Hunting Ground

“Is it going to present some diplomatic problem if we go?”

He made an impatient gesture. “As I keep telling them-this is not a negotiation. We’ve agreed to hear their concerns, and I will address them. But my father is adamant. The first chance my father sees to present ourselves in a favorable light, we are coming out to the public. It doesn’t matter if some are offended or feel we are playing favorites. We are not courting them.”

A

Finally, he said, “Arthur can be charming-and he’s interesting.” He glanced at her face and then back at the street. “He tells everyone he’s Arthur. The king returned.”

“What?”

“He’s serious. He honestly believes he is that Arthur.”

“Really?”

“Really. Before his Change, he was an amateur archaeologist-his family isn’t royal, but noble and still wealthy enough back then that he didn’t have to find real work. It also meant that he didn’t have to have any training to pursue his hobby. He claims that shortly after his Change, he found Excalibur in a dig, and when he took hold of her, he was possessed by the spirit of Arthur.”

He shrugged. “Afterward, he began taking over all the packs in Great Britain. First he killed the Alphas-but combining packs creates its own set of problems. So he modeled his rule after my da’s.” He smiled at her. “Da’s pretty convinced that it was his decision to use Marrok as a title that sent Arthur to declare himself as the Arthur. After all, Sir Marrok was only a knight of King Arthur’s.”

“So your father thinks he’s faking it? How can he do that without everyone smelling a lie?”

“My da can lie so well that no one but Samuel or I can tell,” said Charles. He gave her a look-the first time he’d looked her in the face since they’d left the restaurant. “Don’t tell anyone-it’s supposed to be a secret.”

“How old is Arthur?”

Charles smiled. “You mean this time around? I think he was Changed just after the First World War. You think he’s not old enough to pull the same tricks an old lobo like my father can get away with? Da says the secret is to convince yourself you aren’t lying.”

“So he might just be believing his own press as hard as he can?”

“He probably brought Excalibur with him,” Charles said. “He usually keeps it close. He might show you if you ask.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She tucked her hand in his arm. “That might be fun.”

“I’ll give him a call, then.” They walked another half a block in companionable silence. “I scared you,” he said.

“I almost got you killed,” A

He stopped suddenly, jerking her to a halt. “You understood.”

“Not then,” she admitted. “I reacted first-which really sucked. Every time I think I might not be a flaming coward, I find myself ru

He started walking again. “You aren’t a coward. A coward would never have survived what you did.” But he said it absently, as if he were thinking about something else. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”

He didn’t say it as if he believed it. She tightened her hold on his arm. “I do. My instincts sometimes are screwy, but I know you would never hurt me.”

He looked at her, a long thoughtful look.

She raised her chin. “I said I know you would never hurt me.” Then she had to modify it, so he would sense the utter truth of it. “On purpose.” That wasn’t strong enough. “And everything you do is on purpose.” That wasn’t quite right. “You are always careful of what you do. Of me.”

“Stop.” His shoulders were shaking and his eyes dancing. “Please. I believe you. But in a minute, you’re going to talk yourself around to distrusting me again.”

After they’d walked a bit farther, he said, “It is beautiful tonight.”

A

FIVE

“WE are worried about the i

“We are strong,” the Russian said, “and we can protect ourselves. But we have mates who are human, families who are human. They will suffer, and this ca

There was something incongruous about the venue they were in: an elegant auditorium with oak accents, trimmed in fabrics of various brownish gray hues, understated and expensive. A place where Angus hunted the CEOs of large companies and captured them with images of the power his technology could give them. The men and women filling the seats this morning were a different kind of predator. Dressed in their best they might be, but the current occupants of those nice seats made the CEOs look like puppies by comparison.

“If you can’t protect your own, you deserve to lose them,” commented Chastel from the back quarter of the auditorium. He didn’t speak loudly, but in a room designed for sound and populated by sharp-eared werewolves, he didn’t have to.

Charles waited. The Russian wolf, whose turn it was to speak, looked at him to enforce discipline. But it wasn’t Charles’s job. Not this time. Brother Wolf was confident that it would be theirs very soon. Then they would discipline Chastel, and blood would flow. But here, in this room, it was someone else’s job.

The morning of the first day of the meeting was a very good time for a demonstration.

“Jean Chastel,” said Dana. “You will not speak again in this room until it is your turn to do so.”

Charles was probably the only one in the auditorium who wasn’t surprised that, when the French wolf sneered and opened his mouth to say something to the fae, he couldn’t. In Chastel’s own territory, with his pack behind him, she wouldn’t have been able to bespell him so easily. But this was Dana’s territory (one of the reasons the Marrok had decided to hold these talks in Seattle). Chastel had only his collection of unhappy Alphas who did not share their power with him, no matter how cowed they were, because Chastel would never have let them that close to him. Chastel was not the Marrok.

He could have been-wasn’t that a frightening thought. There had been a European ruler equivalent to Charles’s da at one time.

After the Black Plague… he wasn’t old enough to have been there-but Da and Charles’s brother had been. It had been horrible. Dehumanizing. Especially to those who weren’t truly human anymore. So much death, so many lost. Someone had seen the writing on the wall, knew that humanity would recover-and had come looking for the monsters who had fed upon the dying. So the first Marrok had been created. He hadn’t been called the Marrok-that was Da’s decision in the New World -but that’s what he’d been. Made Alpha of all Alphas and by the power of that, able to take on any other. Or he should have been.

Chastel had killed him-and anyone after him who tried to reestablish rulership. Chastel could have taken it for himself, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t want the responsibility. He just wanted the freedom to kill and keep killing as he pleased.

Arthur Madden, Master of the Isles, was the closest equivalent to the Marrok that Chastel had allowed in Europe-mostly because Chastel didn’t consider the British Isles to be a threat to him.

Even with so much power, Chastel did his murdering more secretively these days than he had when he was first Changed. And that, Charles thought, was because there was one person on this planet the Beast feared. And his da had told Chastel that he didn’t want to hear about any more ravaging monsters in France. That had been a couple of centuries ago.