Fair Game

showed traces of Arabia by way of North Africa, but Anna agreed that certainly wasn’t the sum total of who he was. He was very beautiful, very old, extremely deadly—and right now he was transplanting geraniums.
    “Asil,” she began.
    “Hush,” he said. “Don’t disturb my plants with your troubles until they are safe in their new houses. Make yourself useful and deadhead the roses along the wall.”
    She snagged a basket and started picking dead flowers off Asil’s rosebushes. There would be no talking to him until he’d accomplished what he intended, whether that was to calm her down before they talked, get some free labor, or merely keep the silence while he tended his plants. Knowing Asil, it could be all three.
    She worked for about ten minutes before she got impatient and reached for a rosebud, knowing that he always kept an eye on anyone working with his precious flowers.
    “Remember the story of Beauty and the Beast?” remarked Asil gently. “Go ahead. Take that little bloom. See what happens.”
    “‘Beauty and the Beast’ is a French fairy tale and you are a mere Spaniard,” Anna told him, but she took her fingers off the bud. Beauty’s father had stolen a flower at great cost. “And in no way are you an enchanted prince.”
    He dusted off his hands and turned to her, smiling a little. “Actually, I am. For some definitions of ‘prince.’”
    “Hah,” said Anna. “Poor Belle would find herself kissing your handsome face and then, poof, there would be the frog.”
    “Ithink you are mixing your fairy tales,” Asil told her. “But even as a frog I would not disappoint. You came to talk fairy tales,
querida
?”
    “No.” She sighed, hopping up to sit on a convenient flat table next to a bunch of small pots that held a single pea-sized leaf each. “I’m here to get advice about beasts. Specifically, information about the beast who rules us all. Naturally I sought you out. Bran has to quit sending Charles out to kill. It is destroying him.”
    He sat on the table opposite hers and looked at her with the space of the narrow aisle between them. “You do know that Charles lived nearly two hundred years without you to take care of him, yes? He is not a fragile rosebud who needs your tender touch to survive.”
    “He’s not a killer, either,” Anna snapped.
    “I beg to differ.” Asil spread his hands peaceably when she snarled at him. “The results speak for themselves. I doubt that there are any other wolves with so many werewolf kills under their belt outside of present company.” He indicated himself with a modest air that was a tribute to his acting skills, since he didn’t have a modest bone in his body.
    Anna shook her head at him, her hands curling into fists of frustration. “He isn’t. Killing
hurts
him. But he sees it as necessary—”
    “Which it is,” murmured Asil, clearly patronizing her.
    “Fine,” she agreed sharply, hearing the growl in her voice but unable to keep it down. Failing so spectacularly with Bran had taught her she needed to keep her own temper in check if she wanted to convince old dominant wolves of anything. “I know that it is necessary. Of course it is necessary. Charles wouldn’t kill anyone if he didn’t see that it was
necessary
. And Charles is the only one dominant enough to do the job who is also not an Alpha, since that would cause trouble with the Alpha of the territories he must enter. Fine. It doesn’t mean that he can continue like this. Necessary does not mean possible.”
    Asil sighed. “Women.” He sighed again, theatrically. “Peace, child. I
do
understand.You are Omega and Omegas are worse than Alphas about protecting their mates. But your mate is very strong.” He grimaced as he said it, as if tasting something bitter. Anna knew that he didn’t always get along with Charles, but dominant wolves often had that problem with one another. “You just have to have a little faith in him.”
    Anna met his gaze and held it. “He doesn’t bring me with him anymore when he goes. When he came home this afternoon, I used my magic to send his wolf to sleep, and as soon as the wolf was quiet he left without a word.”
    “You expected living with a werewolf to be easy?” Asil frowned at her. “You can’t fix everyone. I told you that. Being Omega doesn’t make you Allah.” Asil’s long-dead mate had been an Omega. Asil had taught Anna all that she knew about it, which he seemed to believe gave him some sort of in