“Yes?” She hit the gas and drove out of the parking lot headed north.
“Don’t ever call me sweetcheeks.”
She grinned at him, then paid strict attention to her driving. As she took them out to the Sanis’ ranch, he wondered that she could look at him, who had hands that would never, could never come clean, and she saw hope.
Hosteen was there when they got back. He frowned warily at Anna. But Anna had seen terrible things today. Having a grumpy old werewolf who freaked out because she could send his wolf to sleep was barely a blip on her radar. Not when she was worried about Charles, who hadn’t said a single word all the way to the ranch.
His hand was on the small of her back, though. So they had to be good, right?
“Wade told me that Cantrip and the FBI are letting you help go after the fae who tried to kill my great-grandchildren,” Hosteen growled.
He was talking to Charles, but it was the wrong attitude to throw at her husband just now. Anna said, “We worked with the FBI and Cantrip today. We found the girl who’d been replaced by the changeling. She’s alive, and I think she’ll be okay. Wade or Kage told you about the changeling, right? Also, the FBI think they have the person who took her and spelled Chelsea in custody. He was the janitor at the day care.”
She waited, the tension in the air rising as her husband started to get angry. It was like the whole hallway started to smell of ozone—the smell was imaginary, but the energy crackled.
“You know what?” she said suddenly. “This is not the time for this. We just found the bodies of dozens of children stacked up like forgotten dolls. You two go ahead and have your fight. This is not my problem to fix.”
Charles’s hand curled around the nape of her neck.
Hosteen said, “Feisty, isn’t she?”
“Tired of drama today,” said Charles. “So am I.”
Something happened between them; Anna was sure of it. Something she missed because Charles was behind her, or maybe it was some guy thing. But the air cleared.
Charles said, “Are we going to have drama here?”
Hosteen rubbed his face with both hands. “Hell, Charles, there is always some sort of drama going on here. If you think wolf packs are big on drama, you should try the horse crowd for a while.” He looked at Anna. “My problem with you is just that, my problem. I’ve never met a real Omega before. I didn’t understand what that meant. I don’t like making a fool out of myself; my father was a drunkard and I swore never to be one.”
He wasn’t the first werewolf to freak out about what Omega really meant. She suspected he wouldn’t be the last. He was being gracious, so she could be gracious, too.
“Yes,” she said. “It hits the dominant wolves harder, I’m told. For what it’s worth, I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t know I could affect someone like that; if I had, I’d have warned you.” She’d have apologized earlier, but he hadn’t given her the chance.
She was hungry. Changing always left her starving, and so did drama. “I smell food. Is there any left?”
Hosteen smiled, and bowed. She saw some martial arts training in that bow. “I think they left you some,” he said, his face lit with mischief. “We could go see.”
Chelsea came out of her room to eat with them, making it a late supper for four. Kage was out working in the stables with all three kids. They had taken some horses to the show grounds that night and were planning on taking more in the morning. Maggie and Joseph had eaten in Joseph’s suite earlier in the day. Ernestine was in her room taking a break.
Chelsea had accepted the news that they’d found Amethyst and, probably, the fae responsible for all the trouble with a faint smile and a quiet “That’s good.”
Anna worried that she was being too quiet, like the calm before the storm.
Bran had developed a method designed to minimize the problems of the Change as much as they could be minimized. People who wanted to become werewolves petitioned Bran, the Marrok. They would fill out questionnaires, get testimonials from people they knew (werewolves), and write essays on why they wanted to be werewolves. Those with good enough reasons and stable personalities (although Anna had argued that anyone who wanted to be a werewolf on purpose could not be deemed “stable” on any level) were granted their petition.
The actual Change was done at the same time every year, complete with a set of ceremonies intended to weed out the bad seeds and the weak willed, the latter of whom would not survive the Change they were seeking.
Bran’s intention was to increase the survivability of werewolves. And it worked. Those who attended Bran’s version of the Change were much more likely to live, long-term, than those who were simply Changed by accident or attack.
They knew what to expect, they knew the costs, and they understood what they were getting into. The others, those like Anna and Chelsea, had to deal with the reality of being a werewolf on the fly. Chelsea looked as though she was having trouble adjusting. Maybe Anna could help with that.
She took a bite of very good lasagna and said, in as conversational a tone as she could manage, “I was trying to gently tell this guy that I had decided that we shouldn’t go on any more dates when he attacked me and turned me into a werewolf.” She looked at Hosteen. “This is very good; did Ernestine make it?”
He shook his head. “No. I did.” He smiled. “Part of my penance for riding off in the middle of things.”
“I’d love your recipe.” She took another bite.
“I’ll write it down for you before you go,” he said.
She nodded. “I’d like that.” She looked at Chelsea. “They had been looking for some time for an Omega wolf, because Omegas, among other things, can calm werewolves. The Alpha in Chicago, where I lived, was desperately in love with his mate. She was getting more and more violent; that sometimes happens to old werewolves. Anyway”—she forced herself to eat another bite and swallow it—“this was before werewolves had come out. I didn’t even know they were real when I turned into one.” The next bite stuck in her throat and she couldn’t talk.
“They kept her prisoner,” Charles said in a low voice. “Abused her because that was the only way they could control her. You know that packs are very hierarchical. An Omega is outside the pack structure like that. She—or he—doesn’t feel the same need to obey.”
Charles gave Chelsea a compassionate look, though Anna didn’t know if anyone but she could read him well enough to see the sympathy in his eyes. “Like the way that you felt you needed to come here and eat with us, only because Hosteen asked you to.”