Anna drew in her breath, seeing what Charles had seen. “He’s afraid to come home because he thinks the traitor is his mate.”
“Africa, because he needs to be as far from here as he can get,” Charles told her.
She stiffened because she realized what it meant if Leah was the traitor.
He said the whole thing out loud anyway. Just to make sure. “If he’s right, I am going to have to execute his mate.” He drew in a breath, his chest tight. “And probably my da. Because even if Leah has betrayed us, if I execute her, he’ll come for me. His wolf spirit won’t let him do anything else.”
And he’s not in Africa, said Brother Wolf somberly. He’s somewhere a lot closer than that.
Anna nodded jerkily. She’d met his da’s wolf, the monster the Marrok held leashed with his mating bond to Leah. She knew what they’d both be facing after Charles killed Leah.
“Leah is just about the most straightforwardly honest person I know,” Anna said. “Every thought that crosses her mind comes out her mouth. How could she keep a secret like that from Bran? From her mate? I can’t even keep a surprise birthday party from you. There’s no way I could keep a bigger secret.”
Brother Wolf sent his apologies through their bond to Anna. He hadn’t known the party was supposed to be a secret.
“My da’s bond with Leah isn’t like ours,” said Charles with certainty. His da didn’t talk about his mating, but Charles knew his da well enough to know that he wouldn’t want anyone else rummaging through his mind, least of all Leah. And his da had the abilities necessary to make certain his bond functioned just as he chose. “And suspecting she is a traitor isn’t going to encourage him to open that bond any further than he can help.”
“That’s why he’s closed the bonds to the pack down so tightly,” Anna said.
Charles nodded.
“Could he be wrong?”
“I hope so,” Charles said.
“What are we going to do?” asked Anna. He didn’t think the question was directed at him.
He tried to draw serenity from the forest around them. It didn’t work, but it helped.
“We are going to find Jericho and take care of the immediate problem,” he told her. “We’re then going to finish warning the wildlings. I don’t think we need to consider them suspects anymore. But they do need to be warned nonetheless. Then I’m going to sit down with the files that Boyd sent me last night and see if I can figure out what set my da off.”
Anna nodded. “Okay. That sounds like a plan of attack.”
She was quiet all the way up to the small cabin that was Jericho’s home—thinking things through.
Charles hoped that she’d think something different than the scenario that was playing out all too clearly in his head. He did not want to face off with his da. Though he had known, from the time he understood what happened to old wolves, that eventually the duty of killing his da would probably be his—it was not something he was resigned to.
They smelled the bodies well before they reached Jericho’s cabin.
“These people died before the attack on Hester,” Anna said.
Charles nodded. “By a couple of days, I’d guess.”
She reached out and took his hand, holding it tightly in hers. He was so blessed in his mate, who understood when to talk and when not to.
Asil, Sage, Juste . . . and Leah were waiting for them next to a line of dead bodies—obviously werewolf kills—that they had laid out neatly. Sometime during the trip here, Asil and Sage must have worked something out, because Sage was standing so her shoulder brushed Asil’s.
Anna dropped Charles’s hand and went to look at the faces of the dead to see if she knew any of them without anyone’s saying anything. She was young to have such an understanding of necessity.
They weren’t pretty corpses—and so badly rotted that he didn’t think Anna had the experience to tell what they might have smelled like when they were alive.
“This one was one of . . . of the men I knew in Chicago,” she said finally, pointing at one of the dead werewolves. “And maybe this one.” Pointing at another—his face was pretty badly torn up.
“The last one is human,” said Juste. He wasn’t doubting her—just advising her.
She sighed. “He was human then, too.” She frowned unhappily at the dead man in question, then bent and quickly ripped open the dead man’s jacket and shirt, exposing the front of his chest.
The tattoo must have been a beautifully rendered dragon. Charles could see it in the delicate skill used on the parts he could distinguish. It didn’t look so good now, distorted by death and by the ragged wound that cut through it.
Anna coughed at the additional smell she’d released, putting her hand over her nose. “Yes. This one.”
When she finished coughing, she said, “He used . . .” She stopped speaking, glanced at Charles, and closed her lips.
He could take a good guess at what she would have said if she hadn’t been worried about setting him off. This was another of the men Leo had allowed to abuse her. Charles did her the courtesy of swallowing his rage as best he could.
“Too bad they are dead,” said Asil, with a growl. So Charles wasn’t the only one who had heard what she didn’t say.
Anna looked at Asil, and said firmly, “No. It’s a good thing. I don’t need more avenging, Asil. Charles did that. I am thriving. But these men are bad men, and I am glad they are dead.”
“Where is Jericho?” Charles asked. They had all been standing around the bodies instead of searching for Jericho. That could only mean they had already found him.
He assumed that Jericho was dead—since everyone had been waiting with the bodies—but Juste said, “Devon has him located in a cave about a half mile from here. Asil told us to let Devon hold the fort until the two of you could make it up here.”
“Devon told you that Jericho had had trouble?” Charles asked. Devon was a wildling—and he’d have been on Leah’s list, the group of the safest wildlings.
“Not exactly,” said Juste. “Devon didn’t change to human for us, but he scratched Jericho’s name in the dirt. Leah and I decided to check it out since Devon’s place isn’t far. We found no Jericho and these, the dead.”
Leah, looking tired and smelling of rotten corpses, said, “A few minutes after we got here, Devon showed up, too. He’s the one who ran Jericho down—probably he just knew where the likely places to look were. We left him to make sure Jericho didn’t run again, but we didn’t approach.”
She did not say that they were waiting for Charles, so that he could do his job: kill Jericho.
Asil looked at Anna, then met Charles’s eyes. “You and I should go up.”
Yes.
“No,” said Leah in a low voice. Then more clearly. “No. We have already lost Hester. We have to try to save him.”
She looked at Anna thoughtfully, and Charles had to fight back a growl as he realized that she hadn’t been waiting for him. She’d been waiting for Anna.
“She’s tired,” said Sage, before Leah could say anything.
Leah closed her mouth, but her body was tight with some strong emotion. He couldn’t tell what it was.
Grief, said Anna’s voice through their bond. She does not want to lose another wildling. Her voice was accompanied by a surge of hope.
It does not mean she is innocent, said Brother Wolf. Charles is grieved by those he sends on.
“No doubt,” said Anna aloud, answering Brother Wolf, but it sounded like a reply to Sage. Maybe it was both. “But there has been too much tragedy around here. If we don’t try, I’ll always wonder if I could have made a difference.”
“If you do try,” Asil told her, “and you succeed in giving him back a little control of his wolf, Jericho still will not last another five years.”
“Do you know him?” Anna asked.
Asil shook his head. “No. But I have talked about him with Devon in better times. Devon and he were friends, once. Closer than brothers. Now Devon is . . . Devon.” There was a wealth of sadness in Asil’s voice because Asil and Devon had once been very close as well. “And Jericho is so near to madness that he cannot even use words most of the time. The man he once was may not thank you for your help, Anna.”
Sage said, in a low voice, “I know him. The first year I was here, I got lost for three days in the middle of an ice storm. I didn’t know it was possible to be that cold and live.” She looked away. “I found out later that Bran had called all the wildlings, to send them out looking for me. Jericho found me and brought me to his cabin.” She rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. He was . . . sweet and shy. Brought me here, dried me off, and called Bran. I know his reputation—even then he was pretty bad off. But he lit a fire in the little stove—and went outside to wait for Bran to come and pick me up.”
Sage met Anna’s eyes. “I’m telling you this so you know I’m not just being expedient. He treated me well—and it surprised Bran that Jericho was able to do that. That was twenty years ago. And every day of those twenty years, Jericho has spent fighting with his wolf.” She waved her hands to indicate the dead. “This time it was the enemy. But next time it might not be. Jericho needs to die.” Truth rang in her last sentence—truth as she saw it, at any rate.
“‘Fighting’ is the right word,” said Leah in a grumpy voice. “Since when is fighting a horrible thing? We are werewolves—fighting is what we do.”
Sage gave Leah a sad smile. “Sometimes, Leah, the kindest thing is to let them go.”
A long, wailing howl echoed through the trees.
Charles raised his face to the sky and answered in a like voice so that their lone soldier understood there was help coming. Of one sort or another.
“If I take Jericho,” Charles told Asil, “it’s like as not I’ll have to do the same with Devon.”
The words were a blow—even though Charles knew Asil was well aware of that. Charles had only known the broken wolf his da had brought here sixty years ago. But he knew that Devon, in his glory days, had had a knack for making and keeping friends. Jericho, Asil, and even Bran had been friends of his.
“Devon will defend him,” said Asil, giving Charles a half smile. “Devon defends those he loves. That’s part of what made him the man he once was.”
Leah stepped closer to Anna. “You and I don’t always see things the same way,” she said.
“That is true,” his mate answered, meeting Leah’s eyes.
“I know you are tired,” Leah continued. “I know that this will only be a stopgap, but my mate gets so sad when the wildlings go on. He breaks his heart over them.”
“It would take more than those two,” said Anna, indicating Asil and Charles, “to keep me from trying to help. Bran isn’t the only one who gets sad when the old ones die.”
Leah would think that Anna was speaking only of herself, but Charles knew that Anna was talking about Leah, too.
And us, said Brother Wolf. We regret, too.
After saying her bit, Sage had moved away from the dead. She wrapped her arms around her middle and frowned off into the distance. The dead usually didn’t bother her much—a result of her early life as a werewolf, Charles had always supposed (it hadn’t bothered him at all to take care of most of that rogue pack). Maybe it was just that she was upset about Jericho, who had saved her life once upon a time.
Asil addressed Charles. “I’ve seen your mate almost die once today. That is enough times, I think.”
Charles agreed with him wholeheartedly . . . but he knew what Anna would do. He knew it was not his job to make her smaller, safer. It was his job to lift her up as high as she wanted to soar—and to kill anything that tried to interfere.
“She’ll be safe enough with all of us there,” Charles said. “And—”
There was a sharp yip of pain, and all of them ran toward the sound. Brother Wolf chose the change before Charles could decide if it was a good idea or not.
There are two werewolf wildlings nearing the end of their days, Brother Wolf told him. We are all of us wolves, but sometimes the only answer is fang and claw, and we can do this faster than the others.
More and more, Brother Wolf spoke to Charles in whole sentences, when previously he was more likely to communicate with emotions or wordless gestalt statements that conveyed an entire conversation as a whole. Charles thought that it was the need his brother had to speak to their mate that was causing the evolution.
Leah had taken the lead. Brother Wolf contented himself with running beside Anna and following those who knew where they were going.
The cave where Jericho had retreated wasn’t a real cave, but a sheltered place where two great boulders rested against each other. It smelled lightly of Devon and more heavily of Jericho. From the scent layers, this was a place where Jericho slept more often than he used the small cabin they’d just left.
“Jericho,” called Leah.
“Coming,” said a man’s voice. Jericho’s voice.
I have never heard Jericho sound like that, said Brother Wolf in surprise.
Anxiety peaked in the whole group. In Brother Wolf’s shape, Charles’s nose was sharper. What had happened to Devon? Jericho’s voice had sounded almost casual, and Jericho was never casual.
No one liked where they saw this going.
There was a shuffling noise, then a muscled man emerged. He had to crawl to get out of the sheltered space, but he stood as soon as there was room. He had a cloth wrapped around his loins in a fashion that Charles hadn’t seen in a long time. It gave Jericho the appearance of wearing baggy shorts instead of an old bedsheet.
Jericho looked much as he had the last time Charles had seen him. His beard and hair were long and scraggly, with bits of leaves and other forest detritus caught in it. His hair was tangled every which way and randomly hacked shorter here and there. His eyes were ice blue—the wolf dominant, in that moment at least. There was something odd about that cool stare, but Jericho looked away before Charles could put a finger on what bothered him.
Jericho’s body was fit and strong. Which was a good thing—hunger tended to destabilize even the most controlled werewolf, which none of the wildlings were to begin with. He hadn’t, Charles thought, eaten any of the dead men—though it was usual for an out-of-control werewolf to eat his victims.
Most of the wildlings were twitchy in human form, as if the wolf were ready to climb out at any moment. Jericho’s body was very still and balanced on the balls of his feet. He glanced around at their group with his wolf-blue eyes, then away. He shivered.
“Where is Devon?” asked Leah.
“I . . .” He stopped, swallowed, and began again. “He wanted me to run. He doesn’t want me to die. But I killed those men. The only rule is no killing. I had to tie him up in the cave.”
And that was more coherent sentences in a row than Charles had been able to get out of him in ten years. To top off the performance, Jericho walked up to Charles, dropped to his knees, and presented his throat.
“Well,” said Anna briskly after a moment of silence. “That’s all very dramatic and heartfelt, I’m sure. But we’re pretty sure those men attacked you. Self-defense is always legal.”
Jericho eyed Anna. “No killing. The Marrok was very clear.”
Behind Jericho, Asil crossed to the cave and ducked in.
“Those men belonged to our enemy,” said Leah. “A similar group killed Hester yesterday. Her mate followed by his own hand.”
Jericho swayed a bit then, and his eyes darkened to human blue. “Felt that,” he said. “Hester . . . didn’t like me at all.” For a second, he grinned widely. “Damn near killed me first time we met.” Then he blinked, and the human left his eyes again. “Not sorry I killed them. But the rule is no killi
ng.”
“How did they find you?” asked Anna. “Do you know? Did you hear anything that can help us find them?”
Jericho growled at her.
Brother Wolf growled more savagely, and Jericho subsided.
“Don’t do this,” Sage said, apparently to herself because her voice had been very quiet. “You don’t need to do this.”
Charles gave Sage a sharp look—but her attention was on Jericho.
Jericho’s attention was on Charles.
Asil exited the cave and a very thin, patchy-coated wolf followed him, head low and tail tucked. Asil nodded at Charles—he’d found Devon just as Jericho said he would. Charles looked carefully at Devon, but the wildling seemed unharmed—if not particularly happy.
“Assume that we’ll take care of an execution if it needs to happen,” Anna told Jericho dryly. “Moving on to a different topic. Did you overhear anything they might have said? Any clues to who or what they were?”
Jericho focused his ice-blue eyes on Charles’s mate. Charles would have been happier if he hadn’t done that.
“She said not to come here. To wait. That this attack is too likely to give her away,” Jericho said, in a hard, oddly deep voice. His voice changed again, becoming both lighter and quicker. “She is not in charge; she is not the boss. And I don’t know about you, but I’m more afraid of the boss than of her.”
And Charles realized that Jericho had taken Anna’s question literally. He was repeating back exactly what they had said in his presence.
And they had been talking about a “she.”
Charles looked at Leah—he couldn’t help it. But she was watching Jericho with her brows furrowed—Charles didn’t think she’d quite figured out what Jericho was doing.
“Our job,” continued the wildling coolly, “is to get the information from this one if he has it. No one will miss him for a long time. If we can’t get it from him, then we hit the other one.” Jericho sighed loudly and dropped into the first voice. “And that will be a cluster because someone keeps taking out our surveillance equipment, I know. I don’t like going in blind, eith—” Jericho stopped speaking.