Charles couldn't help but smile at that. "Yes. I deduced that right off."
"We who are dominant tend to think of that aspect of being a werewolf as rank: who is obeyed, who is to obey. Dominant and submissive. But it is also who is to protect and who is to be protected. A submissive wolf is not incapable of protecting himself: he can fight, he can kill as readily as any other. But a submissive doesn't feel the need to fight-not the way a dominant does. They are a treasure in a pack. A source of purpose and of balance. Why does a dominant exist? To protect those beneath him, but protecting a submissive is far more rewarding because a submissive will never wait until you are wounded or your back is turned to see if you are truly dominant to him. Submissive wolves can be trusted. And they unite the pack with the goal of keeping them safe and cared for."
He took a sip of tea and snorted. "Discussing this in English sounds like I am talking about a sexual relationship- ridiculous."
"If Spanish suits you better, feel free," offered Charles.
Asil shrugged. "It doesn't matter. You know about all of this. We have our submissive wolves here. You know their purpose."
"When I met Anna, for the first time in my life, the wolf slept."
All casualness erased, Asil lifted his eyes from his tea to look at Charles. "Yes," he whispered. "That's it. They can let your wolf rest, let it be tranquil."
"I don't always feel like that around her."
Asil laughed, spitting tea in his cup, at which he gave a rueful look, then set it aside. "I should hope not, not if you are her mate. Why would you want to be around someone who emasculated you that way all the time? Turn you from a dominant to submissive by her very presence? No. She doesn't have to soothe you all the time."
He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin, which he tidied and set beside his cup. "How long has she been a werewolf? "
"Three years."
"Well then, I expect it's all just instinct right now. Which means that if you aren't feeling the effects all the time, either she feels very safe with you-or you've got her so unsettled she doesn't have any peace to share." He grinned wolfishly. "Which one of those do you think it is? How many people aren't afraid of you at some level?"
"Is that what bothers you?" asked Charles, honestly curious. "You aren't afraid of me."
Asil stilled. "Of course I am."
"You don't have the good sense to be afraid of me." Charles shook his head and went back to his questions. "Omegas serve much the same purpose in a pack as submissives, but more so, right?"
Asil laughed, a genuine laugh this time. "So now do I defend myself by saying 'of course I have enough sense to be afraid'?"
Charles, tired of the games, just sighed. "There is a difference, between submissive and Omega. I can feel it, but I don't know what it means. Instead of following anyone's orders, she follows no one's. I get that."
"An Omega has all the protective instincts of an Alpha and none of the violent tendencies," Asil said, clearly grumpy at being pulled back to the point. "Your Anna is going to lead you a merry chase, making sure that everyone in her pack is happy and sheltered from anything that might harm them."
That was it. He could almost pull the strings together. Anna's wolf wasn't violent...just strong and protective. How had Anna's adjustment to being a werewolf-and to her systematic abuse-affected the wolf?
Thinking aloud, Charles said, "Pain makes a dominant more violent while it does just the opposite to a submissive wolf. What happens to an Omega who is tortured?" If he'd been thinking of Asil rather than Anna, he would never have put it in those terms.
The Moor's face paled and his scent fluctuated wildly. He surged to his feet, knocking over his chair and sending the table spinning until it hit the far wall and crashed onto its side.
Charles rose slowly and set his teacup on the counter nearest him. "My apologies, Asil. I did not mean to remind you of things best forgotten."
Asil stood for a moment more, on the verge of attack, then all the taut muscles went lax, and he looked tired to the depths of his soul. Without a word he left the room.
Charles rinsed out his cup and turned it upside down in the sink. He was not usually so careless. Asil's mate had died, tortured to death by a witch who used her pain and death to gain power. For all that he found Asil irritating-especially his latest and most effective method of torment: Anna-he'd never deliberately use Asil's mate's death to torment him. But more apologies would accomplish nothing.
He muttered a soft plea for blessing upon the house, as his mother's brother had taught him, and left.
* * * *
Anna was glad Charles drove this time. The icy roads gave him no apparent concern, though they slid around enough that she dug her nails into the handle conveniently located above the window of her door.
He hadn't said much to her this morning after he'd returned from consulting with the forest ranger. His eyes were distant, as if the teasing, gentle man she'd woken up with was gone.
Her fault.
She hadn't expected to feel so much after she'd sent her wolf to sleep while she showered. They both needed the break after maintaining that fine balance, and she had just expected that the wolf would take that gut-wrenching need with her. Anna had never felt like that for any man-and it was both embarrassing and scary.
She'd showered for a long time, but it didn't go away. She might have been all right if it hadn't been for his playfulness this morning...but she doubted it. Feeling that strongly left you so very vulnerable, and she was afraid she couldn't keep it from her face.
When she had to leave the shower, she'd been so worried about not letting him know how she felt she hadn't noticed how her awkward shyness...and fear...had affected him. He'd come up with his own conclusions-all the wrong ones, she was afraid.
She glanced at his closed-off face. She had no idea how to fix this. The motion brought her face closer to her borrowed clothing. She lifted her arm and sniffed the sleeve of the shirt she wore and wrinkled her nose.
She didn't think he'd taken his eyes off the road, but he said, "You don't stink."
"It's just weird to smell human," she told him. "You don't think much about what you smell like until it changes."
Before they'd left, he'd taken the clothes that Tag had brought over and had her put on the dirty T-shirt and donned a similarly dirty sweatshirt. Then he'd run his hands over her in a manner not quite impersonal, chanting in a language she'd never heard before, at once nasal and musical. When he was finished, she smelled like the human woman whose shirt she was borrowing, and he smelled like a human man.