Alpha Omega 02 - Hunting Ground

in his stance, in the way he wouldn’t look at the Frenchman’s eyes. She could smell it in the scent of his fear.
    â€œSergio, mi amigo ,” said the dark Spaniard who’d spoken before. “Stand down. The fight is over. Charles is here.”
    The Spanish fighter hadn’t noticed Charles’s approach, and his startled look was very nearly his undoing. Jean Chastel’s right arm shot out and would have connected with his opponent’s neck, but Charles had already been moving—as if he’d known what the French wolf would do before Chastel had known it himself.
    Charles intercepted the blow and jerked Chastel around, using the other’s momentum to propel him into his own people. A quick glance at the Spanish wolves had them all backing up a step, then his attention was focused on the first wolf.
    â€œFools,” Charles snarled. “This is a public place. I’ll not have you disturbing the peace while you are guests on Emerald City Pack grounds.”
    â€œ You’ll not have us, pup?” murmured the Frenchman, who’d recovered quickly from the unplanned impact with his wolves. He tugged on the sleeves of his long-sleeved, button-up shirt, a gesture that looked more habitual than effectual. “I’d heard the old wolf had sent his puppy for us to feast on, but I thought it was merely wishful thinking.”
    There was something abject about the way the rest of the French contingent stood that told Anna that none of them liked what their leader was doing, that they followed Jean Chastel out of fear. It made them no less dangerous—maybe more so. Her wolf knew them for Alphas, every one of them, and all afraid.
    Beneath all the aggression and posturing in the room, there was an undercurrent of fear: hers, the Spaniard’s, and the French wolves’, so thick that she sneezed at the smell of it, drawing unwanted attention. Jean Chastel’s eyes met hers, and she held them, despite the violence they promised. Here, she thought, here was a monster worse than the troll under the bridge. He stank of evil.
    â€œAh,” he said, sounding almost gentle. “Another story I’d dismissed. So you found yourself an Omega, half-breed. Pretty child. So soft and delicate.” He licked his lips. “I bet she’s a tasty morsel.”
    â€œYou’ll never find out, Chastel,” said Charles softly. “Back down or leave.”
    â€œI have a third choice,” Chastel whispered. “I think I might take that one.”
    There was no good outcome for this, Anna realized, the push bar of the door digging into her lower back. Charles might have allies among the Spaniards, and maybe even the British wolf. But even so, if they stepped in, they’d be showing that Charles was weak. She had boundless faith in Charles’s abilities to wipe the floor with the French wolf, but even that would be a failure of sorts. This was a public place—a fight would mean police and exposure of quite a different sort than what Bran wanted.
    Maybe she could help defuse it. She’d been working with Asil, an old wolf in her new pack, to try to come to some understanding of what she could do. His dead mate had been an Omega just like Anna, so he knew something about how her abilities worked—which was more than anyone else did. Even Bran, the Marrok, had only vague ideas. With Asil’s help, she’d managed a few interesting things.
    Charles didn’t say anything to Chastel. He just stood, his arms loose at his sides, his weight on the balls of his feet, as he waited for Chastel to make a decision.
    Only Charles allowed her to put her fear aside—Charles, her wolf, and the door.
    She imagined a place in her mind, deep in the forest where the snow lay lightly on the ground and her breath frosted in the air. It was quiet there, and sheltered. Peaceful. A creek full of fat trout trickled under a thin layer of misty ice. In her mind’s eye she followed a trout as it slid, a silver shadow, through the fast-moving water.
    When she had it clear and perfect in her head, she pushed that feeling out.
    Her power hit the British wolf first; she saw it in the relaxing of his shoulders. He recognized what she was doing, raised an eyebrow at her, then took his coffee cup (or maybe he drank tea—didn’t the British all drink tea?) and sipped from it. A few of the Spaniards began breathing slower, and the tension in the room