So why was she sitting in Angus's very comfortable leather chair not pouting?
No reason at all.
Someone knocked at the door.
"Who is it?" she called.
"Angus. I have a guest for you. Ric, the Italian's Omega."
She unbolted the door and it popped open about six inches. A blond head with a short red beard stuck itself in the narrow opening. "Presto. Your entertainment is here." He slipped all the way into the room and shut the door behind him. "Tame and safe." His voice owed as much to Britain as it did to Germany.
"Frankly," she told him, "I'd have welcomed a pack of villains to rip to bits-it is boring in here."
"Alas, I am not a villain," he said grandly, snitching a handful of nuts from the bowl on Angus's desk. "Although I could be if you wished." He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Your mate decided my Italian buddies and the Germans would settle a bit better without my presence. Though he didn't say precisely that." He grinned at her. "I believe the total of his words were 'Omega. Go.' Angus decided he meant here." He canted his head to the side as if that would give him a different view of her. "You're the first Omega I've ever met."
"Likewise," Anna agreed. "I thought you were German?"
He shook his head and sauntered over to the window. "Austrian."
His choice to join the Italians suddenly made a lot more sense. He must have read it in her face because he laughed.
"Yes, Italians are a lot more effervescent and cheery than the Germans. Even werewolves." He thought about that a second, then added, "Maybe especially the werewolves."
"Why didn't the Austrians want you?" she asked.
His face sobered. "There aren't any Austrian packs anymore. There were only two, and four years ago Chastel got bored and hunted down both Alphas. He-" The other wolf drew in a sharp breath. "But that is no conversation for today. So I must be Italian or German. And I choose Italian. My Alpha says that if they knew how much I talked, the Germans would be happy for it."
"Your English is very good." Anna sat back down in Angus's chair. It swiveled so she could keep track of Ric's exploration of the room without pacing beside him.
He turned his back to the window so he could look at her-or so she could look at him. He put both hands to his chest in a flamboyant gesture that looked very Italian to her, not that she'd met that many Italians. "Scholar," he said. "That's me. I had most of a doctorate in psychology before my Change. I can speak English, getting much better at Italian. My French friend tells me that someday, if I work at it, I may no longer be flattering myself when I say I can speak a very little French." He sat on the sill of the window, which was wide enough to make a pretty good seat. "My Alpha says that you haven't been a wolf long."
"Three years."
"That is two years and six months longer than I. So you can tell me exactly what an Omega is-something that my lads haven't quite managed to explain satisfactorily yet. I would like something more than 'you make us happy,' which is the best they have managed so far. My lovers tell me that, and it is good, no? My wolf pack-who are mostly men, and I do not swing that way-tell me such things, and it doesn't sound too good to me. 'You bring us joy' is even worse, so I stopped asking. I need to know more, yes?"
His pained look was so exaggerated she couldn't help laughing. "Disconcerting." She tried to imagine what Charles would do if another man came up to him and said, "You bring me joy."
"I don't know all that much," she confessed. "My teacher is a man who was married to an Omega for a couple of centuries before she died. The problem is, there aren't many of us. We're not as rare in the human population, but seldom Changed." Sunny, she thought, might be a human Omega-or perhaps just very submissive. "Even enraged werewolves seldom attack Omega humans, and I understand that even if the Omega desires to be Changed, it is difficult to find a wolf willing to do it."
"So I understand," he said. "I had a skiing accident and was lucky the man who found me, a friend and a member of the ski patrol, was a werewolf-a secret he had kept for all the time of our friendship. I was dying, and he Changed me to try to save me." He gave her a tight smile. "Me, I thought it was because we were friends-but he told his Alpha it was because he knew I was Omega and would be a treasure to his pack, and this the Alpha accepted as truth and did not discipline him for Changing me without permission."
"Is he still your friend?"
He sighed and rocked back, the motion making his head hit the window with a soft thump. "Yes."
"Then maybe he only gave the Alpha the truth he needed. A person quite often has more than one reason for doing something-particularly something so... big as Changing a mortal human into an immortal wolf."
Something in his face loosened, and he nodded once. "Just so. I had not thought of it in that way." He gave her a quick glance from under his lashes. "Truthfully, I had not noticed it bothered me so much until I spoke here with you. How were you Changed?"
She looked away.
"I am sorry," he said, and he was suddenly a lot closer than he had been.
He'd abandoned his seat on the window and crouched on the top of the desk. From the speed of his change of position, he must have jumped there.
"It was a bad thing?" he said gently. "You do not have to tell me of it." He settled, sliding one leg under the other so he rested on a hip. "For many it is not something they care to discuss."