She met his eyes, gave an affirmative yip. He could feel her through their bond, a roiling incoherent mess of emotions and adrenaline. Movement, he judged, would help her work through everything.

He changed and headed toward camp.

On the trip back, Tag led and Charles fell behind. Anna didn’t let either of them get too close—but she didn’t range away from them, either. It was probably a very good thing that they didn’t run into any hikers along the way. Charles wasn’t sure that either he or Tag would have been capable of civilized behavior.

They arrived at their camp a little after two in the morning. No one had been near it since they’d left. Charles shifted to human to open the bigger tent—which he and Anna would normally have shared alone—and invited Tag in.

Anna seemed a little lost crouched beside the SUV, well back from either Charles or Tag. Charles knelt down and gestured to her.

She padded toward him, not unwilling, just wary in a way that hurt his heart. It had been a long time since she’d looked at him that way. He put his hands on her gently, but worked them into the fur on her shoulders until he had his skin on hers.

As when she had sat on his lap in the amphitheater, he felt nothing. No magic. She didn’t smell of that strange something from Leah’s past. There was no stain on her spirit that he could see.

He would have been happier about it if he had understood why everything had stopped so suddenly in the amphitheater. Magic didn’t just stop, it dissipated—and that battlefield pall should not have disappeared at all.

He kissed her forehead and released her.

“I’m going to be wolf tonight,” he told her. “I can sleep with Tag and you can go sleep in the other tent. Or you can stay with us.”

She scooted past him, into the bigger tent. He would have felt better if she hadn’t so obviously avoided touching him. He shifted to wolf and stretched across the entrance—which was a foolish thing. It would be as easy for an enemy to cut through the tent side as it would be for them to unzip the opening—easier, probably. If he’d really been worried about an attack in the night, he wouldn’t have slept in the tent at all.

He’d resigned himself to a restless night—and then Anna curled up against his back. When Tag lay down beside her, she gave a little sigh and relaxed for the first time since she’d started playing that recorder.

Charles put his head down and slept.

C H A P T E R

6

Anna woke with a splitting headache and a body that felt like it had been run over by a truck.