“Stop that, you,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t really mean it by the heat in her eyes. “We have bigger problems. What was your da thinking, strolling in there like some meek little lamb? I don’t know if I managed to convince the FBI that he’s the Marrok.”

“That isn’t urgent,” Charles said. “He can convince them himself whenever he wants to. He came in to see the map—I think he knows something about what’s happened. And he came in to see if he needed to kill someone. It is a good thing the FBI sent Fisher and Goldstein. If they had sent someone more twisty, Da might have decided to kill them to send a message to their owners.” He used the term Brother Wolf had thrown out.

Anna grimaced. “I thought that might be it.” She looked at Charles. “I would have defended them.”

He knew that—and it would have been obvious to his da as well. That knowledge might have been the thing keeping both agents alive. He didn’t think it was because Bran was seriously considering an alliance.

“Unofficial offers from government officials are notoriously dangerous,” he observed. “Secret alliances were the powder keg that blew up into World War I.”

“That doesn’t mean friendly relations wouldn’t be useful,” Anna countered.

He nodded agreement. “Friendly, yes. But wherever such a relationship ends up, it will be far short of an us-against-them alliance of humans and werewolves against all comers.”

“Especially since Bran doesn’t really like mundane humans,” added Anna, wiping her cheek on the end of her towel.

Charles closed the distance between them. He put a finger over the towel where her breasts came together and formed a valley, but he left the towel where it was. He never touched her without her consent, and never would.

She smiled, and it was a wicked, hungry thing.

“Yes,” she said.

C H A P T E R

2

Charles spread the map that Goldstein had left with them on his da’s desk. He had taken a silver Sharpie and inked in the boundaries of Leah’s land before he’d left Anna sleeping in their bed and gone to find his da—as his da had requested before he’d left Anna and Charles to deal with the FBI.

Charles had known about the land, of course. He took care of all of the pack’s properties, and the personal properties owned by his family. Taxes, upkeep, and, when appropriate, renters or rental agencies were all under his aegis. It wasn’t the only section of land owned by the Cornick family, so he hadn’t been too curious about it.