. She found him oddly compelling, though not handsome like Charles.

His ditch-water brown hair was cut carelessly, but somehow he managed to look neat and well dressed anyway. He held a battered violin case in one hand and a dark blue Western-cut jacket in the other.

When he was nearly at the front, he turned around once, taking in the people in a single glance. Then he looked over at Anna, and his face broke into a singularly sweet smile-a smile she'd seen an echo of on Charles's face. With that smile she could see past the superficial differences to the underlying similarities, a matter of bone and movement rather than feature-by-feature likeness.

He sat next to Charles and brought with him the crisp scent of snow over leather. His smile widened, and he started to say something, but stopped when a wave of silence swept through the crowd from the back to the front.

The minister, bedecked in old-fashioned clerical robes, walked slowly up the central aisle, an ancient-looking Bible resting in the crook of his left arm. By the time he reached the front, the room was silent.

His obvious age told her that he wasn't a werewolf, but he had a presence that made his "Welcome and thank you for coming to pay your respects to our friend" sound ceremonial. He set the Bible on the podium with obvious care for graying leather. He gently opened the heavily embossed cover and set aside a bookmark.

He read from the fifteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. And the last verse he spoke without looking down. " 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?' "

He paused, letting his eyes trail over the room, much as Charles had, then said simply, "Shortly after we moved back here, Carter Wallace came to my house at two in the morning to hold my wife's hand when our retriever had her first litter of puppies. He wouldn't charge me because he said if he charged for cuddling pretty women, he'd be a gigolo and not a vet."

He stepped away from the pulpit and sat on the thronelike wooden chair on the right-hand side. There was the sound of shuffling and the creaking of wood, then an old woman stood up. A man with bright chestnut hair escorted her down the aisle, a hand under her elbow. As they walked by her pew, Anna could smell the wolf in him.

It took the old woman a few minutes to make it all the way to the top of the stairs to the pulpit. She was so small that she had to stand on a footstool, the werewolf behind her with his hands on her waist to steady her.

"Carter came to our store when he was eight years old," she said in a breathy, frail voice. "He gave me fifteen cents. When I asked him what it was for, he told me that a few days before, he and Hammond Markham had been in, and Hammond had stolen a candy bar. I asked him why it was he and not Hammond who was bringing the money. He told me that Hammond didn't know he was bringing me the money." She laughed and wiped a tear from her eye. "He assured me that it was Hammond 's money, though, stolen from his piggy bank just that morning."

The werewolf who had escorted her raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Then he lifted her into his arms, despite her protests, and carried her back to where they'd been sitting. Husband and wife, not the grandson and grandmother they appeared to be.

Anna shivered, suddenly fiercely glad that Charles was a wolf like her and not human.