No. It wasn't Sarai.
His stomach hurt, his throat hurt, and his eyes burned with tears-and with the old rage that curdled his blood. He should have killed the witch but had been forced to run instead. Run, while his wife's killer lived, because he was afraid of what Mariposa had become. Afraid of the witch who hunted him as she'd hunted his Sarai.
Only, when he could stand running no longer, when it was apparent that time was not going to kill her as it ought, he'd come here-to die and join his beloved at last. But he let the Marrok...and, later, his roses persuade him to wait.
And she hadn't found him here. Maybe she'd quit looking at last, having grown more powerful with each year until she didn't need him. Maybe the Marrok's power protected him, as it protected the rest of the pack.
As he lay panting on his bed, the conviction grew that the time had come for his death. He folded the shirt lovingly where it was and strode back to his front door. He would persuade Bran this time.
But he couldn't open the door, couldn't force his hand to touch the doorknob. He roared his anger, but that changed nothing. He could not disobey Bran. He'd been so distressed that he hadn't noticed that Bran had given him a true order: until tomorrow he would have to stay here, in this house where he'd lived for all these years alone, hiding from his mate's murderer.
Tomorrow, then. He calmed himself with the thought. But first he'd repair what he had damaged. Tomorrow he'd help Charles with the rogue, give him anything he could think of that might be useful to him for dealing with an Omega for a mate-and then it would be over. As relief rushed through him, he found it in himself to smile. If Bran wouldn't kill him, after yesterday, he was certain that Charles would be happy to oblige.
He was calm as he climbed back into his bed, the weight of years lightened by the closeness of their ending. He touched the shirt with his hand and pretended that she was there next to him.
Gradually, the pain eased, cushioned by his knowledge that it would soon be gone forever and be replaced by peace and darkness. But for now there was only emptiness. He might have slept then, but curiosity, his besetting sin, made him consider the wolf who was killing others so near the Marrok's own territory.
Asil sucked in his breath and sat up.
So near the Marrok's territory. It killed, looking so much like his dear love. So near the Marrok's territory, or so near to Asil?
And then there were his dreams...his dreams always got stronger when the witch got too close.
Sarai hunting humans? He rubbed his eyes. Sarai barely hunted on the full-moon nights. Besides, Sarai was dead.
Despite the horror of imagining the witch so close, he discovered there was hope in his heart. But he knew that Sarai was dead, just as he knew that Mariposa had somehow stolen the bond between him and his mate.
That should have been beyond her, beyond any witch. The wolves kept their magics secret from others. Surely, if one of the families had discovered how to steal the bond between werewolves, they would have done it more than this once, and he would have heard of it by now. It had probably been an accident, a side effect of something else-but in all the years he'd been running, he'd never figured out what, unless it was the immortality Mariposa seemed to have gained upon Sarai's death.
Though he kept it closed as tightly as he could, he still felt the pull of the bond sometimes. As if Mariposa was trying to use it as she had that first day, before he realized what was wrong.
He'd thought it was Sarai. He knew that something was wrong, but the distance between them kept him from understanding exactly what. Then he'd woken in the middle of the night, tears falling from his eyes, though he didn't remember what he was dreaming. He'd reached for his Sarai...and touched alien madness.
He'd run all the rest of the way home, two full days, his bond locked down tight so he wouldn't touch that...ugliness again. And when he found Sarai dead and the house smelling of magic and Mariposa, he knew what had happened.
Two months later, the witch started to hunt him; he never had figured out exactly what she wanted. He, who had run from nothing, ran from a child not yet into her second decade of life. Because if she took Sarai, he could not guarantee that she could not take him. He was too old, too powerful to be a tool in the hands of a witch, dead or alive.
And his Sarai was dead. He squashed any faint hope lingering in his heart. She was dead, but maybe Mariposa had discovered some way to use the shape of her wolf, an illusion maybe.
That sounded right. Three attacks, and twice the victim had escaped. Humans don't often escape from werewolf attacks.
He was not unfamiliar with black magic. His mate had been an herbalist-it had been she who first taught him how to grow plants indoors. She had sold her herbs to witches until the vendettas between the witch families made it too dangerous. Illusions were among the very basic tenets of witchcraft. Making an illusion that could hurt or kill someone...he'd never heard of that. But his suspicion that Mariposa was behind the attacks settled into conviction; all the more reason he find Charles and tell him what he might be facing.
Besides, it wasn't in him to allow another person to fight his battles-and if this was Mariposa's mischief, then she was after him.
He closed his eyes but opened them almost immediately.
He was making a mountain of a molehill. Bran referred to the werewolf as "he." It was just a rogue. He was letting his own fears color the facts.
But it hadn't been a werewolf who sighted the rogue, a small voice argued. Would a pair of humans have noticed if the wolf was female? Female werewolves were not nearly as common; Bran could be assuming it was a male.
He hadn't seen the witch for almost half a century, hadn't caught a scent of her since he'd come to this continent. He'd covered his tracks and asked Bran to keep his presence here quiet.
And if she were here and wanted him, why hadn't she just come and gotten him?
It wasn't her...he waited for relief to flood him. It was probably not her.
Sarai was lost to him. She was two centuries dead; he'd buried her himself. He'd never heard of an illusion that could harm people.
Maybe the illusion had been the body he'd burned...Rest, Bran had told him, and he felt his body growing sluggish despite the frantic roiling of his mind. He set his seldom-used alarm for 12:01 A.M. Bran might have ordered him to stay here until morning, but Asil could interpret "morning" as he chose. And in the morning, he'd go out and find his answers.
* * * *
Anna found herself moving before she had time to think. Mary put out her hand and ended up with a handful of Anna's hair when she tore herself loose-to put herself between the human and whatever was in the trees. It sounded to her like a werewolf, but the wind would not cooperate and bring its scent to her. Had the wolf Charles was chasing doubled back?