* * * *

Charles half expected the witch to come hurrying back, but he caught no sign of her all the way back to the Humvee. Which was where things quit going their way.

"Isn't that your truck?" Anna asked him.

"Yes," he said grimly. He opened the door and let his nose tell him what he already knew. His father had driven it here. The cab was cold. He'd come hours ago.

As Tag had promised, it took only a little wandering around to find a place he could call.

The phone call to Bran's cell turned up the phone in his father's pants pocket, neatly folded on the truck's seat. A call to his father's mate only established what he'd already known-his father had left in the middle of the night, and Leah didn't like Bran's younger son any the better for it. Samuel was more helpful, though Charles didn't like what he had to say.

Charles ended the call after a few unsatisfactory minutes. "You heard all that?"

"Your father knows that we might be hunting the witch who killed Asil's mate. He knows that Asil came here looking for us." She touched his shoulder.

On the off chance it might help him figure out what his father was up to, Charles gathered such magic as belonged to him as his mother's son and reached out to the pack.

"Charles?"

He was astounded to find himself still on his feet. His head felt as if someone had clubbed him, and he had to blink a couple of times to see. All he could think was that the unimaginable had happened-Bran was dead.

"Charles, what's wrong?"

He held up a hand as he focused his attention on the blankness that had always been his link to his father, and through him, the rest of the pack. What he found let him breathe again.

"Da's shut down the pack bonds." He gave Anna a smile as bleak as he felt inside. "He's not dead; they're not gone completely."

"Why would he do that? What does it mean?"

"I don't know." He looked down at Anna. "I want you to take Walter and drive to Kennewick, Washington, where my brother is."

She folded her arms and gave him her stubborn look. "No. And don't try that again. I felt that push. You can be as dominant as you want, but remember it doesn't work on me. If she's using the pack bonds, Walter and I might be your ace in the hole. I'm not going to leave you here, and you might as well stop trying to make me."

He frowned at her fiercely-a look that had cowed older, more powerful people-and she tapped her finger on his breastbone. "Won't work. If you leave me here, I'll just follow you."

He wasn't going to tie her up-and he had the sinking feeling that was the only way he'd be able to leave her behind. Resigned to his fate, he organized them for another trek into the wilds. They'd travel light. He repacked Anna's pack with food, fire-starting equipment, and their pot for heating water. He found the pair of snowshoes that lived behind the seat of his truck in the winter. Everything else he left in the truck.

"Do you think he's found her already?" Anna asked, as they trudged back into the mountains, following his father's tracks.

"I don't know," he told her, though he was afraid he did. Unless Bran really could read minds, the only way Charles could see Bran knowing the witch was using their pack magic against them was if he'd seen it for himself.

He wished he knew if following his father was smarter than getting in the car and driving to southern Mexico. Part of him wanted to believe in the myth of the invulnerable Marrok, but the smarter part, the part that had stood meekly answering the witch's questions, was all too aware that his father was a real person, however old and powerful: he wasn't invulnerable.

Charles drew in a breath. He was bone-deep tired, and his chest hurt, and his leg. Worse than they had earlier this morning. He was not so stupid that he did not know why. His father had been feeding him strength from the pack.

Even with his spare snowshoes walking was hard. If she had Bran, Charles was no longer sure they had even a chance of saving themselves.

He didn't tell Anna. Not because he thought it would frighten her-but because by voicing his fears, he might make them real. She knew anyway; he saw it in her eyes.

Watch out, my son. The witch is after you. Run.

"Now that was useful, Da," he said out loud. "Why don't you tell me where you are, or where you're going?"

"Charles?"

"My father can talk in people's heads," he told her. "But he claims not to receive. Which means when he tells you something, you can't argue or ask him for what you need."

"What did he tell you?"

"The witch has him, and she's coming after us. She has Asil-she can find us. He didn't give me any useful information, like where they are or anything like that."

"He told you to leave."

"He told me to run." Charles glowered at her. With the pack bonds constricted so far, his father's order had been more like a suggestion. "Damned if I'm going to leave him to her."

"Of course not," Anna said. "But we're going the wrong direction."

"What do you mean?"

"I think they'll be headed to the cabin we blew up."

Charles stopped and looked at her. "Why?"

"If she asks Asil to find us, that's where he'll go-to give us a chance to escape." She gave him a tired grin. "Asil is practiced at hedging orders-I've heard the stories."

It sounded like something the old bastard would do at that. If he hadn't been so tired, he might have thought of it himself. At any rate, it was better than wandering in his father's footsteps.

Charles looked down at Walter. "You know the fastest way to the cabin from here?"

Even as they turned around and followed Walter, Charles knew they were making a mistake. His father was right, they should run. Every instinct told him so. But as long as there was a chance to save Bran, Charles couldn't leave him to his fate. Listening to your instincts, his father liked to say, was not the same thing as being blindly obedient to them.

* * * *

Anna understood the impulse that had driven Charles to try to send her and Walter to his brother and out of danger. She felt the same way.

Charles was slowing down. Some of it was walking through snow that was two inches thick one place and hip high in others; even with them both in snowshoes, it was hard going. Most of it, she was pretty sure, was from his wounds.