Hunting Ground

A buzzer sounded. Su

“Your mate is lovely,” said Charles.

“She is,” Arthur said. “She brings me joy.” He touched the handle of his sword. “Excalibur is over fifteen hundred years old, and she will be with me another fifteen hundred years. My Su

It was late when they left. To A

He hadn’t said much, but when Arthur ran out of King Arthur stories, he managed to get the British wolf talking about the difficulties the CCTVs-the cameras that Great Britain was installing all over the place to keep an eye on her citizens-were causing the werewolves.

“Well,” she said, as they approached the battered Toyota, “that was almost civil-”

The man who’d been sitting behind the shrubbery rose a little stiffly. She recognized his scent a moment later and swallowed the sound she’d been about to make.

“Michel,” said Charles.

She’d met him in the restaurant last night, but without the others around, she read him better. Alpha, but not very dominant. In her old pack, the Chicago Pack, he might have ranked halfway up, but no more than that. His face was battered and his blackened eyes said that someone had broken his nose. He was healing, but for some that happened more slowly than others. He hadn’t straightened all the way up and had an arm over his stomach.

“Charles,” he said in a low voice. “The Beast took my cell phone, and I wasn’t sure how else to contact you.”

“What do you need?”

The Frenchman shook his head. “Came to deliver a warning to you. Your mate, he wants her. You understand? He kills women and the i

“Thank you for your warning,” said Charles. “Come, we’ll give you a ride wherever you need to go.”

But the French wolf took a step back. “No. If I return smelling like you, he will kill me.”

“But not if you smell like me,” said Arthur.

A

“I found you hurt by the side of the road,” continued Arthur, glancing at the street that ran past the end of the driveway. He made a soft sound between his teeth. “For shame, Jean, not taking better care of your wolves.” He looked at Charles. “By the time I finish with him, Jean will be so enraged with me he will forget about hurting Michel.”

“He hates you, too,” Michel warned him, even though his acceptance of the plan was evident in his face.

“He always has. I am not afraid of him,” said Arthur. And no one told him that they knew it was a lie. Even A

He looked at Charles. “You go to your hotel. I’ll feed him something that bleeds to help him heal. Then I’ll get him back to his den unharmed.”

With a sharp nod, Charles rounded the car to get in the passenger side. A

He feared, but took care of the weaker, less dominant wolf-even though Michel was an Alpha in his own right.

“A good man, our Arthur,” said Charles softly, as she backed onto the street. “Even if he’s quite mad north-northwest. At least the wind is usually southerly.”

Shakespeare. “He usually knows a hawk from a hand-saw?” she threw in, so he’d know she recognized his allusion. “You don’t believe he is Arthur?”

He smiled a little. “Most of the old wolves are mad about something. For our British monarch-it is King Arthur. A relatively benign madness. I much prefer it to Chastel’s.”

“Arthur’s not as old as you,” she was certain of it.

“No. But he is old enough.”

SHE wasn’t pouting. A

She’d tried again to sit beside Charles and relax, but there were so many strangers who were staring at her…

She’d flagged down Angus, who took her upstairs to his own offices, a floor up from the auditorium. He’d ushered her into his private sanctuary, then shut the door, having instructed her to lock it. Dead-bolted, the steel door probably wouldn’t keep out a determined werewolf, but it would give her time to use her cell phone and call for help.

Angus’s office was far from Purgatory. There was a TV and a couch in addition to his desk and his ridiculously luxurious office chair. There were magazines, and she had brought a book to read.

So why was she sitting in Angus’s very comfortable leather chair not pouting?

No reason at all.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Angus. I have a guest for you. Ric, the Italian’s Omega.”

She unbolted the door and it popped open about six inches. A blond head with a short red beard stuck itself in the narrow opening. “Presto. Your entertainment is here.” He slipped all the way into the room and shut the door behind him. “Tame and safe.” His voice owed as much to Britain as it did to Germany.

“Frankly,” she told him, “I’d have welcomed a pack of villains to rip to bits-it is boring in here.”

“Alas, I am not a villain,” he said grandly, snitching a handful of nuts from the bowl on Angus’s desk. “Although I could be if you wished.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Your mate decided my Italian buddies and the Germans would settle a bit better without my presence. Though he didn’t say precisely that.” He gri

“Likewise,” A

He shook his head and sauntered over to the window. “Austrian.”

His choice to join the Italians suddenly made a lot more sense. He must have read it in her face because he laughed.

“Yes, Italians are a lot more effervescent and cheery than the Germans. Even werewolves.” He thought about that a second, then added, “Maybe especially the werewolves.”

“Why didn’t the Austrians want you?” she asked.

His face sobered. “There aren’t any Austrian packs anymore. There were only two, and four years ago Chastel got bored and hunted down both Alphas. He-” The other wolf drew in a sharp breath. “But that is no conversation for today. So I must be Italian or German. And I choose Italian. My Alpha says that if they knew how much I talked, the Germans would be happy for it.”

“Your English is very good.” A

He turned his back to the window so he could look at her-or so she could look at him. He put both hands to his chest in a flamboyant gesture that looked very Italian to her, not that she’d met that many Italians. “Scholar,” he said. “That’s me. I had most of a doctorate in psychology before my Change. I can speak English, getting much better at Italian. My French friend tells me that someday, if I work at it, I may no longer be flattering myself when I say I can speak a very little French.” He sat on the sill of the window, which was wide enough to make a pretty good seat. “My Alpha says that you haven’t been a wolf long.”