Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2)(82)

"Moira. How is Charles?"

"Not good."

She knew that, felt it while Brother Wolf communicated with her. "How long does he have?"

"I can help for maybe fifteen minutes more-and then it's just a matter of time. He's in a lot of pain, I think, and that doesn't help."

"If he-" She had to suck in her breath and try again. "If he had died before you got there, would you have been able to tell what had killed him? That it was a death curse? That a fae had laid it upon him?"

"No," Moira told her. "I can't tell who laid it upon him now. If he were dead, probably no one could even tell for certain that it was magic that killed him. If Charles hadn't still been fighting it-"

"And Dana had no way to know that Angus and I both know that she's broken her word to Bran. She would have thought Charles was the only one." She was talking to herself. "How far out is the Marrok?"

She wasn't even sure Bran could help. She'd learned he wasn't infallible, just scary.

"He'll be landing at Sea-Tac in ten minutes."

"Not soon enough," Anna said. She ended the call.

"What are you planning?" Tom asked.

"I think that's too cerebral a name for it," she told him. "I'm playing it by ear. But I think this is Charles's only chance." It was meant to be her death. Charles was dying.

The phone rang.

Tom looked down at it. "Angus. He might tell us to go ahead."

"And if he doesn't?"

Tom turned his phone off. "Do we go in together, or do you want me as backup?"

She thought about it. "She likes men. I think that this might go better if you come with me." She looked again. "But let me borrow your jacket." People underestimated her all the time. Maybe the Gray Lords had, too.

THE water was black under the floating dock, and Anna had no desire whatsoever to play. She knocked at the door, glad for Tom at her back.

"Who is it?" Dana's voice sounded as if she were standing beside them.

"You know who it is," said Anna, not bothering to raise her voice-Dana could hear her. "I have something for you. A gift, a warning-it depends upon you."

"I'm in the studio." The door opened.

Anna led the way through the boat and up the stairs to the studio.

The lights were on, and otherwise the scene was very much like the one the fae had set the first time Anna had been here. She was working on a painting that Anna could not see. The painting the Marrok had sent was hung on the left-hand wall, all by itself. A sword leaned casually against the same wall, but closer to the far side of the room than to the middle. It looked very much like the one Arthur had shown her, had claimed to be Excalibur. From what Brother Wolf told her, this one was likely to be the real thing. Its duplicate was shattered all over Arthur's treasure room, having spent itself defending her mate.

"The Gray Lords sent me here to attempt to kill you," Anna told the fae woman, who had not looked up from her painting.

"Brother Wolf thinks I'm a messenger," Anna continued, "sent here to warn you that if you do this again, the Wild Hunt itself will be sent to you. He believes I've been sent to bring you their gift. And for you to kill." She took a deep breath. "And I think he is right."

The fae looked up from her painting. She was beautiful. Not a cold, flawless beauty, but striking. This was a woman who would be terrible in her anger and fierce in battle. Anna felt the same fascination for Dana that had hit her the very first time she'd seen her.

Anna took a deep breath and closed her right hand over the steel manacle on her left wrist. When she looked again, Dana was still beautiful-but Anna didn't feel as though she was being sucked into her beauty anymore.

Dana smiled, as if Anna's struggles amused her. "Who is Brother Wolf?"

"A friend." Anna didn't want to give Dana anything she might use. "I was meant to come here and attack you-but they didn't count on the little present Arthur's vampires left me with." She showed Dana one of her wrist manacles and shook one foot to make the chains jingle.

"Their failure left me with a few options-and you as well. If I had attacked you, and you killed me... you would be in their power, wouldn't you."

"I am a Gray Lord-I answer to no one."

"When Charles dies. When you kill me-the Marrok would hunt you down. You'd be forced to die or leave this continent. To go back to Europe. To be under their thumbs."

Dana's lips thinned with anger and-Anna's nose told her-a wisp of fear.

"You said you brought me a gift?"

Dana was just trying to change the subject, Anna judged. But Anna was in control of the conversation.

"You didn't know," she said, sounding, with some effort, relatively sympathetic, "when you cursed Charles, that we all knew you broke your word to protect the wolves attending this conference, did you? I saw, Angus saw-and we told Bran and Charles. Not enough for an accusation. But more than enough that if Charles died of unnatural causes, Bran would look right at you."

The fae put down her paintbrush and used it as an excuse to look away. But Anna could tell a lot more from scent than she could from her expression, anyway. The scent of panic was an old friend. She wasn't afraid of Anna. She was afraid of the Marrok. Good. Hopefully it would be enough.