Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2)(39)

Anna thought about the fight Charles and his father had waged, which ultimately Charles had won, and opened her mouth to comment. But then she shut it again. If that was what people thought, it was because Charles wanted them to.

"Charles does it deliberately," Angus told her, watching her closely. She hoped that she gave nothing away, but his words were so close to her thoughts that she must have. He tapped the arm of his chair with impatient fingers. "If the other wolves are all scared of him, they won't be stupid and make him kill them. And they're right, whether they know it or not. There is something off, haven't you noticed? His wolf is completely out of control. It should have turned him into a mindless killer-but it hasn't."

Brother Wolf, thought Anna.

"Why do you suppose that is?" asked Choo.

Angus raised an eyebrow and looked at her, as if he thought she might supply an explanation.

There was a wolf responsible for the attack on them tonight. She didn't really believe Angus was the enemy either. He might even be Charles's friend if she could believe her nose. But she wasn't going to be sharing any insights about her mate-even if she had them-with Angus of the Emerald City Pack.

She gave him a look and relaxed on her seat on the arm of Charles's chair and waited for him to return.

ANGER.

He was so angry.

Charles had been all right all the way down to the main desk. He'd focused on the task at hand, gotten a second room, and been fine until he got back into the elevator and considered the attack on Anna. He'd thought he might be able to take what he'd learned from Anna's story and find something new, some hint at why or who.

The control that had always been at his fingertips seemed to be melting away. He watched the floor numbers rise, and they seemed to proceed at a viciously fast pace when he had so much thinking to do.

Two.

Tom had nearly been killed. If Charles had sent Anna with any of Angus's other wolves-and he might have-he'd have lost her.

Three.

Six vampires.

Four.

If Tom's witch had been what she appeared, Anna would have been taken.

Five.

If he locked her to his side, he would lose her. She was not submissive, she didn't need his care. Not that way. She needed him to stand back and let her fly.

Six.

And if he was going to do that, he was going to have to get control of his temper. Of Brother Wolf's temper. Not just now, today-but forever. Leash his need to keep her safe so that he could keep her happy.

Seven.

Today, though, she wasn't leaving his sight again.

The elevator door slid open.

ARTHUR Madden fussed with this and that, moving the place settings farther from the edge of the table, then nudging them nearer.

"My dear," said his mate with amusement, "what are you doing? He may be the Marrok's son, but you rule the British Isles. You outrank him-there is no need to be nervous."

She didn't understand. But he was used to that. His wife was human, and there was a lot she didn't understand. He didn't hold it against her. He wouldn't explain that Charles was dominant, that even with the strength of all his wolves behind him, Charles still made Arthur back down with no more than a look. It meant he needed all of his defenses. It meant the dinner must be perfect.

He could trust his mate to make everything perfect.

"You are right, of course," he said. "Dashed silly of me to make such a fuss."

She slid under his arm, as slender as the girl he'd married forty years before. He loved her as much now as he had then, but her age made him sad. When they went out to dinner now, people thought them business associates-or mother and son. When she'd been young and beautiful, he'd never given a thought to her aging, and neither had she.

She smelled of roses. "It will all be fine," she said. "I'll entertain his mate, and you can tell him stories."

He kissed her Saxon-sunlit hair, kept delicately tinted with dyes to the shade it had been naturally when he met her. "And how will you do that?"

"I'll show her my needlework and talk to her about girl things."

He turned and caught a glimpse of them in the huge gilded mirror just inside the entrance of the house. He wore a gold silk shirt that turned his hair a deeper shade of red-gold; his eyes were blue, and the black slacks he wore could have been the slacks he wore to his wedding all those decades ago.

Sunny's deep blue shirt had long, flowing sleeves that showed off the strength of her arms without betraying how her skin showed her age. There was a softness under her chin and laugh lines around her eyes. His Sunny loved to laugh.

She was dying one day at a time. It would take a long while still, he thought, decades, as her skin grew less taut and her muscles stringy and slack. And he had to watch it happen.

She caught his gaze in the mirror. "You look gorgeous as always," she said, hugging the arm that crossed over her shoulders above her breasts.

"I love you," he whispered into her ear, nuzzling at the perfect hair, closing his eyes so he could smell her precious scent.

She waited until his eyes opened and she could look into the mirror and stare into them. Then she smiled the huge smile that had first made him call her Sunny. "I know you do."

Chapter SEVEN

THEY were late. Sunny quit trying to contain her husband and sat down on one of the matching pair of Queen Anne couches and watched him instead.