Burn Bright

by Patricia Briggs

2

  It took Anna the better part of an hour to drive twenty miles.

  Since she had become Charles’s mate, most of the time she felt as though she belonged here, in the wilds of Montana. Then she’d take a drive with Charles in the mountains and be forcibly reminded that she’d been raised in a city.

  True, some of Chicago was a wilderness in its own right, but even in the bad areas, roads could be relied upon to be paved, wide enough to get at least one car through, and she’d been able to trust that there wouldn’t be a freaking tree growing up in the middle of the road, hidden by a sharp bend.

  If she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt for that one, she might have gone through the windshield. Charles, who hadn’t been, had braced himself just before she hit the brakes, and she wondered uncharitably if he’d known about the tree.

  “No,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “I just saw it the same time you did.”

  “Why is there a tree in the road?” she grumbled.

  “That’s one of those questions without a correct answer, right? Like when a woman asks if her pants make her look fat.” There was no amusement in his voice or eyes, but she knew he felt it all the same, and her lips curled up in response.

  She edged the truck around the tree. “At least you didn’t say, ‘When a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much . . .’”

  Charles laughed—and she felt proud of herself, because he didn’t laugh easily.

  “I haven’t been up this way in five or six years,” he admitted. “There wasn’t a tree growing here then. But it’s not a big tree, and aspen can grow three feet a year.”

  “No one has been up this road—and I use the term loosely—in five years?” she said. “I thought Bran was up here last fall.”

  “There’s another road,” he said. “It’s probably in a little better shape for most of the way because it’s traveled more—but this way is faster.”

  “As long as we don’t hit any trees,” she said.

  The tree wasn’t the only obstacle. Though the road apparently wasn’t traveled much, there were long stretches with deep ruts. There were rocks—some the size of her fist, with sharp points that might bruise a tire and cause it to go flat; some the size of a bowling ball, which could puncture the workings on the underside of the truck. In a couple of places grass and bushes had grown so thick that she could only guess where the road was. She’d slowed down so much that she thought they might make better time on foot.

  “Get your wheels out of the ruts,” Charles advised her in that even voice he had that told her he’d been fighting those words for a while. “You could lose an axle if the hole in the road gets too deep.”

  She knew that. She’d just forgotten.

  “This isn’t a road,” she told him indignantly, with a growl she hadn’t meant to use. “It’s just wagon tracks through rocks and mud.”

  But she pulled the wheel to the left, and the truck tipped a little as the wheels climbed up on the side of the track. Their bumpy ride got a lot bumpier because the bottom of the ruts were a lot smoother than the sides, but the scrape of rock on the underside of the truck happened less frequently.

  The road got drier as it climbed out of a ravine, then got mushy again as it dropped over a ridge in the mountain they were, as far as Anna could tell, circumnavigating.

  Charles came to alert. Reading his body language, she brought them from a crawl to a full stop before he said anything. She didn’t bother to try to pull to the side because there wasn’t a side to pull off onto; besides, they hadn’t seen another car since she’d turned off the main road.

  Charles was out of the truck before she’d come to a complete stop. She turned off the engine and got out to join him.

  “Hester and Jonesy don’t drive,” he said. “So why am I seeing fresh tire tracks?”

  Anna looked down, and there they were—tire tracks. She should have noticed them.

  She tried to redeem herself. “ATVs, right?” The odd-to-her-city-eyes vehicles were as common in the rugged country of Montana in the summer as snowmobiles were in the winter. “Four-wheelers.” Because there were older three-wheeled ATVs. “At least two of them because there are two sizes of tires.”

  Charles nodded.

  “Wait,” she said, waving a hand with one finger extended. “Wait. There are at least three. Because this guy”—she pointed to a set of tracks where they cut into the dirt because the four-wheeler turned—“is heavier, his bike digs in deeper in the same kind of soil. All going in the same direction.”

  “Right,” he agreed, and waited.

  She frowned at him, looking at the tracks again to see what she’d missed. But no matter how intently she looked around, she didn’t see any boot marks, or convenient scraps of fabric bearing scent, empty beer cans, or cigarette butts that might hold vital clues as to who had been traveling this road before they came here.

  She narrowed her eyes. What would Gibbs see? She might have a minor addiction to a certain police-procedural TV show.

  “A week ago we had rain,” he told her before she could get too frustrated. “You can see there is still some mud under the trees where the sun doesn’t reach. These tracks were made after the soil dried—you can tell by the loose dirt. I expect these were made today.”

  “And because you got a call today,” she said, “it’s highly probable that these tracks and the call are related.”

  “That did lead me to look for reasons those tracks might be more recent,” he agreed. Tracking, he’d told her, was not just about what your senses told you; it was also about using what you knew.

  He took a deep breath of air. She did, too. She smelled the pines, the firs, and a hint of cedar and hidden water. There was a cougar nearby. She glanced around, looking up in the trees, but couldn’t spot it. They were good at hiding, but sometimes their tails twitched and gave them away. Not today.

  Somewhere within a mile or so, but not much nearer than that, either, there was a small group of blacktail deer. She caught the scent of the usual suspects: rabbits, various birds, and what Tag liked to call tree tigers because the squirrels were brave and made a big uproar when someone entered their territory.

  None of those were what was making Charles look so intent.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He looked around again. Breathed in again. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know. Something.”

  “Your spidey senses are tingling,” she said.

  He gave her a blank look. He had weird cultural gaps, as if there were entire decades during which he had not turned on a TV or talked to anyone. She hoped he had just not paid attention, but the “not talking to anyone” was a distinct possibility.

  “Intuition,” she said. “Your subconscious knows something that you can’t put into words yet.”

  “From Spider-Man,” he said in as serious a voice as he would have used if she’d been quoting from Shakespeare.

  She nodded.

  He took one last deep breath, then headed around to the driver’s side of the truck. “Get in. I’ll take it from here. My spidey senses,” he said, his voice a touch dry on the unfamiliar syllables, “are telling me that we should hurry after all.”

  “Oh, thank the hairy little men in the moon,” she said sincerely, climbing gratefully into the passenger seat.

  It wasn’t that she was afraid she’d kill them—they were werewolves; killing them in a car wreck at ten miles an hour would take some doing. It was that the old truck was something Charles loved—and every time she heard the scrape of tree branch on paint, she could see him not-wince.

  But she understood why he’d preferred her snail’s pace and the damage she’d dealt to his truck—he hadn’t really wanted to get to their destination.

  When there were incidents involving any of Bran’s wildlings, it usually meant that Charles had to kill o
ne of the old wolves. She knew, better than anyone, that her mate was very tired of being his father’s executioner.

  She hopped into the truck and impulsively slid over, rose up, and kissed his cheek. As she settled back and put on her seat belt, she said merely, “Remember not to drive in the ruts.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE LAST THING Charles thought he would do, on his way into the mountains to (probably) kill one of his da’s beloved wildlings, was laugh.

  But life with Anna was like that.

  Once she was safely belted in, he set out getting to Hester’s as quickly as possible. His wolf spirit’s growing unease—something separate from his dislike of killing wolves who needed to meet death—rode the back of his neck and told him that they needed to be at Hester’s now.

  He navigated the track that wound around the mountain with a speed that could have been fatal (to the truck, anyway) if he didn’t have a werewolf’s reaction time and a familiarity with the area. Anna made small sounds now and then and kept a death grip on the door that made him grateful for the Detroit steel that held up under her hand.

  As he’d told Anna, it had been some years since he’d been up here. Once Hester and Jonesy moved in, his da had decreed that this area was off-limits for casual runs. After that, he’d only traveled this road by necessity. But he’d been here often before that, in the truck this one had replaced nearly fifty years ago. He knew where the road turned and twisted, though he had to maneuver around a few more trees that had not been here the last time he’d traveled this way.

  The truck roared and growled and occasionally, when he found some of the mud left over from the rainstorm, howled. But he piloted it to the top of the ridge at the edge of Hester’s valley without coming afoul of anything larger than a few aspen fingerlings that gave way under the pressure of his bumper.

  He paused there on the top of the ridge—a strategic move. He noted the clear-from-the-truck-cab marks that told him the four-wheelers had turned off the track here. Charles hesitated, but the path the other people had woven through the trees was too narrow for the truck. So he turned down the track to the little valley where Jonesy and Hester lived.

  As they bounced down the road toward the still, small building, Charles noted absently that the windows were old-fashioned double panes that they should replace with vinyl soon. Other than that, the structure was in good shape. For all that it had been cobbled together over years, the house appeared all of a piece. There were flower boxes on either side of the door, filled with the black-eyed Susans that grew wild in the mountains around here. Those hadn’t been here when Charles had helped put in solar panels the last time he’d been up.

  He stopped the truck and let it idle for a moment, unhappy with the quiet. But as soon as he turned off the engine, the front door of the house opened and Jonesy emerged.

  Hester’s mate looked like a throwback to a bygone time, mostly an effect of his hand-spun clothing. His pinesap-colored hair was rough-cut to stay out of his eyes. There were a few leaves and a twig or two tangled in its ragged length.

  His feet were bare and mottled with dried blood, though he walked evenly enough. Once Charles was looking for it, he noticed that there were small tears in Jonesy’s shirt. He was clean-shaven, though, with skin that looked as smooth as a woman’s. Maybe he, like Charles, didn’t have much of a beard to shave.

  It was impossible to read his expression or his body language, and that made Brother Wolf unhappy. Charles hopped out of the truck and met Jonesy halfway between truck and house. He made a slight gesture with his hand, and Anna dropped a little behind him. He knew, without looking, that she was keeping a sharp eye out for trouble so he could concentrate on Jonesy.

  When in the company of the dynamic woman who was the fae man’s mate, Jonesy hadn’t made much of an impression on Charles. Brother Wolf’s intent wariness made Charles think that perhaps that lack of attention had been confined to his human self.

  “Charles,” Jonesy said, his unhurried voice carrying a Welsh accent stronger than Charles’s da’s, stronger than it had sounded on the phone. “Diolch. Thank you for coming.”

  He smelled like the fae that he was, a scent so overpowering that Brother Wolf couldn’t make heads or tails about his state of mind—not from his scent, anyway. His body language was meek, an effect not detracted from by his slender frame.

  He was everything that Brother Wolf would normally be protective of, which made Charles’s wolf’s reaction that much more strange. Brother Wolf thought they should pin this one to the ground so that he would understand that they could kill him at any time. Charles couldn’t figure out why Brother Wolf thought Jonesy was such a threat, but he wouldn’t dismiss his other self’s instincts. Even if Brother Wolf had never reacted to Jonesy this way before . . . but then Hester had always been present.

  Hester kept the fae in line, agreed Brother Wolf.

  “Croeso,” Charles told Hester’s fae mate. “There is no cost to our help for you this day,” he said carefully, because exchanging words of gratitude with the fae was dangerous. Having the fae owe him a favor was as dangerous as owing the fae a favor. “My word on it. This is my mate, Anna.”

  Jonesy glanced up at Anna’s face, glanced away, then back, squinting his eyes as if she were too bright to look at. Then he took two quick steps that brought him within reach, and raised his hand suddenly to touch her face with fingers that trembled. Anna didn’t move.

  Charles had to fight Brother Wolf to keep from knocking Jonesy to the ground.

  Anna could protect herself—and, other than the speed of it, Charles could see nothing threatening in Jonesy’s action. He had enough magic in his own bloodline to feel it if the fae tried anything with power.

  “Oh,” Jonesy said, wonder in his voice. “Oh, and haven’t I heard that the mate of the old one’s son was an Omega wolf? And haven’t we all been overjoyed that such a wolf ran in our woods.” The look he turned on Charles was pure hope. “Maybe she can help? Hester hasn’t been herself lately.”

  Jonesy might not be a wolf, but there was no question that he felt something from Anna. Charles reviewed all he’d ever heard about Jonesy—which wasn’t much. Jonesy was . . . different, even for a fae. Slow, Charles had heard, but watching him now, he could tell that wasn’t it. More that he interacted with the world a little askew from how most people did.

  Anna smiled at Jonesy and let him touch her. But her eyes were wary. Maybe she was picking up some of Brother Wolf’s wariness—or maybe she sensed something herself. But that heartfelt plea for his mate’s safety . . . that was something Charles and Brother Wolf understood.

  “She saved me,” Charles told Jonesy. “I don’t know what she might do for Hester. Da thinks she might be of some help.”

  Jonesy frowned. “I don’t know if Hester needs saving . . .”

  Charles stepped forward a little to put himself in a better position to protect Anna if he needed to. “What happened? Why did you call me?”

  Jonesy blinked a couple of times and let his hand fall away from Anna as he turned his now-vague attention to Charles. “Did I call you? I called the Marrok, I thought.”

  “I answered the phone,” Charles reminded him.

  Jonesy frowned. Cleared his throat, and said, “You are Charles. Yes. That’s right. I remember. Why did I call you?”

  He shivered, as if a wind that Charles couldn’t feel blew across his shoulders. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and said, clearly, in a crisp British accent, “She’s my caretaker, you know. Hester is.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Anna, putting a hand on Charles’s arm to ask him to leave the interrogation to her. “What happened to Hester, Jonesy?”

  Jonesy’s eyes snapped open, and he reached for both of Anna’s hands.

  Dangerous, said Brother Wolf. He could hurt her even if he doesn’t mean to.

 
; Charles tensed but managed not to move when Anna linked her fingers around Jonesy’s hands. The touch seemed to steady Hester’s mate. Charles could see alertness and intelligence stir in the other man’s eyes.

  Dangerous, said Brother Wolf, but quietly, as if he didn’t want to attract Jonesy’s attention.

  Dangerous, whispered the spirits in the trees. Ours. Dangerous. There was a gleeful, spiteful enjoyment in the voices of the spirits who spoke to Charles—spiteful and half-afraid.

  Charles would definitely have a talk with his da when Bran got back. They would have to see who else was a lot more dangerous than he’d already accounted them to be. Charles seldom underestimated people, but he damned sure should have been paying more attention to Jonesy than he had. And so should Bran have.

  “What happened?” asked Anna, her voice low and sweet. She couldn’t hear the warning voices of the spirits, but she was smart about people. She’d know to tread lightly.

  “We heard motors,” Jonesy said after a long pause, as though whatever lived inside him had trouble with English. “They rode all over. They couldn’t find us, not through my glamour, but they wouldn’t go away. Hester went wolf, so I followed her. In case someone needed to be able to talk.”

  He hesitated. “I thought they were just kids, you know? We get them now and again—and usually Hester can frighten them off without much trouble.” Then his voice grew lighter, almost feminine, as he obviously imitated someone. “A giant wolf is scary out in the woods. If people have a good way to leave—like a motorized vehicle—they do. Failing that, we can retreat all the way to Canada without crossing a major road.” He cleared his throat, rocked back and forth a little, then bent his knees suddenly, dropping a foot or two in height with the motion. Balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, the fae looked up into Anna’s eyes. He gently pulled his hands out of hers.

  In a hungry and rough voice, he said, “Hester says not to kill anyone.” His hands fell to the earth and dug into it. “That is the first rule if we are to stay here. I cannot kill anyone.”