Alpha Omega 02 - Hunting Ground

enemy. Brother Wolf’s voice was clearer in her head than even the Marrok’s. And the Marrok spoke in words—Brother Wolf wasn’t hampered by anything so human.
    Anna pulled her hand away from Charles as if he’d burned her, and stared at her fingers. Charles’s shoulder bumped her with silent reassurance, a casual gesture the fae woman probably hadn’t noticed. Or was too polite to comment on.
    Later, murmured Brother Wolf quietly, then she was alone in her head. Alone with the remnants of jealousy and . . . hurt at Brother Wolf’s rejection. Knowing that she shouldn’t feel either didn’t help at all.
    Charles took the package he’d brought and handed it to Dana.
    Dana’s eyebrows rose. “Butcher paper and twine?”
    He shrugged. “Da gave it to me that way.”
    The fae shook her head and opened a drawer in a bird’s-eye maple desk and pulled out a pair of delicate sterling silver scissors. Setting the package on the desktop, she cut the string and opened it.
    And the alien thing Anna had glimpsed earlier was back in full measure. Dana didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink, but the portent of . . . something filled the space they were in. Every muscle, every hair on Anna’s body warned her to run.
    She looked at Charles. His attention was on the fae, but he wasn’t alarmed. Did he not feel it? Or was he so confident that Dana’s threat was something he could handle? But his calm helped Anna regain hers. She waited to see what had caused such a strong reaction.
    Even before Dana had opened the package, it’d been obvious that a painting was inside. It wasn’t large. Ten inches by twelve, maybe, framed in oak a couple of shades darker than the desk’s maple, a waterscape of some sort.
    â€œDa said to tell you it was what he remembered,” Charles said. “That he might have gotten some of the details a little wrong, but he thought not.”
    â€œI didn’t know the Marrok painted.” Dana’s voice was . . . deeper somehow. Rich and hoary with age. Her hands trembled as she touched the painting. The fae’s power that Anna had felt so strongly just a few moments ago was gone as if it had never been.
    â€œHe doesn’t.” Charles shook his head. “But we have an artist in our pack, and he has a gift for painting other people’s words—and my father is very good with words.”
    â€œI didn’t know your father was ever there.” The fae sounded . . . lost.
    Charles shrugged. “You know how Da is. No one notices him unless he intends it. And he is a bard. He goes everywhere.”
    Dana lifted her head, and her eyes were puffy, her nose red, though no tears fell down her cheeks. She looked very human. “How did he know?”
    Charles lifted both of his hands. “Who knows how my da figures out anything. He thought it would please you.”
    She looked at it again, and Anna couldn’t tell if she was pleased or not—overcome, certainly. Shocked. “My home. It is long gone. Destroyed by magic and geology, the spring dried up centuries ago. The site it occupied is a city street that bears the name of a hundred other streets in a hundred other cities. I thought all memory of it was lost.” She touched the painting the way Anna touched Charles: lightly, cautious of pain but unable to resist the draw of it.
    She tipped it so they both could see it better. The side of a lake, Anna thought. A deep lake to catch the color of the sky and darken the blue to a near black. The artwork was plainer than the painting Dana had been working on, and the canvas much smaller. But in simple brushstrokes, the artist had captured an unworldly quality that made the small picture a window into a foreign place. A place that held no welcome for Anna—but somehow it matched the alien look she’d glimpsed in Dana’s eyes.
    â€œTell your father,” Dana said, returning her attention to the painting, “that I will see if I can return a gift of equal value to him. And my apologies if I don’t.”
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    â€œWELL,” said Anna, once they were safely on their way.
    â€œThat was . . . unsettling.”
    â€œYou didn’t like her?”
    She looked at him, then turned her attention back to the road. When the fae’s spell had brushed her, Anna had wanted to like her, to fawn at her feet and wait for crumbs of kindness. The rest of