Fair Game

from hooks all over the wagon swayed unsteadily.
    From photos, she recognized him as Isaac Owens, the Alpha of the Olde Towne Pack—Boston being the Olde Towne, complete with the final
E
s. He wasn’t in the habit of running around on the tops of unlikely perches or he’dhave been in the local paper a lot more than he already was.
    “You’re attracting attention,” said Charles in a conversational tone designed not to carry to human ears. Isaac, being a werewolf, would hear him just fine despite being a dozen yards away. “Do you really want that?”
    “I’m out. They know who I am.” Projecting his voice to anyone who cared to listen—and people were starting to pause what they were doing to listen—Isaac raised his chin aggressively. “What about you?”
    Charles shrugged. “In, out, it doesn’t matter.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “No more does your declaration. You lost control of the situation that brings me here when you chose not to report the deaths in your territory. You have no say over what I do or don’t do.”
    “We didn’t kill anyone,” Isaac declared, and pointed at Charles. “And you will have to go through me to take any of my pack.”
    Isaac was new, Anna remembered. New at his job, new at being a wolf—and, like her, he’d been a college student when he’d been Changed. Normally it would have been years before he was Alpha, no matter how much potential dominance he had. But the Olde Towne Pack had lost its Alpha last year in a freak sailing accident and Isaac, who had been second, had stepped in to do the job.
His
second was an old wolf who probably didn’t know anything at all about this stunt.
    The woman who was working the kiosk—her body bestrewn with hand-beaded jewelry and tattoos in a bewildering mixture of color and texture—was backing slowly away, trying not to draw attention to herself. Not a bad strategy for someone caught between predators, though less glittery jewelry might have helped—another reason for Anna not to wear the diamonds.
    “If no laws were broken, no one is at risk,” said Charles, and Isaac sneered.
    “Getoff the stupid wagon before that poor lady calls nine-one-one,” Anna said, exasperated. “Come introduce yourself, Isaac, and see what happens.” She said it loud enough that she was clearly audible to the crowd of people that was forming a ring around them—close enough to see what was going on, not so close as to get involved. That meant she was speaking almost as loudly as Isaac had been.
    The local Alpha looked at her for the first time and frowned. His nostrils flared as he tried to catch her scent—which would have been impossible to filter from the rest of the people nearby except that she smelled like an Omega wolf.
    After a rather long pause, Isaac shrugged his shoulders to loosen the muscles and walked off the end of the wagon—a good nine-or ten-foot drop. He landed with flexed knees and turned to the proprietor of the shop, who’d stopped when Anna had drawn attention to her.
    “My apologies,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to scare
you
.” He smiled and handed her a card. “A friend of mine runs a pub—stop by and have a meal on us.”
    The woman took the card with a rather shaky hand that steadied as Isaac’s smile warmed. She glanced down and her eyebrows rose. “I’ve eaten there. Good fish and chips.”
    “I think so, too,” he said, gave her a wink, and strolled over to where Anna and Charles sat.
    “Nice PR,” Anna said. “Though considering what went before, I’m not inclined to give you an A for it.”
    He studied her, ignoring Charles’s brooding presence. “Ayah, nah,” he said, exaggerating his Boston accent into incomprehensible nasal sounds before he dropped most of it to continue more clearly. “What in the hell are you?”
    “Good to meet you, too,” Anna said. “I bet that card was your second’s idea, wasn’t it? To make up for your lack of manners?” Shedropped her voice and added a touch of Boston to it. “Oops—sorry I destroyed your car. Here, have a meal on me. Was that
your
dog I ate? Oh, sorry. Have a drink at my friend’s pub and forget all about it.”
    Isaac grinned, a sudden, charming expression that showed white, white teeth in his blue-black face. “Caught me, darling. But you didn’t answer my question.”
    “She is
mine
,” said Charles. His aggressive answer didn’t show up in his voice, which was low and calm. “We have a meeting