Shifting Shadows

ROSES IN WINTER

Kara never appeared in any of the Mercy books, but her father’s appeal to Mercy for help in Blood Bound struck a chord in readers. I never go to a book-signing event where someone doesn’t ask about her. I knew that she went to Aspen Creek with the Marrok’s pack, and I expected her to show up in the Alpha and Omega novels. That’s what I told people. But she didn’t come to Aspen Creek until after the events in Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground. And then Fair Game jumped ahead because I needed the events at the end of the book to happen between River Marked and Frost Burned. Which meant that if I was going to tell Kara’s story, I’d have to do it in a short story.

The events in this story take place between Bone Crossed and Silver Borne.

Asil smelled the intruder as soon as he opened the door of his greenhouse, but he made no sign of it.

Kara Beckworth was the Marrok’s current puzzle. She’d been attacked when she was only ten and was the youngest survivor either Asil or Bran had ever heard of—and between them they covered a lot of years. Her parents had done the best they could, but their only source of information was from a half-mad, antisocial lone wolf whose greatest skill was that he never did anything to attract the Marrok’s attention, so he could be left to live his life in peace.

He’d told Kara’s parents they should let him kill her. When they’d refused, he’d told them to keep her away from other werewolves. So every full moon, her parents had kept her locked in a cage and, when she’d reacted as most young things who had been locked in a cage would react, decided that werewolves had no control of themselves. Before she could prove them right, or succeed in killing herself—something she hadn’t had enough knowledge to accomplish—her father had used his skills as a reporter to find more useful help. Eventually, that had landed Kara and her father here in Aspen Creek, Montana.

Asil turned on the water and began to dampen his tomato starts as he considered his response to the intrusion. Most of the greenhouse was on drip lines, but he preferred to do some of the work himself—and he’d learned that repairing a drip line was nearly as time-consuming as watering it all himself anyway and considerably less satisfactory. The temptation in this age was to automate too much and ruin his own fun.

“I know you know I’m here,” Kara said defensively.

“Good,” he said without looking up from what he was doing. “I would hate to think you were stupid.”

“I should be in school,” she said, a little more aggressively.

Full moon in two days, close enough to make her restless, is what he thought. Hard to sit in a classroom with the moon singing in your veins, especially when she was so young. But he wasn’t subversive enough, quite, to tell her that.

“So why are you here instead?” He kept his eyes on his plants—which were only barely sprouts. They had a while to go before they would be plants.

“I like greenhouses,” she said.

Ah—not a lie. Refreshing in a child of, what? Twelve or thirteen, he thought.

“And no one would look for me here.” There was a little pause. “I am sorry for trespassing.”

He heaved a sigh and turned off the switch at the business end of the hose, which would temporarily shut down the water. “And I am sorry I am a responsible adult—at least today. I must insist we telephone whoever is watching out for you so that they do not worry.”

He looked at her for the first time. She was scrunched in the corner of the building, sitting on an upended five-gallon bucket. She was bundled up in one of those jackets that made everyone look like marshmallows even though the temperature was still fairly mild for early fall in Montana. He had not bothered with a coat when he headed out of his house. Her arms were wrapped mutinously around herself, so maybe the marshmallow effect was for something other than warmth. She’d been staring at him until he looked at her, but she couldn’t hold his gaze and shrank back farther in the corner.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, curious. He was pretty sure that the Marrok, their Alpha, warned all the youngsters away from the big bad wolf.

She nodded. “You’re Asil. You’re the black wolf I saw on the last hunt. I can smell it.”

It had not been a moon hunt, those he no longer allowed himself; if the moon’s song was disturbing to those who were young, it dug in deep to those who were as old as he was. But he’d participated in the last training hunt, a few weeks ago. He was dark brown, not black, but he allowed that at night the difference was subtle, so he decided to let it pass.

She’d known nothing about being a werewolf when she’d come to Aspen Creek two months ago. She was learning to use her nose. She was also afraid of him, which normally he wouldn’t mind. But he didn’t like scaring children.

“Pack is different from the real world,” he told her. “No one in the pack will hurt you because the Marrok will not allow it. Other wolves you have to be wary around, but not pack.”

She raised her eyes to him.

“I can tell you are afraid,” he advised her gravely. “Otherwise, I would not have said anything. I will not hurt you. Nor will anyone in the pack.”

“You are dangerous,” she said. “I’m not the only wolf afraid of you. He warned me specifically to stay away from you.”

And so she, having been warned, had decided to hide in his greenhouse. It was not an atypical reaction for an adolescent.

He nodded gravely. “Yes, I am dangerous. The Alpha doesn’t talk just to hear himself speak. But I do not mind that the other wolves are afraid. To you I will say that there is no need to fear me or my wolf. I do not hurt women without grave cause and never children.” He could promise so much, he was almost certain. When he could not, then it would, indeed, be time to end his existence.

“Pack is safe,” she said, trying to believe it.

He sighed. “At other times and places you might have cause to worry about harm coming to you at a pack member’s hand. But in this time and place the Marrok has let it be known that you are under his protection and out of bounds for the usual snarls and dominance fights that come from being a werewolf. No one in the pack will defy him—and so you are utterly safe.”

“He is treating me different?” She sounded as if she wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

“You are different,” Asil told her. “And this pack is different. The Marrok has collected a bunch of misfits who are not suited to most packs, and that is combined with the newest wolves—next month is the month when the Marrok Changes those who wish to be werewolves.” Idiots, every one of them. “Some of us are very dangerous, so it is necessary for the Marrok to draw this line. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“And so it is that you do not need to be afraid of me.”

“What about Charles?”

Asil laughed. “Everyone is a little afraid of Charles except Anna.”

Her lips curled in a smile. “I got that, yeah.”

“So whom do I call to inform them you are here?” Asil asked. “This is not negotiable. Someone worries over you.”

She shrugged, unhappy again. He’d heard that her father had been sent back into the real world because his fear of her wolf was interfering with her ability to control herself. Neither she nor her father had been happy, but even the most experienced werewolf had trouble with a terrified human about. The idea that she even could control the wolf was very, very new to her, and real control was months if not years away. He didn’t know whom she was staying with now.

When she didn’t tell him, he took out his cell phone and called the Marrok.

“Asil?” said Bran.

“I have Miss Kara here in my greenhouse,” Asil said. “She is restless, and I think an afternoon of potting plants might suit her better than sitting in a desk with thirty children who are scared of her.”

She looked up at him, surprise on her face, as if she weren’t used to someone defending her.

“Of course,” said Bran. He sounded tired. “I should have thought of that. You are willing?”

Able is what he meant. It was a good question. Asil was very old, and his wolf was given to fits of rage, both of them nearing the end of their very long life. He tested his wolf, who seemed perfectly happy with an afternoon in the greenhouse with an unhappy adolescent.

“I think it shall be delightfully entertaining for both of us,” he told his Alpha.

Bran laughed. “All right. Bonne chance.”

Asil disconnected.

“Who was he wishing good luck? You or me?” She sounded wry.

“Knowing Bran, it could be either of us,” he said. “But it is probably you because he knows me. I do not need luck to deal with one young wolf.”

He put her to work deadheading roses because there wasn’t much she could do to screw it up. In his hothouse, with deadheading, he could keep roses all year long, though most of them he eventually let go dormant in the winter for the health of the plant.

It was early fall yet, so the rose section of his greenhouse was filled with flowers and heady perfume. He wished for the great gardens he’d grown in Spain, but most of his beauties would not live through a Montana winter without protection. He made do with the greenhouse and some hardy specimens planted near his house, where they were sheltered from the worst of the weather.

“Why roses?” Kara asked.

“Why not?” he said lightly as he mixed potting soil with his favorite concoction of rose food.

“Why not orchids or daisies or geraniums?” Her voice was thoughtful. “My mother has a greenhouse, and she grows all sorts of flowers.”

“I have many different flowers here,” he told her. “And I grow vegetables.”

“Most of the greenhouse—all of this room and half of the other one are all roses,” she said.

He opened his mouth to give her the easy answer, the one he used for everyone. He knew roses. It was better to be an expert in one thing than a dabbler in dozens. But he thought better of it.

“We all know about your trouble, do we not?” he said. “Your life has been spread out for total strangers—even though we are pack, we are still, right now, strangers—to look at and make judgement calls. You are not allowed secrets anymore—and we all should have things that we may keep to ourselves.”

Her mouth tightened. “It’s okay. Hard to hide that my parents are separated because my mother is scared of me, and my father is mad at her about it. Hard to hide what I am.”

“All true,” Asil said. “But here I think you need some secrets in return. So I will tell you something about me that no one else knows.”

“Okay.” She hesitated. “But what if I forget it’s a secret and tell someone?”

“It is not a harmful thing,” he said. “Only a tender thing that is hard for me to talk about. You are welcome to shout it on the streets—though I would rather you did not.”

She nodded.

“I am very old, and once I had a mate,” he told her. “She was everything to me. I would have filled her arms with jewels or gold if I could have. I would have destroyed the world for her—I was young and dramatic, you understand.”

Kara’s eyes widened. “You meant that. That you would have destroyed the world for her—it wasn’t just exaggeration. The Marrok is teaching me to smell when people lie or tell the truth.”

He gave her a formal nod. “Indeed. Being dramatic does not mean you do not have honest intentions. But destroying the world would not have saved her. She said, once, shortly before she died, that roses smelled like happiness. Whenever she smelled a rose, she thought of the day we met.” He brought a bloom up to his nose. “And after she told me that, I also think of that day when I smell roses.”

He cleared his throat and brought their conversation out of murky water. “And it is also true that with roses I am a genius, there are no others who breed roses such as mine. Why would I not choose to share my genius with others?”

“Okay,” she said. “And I won’t tell anyone the other reason. It is private.”

She was not a chatterer. The rest of the afternoon she worked quietly at whatever task he gave her. Someone, probably her mother, had taught her that, which made her more useful than he expected.

When Devon came, as he did sometimes, she didn’t look at the ragged old gaunt wolf or talk to him—though she kept a little closer to Asil than she had been. Devon settled on the ground with a sigh and didn’t look at Asil or Kara, either.

Devon was not as old as Asil, but like Asil, he was on his last years. If Asil were being honest, which he didn’t always choose to be, Devon was a lot closer to the end than he was. In all the time Asil had been in Montana, he’d never seen Devon use his human form. Like Asil, he sometimes shadowed the pack’s moon hunt, but he never participated. Devon’s presence in the pack spiritual weaving was dark and murky.

Several years ago, he’d started to come to Asil’s greenhouse. Usually, he’d sleep for an hour or two, but with Kara there, he just curled up and rested. His head turned away from them both.

“Bran says,” Asil told Kara as they began to clean up, “that all wolves need company. Devon is worried that he’ll hurt someone, so mostly he stays by himself. Me?” He told her grandly. “I am the Moor. He does not have to worry about hurting me. So he comes here.”

Devon got up, shook himself forcefully, stretched—and then gave Asil a look.

Asil raised his eyebrows and opened the door so the wolf could leave. When he was gone, Asil looked at Kara, who was biting her lip nervously. He’d scared her again, and he meant only to twit Devon.

“Because I like you,” he told her, “and because he cannot hear me, I’ll let you in on the real reason Devon comes here. He was once a gardener almost as good as I.” Devon, under a different name, had grown roses that rivaled Asil’s own a hundred years ago. “The Alice Vena rose in the corner”—he gave her a mock-disappointed look—“the burgundy rose next to the ‘stripy’ ones, as you call them. That Alice Vena descends from one of his roses. Devon misses his flowers and comes here to remember.”

That was true—and Devon would probably rather not have anyone but Asil know it. But it was also true that if Asil had not been so much more dominant, or if Asil had been the least bit afraid of him, Devon could not come for his little visits without risk of bloodshed. But Kara would be safer if she thought Devon was just here for the roses. Fear was not useful when keeping company with the oldest of the wolves. And Kara’s safety had become important to him.

“You will come here to me tomorrow,” Asil said as she put her coat back on. “Bring your schoolbooks, and you can teach me what they are doing in school since I was last in a schoolroom—which was several centuries ago. We shall make breakfast and prepare my outdoor gardens for the cold that is coming. You shall do this until after the moon is done with her singing, yes?”

“All right,” she said.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asked her. “There are no school buses from here.”

“I’m staying at the Marrok’s house until he finds a better situation for me.”

Asil grimaced in sympathy. “Let me know if Leah troubles you.”

Kara frowned at him. “She’s been very kind.”

“Really?” Asil took the notion of kindness and the Marrok’s mate and tried to put them in the same room together, but they wouldn’t fit. Maybe she had other rules when she dealt with children? He found that unlikely. “If that changes, feel free to let me know. In the meantime, I will give you a ride today—and you can catch the school bus in the morning and run here from school.”

“Run?”

He nodded. “It will do your wolf good to get rid of some of that energy.”

Kara taught him algebra and science and he taught her how to bed down plants with straw to protect them from the storm. He did not go on that moon hunt, as he had not gone on any since he’d moved from Spain to Montana.

But he shadowed them, making sure she was all right, even as he called himself an old fool: Bran would not allow harm to come to her any more than he would. Devon, who had come one more time to lurk with the roses while Kara taught Asil Montana geography, ran beside him for a mile or two before heading off to go wherever Devon went when he wasn’t in Asil’s greenhouse. Asil should have left as well—Kara was doing fine—but he didn’t. All the self-directed imprecations in the world could not make him go home until she was safely back at the Marrok’s home.

October dawned with a heavy snowstorm and strangers who came to Aspen Creek to be Changed. Asil avoided town. He avoided the Marrok’s house specifically, as the inductees—the Marrok’s word for the humans who wanted to become werewolves, not Asil’s—filled the Marrok’s home to bursting. The wolves and, in some cases, the human relatives who had come to support the inductees, took over the small motel in town.

The Marrok required anyone who wanted to be Changed to come two weeks beforehand. He told them it was so he could make sure they knew what they were getting into. He’d told Asil it was to give Bran one last chance to talk them out of it.

Asil wasn’t worried about how his wolf would react to all the strangers—not this year. But too many of the humans would die rather than be Changed as they wished, and their loved ones who came here with them would grieve. He had had enough grief and mourning, even secondhand, to last a thousand lifetimes.

Avoiding town meant driving to Missoula to resupply—which wasn’t a bad thing as Missoula had real grocery stores, bookstores, and restaurants. He ate lunch at his favorite Indian-vegan restaurant because the food was good and because it amused him—an ancient werewolf eating New Age vegan. And it was petty of him, but one of the waitresses was terrified of him and another one was vaguely disapproving—as if she could smell the meat on his breath. He enjoyed both reactions. He always made a point of leaving a big tip.

The roads were icy, but he was a good driver. Werewolves have very good reflexes, and he’d had years to perfect his ability to drive in the snow. He got home before dark. Once he’d unloaded and stored the results of his shopping trip, he went out to his greenhouse to play. Work. The challenge of growing things in this climate was invigorating—and expensive. He enjoyed the first and had no issues with the latter. He’d been poor—any number of times—but not in the last five hundred years.

He was repotting an African violet when someone scratched at the greenhouse door and whined. He opened the door and let Kara’s wolf in. She was wet and shivering, but not with the cold. Her eyes were miserable, and she whined at him piteously.

He’d never seen her take her wolf’s shape when it hadn’t been forced upon her by the moon’s call. Just last week, he’d suggested that the Marrok encourage her to do so because she wasn’t having much luck controlling her wolf without a more dominant wolf around. But the moon’s call made the wolf more difficult to deal with. Maybe she would have better results if she tried when the moon was in hiding.

“I told her that,” Bran had responded. “We’ve been trying to get her to attempt a change, but unless the moon forces her, she won’t do it.”

“You can make her do it,” Asil had told him.

Here, he thought, kneeling down to pull the pitiful, half-grown wolf against the warmth of his body, is the result of your meddling.

“Can’t change back?” he asked.

She moaned at him and shivered again. Partly, he thought, it had worked. It wasn’t a wolf who was looking up at him with such misery. Kara was in charge.

“No worries,” he told her. “You can do it.” He could force her change, and he would if he had to. But a forced change—like what the Marrok had done—hurt even worse than when the moon called the wolf from human shape. Better if she managed it herself.

He coaxed her into his rose room, where the sweet scent of his mate’s favorite flower filled the air with memories, and sat on the dirt floor with his back to the foot-high stone wall that edged his raised rosebush beds.

He patted the ground beside him, and she curled up in a miserable ball, wiggling and restless until finally she put her muzzle on his leg and sighed. He put a hand on her back and sang to her.

He didn’t have the Marrok’s voice—at various times Bran Cornick had made his living as a bard—but he could carry a tune. He crooned a child’s lullaby his father had sung to him. It wasn’t Spanish, but African, a Moorish tune his father had learned from his grandmother. Like Asil, it was old and worn, the words in a language that no one, to his knowledge, had spoken for a thousand years. Even he had forgotten what the words meant, but the song was for children. Its intent was to let them know that it was the job of adults to keep the young ones safe from harm. When he was finished with the song, he switched to stories he had told his own children; maybe she’d heard them from her parents in happier times.

She relaxed against him—and he thought she was more than half-asleep. But she was still caught in wolf form. Instead of letting her scare herself again, he coaxed her wolf to let the girl back out. It was still a use of force, of the dominance of his wolf over hers, but it wasn’t brutal or abrupt.

When she began changing back, he slid out from under her and quit touching her because he didn’t want to hurt her—and touching something made the shift hurt more. Quietly, because she was caught up in the change, he slipped out to his house to gather sweats for her to change into. It took her the better part of a half hour to emerge from the rose room garbed in clothes that were much too big for her.

“Thank you,” she told him, eyes averted. “I couldn’t change back. He called me to his study, made me change, then pushed me outside. Told me to come home in my human skin. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t change back.”

“Miss Kara,” he said after weighing his words. Not from him would she get any criticism of the Marrok, especially when he’d suggested it to Bran in the first place. There was no reason for him to be angry with Bran—though he was. “My greenhouse is flattered to have been your refuge from the storm.”

“I failed,” she said.

“Did you?” he asked.

She gave him an irritated look, and he smiled. “Let’s get you home, shall we?”

He carried her out to his car because although he had sweats she could wear, he didn’t have shoes. He handed her the leftovers from his vegan-restaurant excursion. She ate the food as fast as she could move fingers to mouth.

He drove up to the sprawling manor that was Bran Cornick’s house. Before he turned off the engine, Leah was there to collect his charge. She didn’t look at him—he’d scared her once, and she had learned her lesson about flirting with the Moor. She smiled at Kara, though, and his irritation with his Alpha’s mate died away. He waited until Kara was safely in the house before he drove off.

He hadn’t quite pulled into his driveway before his phone rang.

“Asil,” said the Marrok’s voice. He wasn’t happy.

“Bran,” replied Asil, who was still fighting down his own temper.

“It does her no good for you to help her to change. She has to be able to do it herself,” Bran said.

Asil took a deep breath and turned off his truck before he answered.

“When she came to my greenhouse and asked me to help, she was in full control of her wolf—even though she was scared because she couldn’t change back.”

“She has to do better than that,” snapped Bran uncharacteristically. He knew as well as Asil that it was a big step for her to be in control. It was a sign that she had finally begun accepting what she was—and it was a bigger sign that she’d be one of the ones who made it.

The people who would be Changed a couple of days before the next full moon would have one year to prove they could control their wolf—which included changing at will from one form to the other. Those who failed would be killed—no one could afford to have werewolves who couldn’t be trusted. Especially not now that the werewolves had revealed themselves to the humans. It was imperative that the public not know just how dangerous werewolves really were.

“Is she in danger?” asked Asil, trying to keep the menace out of his voice. Kara couldn’t afford for him to challenge the Marrok over her, not unless she was truly at risk.

“Not right now,” said Bran after a moment. He sounded exhausted. Asil thought about how he had not been able to face all the impending grief coming—and how the Marrok had to be in the center of it. His rules about Changing had saved countless lives—and probably the werewolves as a species—but it had not been without personal cost.

Bran sighed. “She’s just a baby. But unless she can control her shift and her wolf, I’m going to have to take her out with the new wolves—and that’s going to mean trouble. She’s too dominant to go without challenge, and she’s too young to prevail.”

Asil hissed at the thought of his Kara out in the First Hunt with a double handful of new werewolves out of control and ready to kill each other and anyone else who got in their way. Bran’s rules were good ones—they gave wolves a cage to protect themselves with. That did not mean those rules were without cost.

“Send her out tomorrow, too,” Asil said. “Tell her that I’ll be home around sunset and she can come to me for help if she needs it.”

“No,” said Bran. “She has school tomorrow.”

“This is more important than school.”

Bran sighed. “It is. I’ll send her out, but she needs to do the shift on her own. I might have Leah mention that you’ll be out doing things until sunset tomorrow.”

She wasn’t as frightened when she showed up the next night. He took her to his roses, where she tried to change back to human—tried very hard. But only with his help could she regain her human shape.

She was examining the sweats she wore doubtfully (today’s were gray and had a hole in the knee) when a car pulled up outside. She stiffened and gave him a panicked look.

“Peace,” he told her.

And Sage came in the door a moment later, looking as though she’d stepped off a walkway in Paris instead of a breezy autumn in near-wilderness Montana. She was tall, cool, and elegant with sun-streaked hair and warm blue eyes, and if he weren’t so old and fragile, he’d have been courting her as none of the idiots in the pack seemed able to do properly.

“Hello, hello,” she said. “How is my favorite evil monster who wants to die?”

Asil made a point of looking over his shoulder and all around before saying, “I don’t know. Had you asked where the handsomest, most noble creature on earth was, I could have told you. Had you asked where the most dangerous wolf in all the world was, I could have told you that as well. But there are no monsters here.”

She grinned at him. “Well, kitten,” she said to Kara, who was watching them openmouthed. “When I told him I was headed up to the big house tonight, Bran asked if I’d mind picking you up and save his Nobleness a trip.”

“Sure,” said Kara.

He closed the door behind them and put his forehead against it. His keen ears picked up a conversation he was not meant to overhear.

“He really likes you,” Kara said. “Really, really.”

“Well,” Sage’s voice was dry. “That’s not news, sugar. But he won’t do anything about it until it dawns on him that though he’s been waiting more than fifteen years for this famous ‘madness’ that is going to break him and turn him into a ravening monster—it just might not happen.”

“Fifteen years,” said Kara.

“Asil,” said Sage clearly, “needs to get over himself.”

Asil smiled at the acid tone that told him that she knew he was listening in. Clearly, she deserved him. If this were fifty years ago, he’d hunt her down and take her as his.

For a week, he managed to stay away from his home until sunset. When he got home, Kara would be waiting, a smallish half-grown werewolf. First she waited by the door of his greenhouse—but then Devon came and waited with her, his nose turned away and his eyes shut. After that, she came to his front porch and lay on the mat because Devon would not intrude so far into Asil’s territory.

On the seventh day, while she got dressed, he cut a few long-stemmed roses and put them in a pretty vase. Four of the peachy-colored ones because they smelled the best, and one (because that bush had only one rose that wasn’t too old) that was a deep red with a hint of blue or purple along the edge of each petal.

“Why are you bringing that?” Kara asked him in the truck when he gave her the vase to hold.

“Because a week is a unit of time,” he told her. “As in, let’s give this a week and see what will happen.”

She touched the rose petal sadly. “You think he’s going to be disappointed.”

“I never make predictions about other people’s responses,” Asil lied easily. She was not experienced enough to see through his lies, and he was happy to soften her life with them where he could.

The Marrok met them at his door.

“I need to see you both in my study,” he said, not unkindly.

Asil handed him the vase, and Bran took it—a bit bemused by the gift. Which is why Asil had brought it. He would not, would not defy the Marrok. He needed to be in this pack, so that when his wolf finally broke, there would be someone strong enough to hunt him down and kill him before his body count grew too high. Sage might disagree, but Asil knew his own fate. But that did not mean he intended to sit back and watch what might come. He would request leniency in such a way as not to challenge Bran’s authority.

Vase in one hand, Bran pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly with the other.

Asil didn’t wait for him to say anything, just led the way to Bran’s study, conscious of the reluctant teenager behind him. His wolf wanted to growl and protect her—but he knew better. Bran had nothing but her best interests in mind. Her best interests and the bribe of Bran’s favorite roses to let Bran know that Asil would do whatever he could to help.

Asil ignored the curious looks they got from the other people in Bran’s house. They would know Kara. Asil would learn their names if they made the transition, not before.

Bran closed the door to his study behind them.

“This isn’t working,” he said, setting the vase down on the desk.

Asil didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yesterday, when she came, I met her as a wolf. She was able to change to human when I did.” He’d hoped that would have kicked her into doing it herself—which is why he hadn’t tried it today. But she hadn’t been able to change on her own.

Bran raised an eyebrow and looked at Kara. “What do you think?”

She swallowed, ducking her head under the weight of the Marrok’s gaze, but her voice was strong. “I think I’m better. I can take charge almost as soon as we are out of sight of the house. I can’t manage it right when I change to a wolf yet—but until this week I couldn’t do it at all. I can’t change back on my own. But yesterday I think I figured out how to do it. How it should feel to start the change on my own.”

Bran frowned at the pair of them.

“Okay.” He tapped his desk and looked at Asil. “Any insights you might have would be helpful.”

Asil raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I’ve never seen a wolf as young as she is survive. I think we had a fourteen-year-old once. We had to kill him—but she’s a lot better adjusted than he ever got.”

“After three years,” the Marrok said, “she should be adjusted.”

Asil nodded and told Bran the things he already knew. “Not her fault. It would have been easier if someone had worked with her right away. Three years of incarceration encouraged her to build walls between herself and the wolf that they wouldn’t have had when she was first Changed. She’ll get it. It might take a few weeks or a few months.” He shrugged. “The roses are to let you know I’m willing to aid any way I can.” He seldom cut his roses, even the ones meant to be cut—it made them more valuable when he decided to bestow them upon someone. “If you decide to take her on First Hunt, I’ll come”—he smiled, knowing Bran would read the threat in the smile that wasn’t in his voice—“help.”

Bran’s mouth pinched, and he said silkily, “Is that a threat, Asil?”

“Would I threaten the Marrok?”

Bran laughed, and Asil’s wolf settled down as the tension in the room dissipated.

“Never,” said Bran mockingly. But his voice was kind when he told Kara, “So you have another reason to get control. First Hunt is not where either of us wants to see you. And no one wants Asil there.”

Her chin raised.

“Most of those who survive the Change will be male,” he said. “And all of them are fully adult. They won’t make allowances for your being young. Half the business of the First Hunt is establishing how dominant the wolves are. It will get bloody.” He glanced at Asil. “Very bloody if Asil joins us.”

He took a deep breath. “Fine. One more week. That gives you until the day before First Hunt. Kara, keep trying. Don’t go to Asil unless it doesn’t work. We won’t make Asil keep making himself scarce—but I don’t want you to go to him until sunset.”

“If she changes outside this time of the year, she’ll freeze,” Asil said. “Why don’t you let her come to the greenhouse—I’ll open the push door so she can get in.” He would never call it a dog door. “That way she’ll have clothes and warmth.”

“It is easier to work pack magic in the woods,” Bran said.

Asil snorted. “Not that I ever noticed. For a girl raised in the middle of the city, the woods are frightening and lonely. Her wolf will never let her change when she’s afraid.”

Bran regarded Asil without favor. “You didn’t think to mention this earlier?”

“You didn’t ask,” said Asil, who refused to say that he hadn’t thought of it before.

Bran saw through him—which was one of the reasons Asil liked him. “Too many strangers here for her to be comfortable—Leah’s said the same. Hah—I thought that might bother you. But that’s why I sent her out on her own.” He nodded. “Fine. But you leave her alone until sunset—and let her try her best to change herself.” He smiled at Asil and got back at him for every moment of stress Asil had put him through by saying, “I’m very glad to see that you care.”

Asil opened the study door—and there was another wolf in human skin standing with a hand raised to knock. The wolf looked vaguely smug and raised his eyes to meet Asil’s. The smug look—and the knock, no one knocked at the Marrok’s door when it was closed—annoyed Asil. He was more annoyed and a fair way to terrified by how his affection for Kara had blindsided him. He’d sworn not to make serious ties with anyone as he neared the end of his life.

So he vented by letting the unfortunate stranger feel the full weight of his wolf—driving him to his knees with the power he let roll out. He ignored Bran’s sigh and stalked out of the house without talking to anyone else.

Behind him he heard Bran say, “Eric. I thought we agreed that you would stay in the hotel until—”

The next evening he went out to his greenhouse and found a very sad-looking wolf. She was panting with the effort of trying to change. He went back to the house, brought her a plate of raw steak, and sat beside her while she ate. When she’d finished the plate, he pulled her into her change. She wouldn’t talk to him on the way home.

“It’ll happen,” he said.

“Don’t pat me on the head,” she snapped. “You don’t know anything!”

“Don’t,” he said softly.

Jaw jutting out, she turned her head away from him, while he fought his wolf hard enough to break into a sweat.

“You can’t challenge me like that,” he told her when he’d won his battle. “You are a wolf—not just a teenager. Bran won’t allow it, either.”

She hunched her shoulders, so he thought that Bran hadn’t allowed it.

“But my control isn’t as good as his. Look.” He held out a hand so she could see that it shook. “My wolf is unhappy with you, and he’ll enforce his dominance any way that he needs to. He’ll hurt you if you try that again. I don’t want that to happen.”

“I don’t want to be a werewolf,” she muttered, the scent of her fear filling the truck. She wiped her cheek with her hand. He couldn’t comfort her because his wolf was still angry.

He gave her a bitter smile she didn’t see because she wasn’t looking at him. “Neither do I.”

She didn’t come the next night. Asil waited as long as he dared, then called Bran.

“She’s here,” Bran said. “I helped her change, and it was harder than the last time I did it.”

He didn’t ask, but Asil told him anyway. “I scared her. She snapped at me, and my wolf was unhappy.”

“She’s dominant,” Bran said. “Too dominant for old wolves like us to be able to let things slide. I’ll talk to her.”

“No,” Asil told him. “She needs to be afraid. If she goes on First Hunt, it might make her safer if she is afraid.” Too much fear might cause the new wolves to hunt her, but not enough fear and she’d put herself in harm’s way. She needed not to go on First Hunt. But that was not why he had scared her. “She is safer if she is afraid of me. I almost hurt her, Bran.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.” It had been too close. And all she had done was show a little disrespect.

“She is safe with you, Asil.”

He laughed. “No one is safe with me. No one.” He hung up the phone—something, he told his wolf fiercely, that was much more disrespectful than Kara had been yesterday.

It snowed that night, dumping six inches before morning. Asil waited until it stopped around noon to go out and shovel it. He heard the howls of hunting wolves and frowned. All of the people in Aspen Creek—not that there were many of them—knew about the werewolves. But to hunt like that was still taking too many chances. Besides, he frowned, werewolves were not hounds, they did not need to make noise when they hunted.

And then he heard her; wolf or human, he knew her voice. Kara yipped, a high-pitched, terrified sound. Those bastards weren’t hunting deer. He dropped the shovel and ran, wishing he was on four paws, wishing his human body was faster, wishing the snow had not fallen so deeply. He howled, the cry sounding odd coming from his human throat, but it would carry, telling Kara he was on his way.

Who would dare? he thought with shock that slowed him not in the least. Who would dare hunt one of the Marrok’s pack in his own territory? Idiots, he decided grimly. It wasn’t an accident that Charles was feared as much as he was. That other werewolves thought of the Marrok as some magical wolf far removed from them—because it wasn’t in a werewolf’s nature to tamely bow to authority just because it was presented to them. Most especially it wasn’t in an Alpha werewolf’s nature. And sometimes Bran’s chosen means of presenting himself as a quiet, thoughtful, and intelligent leader became something of a liability.

Every few years, when the idiots had forgotten too much, or new idiots were born—the Marrok had to remind them why they obeyed him and not the other way around. Usually, Bran was sharp enough to make sure that the idiots didn’t hurt anyone but themselves along the way.

Asil’s body knew these woods, he’d spent nearly fifteen years here, and his feet knew every rock and hole within miles of his house. He was pretty sure he knew where the howls had been coming from. If Kara was leading them here, she’d take the most direct path—and after a week and more of coming to his greenhouse every day, she should know the most direct path.

The idiots were still making noise, so either they hadn’t caught her yet, or they were playing with her. Asil jumped a creek bed hidden under the snow and a thin sheet of ice and, with the trail flat and straight before him, stretched out and ran. He thought he’d hit top speed when Kara yipped in pain. He found another gear and moved faster.

They were loud, which was foolish and arrogant in these woods. Arrogance was a fine trait—but not when combined with stupidity.

Even as his wolf raged that one in his care had been hurt, his human brain was picking at the motivation. Everyone knew whose woods these were. Everyone knew that wolves who did not belong to the Marrok’s pack were not allowed to hunt here unless they were invited. Everyone here would know about Kara—she was unique, a child Changed who survived when no child survived a werewolf attack. Everyone knew she belonged to the Marrok, even though they did not know that she belonged to Asil—the Moor.

For fifteen years, Asil had tuned out gossip that came by him. He was no longer an Alpha, he had come here to die—what did he care about other werewolves?

There was a narrow gully up ahead, where prey could be trapped. From the sounds of it, that’s where his prey was. He quit worrying about why and began thinking about what he planned to do. He left the trail and ran up the side of the mountain so he could come at the gully from the side.

Kara growled fiercely, and his heart ached at the fear in her voice. Someone would pay for the fear in her voice.

He would kill them all.

No, Asil thought. He would let Bran kill them all. Because if he started killing, he did not trust himself to stop—and Kara was at risk. He would let the monster out someday, but not when it risked the death of someone in his charge.

He caught a glimpse of his quarry, mostly hidden by the drop in the terrain, and leaped in among them. He took them totally by surprise, three werewolves that his eyes didn’t know, though his nose told him that he’d met at least one of them before. Kara, blood streaming from a shallow cut along her ribs, yipped in terror and tried to jump in front of him. To protect him.

It hurt his pride even as it charmed him.

The strangers recovered their wits, such as they were, and turned to face him. Showing their fangs and snapping them together in an attempt to frighten him. They thought him helpless in his human skin.

“What are you?” he asked them in disgust. “Crocodiles?” He showed them his teeth as he let his power sweep over them, the power of an ancient wolf who had led his own pack for many centuries. The force of it rumbled in his voice as he said, “Down.”

All of the wolves dropped to the ground, including Kara.

But calling upon his power was a mistake. To call upon his dominance was to bring his wolf to the fore, and his wolf was savagely angry. He roared, tearing the tissues of his throat with the sound. He tasted his own blood before the werewolf healed the violence he’d done to himself.

It was Kara who saved him. She whined piteously, her wolf sensing his rage and not understanding that it wasn’t her at fault.

The wolf hesitated—and Asil locked the beast down with gentle finality. Not yet. He would not give in just yet. He wanted to see what this child of the wolf would grow into.

“Pobrecita,” he said to her tenderly. “Not you.” He lifted her to her feet. “You I am not angry with.” She pressed her unwounded side desperately tight to his leg. She was shaking and panting in fear. Not of him, he hoped.

“It is all right now,” he told her. “You are safe.”

One of the wolves lunged to his feet, snarling. She flinched, and Asil drove him back down to the snow-covered ground with his gaze. The man beneath the wolf’s pelt might want to attack, but his wolf was outclassed and knew it.

As long as they were in their wolf forms, they could not attack him. Asil glanced at Kara, who was fair game—though he thought that she would not be vulnerable for long. She had a backbone, that girl. He thought of the way she’d gotten between him and the other wolves because she mistakenly assumed that because he was in his human form, he might be outgunned. No, she was born to be a protector, she just needed to grow up.

For now, though, it was for him to protect her. So he did to the strangers what he had not done to Kara and used his power to drag them into their human bodies. The change would hurt—a lot—and then they would get cold on the walk to his car. He did not care at all about their sufferings.

I do, I want to see them suffer, said his darker self.

While the wolves who had thought they could hunt on the Marrok’s land changed, Asil checked Kara’s wound and she licked anxiously at his fingers. Her fur was caked with blood, but beneath the gore, her skin had already sealed.

“You’ll be fine,” he told her, ruffling the hair on the top of her head. “You did well to call to me—and to lead them here. I am sorry I could not kill them for you. But they will be suitably punished.”

Bran would probably not kill them unless they had been trouble before. But that there were three of them made Asil wonder who their Alpha was—and why he’d allowed them to hunt today and in this place. There was no way any kind of competent Alpha would not feel a hunt as chaotic as these idiots’ hunt had been through the pack bonds.

Perhaps their Alpha had sent them.

Asil considered the wolves who were nearing their human forms. The one he’d thought he’d recognized was the wolf he’d seen outside Bran’s office. Eric. Who had already disobeyed Bran by not staying away from Bran’s house until after the great day of Change was over.

Who would gain from such a brash breaking of Bran’s rules? Who would gain from Kara’s being harmed while she was under the Marrok’s protection? He did not know because he had kept himself ignorant—he had been self-indulgent and lazy, or maybe he would have seen this coming and spared Kara the fright.

Not your problem, Asil told himself fiercely under the sting of guilt. It was not self-indulgence because he had come here to set down his responsibilities and die with honor. He was not an Alpha here. He’d tended to such matters for long enough. Here his duty was clear. He would take them—and take Kara—to his Alpha. Once delivered, he was done.

Speaking of his Alpha . . . he took his cell phone out of its holster and called Bran.

“Asil?”

“I am standing in the middle of the forest where three of our werewolf guests had decided that hunting our Kara would bring them some benefit,” he said.

“They are still alive?”

“If they were not, I would be hunting my next victim instead of calling you,” he said.

“You sell yourself short,” Bran told Asil, but his voice was distracted. That argument was an old one. Asil did not make the mistake of thinking that Bran’s calmness meant he did not care that these wolves had trespassed. People died when Bran was at his most reasonable. Some of them died horribly. All of them idiots.

“I assume that Kara is all right,” Bran said. “If not, I would be getting reports about a werewolf who had killed every living thing in Aspen Creek and was heading next for Troy.”

Someone listening might think that Bran was being facetious, or even mocking—and they might be right. But it was himself he was mocking, not Asil. They both knew that Bran had been that monster.

“Probably,” agreed Asil. “But I would be a much better monster than you were. There would be no stories about my reign of terror because no one would live to tell the tale.”

Black humor took the sting out of the truth—but did not obscure it. And Asil knew the stories came later because the monster who had once ruled Bran’s body had not left victims alive, either. Bran had come back—and the reason for that was the reason why Bran Cornick was Asil’s Alpha and not the other way around.

“They’re almost done,” Asil told him.

“Done?”

“I made them change back to human—that way none of them will be able to hurt Kara when my back is turned. It’ll take us fifteen minutes or so to get to my house and another fifteen to take them to you.”

“Don’t make it too easy on them,” Bran said.

Asil smiled at the first of Kara’s attackers who was trying to stand up. “I won’t. You have my word.”

“See you in half an hour,” Bran said, and hung up.

Asil made the other wolves sit in the truck bed. If they had really been human, he’d have been risking their lives by making them stay out, naked, in the cold for so long. But werewolves can’t be killed by a little cold.

“It isn’t that cold,” he told Kara when she whined in concern while her attackers climbed in. “They are tough. If they are tough enough to pick on little girls”—he looked at them, and they turned their heads away—“then they are tough enough to ride in the back.” To them he said, “You stay there until we get where we are going. If you jump, I will back up and run over you until you are too broken to heal—and leave you for someone who cares to pick you up. It might take a while.”

They heard the truth in his words, and he saw their submission. They would stay where he’d put them—which disappointed him. He could have run them over with his truck without disturbing his wolf. He would have enjoyed it.

He opened the driver’s side door and gestured to Kara. She leaped in gracefully, the only evidence left of the wound the mess the blood had made of her fur.

He drove to the Marrok’s house, following four other cars and a truck doing the same thing: the Marrok had summoned the wolves. Because he knew where the only place big enough to house everyone was, Asil drove past the house and took the back road that allowed him to drive all the way to the pole barn. The truck in front of them did the same thing, and there were more trucks and SUVs parked at the barn—pack members.

The pole barn had been built about thirty years ago because the Marrok did not like Changing people in the school auditorium. “Too much blood and misery,” he’d said. “I am old enough to believe it leaves a mark on a place.”

Asil agreed.

Bran leaned against the outside wall of the pole barn as Asil drove up. He met Asil’s eyes through the windshield and pointed to the empty space in front of him, right next to the entrance. So Asil pulled in and parked.

Bran looked considerably less dangerous than Charles—the huge, blank-faced man who stood alertly beside him. Not for the first time, Asil thought that it had served Bran well to have a son who oozed threat like a Twinkie oozed plasticky cream filling. Everyone looked at Bran’s son Charles and forgot who the most dangerous person was.

Asil got out and held open the door for Kara. She jumped down beside him and gave Charles a wary look. Bran’s son was too busy taking in the shivering and naked men in the truck bed to notice. He threw them each a pair of sweat bottoms—which Asil hadn’t noticed him holding.

“Get dressed,” Charles rumbled at them. Once they were clothed, if only a little, Bran’s son took charge of herding them inside.

Once they were gone, Bran looked at Kara, who shrank under his gaze.

“It would have been better,” Bran said grimly, “if we hadn’t handed ammunition to our enemies. I’m afraid I’m as much at fault as you are, Asil. But it is Kara they want to pay.”

Asil frowned. Surely it should be the wolves who attacked Kara who would pay. “Explain that,” he said. Then, because he remembered that he wasn’t Alpha anymore, “Please. I don’t pay attention to politics anymore,” he told Bran, half-apologetically. “That’s your job.”

“Yeah,” Bran said. “Well, my job sucks.” He knelt and slid his hand along Kara’s jaw. Helplessly, her tail wagged her body—her wolf delighted by his attention. “You are mine, darling. I’ll keep you safe.”

Bran’s idea of safe, which paralleled Asil’s own, sometimes meant dead. Asil quit breathing for a moment.

Asil thought back over what he and Bran had done to imperil Kara. The last interaction had been in Bran’s study. He glanced at the door where the miscreant wolves had gone, preceding them into the pole barn. Eric of the “we attack children” pack had been waiting just outside that study door when Asil and Bran had spoken of how long Kara had been a wolf. She’d been a wolf for three years and had yet to be in control of her change.

That werewolves have one year to prove themselves or they have to be killed was a hard and necessary law. It required people to kill their loved ones to preserve the rest of the wolves. They were willing to do so only because that law applied to all of them. If Bran made an exception for Kara, it would spell decades of resentment and rebellion. If he did not make an exception for Kara, then Asil and Bran would have that battle that Asil came here for.

It was oddly stupid of them to hunt Kara so loudly where there were wolves to hear. It was odd that they had done so little damage to her. What if it had not been stupidity—or rather, it had been stupidity on a much grander scale? What if someone had wanted this meeting, wanted to push the issue of Kara out into the open?

Asil’s eyes met Bran’s—letting Bran know that Asil understood the issue, and that he would not allow Kara to be harmed without a protest. If Bran upheld the law, the battle that Asil had been seeking almost sixteen years ago when he’d first come here would take place.

“Whom do they belong to?” Asil asked.

“Hatchard Cole. A wolf who wants to expand his territory to include all of Alaska. He’d gladly take care of Liam Oldham and Ibrahim Ward—all he needs is my endorsement. If I don’t give it, he might just present me with a fait accompli.”

“Ah,” said Asil. “Is he here?” And is he still alive after a blackmail attempt like that?

“No,” Bran said sourly. “He gave the orders and left his wolves to spin in the wind when it didn’t work. When I called to inform him of the trespass after you called me, he commented about privileged wolves who do not follow the rules. I’m sure he’ll get some unsuspecting wolf all hot and bothered about it—someone who had to put a brother, mother, sister to rest when they couldn’t control themselves within the allotted time.”

“He wants your position,” Asil said. “Hatchard Cole.” He took a deep breath and thought about the werewolves he knew who were powerful enough to think they could take on Bran. “Was he perhaps once Conrad Hatch? I met him about three hundred years ago, give or take a few decades. Decent man, I thought then.”

Bran nodded. “That’s him. He hasn’t left Alaska since the 1880s. I’ve let him be, and until now he has given me no reason to complain.”

“Dominant wolves who do not live under your thumb forget why they swore obedience to you,” Asil said. “They become arrogant. And most of them do not like that you have brought us out into the eye of the public. They are stuck in old habits, and change frightens them.”

Bran smiled—a flash, then gone. “They?”

“I’m beyond that,” Asil said aloofly. “Now I’m just bored. He thinks that being Marrok is like being Alpha. If he can just knock you off your pedestal, make you look weak, it will reduce your support. Weaken your magic.” He snorted. “Idiot.”

Kara gave him an anxious whine.

“It will be okay,” he told her, his voice confident. Bran would hear the lie, but she wouldn’t—and that was all he cared about. To Bran he said, “I will stand with her.”

“Then go find Charles—he’ll be in the center of the floor with the three Alaskan wolves. I will come in when everyone is here.”

Kara beside him, Asil pushed his way through a group of people talking just outside the doorway. One of them turned to snarl, saw who it was, and shut up with gratifying suddenness.

The interior of the pole barn was set up with hay bales set around three sides in a horseshoe shape for seating, leaving the center as a stage. Bran hadn’t called the whole pack, but a casual glance told Asil that all of the wolves Asil would have considered stable—excepting himself—were there. The Marrok’s pack had more than its fair share of unstable wolves. Sage was seated near the far wall, but she caught his eyes and raised her eyebrows in a “do you know what’s going on?” He gravely nodded to her, though he could not conceive that his knowing anything helped her in the slightest. The three men he’d captured were on their knees in the center of the room, with Charles standing beside them.

He could hear the whispers of speculation; apparently Bran had not told anyone what he was doing. As Asil and Kara passed through the invisible ring imposed by Charles’s impassive regard, they became the subject of attention so thick Asil could taste it. When their audience noticed the blood on Kara’s side and digested what that meant in conjunction with the strangers on their knees in disgrace, Asil felt the pack bonds flash with the eager anger of the collected pack. Kara belonged to them, too.

Kara growled when the emotion hit her—and Asil put his hand on her head. “Shh,” he said.

Charles gave him a stiff nod, looked at Kara, and flinched almost imperceptibly. If Bran decided Kara must die, Asil would have to defeat Charles before Bran in order to save Kara. And even if he managed it, that would leave him in charge, not just of a pack, but of all the packs in this part of the world.

Not acceptable. Asil was done with responsibility.

Kara would have to change on her own.

He looked around the barn, where strangers gathered. His eyes lingered on a group of wolves whose leader was staring at Kara with a little too much anger. This would be the wolf who would challenge Kara’s fitness, and the unwitting tool for Hatchard Cole who had once been Conrad Hatch. This wolf’s face was familiar; eventually his name would work its way out of Asil’s memories.

Perhaps Asil could take him out before he opened his mouth.

The outer doors shut with a hollow boom, and Bran let his power flush through the building, bringing with it absolute silence. His pack, well used to his ways, knew it was a sign that the show was on—the strangers, unused to the sheer enormity of the Marrok’s effect on their wolves, were silenced by the display.

“Take a seat, please,” Bran asked them simply.

The milling crowd resolved itself into an orderly audience. There were more people than the hay bales could seat. The wolves who couldn’t find seating on the hay simply sat on the wooden-plank floor. Even knowing that Bran did not mean him, Asil had to lock his knees to stay upright. Kara sat, then leaned harder against his leg as she craned her neck to look at Bran as he walked soberly into the center of the room, facing his audience.

“Today, I come before you to render justice,” he said. “For this reason, I have asked you and your candidates to gather here today. So that those who wish to be wolves can see what that truly means. These gentlemen were found hunting as wolves in my territory without my permission.” He paused to let them think about that, leaving the silence for exactly long enough.

Bran’s timing was almost as good as Asil’s.

“The penalty for hunting without invitation upon my lands is one thing,” he said. “That their prey was one of mine upon my lands is another.”

He strolled past the three kneeling men without looking at them. He turned like any good actor, into the audience rather than away from them. He took time to let his eyes meet, however briefly, the gaze of all the wolves in the room. Asil watched Bran’s attention drive the eyes of everyone—human or not—to the ground. The effect was almost eerie.

Then he turned his focus to the trespassers. “Eric,” he said. “Were you under orders?”

The werewolf addressed bit his lip until it bled in an effort not to speak.

“Eric?” Bran’s voice was gentle, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t compelling.

“Yes.”

“Cole’s orders?”

Eric’s skin flushed down his cheekbones as he ground his teeth. “Yes.”

“Hatchard Cole is their Alpha,” Bran said. “He chose to stay in Alaska and sent these three with Eric’s brother, who is a candidate.” He paused. “Eric’s wife is in Alaska under the protection of Hatchard Cole.”

Asil did not point out that, hostage or not, Eric had been quite willing to hunt down a thirteen-year-old girl and hurt her. He was pretty certain that if he had not heard her, Kara would have been hurt worse, even if they had not killed her.

But he trusted Bran. Really. The bastard wouldn’t get away with anything.

Eric opened his mouth to say something, but Bran beat him to it. “He was sent here originally to tell me that Cole is taking over all of Alaska, and I could give my permission, or he’d just take it. When Cole wasn’t happy with my reply, he told his wolves to make trouble.”

Bran smiled. “What he doesn’t know is that there are eight packs in Alaska, not three.” He checked his watch. “Excuse me. What he did not know until right about now—is that there are eight packs in Alaska. It is a big state. Silver Pete and the rest of the Alphas are reminding him that he is due so much of it, and no more.”

No one said a word, but Asil could feel the frisson of excitement travel through the barn. Silver Pete might not be as big a legend as Asil, himself, was, but his name was still known. He was also supposed to have died a hundred years ago.

Bran tilted his head and listened to the electric silence. He breathed in and out twice. When he spoke, his voice dropped into a husky bass. The way the audience flinched back, Asil was pretty sure that he’d let his wolf out enough they could see it in his eyes. “If Asil had not stopped these idiots before they hurt Kara worse, I would have killed these men and Cole as well. I owe it to Asil that I have options.”

He took a step back and turned subtly, focusing the attention back upon the werewolves Asil had brought here. “I think these men need a change of pack.” His voice was thoughtful. He switched from addressing the audience to the men on their knees. “We’ll keep you here a month or so to explain proper manners. Then I’ll move you someplace suitable. Your brother, Eric, I think should wait until next year before he seeks to be Changed. If he still would like to Change, when tempers are cooler, he may ask again. I need not tell you that if you attempt to Change him on your own, your life is forfeit.”

And I will know.

Eric jerked his head up to Bran’s, then quickly away. The men with him just shrank. Asil enjoyed the scent of fear that rose in the air. Knowing that Bran could talk in your head was a completely different thing than having him do it.

Bran nodded at Charles. Charles looked at the prisoners and smiled. Asil had practiced in a mirror, trying to get that smile. His own were very good, but he hadn’t gotten quite the same “I’d rather rip you to little pieces, but my father says I can’t—yet” effect. Asil was better at the “I’m crazy, and you are about to die.”

“Up,” Charles told them. Then he pointed to the door and followed them out.

Bran waited until the door closed behind him.

I have sent him away. This is between us, Old Wolf. Bran’s voice was a somber thread in his head. No one else reacted, so Asil assumed that Bran talked to him alone. I cannot break my own laws. Not when my friends are killing their wives, their children and grandchildren for the good of all.

“Can you give her a chance?” Asil asked aloud. “Let her try?”

Drawing this out will do nothing but make it harder.

The other wolves had begun to murmur as Bran’s failure to dismiss them implied that there was more business at hand than they’d seen so far.

Kara was starting to get worried, she looked at Asil and whined. He put a hand on her head, and tension in the room began to climb. Some of them might know what this was about—but Asil’s gesture told them that there was a disagreement between Asil and the Marrok, and it involved Kara. The Marrok’s pack, at least, would know what this might mean.

“Let me help,” Asil said.

The wolf who had been staring at Kara before Bran came into the pole barn came to his feet. “Last year on the twentieth of October, I killed my mate. For thirty years she was my wife. She asked to be Changed, and after a year as a wolf, she could not shift from one form to another without my help.”

He didn’t say anything more, nor did he have to.

A second wolf stood up. “Three children,” he said. “Three children of four I killed. One died a week after the Change because he was uncontrollably violent, and not even the Marrok could help. I killed him before Bran was forced to. One I killed when he attacked his human family. One I killed on his anniversary date because he could not control his shift.”

Kara stared at the standing men and began to shake.

A third wolf stood up—this one Asil knew. The Alpha of the Emerald City Pack was not a big man, but he didn’t need to be. “The laws are right, Bran Cornick. This is why we have always supported you.” He bowed his head, and Asil could tell that what he said hurt him. “Thirteen is not fair—we all know that. But fair is not an option when you are a werewolf. We cannot afford to ignore the laws that have allowed us to survive. You and I both remember different times, Bran. I do not want a return of those old times. Justice, for us, cannot contain mercy because we cannot afford it.”

These werewolves were honest, and as much as Asil hated to admit it, they had reason behind what they said. He could not take out his rage on them. But Hatchard Cole, Asil thought very carefully to his wolf, is a dead man. The wolf’s agreement spread to his chest in a warm wave of rage.

“It has always been acceptable,” Asil said clearly, “for wolves to receive such aid that does not involve pack bonds or magic in order to pass the test.” Neither he nor Bran could call her wolf out of her. Nor could they change themselves and hope to call her change.

“Yes,” agreed Bran.

“I’ll be right back,” Asil said. He bent down and whispered into her ear.

Bran heard him, but that didn’t matter so much.

Louder he told her, “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

He started out of the room, and the first wolf who’d stood up said, “So we all wait on you?”

Asil turned and looked at him. His wolf looked, too—and his wolf thought that maybe they’d hunt someone before they tracked down Hatchard Cole. Being a dupe was one thing, eagerness for the death of a child was something entirely different.

“You are so anxious to kill her that you cannot wait ten minutes?” He didn’t bother saying anything else, just turned on his heel and strode out of the door.

Sick at heart, he trotted through the snow to the Marrok’s house. She would fail. He would fight the Marrok, but he knew how that would end. And then the Marrok would kill her. All of them would pay because Hatchard Cole was greedy.

“Unacceptable,” he said aloud. He took a deep breath. She was almost there. Another week. Maybe only another day or two, and she would make it. But they did not have that time. All he could give her was a fighting chance.

Inside the house, he went right to Bran’s study. The roses he’d brought were still in good shape, though the big black-red rose was starting to droop. That was the one he pulled out of the vase. One would work better than all of them.

“Do not fail me,” he told it sternly.

“Roses are good,” said Devon.

Asil, not used to being startled, let out an involuntary snarl, then swallowed it.

Devon stood in his human body. Every rib showed, and his muscles were stringy—almost like a very old man’s. He was shivering with nervous energy, and his eyes shifted back and forth between brown and gold every time he blinked.

“I didn’t see you here,” Asil said after a moment when Devon didn’t say anything.

“The rose will help her,” Devon told him. “Especially if she believes what you told her.”

Devon hadn’t been in the pole barn when he’d whispered to Kara.

“Belief,” said Devon, “is the most powerful magic of all.”

“Yes,” agreed Asil. It was hard to recognize his old friend in this too-gaunt and nervous stranger. “So I hope.”

“But music is what really helps me,” Devon told him. “When I have a bad day, I go to the greenhouse. When I have a very bad day, I come here, and Bran plays for me.”

“Music?” asked Asil, startled.

“You had that one song you used to play.” Bran had musical instruments scattered all over the house. An acoustic guitar was balanced on a floor stand. Devon picked it up and held it out in a hand that vibrated with his tension. “Do you remember? To make your roses grow. She is so scared. She needs you to help her grow.”

“It wasn’t on a guitar like this.” Asil knew which song he meant. “And a child is not a rose, to flower with music.”

But Asil took the guitar anyway. He could play guitar, even if it had been a while. He was pretty sure he could even manage to work out that old song on this modern descendant of the guitarra morisca he’d originally composed it on.

“That song,” Devon said urgently, hugging his now-empty hands against himself. “You play that one.”

“All right, mi amigo.”

Devon looked down. “I have to—have to change back.” He closed his eyes. “She smells like Freda,” he said. “Don’t you think? Freda liked that song.”

“She is very like,” said Asil, who did not remember what Devon’s long-ago daughter had smelled like. But he did remember a pretty little thing who had been fond of roses and moved like a colt. Kara had that same awkward gracefulness, too. Freda had lived to be a grandmother and died centuries ago.

The change took Devon again, slowly swallowing Asil’s old friend in the protective skin of the wolf. He did not expect that they would converse again in this lifetime.

He let the old wolf change in peace and left, rose in one hand and guitar in the other, to do battle with fate.

The pole barn was silent when he returned. The wolves who had been standing were seated. Charles was back and gave him a look that told Asil that the Marrok’s son had realized that his father had sent him away to give Asil a chance to fight Bran without interference.

Bran looked at his guitar in Asil’s hand.

“Yes, I know,” Asil said. “Your guitar. Also, you play it better than I do. But I promised Devon I would play her a song for him.” He looked at Kara, who was lying in a miserable heap at Bran’s feet. “He told me that music helped him.” He crouched, ignoring the other people’s reactions. “Devon has not taken human form in my presence for a hundred years,” he told her. “He did tonight because he is worried about you. He thought it would help if I play a song I played to his daughter a long time ago.” He put the rose on the ground in front of her. “I want you to close your eyes, smell the rose. Remember what I told you. Listen to the music, and let Kara come out to play.”

She gave him a long look.

He let her hold his gaze, and said simply, “Trust me.”

She put her nose on the flower and took a deep breath.

There was a wave of sound from the assembled werewolves, and Asil looked up, irritated. But he lost his irritation when Devon came into the barn, all the way wolf now. He tipped his head so he didn’t look at anyone as he trotted over to Kara and dropped a blanket on top of her. He looked up to Bran without meeting his Alpha’s gaze, let his eyes trail over Charles, then Asil.

“Thank you,” Asil murmured, spreading the blanket over Kara.

Devon had realized that a young girl would not be comfortable being naked in front of a room filled with werewolves, most of whom were men. It had been a long time since Asil had experienced a shred of modesty.

Devon ducked his head, hesitated, then licked Kara’s face. Then he turned and trotted out of the building, not quite running away.

Asil sat on the ground beside Kara and strummed the guitar. He looked at Bran. “It’s out of tune.”

“You are wasting time,” said the wolf who had had to kill his wife. “You’re just making it harder on her.”

“I said silence.” Bran’s voice didn’t have to be loud to be effective. To Asil, Bran said, “New strings. They take a while to break in.”

Asil tuned the high E string until he was pleased with it. He played a little of this and that, letting his fingers learn the spacing of Bran’s guitar. The one he usually played had a slightly narrower neck.

He slid into the song a few chords at a time, his fingers finding the notes that his heart knew. He played the chorus twice before he sang the first verse.

It was a very long and silly song, more about the sound of the words than the meaning. Each verse a medley of compliments that sounded like they were addressed to a woman, but the chorus made it clear that it was addressed to a flower instead.

He glanced around the room. He could see the people who understood Spanish because, even under the serious circumstance, they started to grin. Kara didn’t, as far as he knew, speak Spanish. But under the blanket, she’d quit shivering.

When he finished the chorus, he sang the first verse in English, translating on the fly. When he couldn’t find a word fast enough, he used the Spanish word and kept going. It worked, adding humor. On the second verse, Bran joined him. Sometimes, Bran found a different English word than Asil did—sometimes it was a better one.

Just before they started the second chorus, Asil leaned down, and said, “Now, chica. Try now.” He didn’t put any particular force in his voice, nothing any of their watchers could object to. If there was power in his words, it was only the power of hope.

Kara sighed—and began to change.

Asil was unashamed when a tear slid down his face.

When she could speak, Kara said, “It was a magical rose. Like you said.”

Bran’s eyebrows shot up. And several of the wolves in the audience came to their feet at her words.

Asil lifted a haughty brow. “There is magic in a rose in winter,” he told them. “If only because it is a rose in winter.” He smiled at Kara. “But that change you accomplished yourself.”

A few weeks later, Asil answered a knock on his greenhouse door.

“Bran,” he said. “How nice to see you.”

Bran folded his arms and looked at Asil without making any attempt to come inside. “You’ve been gone for a few days.”

Asil smiled. He stepped outside and closed the door, to keep the cold from getting inside. “I’m flattered that you noticed.”

“Hatchard Cole’s second called me this morning. Seems Hatchard disappeared. No sign of struggle, no sign of anything. He just vanished.”

Asil’s wolf slid out and looked at their Alpha. “Odd,” Asil said, knowing the wolf was in his voice. Knowing that Bran would hear the satisfaction he did not bother to hide.

“I remember,” Bran said softly. “There was an Alpha in Spain who was a very bad man, two hundred years ago. He hurt a lot of people. And then one day, his second went to that Alpha’s home and his Alpha was just gone. No sign of struggle. No scent of strangers. Nothing. No one ever heard of him again.”

Asil shrugged.

“Someday, you aren’t going to come back from a kill,” Bran said intently.

“Some risks are worth taking,” Asil told him. “Did you hear that Kara’s dad is bringing her mom to visit?”

Bran’s face gentled. “Yes. I heard. Kara told me, too.”