"It is evil. And it turned me into a monster, too, just like it is," the man whispered.
If Charles had been a split second faster, he could have kept Anna back. But he was tired, and he'd focused on the other wolf. Before he knew it, Anna was slipping and sliding down the mountainside. She was in a hurry and about four paces from their new acquaintance her snowshoes did an excellent job of acting like skis.
Charles forced himself to stillness as the other man caught his mate by an elbow and saved her from sliding down the mountainside. He was almost certain this man was no threat to her. Charles managed to convince Brother Wolf to stand down and give Anna a chance to work her magic and tame the rogue; this was why his father had sent her, after all.
"Oh, you aren't evil," Anna said.
The man froze, one hand still on her sleeve. Then the words poured out of him as if he couldn't stop them. "I know about evil. I fought with it and against it until blood ran like the rain. I still see their faces and hear their screams as if it were happening now, and not nearly forty years ago." But the tightness in his voice lightened as he spoke.
He released his hold on Anna, and asked, "Who are you?" He fell to his knees beside her, as if his legs could no longer hold him up. "Who are you?"
He'd moved too fast, though, and Brother Wolf had had enough. As quick as thought, with complete disregard to his injuries, Charles was beside Anna, managing to keep his hands off the rogue only because as soon as he got near her, Anna's Omega effect spread over him, too.
"She is a wolf-tamer," Charles told the other man. Even Anna couldn't keep the possessive anger completely out of his voice. "Peace-bringer."
"Anna Cornick," Anna said. He liked the way it tripped off her tongue and smelled like God's own truth. She knew she was his-and as easily as that, Brother Wolf settled down contentedly. So he didn't grab her hand when she touched the stranger on the shoulder, and said, "This is my mate, Charles. Who are you?"
"Walter. Walter Rice." Ignoring Charles as if he was no threat at all, Walter closed his eyes and swayed a little on his knees in the snow. "I haven't felt like this since...since before the war, I think. I could sleep. I think I could sleep forever without dreaming."
Charles held out his hand. "Why don't you come eat with us first."
Walter hesitated and took another good long look at Anna before taking Charles's gloved hand with his own and coming to his feet.
* * * *
The man who introduced himself as Walter ate as if he were half-starved-maybe he was. Every once in a while, though, he'd stop eating to look at Anna with awe.
Sitting between them, Charles repressed a smile-which was something he was doing more often than he ever remembered since he'd found his Anna. Watching her squirm under Walter's worshipping regard was pretty funny. He hoped he didn't look at her like that-at least not in public.
"It's not as if it's anything I'm doing," she muttered into her stew with carrots. "I didn't ask to be an Omega. It's like having brown hair."
She was wrong, but he thought she was embarrassed enough right now without him arguing with her over something he wasn't entirely sure he was supposed to have heard. Or at least she was mostly wrong. Like dominance, being an Omega was mostly personality. And, as his father liked to say, identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life.
Anna brought peace and serenity with her wherever she went-at least when she wasn't scared, hurt, or upset. Some of her power depended upon her being a werewolf, which magnified the effect of her magic. But a larger part of it was the steel backbone that made the best of whatever circumstances she happened to be in, the compassion she'd shown to Asil when he'd tried to scare her, and the way she hadn't been able to leave poor Walter out in the cold. Those were conscious decisions.
A man made himself Alpha, it wasn't just an accident of birth. The same was true of Omegas.
"Once," said Walter quietly, pausing in his eating, "just after a very bad week, I spent an afternoon camped up in a tree in the jungle, watching a village. I can't remember now if we were supposed to be protecting them or spying on them. This girl came out to hang her wash right under my tree. She was eighteen or nineteen, I suppose, and she was too thin." His eyes traveled from Anna to Charles and back to his food.
Yes, thought Charles, I know she's still thin, but I've had less than a week to feed her up.
"Anyway," the old vet continued, "watching her, it was like watching magic. Out of the basket the clothes would come, all in a wad, she'd snap 'em once, and, like that, they'd fall straight and hang just so. Her wrists were narrow, but so strong, and her fingers quick. Those shirts wouldn't dare disobey. When she left, I almost knocked on her door to thank her. She reminded me that there was a world of daily chores, where clothes were cleaned and everything was in order."
He glanced at Anna again. "She likely would have been terrified by a dirty American soldier showing up at her door-and like as not wouldn't have a clue what I was thanking her for, even if she understood what I was saying. She was just doing as she always did." He paused. "But I should have thanked her anyway. Got me through a bad time and several bad times since."
They were all quiet after that. Charles didn't know if Anna understood his story, but he did. Anna was like that woman. She reminded him of winters spent in front of a fire while his da played a fiddle. Times when he knew that everyone was full and happy, when the world was safe and ordered. It wasn't like that often, but it was important to remember it could be.
"So," said Charles, as Walter ate the last of his third freeze-dried dinner. "You've lived here in the mountains for a long time."
Walter's spork stilled for a moment, and he looked at Charles suspiciously. Then he snorted and shook his head. "It's not like it's important anymore, is it? Old news."
He ate another bite, swallowed, and said, "When I got back from the war, everything was okay for a while. I had a short fuse, sure, but not enough to bother about. Until it got worse." He started to say something but ate another bite instead. "That part matters even less, now, I suppose. Anyway, I started reliving the war-like it was still going on. I could hear it, taste it, smell it-but it would turn out that it was only a car backfiring-or the neighbor chopping wood. Stuff like that. I moved out before I hurt my family more than I already had. Then one day an enemy soldier came up behind me. It was the uniform, you know? I hurt him, maybe killed him..."