He shook his head. "That's not it. I've been wounded before. It's never stopped me from doing what I needed to do-and usually if I'm hurt it makes me more aware, not less."

"Are the werewolves we're after connected to the witch, somehow?" Anna asked. "I mean, if she controlled you, maybe she can control them, too. Maybe she did something so that you wouldn't sense them."

He shrugged, but she could tell it bothered him. And he was hurting. Watching him closely, she thought that it was more than his leg that was bothering him. All the running he'd been doing had to be hard on his chest wound, too.

"Do you need new bandages?" she asked.

"Maybe," he said. "I'd have you check, but we don't have anything to remedy the situation with us. There's a good first-aid kit back in Da's car, and that's where we're heading now."

She was about two steps behind him, so he didn't see her surprise, which was good, she thought. Dominant wolves didn't back down much. "You aren't going after her?"

"She caught me once," he said. "And I don't know how. Usually my personal magic would have allowed me to shed her imprisoning spell. That's a pretty basic one, evidently- I've had three different witches try it before this. Without knowing how she did it, it's not worth trying to fight her and risk her defeating us without warning Da. The wolves, both of them, are not as worrisome as she is. Da needs to know what's going on-and maybe Asil can shed some light on who she is and what she wants."

There was something bothering her, but it took a dozen yards of progress before she thought of what it was. "Why here? I mean, I know she was looking for Asil-and it sounds like she got some sort of information indicating he was in Aspen Creek. Did you catch her excitement when you told her he was here? She wasn't sure. So what is she doing here and not in Aspen Creek?"

"Baiting a trap," he said grimly. "My father was right about that, but not about who or why. All she had to do was kill a few people and make it look like a werewolf, and the Marrok would be sure to send someone after it. Then she could take him and question him. Much safer than driving into Aspen Creek and facing off with my father."

"Do you think both the wolves are hers?" She'd asked him that before...but it was bothering her. She'd made a connection of some kind with the first wolf, the one Charles had run after. She didn't want him to be in league with a witch.

As he had the first time she'd asked him, Charles shrugged, winced when it hurt him, then half growled, "I don't know any more than you do." He trudged on a few steps. "It seems likely. The wolf that attacked you almost certainly was. Since you are an Omega, a normal wolf would have gone after her first."

He stopped suddenly. Just stood still. "We ran out of the clearing the same way as the wolf who attacked you."

She had to think about it, but he was right. "There was a path through the brush there."

"Did you see any tracks? Any blood? You cut her shoulder open with the rifle, and she was bleeding pretty good."

"I-" Would she have noticed? She thought carefully about their escape, Charles pushing her ahead of him. "There was blood on the snow where I hit her, and it followed her path into the trees. But we were going through unmarked powder as soon as we were out of the clearing. She must have gone by a different route."

Charles turned so he faced her. The corners of his mouth were tight with pain, and from the grayish undertone of his skin, she was pretty sure he was in a lot worse shape than he wanted her to know.

"She?" he said softly.

"She. I got an up-close and personal. Trust me."

"She." He repeated. "That makes life more interesting. Her coloring was unusual."

"No." Anna frowned at him. "She looked like a German shepherd."

"It's not unusual for a German shepherd," he agreed. "But I've never seen a werewolf who looked like that. I've heard of one, though."

"Who?"

"Asil's mate."

"Asil's mate is supposed to be dead, right?" said Anna. "So you think she's really alive and working with a witch? Is that why they're looking for Asil?"

"Asil told my father she was dead, and that he burned her body and buried the ashes himself." Almost as an afterthought, he said, "No one lies to my father. Not even Asil. But that makes the absence of tracks pretty interesting. "

"What are you saying? She wasn't a ghost. The butt of the rifle hit something. If Asil's mate is dead, then her resemblance has to be coincidental."

He shook his head. "I don't know what she was. But I don't believe in coincidences." He started off again.

"I thought most witches were human," she said after mulling the whole thing over for a while.

"Yes."

"Then they aren't immortal. You told me Asil's mate died a few centuries ago. And this witch isn't much older than I am. Do you think maybe the wolf is in charge?"

"I don't know," he said, holding back a tree branch so it didn't swing back and hit her. "That's a good question."

He fell silent again as he led her up another ripple of land. Mountains looked so simple from a distance, just one long walk up and another down the other side. The reality was a series of climbs and descents that seemed to cover a lot of ground and still went nowhere.

They must have been running longer than she'd realized because it was starting to get dark. She shivered.

"Charles?"

"Mmm?"

"I think my socks must have gotten wet. I can't feel my toes." He didn't say anything, and she worried that he might think she was complaining. "It's all right. I can still go on for a while yet. How much longer until we get to the car?"

"Not tonight," he said. "Not if your toes are numb. Let me find somewhere that will give us a little shelter-there's a storm coming through tonight."

Anna shivered a little harder at the thought. At the tail end of a particularly long shiver, her teeth started chattering.

Charles put his hand under her arm. "A storm will be good. I heard bone go when you hit that wolf. If it isn't a phantasm of some sort, it'll take it a while to repair. A heavy snow and a good wind will keep it from picking up our trail."