Dead Heat

He could have been saying anything, but Anna’s wolf stirred, called to attention by the sharp ozone breath of the sacred that Charles occasionally could tap into when, as Charles put it, the spirits so moved him.

 

Joseph stopped coughing eventually, leaving Charles’s soothing voice the dominant sound in the room. There were no plants here, but Anna could smell pine. Some impulse urged her to touch Charles, so she did. The back of his neck was the easiest skin to reach, so she put her fingertips there. She closed her eyes and felt his voice sink into her bones. Unable to resist, she lent her song to his.

 

She didn’t have the language, so she hummed an alto descant to his bass almost-song. The chant was Native American, so it didn’t follow European chords or patterns. But that didn’t bother her. She’d accompanied Charles when he played or sang the songs of his childhood before, though never had it summoned magic. As she found the right notes, it seemed to her that the chant grew stronger.

 

Charles stopped singing abruptly, and she fell silent at the same time. She may not have understood what he was doing, but the connection between them had told her when the song was finished. On the bed, Joseph’s breathing was no longer labored. He was relaxed and his color was better.

 

Anna let her arm fall away from her mate and flexed her fingers to rid herself of a last sharp tingle of some sort of magic that had nothing to do with pack and everything to do with her husband’s odd and possibly unique heritage of witch, shaman, and werewolf.

 

“What did you do to me?” Joseph asked in a hushed voice. His eyes were wide.

 

“I have no idea,” admitted Charles. “You know how it is when the spirits kick me in the direction they want me to run. Whatever it is, it probably won’t last long.” He paused. “Or do anyone here any good.”

 

“You have always been such an optimist,” said Joseph, amusement lighting his eyes. “I remember that about you.”

 

Charles frowned at him. “I didn’t heal you. If you didn’t want to die of lung cancer, you could have quit smoking fifty years ago, when I told you to.”

 

Joseph laughed, but there was compassion in his expression. “I am eighty-odd years old, my friend. Something is going to kill me soon, it might as well be cancer.” Then the laughter left his face. “Unless you’ve been listening to my father and intend to change that.”

 

“Being a werewolf is not a panacea to death,” said Charles. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I would never force it upon anyone. Even if I were so lost to right and wrong to try, such an act carries a death penalty. Being my father’s son means I have no defense against charges of Changing someone against his will.”

 

“My father thinks that you need no such defense, since you are your father’s son.”

 

Which was almost what Hosteen had said to Charles when he’d driven them in from the landing strip. How terrible, Anna thought, to watch your child die, knowing you had the means to save him and he wouldn’t let you do so.

 

“Then he does not know my father,” Charles said as he had to Hosteen. “I am the last person he would make allowances for. Because I am his son, the Marrok could not allow me to break his laws.”

 

“Yes,” said Joseph. “So I told him. But I also know you, and not even a death sentence would stop you from doing what you think is right.”

 

“You don’t want this,” said Charles, gesturing to himself. “You never did. If you have changed your mind, I’ll be very happy to help.”

 

Charles had offered to Change Joseph before. Neither man said it, but Anna heard it all the same.

 

There was a little silence, and then Joseph, who had relaxed against the pillow, gave a small smile. “So you are here to buy a horse for your wife’s birthday.”

 

“I have come here to see my old friend,” Charles said. “To introduce my wife to him, and to say good-bye.”

 

Joseph sighed deeply. “First good breath I’ve drawn in months. Thank you.” He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. “My father is a good man. I love him. He tries to do what is best for everyone—and he leads his family and his pack with his heart. But he also thinks that he is right and doesn’t always give weight to the opinions of others. I will die when my time is here, and it is very near. What you have done for me does not change that.”

 

It wasn’t a question, not quite.

 

Charles said, “No.”

 

Joseph said, “I can feel death’s wind in my face, and I heard an owl cry every night this past week. My father’s will cannot change that.” He drew in another breath and smiled directly at Anna. “Enough of my drama, I am tired of it. Charles, you have not introduced me to the pretty lady.”

 

She hadn’t felt ignored. Both men had been aware of her; Joseph had been studying her. But they had had unfinished business to wade through before bringing her into it.

 

Charles nodded gravely. “Anna, this is my good friend Joseph, who pulled me into more mischief than he should have been able to. Joseph, this is my mate, Anna, who is a gift an old foolish wolf like me doesn’t deserve.”

 

“Heaven forbid that we should get what we deserve,” Joseph said, examining Anna. “You have a beautiful song in your heart,” he said at last. “I am grateful that my old friend would find such as you because he is too often alone. Don’t break his heart or my ghost will haunt you for the rest of your days.”

 

“It isn’t me who is breaking his heart right now,” she told him.

 

Joseph nodded. “But that is the dual gift of love, isn’t it? The joy of greeting and the sorrow of good-bye.” He narrowed his eyes at Charles. “You came here to buy this woman a pretty horse? Something exotic? A horse that will be living art?” He didn’t sound like he approved.

 

“Arabians,” said Charles, following Joseph’s conversational trail without protest, “are the cats of the horse world. Anna doesn’t need to dominate. She will enjoy having a partner rather than a servant.”

 

“An Arabian,” said Joseph to Anna, “can be your best friend. He will not desert you when you need him. He will come to your call and be the wings that take you where you need to go.”

 

Charles laughed. She’d thought he laughed like that only with her, and she was grateful to be wrong. How terrible to live centuries and never laugh with your whole body.

 

“Wasn’t Jasper an Arabian?” he asked. “Your ‘best friend’ dumped you by the roadside to walk home plenty of times.”

 

Joseph grinned, but said, “Hush. I’m making a point. If you spend time with them and treat them with justice, they will reward you.” He cleared his throat. “Jasper excepted.”

 

“I can do justice,” Anna said.

 

“My father likes horses,” Joseph confided to Anna. “But he also likes money. There’s a reason this farm kept making money after the market for Arabs crashed in the eighties and breeding farms were abandoned to banks by the dozens. He knows that Charles can afford to indulge you. Unless you want to show, you don’t need a twenty-thousand-dollar horse, which is what he’ll try to sell you. My son, Kage, he loves the horses. He loves the five-hundred-dollar geldings as much as the million-dollar stallions. You listen to my son Kage about the horses we have, and not my father.”

 

“All right,” she agreed.

 

Joseph’s eyes closed. “It’s been a long time since I had no pain. It’s hard to sleep when you hurt.”

 

“Go ahead and sleep,” Charles told him. “You won’t die today.”

 

Joseph nodded, but opened his clear eyes to meet Anna’s. “Don’t let Dad talk you into Hephzibah. She’s a witch who only looks like a horse.”

 

“I thought Arabs are all friendly except for Jasper,” said Charles.

 

Joseph grinned—and it was the same expression that he’d worn when someone had taken a photo of him as he rode a bucking horse. “Hephzibah will kill someone someday. There’s something wrong with her spirit.” He shut his eyes again and his voice slurred. “Maybe the evil dead have touched her. Maybe she is really a skinwalker. You keep your wife away from her.”

 

“I’m a werewolf,” Anna said. “I’m not in danger from a horse.” But Joseph was already asleep.

 

Maggie met them at the door to the hallway.

 

“It is good that you’ve come to see him,” she said to Charles. Anna suddenly realized that Joseph’s apartment had been entirely masculine. Didn’t Maggie share the apartment with him? “Are you going to do as Hosteen asks now? Do you see what has happened to Joseph? He is gone already, that man I married.” She brushed an impatient hand over her face, and Anna realized Maggie was crying.

 

“No,” Charles said, but he said it gently. “Joseph does not want to be a werewolf. He has no need to live forever. And whatever the rest of us feel like we need, that is, it must be, his choice.”

 

She grabbed his arm, swift and sudden. Anna instinctively moved to intercept her but caught herself before Maggie noticed.

 

“I don’t want him to die, Charles,” Maggie told him intensely.

 

“Neither do I,” he said in the same gentle tone. “But everyone dies, Maggie. This is not the worst death I have seen. He is not afraid, not of death, anyway.”

 

She let go of him and took two steps backward. “Joseph has never been afraid of death,” she agreed. “I think it surprises him that he has lived this long.”

 

The intense intimacy of their conversation faded, caused by some trick of Maggie’s body language: she was once again the gracious hostess.

 

“Food is ready downstairs,” she said. “Kage said that after dinner, he’d take you to see some horses.” She smiled suddenly, “He is grateful for Chelsea, and my son can see no greater reward than to take you to see his horses.” She started down the hallway. “In that way, he and his father are just alike. Horse-mad idiots.”

 

“You, too,” Charles said, his hand on the small of Anna’s back as he followed. “Remember that poor skinny pinto you saved from that pair of cowboys, Maggie?” He looked at Anna, his eyes smiling. “One woman against two armed men, and she took after them with a broom for the way they’d half starved a mare. Only it turns out, when the dust settled, that they’d just bought that mare from another guy because they didn’t like the way he wasn’t feeding her.”

 

“I apologized and fed them my burritos,” Maggie said. “They didn’t care about a few bruises after that.”

 

“Won’t it be too dark to ride?” asked Anna.

 

“The main barn has lights,” Maggie said shortly. “You won’t have any trouble seeing.”

 

They ate in the big dining room because there were too many to fit around the kitchen table. Ernestine had roasted a huge beef brisket and topped the meal off with corn bread and a green salad. She ate with the family, deliberately sitting next to the kids and helping Max and Maggie keep a normal conversation going.

 

Anna sat next to Charles and watched everyone (except for her husband) try not to stare at Chelsea.