Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2)(76)

That whole butcher thing... was Arthur making an observation. Chastel was a barbarian-Arthur clearly his superior. He wouldn't see the similarities. In his mind, a brute who killed for pleasure was uncivilized. Arthur didn't kill for pleasure.

Chastel ruled by killing all who challenged his place-and by terrifying the rest. Arthur... had started out killing the Alphas in Great Britain, then stopped. Or found a better way to dispose of the wolves who would challenge him. Bran could figure it out from here. As far as Charles was concerned, Arthur and Chastel were just two sides of the same coin-all the need for power and none of the need to take care of what was theirs. Arthur wouldn't see it that way, though perhaps he needed to make that more clear with the brutal method used to dispose of Chastel's body.

Sunny.

If the reason for hiring the vampires was that it would have been difficult for a werewolf to attack an Omega, hiring them to kill your own mate, who was Omega, or nearly so, would have been imperative.

And suddenly the attempted kidnapping of Anna made so much more sense. Arthur wasn't the only werewolf to have his own jet-but he did have one. And Anna was what Sunny could have been. Omega. Valued not so much because of who she was-but for who everyone else would think her to be. Prize possession. And, unlike Sunny, she would live forever. Sunny had been getting old, as humans did. Arthur's pain at that knowledge had been genuine. So he'd had her killed to spare himself the suffering. From his reactions at the warehouse, Charles rather thought Arthur had underestimated the pain of her death. He hoped so.

Casually, he pulled his phone out and set it to text. "Forgot to update Da," he said. "He'll be eating breakfast about now and doesn't like it interrupted. I'll text him about the happenings of tonight, and he can call me about it at his leisure." No lies for Arthur to hear. He kept the text message simple. IT IS ARTHUR.

He kept the phone tilted away from Arthur so he'd think he was still texting Bran and typed out a message for Angus. DON'T CALL. SEND HELP HERE. ARTHUR IS VILLAIN. He deemed it a little melodramatic, but it was short and simple and impossible for Angus to misinterpret. He hit SEND.

He could handle Arthur. Arthur had not been wolf enough to take Chastel. But Anna and Alan Choo were here, and they needed him to keep them safe as best he could-and that meant calling in help.

"You were looking for lockpicks," said Arthur.

"Yes."

"I have some in there." Arthur tipped his head to indicate his treasure room. "I've been packing things up-I won't be coming back here."

Charles followed him in. It looked as if Arthur had been doing exactly as he said. The tapestries were off the wall, set into two-by-four frames to keep them stable and slid into the kind of plywood rough-lumber shipping crate museums used to transport artwork. A smaller wooden crate had already been sealed. The only thing left out was the box that held the sword.

"I understand the rest," Charles said, running his fingers over the wood that protected the old sword. "But how did you bribe Dana into breaking her word?"

He looked up and watched Arthur go very still. The British wolf... altered subtly. Lost the aura of grief almost entirely.

"The same way I got the vampires to do my bidding. Offered her something she wanted." Arthur smiled. "Even that wouldn't have worked if you hadn't ticked her off."

"How did I do that?" As soon as Charles asked the question, he remembered Dana's extreme reaction to the painting his father had sent her. It was lost, that place that had once been hers, and his father meant to gift her with a remembrance-but maybe she'd thought it was a taunt, instead.

Arthur threw up his hands theatrically. "How should I know? Fae are easily offended. As for what I offered her-" He motioned to the sword case.

"That is not Excalibur," Charles said. "When she discovers you don't have it, she'll be... offended."

Arthur ran his fingers gently over the display case-and slid open a dark chunk of wood on the end. "There is something to be said about hiding things in plain sight."

The sword he removed from the hidden compartment wasn't the one that had been on display-though it looked very like. Both were swordsmen's weapons rather than movie props. As soon as this once-hidden sword left the case, the hair on the back of Charles's neck came to attention.

Excalibur or not, there was no denying that the sword in Arthur's hand was a fae blade: he could feel its magic on his skin, could smell it.

Arthur was a swordsman, Charles knew. He'd studied fencing and had received the same sort of martial training that Charles himself had. Arthur's balance was right and his grip-neither too tight nor too loose-showed all that training had not been wasted.

He hadn't been worried about a sword, but that sword... Charles was a dead man, most likely. But Angus would be coming with help. Enough help that even with the sword, Anna should be safe. All he had to do was delay as long as possible. And Arthur always had loved to perform.

"Anna won't go with you," he told Arthur. "She won't stand by your side. She'll wait until you take your attention off her for a moment, then she'll gut you."

Arthur smiled. "You really don't believe in reincarnation, do you? Or fate. I came here to kill Chastel and your father. Chastel I had an answer for. For your father, I needed more."

"Why my father?"