He could have at least taken out the lone rogue wolf; he owed Bran that much.

"I don't think Charles was hurt too badly," she said in conciliatory tones.

So Charles had been successful at hiding his wounds from Sage, but he knew better. It would take a lot to make that old lobo move so badly at the funeral, where so many could see.

Asil took a deep breath. Charles was tough, and he knew the Cabinets better than anyone. Even wounded, a single rogue wolf would be no match for him. It was all right. He'd just make sure and apologize to both of them when he saw them next-and hope he hadn't caused any irreparable damage with his goading. He'd just been so jealous. The peace that Anna brought him had made him remember...

Ah, Sarai, you'd be so disappointed in me.

"Are you all right?"

He knelt again and picked up his shears. "I am fine."

But why would the Europeans send only one wolf? Maybe they hadn't. Maybe Charles would need backup.

He sighed. He owed the boy an apology that shouldn't wait. If he knew where they had started, he could track Charles down and make sure he hadn't done any real damage to the bond between him and his mate.

"I need to talk to Bran," he said. He threw down the shears again and strode out the door, closing the greenhouse door behind him.

When he exited the air lock, the cold fell over him like the cloak of the ice queen. The contrast between it and the artificially warm and moist air of his greenhouse was so great he gasped once before his lungs made the adjustment. Sage followed him, pulling on her coat, but he didn't wait for her.

"I don't know that it is the Europeans," Bran told him calmly after Asil expressed his opinion of the wisdom of sending Charles out wounded after an unknown foe, in words that were less than diplomatic. "More likely it is simply a rogue. The Cabinets are remote and might appeal to someone trying to run from what he has become. Even if it were the Europeans, there was only one wolf. If there were two wolves, Heather wouldn't have been able to drive off the one who attacked them."

He paused, but Asil just crossed his arms over his chest and let him know by body language that he still thought Bran had been stupid.

Bran smiled and put his feet up on his desk. "I didn't send Charles alone. Even if there are two or three werewolves, Charles and Anna between them should manage. More than two or three I would have sensed when they came so close to Aspen Creek."

That made sense. So why was dread growing in his soul? Why was every instinct he had telling him that sending Charles out after this rogue was such a stupid thing? And when had he stopped worrying about Charles and started worrying about what they chased? About the werewolf they chased.

"What did the wolf look like?" He rocked slowly from one foot to the other but didn't bother controlling himself. He was too busy thinking.

"Like a German shepherd," Bran said. "Tan with dark points and the saddle, with a bit of white around his front feet. Both the grad student who escaped it and Heather described it the same way."

The door to Bran's study opened, and Sage burst in. "Did...I see he made it here. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Bran gently. "Asil, go home. I want you to rest today at home. I'll let you know as soon as I hear something."

Asil stumbled by Sage, no longer worried about Charles at all. That coloration might be common in Alsatians- German shepherds-but it was not seen much in werewolves.

Sarai had looked like that, tan and dark brown with a saddle-shaped dark patch of fur on her back. Her left front paw had been white.

Too upset to be careful of his strength, he broke the door handle of his car and had to slide in from the passenger side. He didn't remember the drive to his home, just a need to go hide that was even more powerful than the necessity of obeying his Alpha.

He didn't bother garaging his car; for tonight it could face the elements, just as he must. He went to his bedroom and opened his closet. He took her favorite shirt, frayed by age and handling, from the hanger. Even to his nose it no longer smelled like Sarai, but it had touched her flesh and that was all he had. He put it on his pillow and slid onto the bed, rubbing his cheek against her shirt.

It had happened at last, he thought. He was crazy.

It could not possibly be his Sarai. First, she would never kill anyone without cause. Second, she was dead. He'd found her himself, days after she'd died. He'd taken her poor body and washed it clean. Had burned it with salt and holy water. Knowing who had killed her, he wanted there to be no way to raise her from the dead, though neither Mariposa's family nor the witch they'd sent her to for training were of the family of witches who played with the dead.

No. It wasn't Sarai.

His stomach hurt, his throat hurt, and his eyes burned with tears-and with the old rage that curdled his blood. He should have killed the witch but had been forced to run instead. Run, while his wife's killer lived, because he was afraid of what Mariposa had become. Afraid of the witch who hunted him as she'd hunted his Sarai.

Only, when he could stand running no longer, when it was apparent that time was not going to kill her as it ought, he'd come here-to die and join his beloved at last. But he let the Marrok...and, later, his roses persuade him to wait.

And she hadn't found him here. Maybe she'd quit looking at last, having grown more powerful with each year until she didn't need him. Maybe the Marrok's power protected him, as it protected the rest of the pack.

As he lay panting on his bed, the conviction grew that the time had come for his death. He folded the shirt lovingly where it was and strode back to his front door. He would persuade Bran this time.

But he couldn't open the door, couldn't force his hand to touch the doorknob. He roared his anger, but that changed nothing. He could not disobey Bran. He'd been so distressed that he hadn't noticed that Bran had given him a true order: until tomorrow he would have to stay here, in this house where he'd lived for all these years alone, hiding from his mate's murderer.

Tomorrow, then. He calmed himself with the thought. But first he'd repair what he had damaged. Tomorrow he'd help Charles with the rogue, give him anything he could think of that might be useful to him for dealing with an Omega for a mate-and then it would be over. As relief rushed through him, he found it in himself to smile. If Bran wouldn't kill him, after yesterday, he was certain that Charles would be happy to oblige.