He rearranged his pillow in preparation to go back to sleep, but unease raised the hairs on the back of his neck and he reconsidered.
There was an odd feeling to this waking. As if he’d been very deeply asleep when the rumble of the semi’s engine had broken into his slumber. He didn’t sleep that deeply unless he was in his own home, and seldom even there. He would never have surrendered his defenses in a strange hotel room next to a weird-ass hoard of grimoires.
He inhaled and caught a trace of magic that seemed to him to be oozing through the wall—the connecting wall between his room and the room where the grimoires ruled. That was a little weird.
They all knew, the pack, that Charles could use magic when it suited him. Though not a one of them had the cheek to ask him about it. His didn’t smell like witchcraft—and this didn’t, either.
Tag was positive that it wasn’t coming from the grimoires. That left Charles. Maybe he’d worked some magic to allow Anna to sleep without nightmares. Strange that it had seeped through the grimoires’ hotel room and into Tag’s, though. Charles usually had better control than that.
The magic made him restless. He was not inclined to try to sleep when someone was trying to make him sleep—even if the magic had not been aimed at him. He got up and dressed, feeling like a cat with its hair brushed backward. It was probably the result of resisting the spell, but it left him unhappy.
He was going to give Charles a bad time for not having better control of his magic. He snorted, aware that the chances of that actually happening were slight. He was more at ease with the Marrok’s son than he’d ever been. With Anna around, the bastard was darn near human. But Tag wasn’t stupid enough to tug that tail anyway.
Not unless he got in a mood.
Getting in a mood was how he’d ended up in Bran Cornick’s pack for the Disorderly and Dangerous in the first place. His last pack had annoyed him … he didn’t remember exactly what they’d done, something that had set off his inner berserker. But unusually (it was thankfully the only occasion his berserker had acted this way), it hadn’t ever ratcheted up to killing-spree level, not quite. Instead, the mood had hung around for days. Maybe weeks. Time did funny things when his berserker was out.
He remembered challenging the first wolf who annoyed him—and killing him. And another. And another. Until he was going to have to make up his mind if he wanted to be Alpha pretty damn soon—if there were any more wolves left to rule. He’d killed seven wolves. He had disliked all but one of them, and he still felt guilty about that one.
And then Charles had come and told him to stand down. Tag had tried to eat his face instead—and found himself in the battle of his life. And Charles did not let him land a blow with his (mighty) claws or close his jaws on anything but air. He just put him down and pinned him over and over. Eventually Tag had sweated out whatever had been keeping him at a fever pitch, and when that happened, he’d been so tired he hadn’t gotten up again when Charles released him.
When Tag had woken up, Bran had been there with an offer of sanctuary. Bran had even engineered the move of Tag’s family, a few of the descendants of his sister’s children’s children. The caveat was that he would have to stay in pack territory unless he had permission to be elsewhere. He’d found that acceptable. A relief even, because what if after he’d finished the nasty pack of dishonorable werewolves, he moved on to killing innocents?
That could not happen in the Marrok’s pack. Because Charles was in the pack, and Charles had been the demon who had taken on his berserker wolf and pinned him as if he were a child. No one else had ever defeated Tag when his berserker had the upper hand. He’d seen Charles fight now and again over the years—and he knew something that most people did not. In most fights, that old wolf didn’t even break a sweat.
This trip had eased something in their relationship, but Tag wasn’t sure it was a good thing. Tag had not gone full berserker since he’d joined Bran’s pack. He didn’t want to be friends with Charles. He wanted Charles to be the demon wolf who would keep Tag from doing anything terrible.
His mind kept trying to put pictures of the terrible things he’d done as a berserker in his head, so Tag started out of his hotel room. He’d run down to the river and then see if he needed to continue to run.
He was so intent on his aim, he almost missed it. He’d gotten halfway to the river before turning back to see what was nagging at him. And that was when he realized the Suburban was gone.
CHARLES WOKE UP with the splash of cold water on his face.
He blinked at Tag, who stood in the doorway of the hotel room, an empty glass in his hand.
“I couldn’t wake you up any other way,” he said, taking a step back. He grimaced. “Smells like magic in here.”
Charles sat up and swung his feet to the floor. Tag wasn’t wrong. The room reeked of magic, a cloying and smothering thing that kept trying to run over his thoughts and send him back to sleep.
Charles, using the time-honored tradition of “hot and cold,” located the source in the pocket of the slacks Anna had worn yesterday. He extracted a small, crumpled piece of paper with a series of runes drawn on it, and shielded himself the best that he could from the immediate need to lie down and sleep again.
Charles closed his eyes and pulled on his grandfather’s teachings. Breathing deeply, he made a fist around the paper for a beat of five. At the end of the count, he opened his eyes and his fist—which now held a handful of dust. Clarity of thought returned to him, along with an icy realization.
Anna was gone.
He dressed rapidly, assessing the room as he did so. She’d taken the flannel shirt he’d worn yesterday when he and Tag had cleaned out the storage unit. She’d taken her hiking boots and her carry gun. That didn’t make him feel better at all. He walked to the bed and put his hand on the side of the mattress she had been occupying, but it was cold to the touch.
“What woke you up?” Charles asked.
“The sounds of the night are different here,” Tag said. “A semi drove down the highway and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to go for a walk by the river, but when I got outside—the Suburban was gone. I knocked on your door and you didn’t answer, though I knew damned well that you were in here. And that Anna was not.” He growled. “I should have noticed when the Suburban started up. I think that whatever kept you sleeping seeped through the walls and got me, too.”
Charles nodded and got out his laptop. “The SUV is LoJacked. I’ll get someone working on locating it—I’m not up to such delicate work right now.” Brother Wolf was frantic, and keeping him under control was an effort. “Could you see about finding us an alternate vehicle? Leave a card and we’ll make it right.” He thought about the hiking shoes. “Make it a vehicle that can go wherever the SUV could go. I think she’s headed into the mountains. Back to Wild Sign.”
Seeing the gleeful joy that lit Tag’s face, Charles felt a moment of remorse for whoever had the best off-road-capable vehicle on the property. He grabbed his laptop and opened it up, then picked up his phone.
“Ben,” he said. “I have a vehicle I need you to locate. It’s LoJacked. ASAP.”
BY THE TIME Tag drove around the corner with an early-seventies British Land Rover in pristine condition, Charles had the SUV’s location—and the path it had taken to get wherever it was. The beacon transmitted to his phone along with his current location, so they could tell when they were getting close.
He climbed in the passenger seat and buckled in. “I need you to drive,” he told Tag. “If you wreck this vehicle, it could mean Anna’s life.”
Tag nodded and put his foot down on the accelerator, heading toward the place where they’d camped that first night, though from the information Charles was getting from Ben, they would be turning off the road well before they made it to the campgrounds. Charles took the opportunity to call his da.
The cell phone went to voice mail. He left a very brief message and then called the house.
“
Bran’s phone,” Asil drawled. “If this is anyone except Charles calling at this hour, I recommend hanging up now before I figure out who it is. If this is Charles, your father left for your location about two hours ago by air. About five minutes after I arrived from Billings.”
“Thank you,” said Charles. “If Da can’t get in touch with us, we are on our way into the mountains, probably heading toward Wild Sign. Tag and I were spelled asleep and Anna took off in the Suburban. Presumably the Singer’s doing. If he can’t contact me, because cell reception is likely to be spotty in the wilderness”—which was one of the reasons why Tag was driving; when they inevitably lost contact, Charles wanted to be watching the location data so he’d have the most up-to-date information—“have him contact Ben Shaw, who has a LoJack trace on the Suburban that Anna took.”
“Got it,” said Asil briskly. “Will he know how to contact Ben Shaw?”
“Ben’s in Adam Hauptman’s pack,” Charles said.
“Ah,” said Asil. “That Ben.” Then, with a fine tension in his voice, he said, “If it has harmed our Anna, kill it.”
“I would be grateful for any advice you might have toward that end,” said Charles. “Sherwood Post failed to kill it. And the witches of Wild Sign think it’s immortal.”
“Is that all?” Asil said. “A wise man once told me that the only way to kill something immortal is to remind it what death is.”
“Suggestions?”
Asil sighed heavily. “Alas, that wise man died before he told me more. Killed himself. Your da is bringing the sword he killed himself with.”
“Jonesy’s sword?”
“Yes,” Asil confirmed.
Charles felt the first hint of optimism. That sword had already killed one immortal being; it might be well suited to killing another. Bless his da for farsightedness.
“ETA?” Charles asked.
“He wasn’t sure. He’s flying into Bend, where the Alpha has a helicopter.”
“Fortune favors the foolish,” murmured Tag from the driver’s side. Then “Blast” as both he and Charles realized that they’d overshot the turnoff.
Charles disconnected and helped Tag spot where Anna had left the highway as they crawled past the area a second time.
“Here,” he said, pointing to where two tracks broke the sod off the highway. It wasn’t any kind of official road. It looked more like a trail that off-roaders had built.
“Yeehaw,” Tag said as they left the pavement. He showed his teeth in a hunter’s smile. “This should be fun.”
Charles helped guide while he thought about how to kill the Singer if his da didn’t make it in time. As far as he was concerned, this second attack—third?—on Anna had signed its death warrant.
HE GOT THE Suburban stuck—high-centered on a rock. Anna was pretty sure she’d heard the oil pan go. Certainly she smelled motor oil as she got out.
Run, something inside her urged.
She knew she could outrun Zander in the dark, even on the side of a mountain that he appeared to be quite familiar with. She didn’t know where that confidence came from. She’d quit track in elementary school in favor of private violin lessons. She wasn’t … shouldn’t be in shape for a race in the forest.
She looked down and had no trouble seeing the hard muscle on her arms that looked as though she’d been in training for the Olympics or something.
She deserved an Olympic medal.
She waited for the strange thought to go somewhere. When it didn’t, she continued to take stock of her oddly alien body. She’d never been the kind of girl who obsessed about being in shape. But this wasn’t just her arms. She could feel the strength in her legs. When she reached up to touch her biceps, she encountered hard flesh.
For an instant she smelled pine and felt the snow give under her as she ran in joyous abandon.
While she was still processing that, Zander’s hand wrapped around her upper arm just above her own. Relief washed over her. She was safe with him.
Run.
C H A P T E R
12
It started to rain. A light pattering rain at first, blown a little by a breeze. But it wasn’t long before the rain was pelting down and the wind was blowing so hard that Anna had trouble keeping her hair out of her face so she could see.
“Are you cold?” Zander asked, concerned. “You should have brought a jacket.”
She pulled the now-wet flannel shirt around her protectively. “I’m fine,” she said. And it was true. Though the rain was cold, it didn’t seem to be chilling her as she would have expected.
“In Montana,” she told Zander, “a storm this late in the fall would probably be a snowstorm, not a rainstorm. A little rain won’t stop me.”
And then she wondered why in the world she’d been talking about Montana. She’d never been to—
She had a sudden vision of looking at a magnificent snow-covered landscape, unfolding below her in shades of blue. Of the cold biting her nose and the snow squeaking under her snowshoes, sounding a little like bedsprings.
She stumbled to a halt. Bedsprings.
“Stop lollygagging,” Zander said, smiling as he tugged on her arm. “We’ve got a few miles to go and we’re only going to get wetter.”
Zander seemed to have trouble seeing their path through the night-dark woods, stumbling over rocks and roots that Anna had no trouble with. She scrambled up a steep place in the trail, and waited at the top while he found his own path up.
“The last person I took up here was part mountain goat, too,” he complained cheerfully. “I’ve spent my life climbing mountainsides, and you show me up.”
She shrugged because she didn’t have an answer for him. She hadn’t done anything more athletic than marching band, but this hike didn’t feel as difficult as it looked. The few times she’d slipped as they climbed up wet rocks, she’d had no trouble catching herself. It felt like she’d suddenly turned into Spider-Man. But that made no sense.
If she’d been totally comfortable with him—and she felt bad that she wasn’t—she would have teased him about being slow. She didn’t know the elevation. Maybe it was lower than home and that was giving her an oxygen boost.
They emerged at last into an area that was a natural amphitheater, complete with seating that looked as though it had had some human help.
She stopped when she realized there were musical instruments scattered around the amphitheater.
Like sacrifices.
It went against every instinct she had to leave instruments to the mercy of the weather. Instruments were precious things. She broke away from Zander’s chosen path to see if she could rescue any of them.
Zander grabbed her arm again in a way that she was beginning to resent and tried to jerk her away. She stiffened, and when he pulled, she stayed where she was, skidding a little with the force he used when she did not yield.
He stopped, took a breath. “Come on,” he said, and she felt the effort he used to gentle his tone. “I’ve a dry place we can rest up in.”
That false gentle tone made her plant her feet like a Missouri mule.
“Stop trying to drag me,” she said. And then, with gritted teeth: “Get your hand off my arm before you lose it.”
He met her eyes and took a step back, frowning. “I thought your eyes were brown.”
They were. But she didn’t care what color he thought her eyes were.
“Look,” she said. “This has been a fun hike and all, but I think I am done. You go on.” She needed to go back to that hotel by the river, the one they’d driven by, so she could sit on the rock and watch the river, waiting for …
She pulled the flannel shirt up to her face, not wanting to bury her nose in it with Zander looking on. But the smell of musk and mint and home was still there, rising from the damp cloth.
“Sorry,” he said, and this time he meant it. “I am soaking wet, and even if you’re not cold, I am.”
There was a flash of lightning, and reflexively she started counting
seconds—one thousand one, one thousand two … Thunder rumbled exactly at five. “That’s a mile off,” she said.
“Too close to stay out here,” he told her. He held out his hand—and she heard music, though he wasn’t singing. It came from the ground beneath her feet and shivered through her reluctant body, bringing with it the understanding of what she was doing here. That this was where she needed to be, with Zander.
She looked at his hand and couldn’t remember why she’d left him standing like that. It was rude. She took his hand—his was cold.
“You are warm,” he said, sounding startled.
“I told you,” she said.
“You did indeed,” he agreed. “Come this way, Anna mine.”
That was wrong, she knew. But she didn’t want to be offensive and tell him that he was mistaken. She didn’t belong to him. She belonged. Belonged to …
She was sitting on a rock overlooking the river and felt his approach.
She would go to that rock when she and Zander were finished hiking, she decided. And her shoulders relaxed with that decision.
They walked another half of a mile, but they traveled now on an actual trail.
TAG HIT THE Suburban with the Land Rover. The Suburban gave way with a crunch and shriek of bending metal.
“Sorry,” he grunted.
Charles didn’t care about the damage done. They had lost signal ten miles before and he had begun to doubt that they were even on the right path. The sight of the Suburban through the trees had been welcome. He understood why Tag had punched the accelerator so they were going too fast to stop in the loose and muddy ground.
Even if the Rover had been destroyed—and he suspected it wasn’t even dented, given the resiliency of old steel—it had already taken them as far as it could.
He jumped out of the Rover and into the cold rain. The Suburban’s hood was warmer than the ambient temperature, but not by much.
“We’re an hour behind them,” he told Tag. “Maybe a little more.”
“Scent isn’t going to help us,” Tag offered. “Not after an hour of this much rain.” He loosened his shoulders. “Good thing that the two of us know how to track using mundane methods.”
Wild Sign Page 25
