"Really?"
"Really."
She tucked her hand in his arm. "That might be fun."
"I'll give him a call, then." They walked another half a block in companionable silence. "I scared you," he said.
"I almost got you killed," Anna returned flatly. "Thank you for stopping me before I ruined everything."
He stopped suddenly, jerking her to a halt. "You understood."
"Not then," she admitted. "I reacted first-which really sucked. Every time I think I might not be a flaming coward, I find myself running away."
He started walking again. "You aren't a coward. A coward would never have survived what you did." But he said it absently, as if he were thinking about something else. "You know I wouldn't hurt you."
He didn't say it as if he believed it. She tightened her hold on his arm. "I do. My instincts sometimes are screwy, but I know you would never hurt me."
He looked at her, a long thoughtful look.
She raised her chin. "I said I know you would never hurt me." Then she had to modify it, so he would sense the utter truth of it. "On purpose." That wasn't strong enough. "And everything you do is on purpose." That wasn't quite right. "You are always careful of what you do. Of me."
"Stop." His shoulders were shaking and his eyes dancing. "Please. I believe you. But in a minute, you're going to talk yourself around to distrusting me again."
After they'd walked a bit farther, he said, "It is beautiful tonight."
Anna glanced up at the rain and the city streets, still noisy with traffic. She liked the way the lights sparkled in the storm. The noises of the city were as familiar and welcome as her childhood home. Somehow, though, she didn't think that Charles would normally think it beautiful. She smiled at the night.
Chapter FIVE
"WE are worried about the innocents," said the Russian wolf from the podium. Ostensibly, he was speaking to the crowd, but his words were for Charles. He spoke in English, which was well because Charles's smattering of Russian wasn't trustworthy on serious subjects, and he was distracted by Anna, who sat, very still, beside him.
"We are strong," the Russian said, "and we can protect ourselves. But we have mates who are human, families who are human. They will suffer, and this cannot be tolerated."
There was something incongruous about the venue they were in: an elegant auditorium with oak accents, trimmed in fabrics of various brownish gray hues, understated and expensive. A place where Angus hunted the CEOs of large companies and captured them with images of the power his technology could give them. The men and women filling the seats this morning were a different kind of predator. Dressed in their best they might be, but the current occupants of those nice seats made the CEOs look like puppies by comparison.
"If you can't protect your own, you deserve to lose them," commented Chastel from the back quarter of the auditorium. He didn't speak loudly, but in a room designed for sound and populated by sharp-eared werewolves, he didn't have to.
Charles waited. The Russian wolf, whose turn it was to speak, looked at him to enforce discipline. But it wasn't Charles's job. Not this time. Brother Wolf was confident that it would be theirs very soon. Then they would discipline Chastel, and blood would flow. But here, in this room, it was someone else's job.
The morning of the first day of the meeting was a very good time for a demonstration.
"Jean Chastel," said Dana. "You will not speak again in this room until it is your turn to do so."
Charles was probably the only one in the auditorium who wasn't surprised that, when the French wolf sneered and opened his mouth to say something to the fae, he couldn't. In Chastel's own territory, with his pack behind him, she wouldn't have been able to bespell him so easily. But this was Dana's territory (one of the reasons the Marrok had decided to hold these talks in Seattle). Chastel had only his collection of unhappy Alphas who did not share their power with him, no matter how cowed they were, because Chastel would never have let them that close to him. Chastel was not the Marrok.
He could have been-wasn't that a frightening thought. There had been a European ruler equivalent to Charles's da at one time.
After the Black Plague... he wasn't old enough to have been there-but Da and Charles's brother had been. It had been horrible. Dehumanizing. Especially to those who weren't truly human anymore. So much death, so many lost. Someone had seen the writing on the wall, knew that humanity would recover-and had come looking for the monsters who had fed upon the dying. So the first Marrok had been created. He hadn't been called the Marrok-that was Da's decision in the New World -but that's what he'd been. Made Alpha of all Alphas and by the power of that, able to take on any other. Or he should have been.
Chastel had killed him-and anyone after him who tried to reestablish rulership. Chastel could have taken it for himself, but he didn't want it. He didn't want the responsibility. He just wanted the freedom to kill and keep killing as he pleased.
Arthur Madden, Master of the Isles, was the closest equivalent to the Marrok that Chastel had allowed in Europe-mostly because Chastel didn't consider the British Isles to be a threat to him.
Even with so much power, Chastel did his murdering more secretively these days than he had when he was first Changed. And that, Charles thought, was because there was one person on this planet the Beast feared. And his da had told Chastel that he didn't want to hear about any more ravaging monsters in France. That had been a couple of centuries ago.
Thinking about it, Charles wouldn't be surprised to find out that Chastel could care less about the Marrok bringing the werewolves out to the public. He'd as near as nev ermind done it himself centuries ago. The most probable reason Charles could think of for Chastel's presence at this summit was that he'd wanted a chance to take out the Marrok-which he didn't get.