she’d distracted
him
while they patted her down and ran her through the scanners. Which had probably been her intent in the first place. Smart woman, his Anna—but she hadn’t let him off from paying up on the bet.
When the TSA finally let him through security—because being scary wasn’t really enough to keep him off an airplane—Anna had been waiting for him comfortably curled up on one of the little benches where people sat to put on their shoes. She’d raised her blue food-colored water in a triumphant toast and then drank it down to the last drop. It had been Anna’s idea, not his, to dye the water so she couldn’t just play sleight of hand—she would never cheat on a bet with him.
Watching her throat as she downed the liquid was a strangely erotic thing—erotic and magical, something that couldn’t exist in the same universe as the deaths that haunted him. So the ghosts retreated, not apermanent thing, but it was more freedom than he’d had for a while, and it was good.
Charles didn’t mind losing to his mate, though leaving Anna alone to deal with the feds while he fetched for her didn’t make his wolf happy. But he knew that Anna could charm the birds out of the trees, and a few feds who needed their help weren’t going to give her any trouble. No one was going to try to hurt her. Not yet, not before they involved themselves in the FBI’s hunt.
Da thought it would be good for Charles to hunt something other than a werewolf, something truly evil. He hoped that his father was right—and empirical evidence tended to support his hope, as his da was frequently correct.
So Charles followed the pair of feds down the hallway to the room where they were meeting his mate and a small group of others. These weren’t FBI field agents, he decided, because neither of them noticed him, even though he wasn’t making any particular effort to avoid detection. Homeland Security and Cantrip tended to have more chair sitters than the FBI did. They were speaking quietly enough that it would have taken a werewolf’s ears to hear them. Unabashedly, he listened in.
“Are you sure this is safe?” asked the blond man of the federal pair nervously. He looked fresh out of college, not yet twenty-five. “I mean,
werewolves
, Pat. Plural.”
“They’re cooperating with us,” said Pat, the older man. Charles pinned his accent as New England native softened a little by a stint somewhere in the South. He was in his early forties and walked like someone who’d done a lot of it. “They’ll behave themselves because they have to.”
“You don’t think they’ll be mad because I tagged along? It was supposed to be just you. Five people. Two FBI, two Homeland Security, and one of us.”
They must be Cantrip, then, thought Charles. According to Da, there should have been two of them and one Homeland Security. Someone had been flexing their muscles. Several someones. Brother Wolf decided that Charles was feeling too relaxed to teach them to mind their manners better.
“Easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” said Pat as he opened the door to the room that they were meeting in. “Isn’t that right, Leslie?”
“One of you can leave,” said a woman’s voice coldly. “Just because you aren’t in the FBI anymore, Pat, shouldn’t mean you forgot how to count. Five. It’s easy. You can cheat and count your fingers if you have to.”
“Ha-ha,” said Pat, pulling the door shut behind him. Charles stopped to listen before going in. “Bet you that no one really cares. When is the werewolf showing up? I thought the memo said eight straight up.”
“Six people is fine,” said Anna, and Brother Wolf relaxed further at the amusement in his mate’s voice. “Five was just to keep the numbers down.”
He’d known she was safe. She was a werewolf, and if the training he’d been giving her didn’t make her safe in a room full of humans, he’d been doing it wrong. But still, Brother Wolf was happier
him
while they patted her down and ran her through the scanners. Which had probably been her intent in the first place. Smart woman, his Anna—but she hadn’t let him off from paying up on the bet.
When the TSA finally let him through security—because being scary wasn’t really enough to keep him off an airplane—Anna had been waiting for him comfortably curled up on one of the little benches where people sat to put on their shoes. She’d raised her blue food-colored water in a triumphant toast and then drank it down to the last drop. It had been Anna’s idea, not his, to dye the water so she couldn’t just play sleight of hand—she would never cheat on a bet with him.
Watching her throat as she downed the liquid was a strangely erotic thing—erotic and magical, something that couldn’t exist in the same universe as the deaths that haunted him. So the ghosts retreated, not apermanent thing, but it was more freedom than he’d had for a while, and it was good.
Charles didn’t mind losing to his mate, though leaving Anna alone to deal with the feds while he fetched for her didn’t make his wolf happy. But he knew that Anna could charm the birds out of the trees, and a few feds who needed their help weren’t going to give her any trouble. No one was going to try to hurt her. Not yet, not before they involved themselves in the FBI’s hunt.
Da thought it would be good for Charles to hunt something other than a werewolf, something truly evil. He hoped that his father was right—and empirical evidence tended to support his hope, as his da was frequently correct.
So Charles followed the pair of feds down the hallway to the room where they were meeting his mate and a small group of others. These weren’t FBI field agents, he decided, because neither of them noticed him, even though he wasn’t making any particular effort to avoid detection. Homeland Security and Cantrip tended to have more chair sitters than the FBI did. They were speaking quietly enough that it would have taken a werewolf’s ears to hear them. Unabashedly, he listened in.
“Are you sure this is safe?” asked the blond man of the federal pair nervously. He looked fresh out of college, not yet twenty-five. “I mean,
werewolves
, Pat. Plural.”
“They’re cooperating with us,” said Pat, the older man. Charles pinned his accent as New England native softened a little by a stint somewhere in the South. He was in his early forties and walked like someone who’d done a lot of it. “They’ll behave themselves because they have to.”
“You don’t think they’ll be mad because I tagged along? It was supposed to be just you. Five people. Two FBI, two Homeland Security, and one of us.”
They must be Cantrip, then, thought Charles. According to Da, there should have been two of them and one Homeland Security. Someone had been flexing their muscles. Several someones. Brother Wolf decided that Charles was feeling too relaxed to teach them to mind their manners better.
“Easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” said Pat as he opened the door to the room that they were meeting in. “Isn’t that right, Leslie?”
“One of you can leave,” said a woman’s voice coldly. “Just because you aren’t in the FBI anymore, Pat, shouldn’t mean you forgot how to count. Five. It’s easy. You can cheat and count your fingers if you have to.”
“Ha-ha,” said Pat, pulling the door shut behind him. Charles stopped to listen before going in. “Bet you that no one really cares. When is the werewolf showing up? I thought the memo said eight straight up.”
“Six people is fine,” said Anna, and Brother Wolf relaxed further at the amusement in his mate’s voice. “Five was just to keep the numbers down.”
He’d known she was safe. She was a werewolf, and if the training he’d been giving her didn’t make her safe in a room full of humans, he’d been doing it wrong. But still, Brother Wolf was happier
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