Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2)(72)

"Don't leave me."

He looked down at the female vampire with the shotgun rammed through her chest.

" Sunrise," she said, as something dark and wet bubbled out around the barrel of the gun. "Not for a long while. Kill me. Please."

With Anna hurt, he had no desire to bother questioning her. Nor did he want to leave her as a possible threat. He acceded to her wish and took care of the other vampire while he was at it. Less than four minutes had passed after he jumped through the rear window of the van, and he had three decapitated bodies and their heads stuffed in the back of the van.

Immediate danger over, he checked on Anna. She was talking to him, but Brother Wolf was more interested in seeing what made her hurt so badly. He didn't have the tools or the patience to deal with the manacles, but the chain snapped when he used the shotgun barrel to apply some leverage.

As soon as he had her free she tried to sit up and made a pained sound. She'd been hit in the shoulder from close range; the shot had barely had a chance to expand. It was a light load, birdshot. Lead. They hadn't wanted her dead, just incapacitated. It didn't mean that she might not die from it anyhow.

"I'm all right," she told him, over and over again, trying to reassure him. It wasn't true.

"Shh," he told her. "Just lie still."

His cell phone was still in his pants pocket-and it was functional. He called Angus.

"Where is Choo?" he asked as soon as the other wolf answered. "Anna's been shot."

"Anna's been shot?"

"I have three dead vampires in a blue minivan that looks like it's been in several accidents this morning. And they shot Anna. I need Alan Choo. Is he with Michel?" He hoped that he wasn't. Angus's house was in Issaquah. He needed to get Anna help sooner than that.

"The mate of one of the French wolves is a nurse. They went home with Michel. Alan's at Arthur's in the University District."

"I know where Arthur's place is."

"I'll tell the local vampires that we have some cleanup for them, and they'll take care of the bodies and the van. I'll call Alan and tell him to expect you. Do you need anyone else?"

"No." Charles hung up.

He didn't like leaving Anna in the back of the van with the dead vampires, but moving her to the front seat would only hurt her worse-and a naked, bloody woman would draw even more attention than the broken windows and dents.

"You stay there," he told her. "I've got to drive. It won't be long."

She nodded, closed her eyes. "Knew you would come," she said. "I just didn't want you to have to come all the way overseas to find me."

"Good thing I'm quick," he said.

She smiled, still with her eyes closed. "Good thing."

He had trouble shutting the side door; it was dented and didn't want to seal. After a failed effort to bend the door back into shape, he ducked back into the van and took a belt off one of the bodies. He rolled down the front passenger window and pulled the door as closed as it was going to get and tied it to the front door frame with the belt.

The vampires had left the van running with the keys in the ignition. He got in and as he shifted into drive, the light turned green.

"Charles?" her voice was tense. "Would you talk to me? I keep thinking the vampires are moving."

"They're dead," he said. "But we can talk."

He worried that he was going to have to come up with a topic-when all he wanted to do was kill something else. But Anna came to his rescue.

"Could our Arthur really be the Arthur?"

"My father says that the Arthur was a remarkable strategist, an awe-inspiring fighter, and an extremely practical man who would have laughed himself silly at the stories of King Arthur, chivalry, and chasing after the Holy Grail. Da says there was a white lady but she bore no resemblance to Gwenevere of Camelot fame. Nimue, Morgain Le Fay, and Merlin, yes, but not as they are depicted. No Lancelot at all. No Round Table. Just a bunch of desperate men trying to keep the Anglo-Saxons out of their homelands. He says the real story is better than the one everyone knows, but not nearly as glamorous." He glanced down at Anna but couldn't tell if she was better or worse. "He never tells the real stories."

"So Arthur the werewolf-"

"Likes to rant about how Lancelot ruined it all," said Charles dryly. "If he is a reincarnation, he bears little resemblance to the real thing. But then there's some unhappiness between my father and Arthur; they cordially dislike each other. You have to take that into account."

"Arthur doesn't seem to dislike you," Anna said.

"We got on all right, here."

"Reincarnation?"

He shrugged. "I've never seen any evidence that it's real. But I've never seen anything that disproves it either. I believe the afterlife is better than what we have here-and it would take something extraordinary to make someone willing to come back."

"What about the sword?"

"Old, but my father says it is not Excalibur. Or if it is, it has lost all of the magic that made it Excalibur."

"There was an Excalibur, though?"

"So Da says-the result of a bargain with the fae who were not any happier with the Anglo-Saxons than the native humans were. Arthur is right that Excalibur wasn't the only weapon. There was a spear and a dagger, too."