Fair Game

get back tonight, we will talk,” he told her. “I just learned something.”
    “That my wolf is shameless,” she muttered, though she couldn’t pull away.
    He laughed, damn him. More of a huff than a chuckle, but she knew amusement when she heard it.
    She’d thrown him down in the middle of a hunt when there were a herd of people listening in. All the werewolves, he’d reminded her—and Beauclaire, who was here to find his daughter, not to listen to her make out in the woods. And now, to show that she hadn’t learned her lesson, all she wanted to do was take up that last kiss where it had left off.
    “No help for it,” Anna muttered. “Time to face the music.”
    “Shame is…not a very productive emotion,” Charles told her. Therewas a funny little pause when he tilted his head to look at her face and then away. “Brother Wolf liked claiming you in front of the others so that there will be no question who you belong to. While I…
I
regret your embarrassment but otherwise agree with Brother Wolf.”
    Anna stared at him incredulously. If there was a more private man in the world than her husband, she hadn’t met him.
    “As for the other…” Charles grinned rather fiercely at her and raised his voice. “Isaac, go on ahead; we’ll follow.”
    “You’re the man,” Isaac called back.
    “We’ll trail them closely,” Charles said. “If something happens, we’ll be right there—but if we wait until there are more interesting things about than we are, they won’t give you a hard time.” He didn’t need to say that no one would give him a hard time.
    “Thanks,” Anna said, not knowing how else to respond.
    He put his hand on her shoulder as they started back up the trail. While they hiked, there was none of the reluctance to touch her that had characterized him for the past few months. He kept a hand on whatever part of her was closest to him.
    CHARLES HAD TRIED to open their bond and call up her wolf to defeat the black magic and hadn’t been able to. Brother Wolf had panicked because Charles had somehow messed up their bond—and then Anna threatened to leave them and Charles had panicked, too. If she hadn’t allowed them to make love to her, to reestablish their claim, things might have gotten…interesting, in the same way that a grizzly attack is interesting. Because neither he nor Brother Wolf was capable of letting her go.
    It had been something of a revelation.
    The bottom line was that he was a selfish creature, Charles decided more cheerfully than he’d been about anything in a long time. Heguided Anna around a hole in the ground with a subtle push of his hand on her hip. She probably had seen the hole, but it pleased him to take care of her in such a small way. He was willing to pay any price to keep her safe…any price except for losing her.
    When they got back to the condo he would tell her about the ghosts who threatened to kill all that he loved unless he could find the key to releasing them. It was a risk—but quite clearly, he had damaged their mate bond by trying to do this alone—and that was worth any risk to fix. He’d see if, between the two of them, they could mend what he’d broken—and if not, he’d call his da.
    If this trip had done nothing else, it had given him distance from the unrelenting grimness that his life had become since the werewolves had revealed themselves to the public. He’d been so focused on duty, on need, and on just getting the job done that he’d lost perspective.
    Honor, duty, and love. He would not sacrifice Anna for his father and all the other werewolves in existence. Given a choice, he chose love.
    That meant he had to find a way to deal with the ghosts—or quit being his father’s hatchet man. It wasn’t the result his father had been hoping for from this trip, but Charles couldn’t help that. He would not lose Anna even if it meant they went to war with the human population.
    The decision left him feeling oddly peaceful, if more than a little selfish.
    “We found it,” Isaac called.
    Charles started jogging and Anna stayed by his side—just where she belonged.
    The place where the others awaited them had once been a yard with a small house or storage shed, maybe ten feet by fifteen, in the center. The wooden part of the structure was long gone, but the granite foundationblocks were still in situ. The eyebolt that was driven into one of the blocks might have been original, but the chain and cuffs attached to it were