Anna was her father’s daughter, and her father believed in science and rational thinking. She’d been a werewolf for years now, and she still tended to think about it from a scientific viewpoint, as though lycanthropy were a virus.
Faced with a wall of briar-thorned vines straight out of a Grimms’ fairy tale, she’d never had it brought so clearly that what she was and what she did was magic. Not Arthur C. Clark magic, where sufficient understanding could turn it into a new science that could be labeled and understood. But a “there’s another form of power in the universe” magic. Something alien, almost sentient, that ran by its own rules—or none. Real magic, something that could be studied, maybe, but would never rest in neatly explainable categories.
With that in mind, she tried visualizing a knife, or something she could cut through the vines with. But apparently that wasn’t something her magic could do. In frustration, she called upon her wolf. But found that she couldn’t change to her wolf, not here in Wellesley’s … what? Imagination? Soul? Prison.
But she managed to give her hand claws. She dug into the vines, sinking her claws into the surface of the vine.
Querida, said Asil, are you sure you want to bleed him?
For a bare instant she got a flash of the real world, where her real claws had sunk into Wellesley’s skin.
Horrified, she pulled her claws out of the vines. Almost inadvertently, her gaze met the determined eyes of the trapped golden wolf. A gray, viscous substance leaked down the green exterior of the plant from the holes she had dug in it. And the substance smelled noxiously awful.
And it whispered in her ears. It whispered terrible things, the kinds of things that sounded just like those vines smelled.
There was magic in those vines, which she had known. But what she had not been sure of was whose magic it was. Now she knew that Asil had been very wrong—this was absolutely not a case of Wellesley’s human half and wolf half at odds because their mate had died.
This was a curse, something done to them by someone else. The blood of the vines smelled horribly familiar—Anna knew what blood magic smelled like. In Asil’s story, there had been a mention of a black witch. She could now inform him that the rumor was true. There had definitely been a black witch involved, someone powerful enough to set a binding spell on a werewolf that lasted … however long this had lasted.
She didn’t know how to help him.
She could soothe the wolf spirit of any werewolf. She’d learned to send them to sleep, too, for a while. With her help, they had reduced the number of newly turned wolves who died because they could not control their wolf within the first year after their Change.
But if she sent this wolf to sleep, no matter how much he needed the rest—and she could tell that he was as exhausted as his human counterpart, if not more so—he would lose the fight against the thorns.
This was witchcraft, and she knew nothing about how to break a cage wrought by witchcraft. But she knew someone who knew more than she did—and who had his own kind of magic.
Charles, she thought, reaching for him without letting go of the carnivorous vines. Charles, I need you.
CHAPTER
8
“She put us together just to be annoying,” Sage told Charles, sounding not in the least annoyed.
They had taken her SUV because she refused to drive his truck. Her SUV was pretty upscale for the rough roads—she was a Realtor, selling high-priced Montana dreams to very rich people who wanted to get away from the city. When he’d told her that the road was too rough for her overly civilized SUV, she’d laughed and told him she’d rather replace her vehicle than put those scratches on his beloved truck.
He’d rather she not scratch his truck up, either. If she was planning on doing that, then taking her car made good sense.
“Leah?” asked Charles, though he knew quite well which “she” Sage was talking about.
She nodded. She gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “Why didn’t you put a stop to it? Everyone knows that she can’t order you around. No one would have been surprised—not even Leah, I don’t think. So why did you let her do it?”
Charles eyed Sage, evaluating what answer to give.
Like his stepmother, she liked to wear nice clothes. Part of the reason for that was her job, and part of it was she wore them like armor. She didn’t wear soft things, colors and fabrics to make her look sweet. The clothes she wore gave her visual power. Here, they declared to the world, is a strong woman.
To him, they said something a little different. Here, they said, is a woman who needs armor, a shield to hide behind. Here is a woman who is afraid but puts her chin up and whistles in the dark.
He remembered what she’d looked like when Bran had brought her here, the look in her eyes the same as Anna’s eyes when they’d first met.
“Leah is my father’s mate,” he told Sage. “As long as she does nothing that will harm the pack, it is not my place to object.”
Sage raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief before returning her attention to the road. Sage didn’t look at him with fear in her eyes anymore. He liked her. She was smart, funny, and wise. Someone he could trust to have his back.
He relaxed into the too-cushiony seat and gave her all of his truth instead of bits and pieces as he might have another of his pack mates.
“Though Asil and I are not friends, he likes Anna. He will give his life to make her safe. She likes him, too, and is comfortable in his company.”
“You left your mate with Asil because she likes him?” Sage asked archly. “Charlie, I’d never have thought it of you.”
She was the only one who ever got to call him that. Because the first time she’d said it, she’d been bruised and scared. When his father had introduced him to her, she’d raised her face to look him in the eyes, terror making her shake. Then she’d said, with hopeless defiance, “Hello, hello, Charlie.”
He took a better hold on the door as she turned her tame car off the road as he directed. The track they traveled on had tall grass that brushed the underside of her car. He half expected that they were going to be running back on four feet.
“I left my mate with Asil because neither of them is capable of betraying a trust,” Charles told her. “And, as much as she dislikes me, no one could ever say that Leah works against the pack’s best interest. As long as that is true, I will follow her as I follow my father.”
Sage laughed when he said that. “Yes. We’ve all heard the battleground of your obedience to Bran.” She laughed harder. “Or Leah. The funniest part of that statement, though, is that you actually believe it.”
It was the truth, he thought, a little indignantly. But he seldom argued with people other than his da or Anna, so he let it go. She’d slowed down, so he released his hold on her car and folded his arms impassively. He stood by his word: he’d follow Leah exactly as well as he followed his da.
She glanced at him. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll let it go. Here’s another question, then. Why did you bring that thing along?”