Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega #1)(3)

Their pain was her fault. They all knew that.

She reminded herself that Leo needed killing-he had killed so many himself and allowed the deaths of many others. She wouldn't look at any of them again. She'd try not to talk to them, and hope they'd ignore her.

Except-they'd come here to help her move. She'd tried to stop that, but she wasn't up to arguing with the Marrok for long. She dared another quick glance at Boyd, but she couldn't read his face any better this time.

She took her key and went to work on the lock with fear-clumsy fingers. None of the werewolves made any move that indicated they were impatient, but she tried to hurry, feeling their eyes on her back. What were they thinking? Were they remembering what some of them had done to her? She wasn't. She wasn't.

Breathe, she chided herself.

One of the men swayed on his feet and made an eager sound.

"George," said Boyd, and the other wolf quieted.

It was her fear that was pushing the wolf, she knew. She had to get a handle on herself-and the sticky lock wasn't helping. If Charles were here, she could deal with everything, but he was recovering from several bullet wounds. His father had told her that he had a stronger reaction than most to silver.

"I didn't expect you to come," said Bran-she presumed he wasn't talking to her since he'd manipulated and talked her into leaving Charles alone this morning.

It must have been Boyd he was talking to, because it was Boyd who answered him. "I had the day off."

Until last night Boyd had been third. But now he was the Alpha of the Western Suburb Chicago Pack. The pack she was leaving. "I thought it might hurry matters a bit," Boyd continued. "Thomas here has agreed to drive the truck to Montana and back."

She pulled open the door, but Bran didn't go in immediately so she stopped in the entryway just inside the door, holding it open.

"How stand your pack finances?" Bran asked. "My son tells me that Leo claimed he needed money."

She heard Boyd's typical humorless smile in his voice. "He wasn't lying. His mate was expensive as all hell to keep. We won't lose the manor, but that's the only good news our accountant has for me. We'll get something from selling Isabella's jewelry, but not as much as Leo paid for it."

She could look at Bran, and so she watched his eyes assess the wolves Boyd had brought like a general surveying his troops. His gaze settled on Thomas.

Anna looked, too, seeing what the Marrok saw: old jeans with a hole in one knee, tennis shoes that had seen better days. It was very much like what she was wearing, except that her hole was in her left knee, not the right.

"Will the time it takes to drive to Montana and back put your job at risk?" Bran asked.

Thomas kept his eyes on his toes and answered, soft-voiced, "No, sir. I work construction, and this is the slow season. I okayed it with the boss; he says I have two weeks."

Bran pulled a checkbook out of his pocket and, using one of the other wolves' shoulders to give him a solid surface to write on, made out a check. "This is for your expenses on this trip. We'll figure out a pay rate and have money waiting for you when you get to Montana."

Relief flashed in Thomas's eyes, but he didn't say anything.

Bran went through the door, passed by Anna, and started up the stairs. As soon as he wasn't watching them, the other wolves lifted their eyes to look at Anna.

She jutted her chin up and met their gazes, forgetting entirely her decision not to do just that until it was too late. Boyd's eyes were unfathomable, and Thomas was still looking at the ground...but the other two, George and Joshua, were easy to read. With Bran's back to them, the knowledge of what she'd been in their pack was fully visible in their eyes.

And they had been Leo's wolves by inclination as well as fact. She was nothing, and she had brought about their Alpha's death: they'd have killed her if they dared.

Just try, she told them without using words. She turned her back on them without dropping her eyes-as Charles's mate, she supposedly outranked all of them. But they weren't only wolves, and the human part of them would never forget what they had done to her, with Leo's encouragement.

Her stomach raw, and tension tightening the back of her neck, Anna tried to keep an even pace all the way up to her apartment on the fourth floor. Bran waited beside her while she unlocked the door. She stepped aside so he could go in first, showing the others that he, at least, had her respect.

He stopped in the doorway and looked around her studio apartment with a frown. She knew what he saw: a card table with two battered folding chairs, her futon, and not much else.

"I told you I could get it packed this morning," Anna told him. She knew it wasn't much, but she resented his silent judgment. "Then they could have come just to carry out the boxes."

"It won't take an hour to pack this and carry it down," said Bran. "Boyd, how many of your wolves are living like this?"

Summoned, Boyd slid past Anna and into the room and frowned. He'd never been to her apartment. He glanced at Anna and walked to her refrigerator and opened it, exposing the empty space inside. "I didn't know it was this bad." He glanced back. "Thomas?"

Invited in, Thomas, too, stepped through the door.

He gave his new Alpha an apologetic smile. "I'm not quite this bad, but my wife is working, too. The dues are pretty dear." He was almost as far down the pack structure as Anna, and, married, had never been invited to "play" with her. But he hadn't objected, either. She supposed that it was more than could be expected of a submissive wolf, but that didn't keep her from holding it against him.