"You can't hide in your hothouse all the time," he'd told Asil, when Asil politely requested not to go. "You have to make new memories sometimes."

Asil closed his eyes and prayed for the first time since Sarai had been taken from him-though he'd once been a truly devout man. He prayed that Allah would not allow Bran to become such a monster that he destroyed his careful creation of a home, a haven for his wolves.

When Asil opened his eyes at last, Bran stood naked in the snow. He wasn't shivering, though it was only a few degrees above zero, well below freezing. His skin was pale and thin, showing the blue veins that carried blood back to his heart. There were a few scars, one that ran across his ribs and one just under his right arm.

"Pretty enough body," said Mariposa. "But you all have those, you wolves. A little more delicate than I like my men." She pursed her lips and shook her head. "I was expecting something...a little more impressive. A Marrok should be..." She looked at Asil. "More like Hussan. A man other people turn their heads to watch. A man who makes other men walk wary. Not one who needs his son to impress visitors and do his killing. You see, I've done my research. When I heard that, I knew that you were too weak to hold all those packs on your own."

She was trying to goad Bran, Asil thought incredulously. Testing her hold to make sure there was no more independence in her slave. Hyperventilating wasn't going to help matters, Asil told himself a little desperately. Couldn't she see the monster inside the still exterior?

The only thing that kept him from panic was the knowledge that her assessment of him was more likely to amuse Bran than enrage him. Of course, Bran was not exactly himself anymore.

"Can you change back?" she asked Bran when he made no response to her judgment. "I don't have shoes for you, and I'd prefer not to have to cut off your feet because of frostbite."

"Yes." Bran slurred the word, dragging out the last sound, almost as if he were drunk.

She waited for him to start, but finally gave an impatient sound, and said, "Do so."

Before he had completed the change she motioned Sarai to her and climbed on her back as if her guardian were a donkey. Asil bit back his anger, anger that was too large for the small attack on Sarai-who-was-not-Sarai's dignity. He glanced nervously at Bran and tried very hard to be calm.

"When he is finished changing, the two of you catch up with us."

Sarai brushed against him, leaving behind a flood of affection and worry. As soon as she was out of sight, he felt that insidious anger ramp up-as if Sarai's presence had helped calm Bran, as if she were still the Omega she had once been...and why not?

He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, hoping against hope that when the other werewolf arose, he would still be bound, by the witch or his own will.

Though he dare not do it with the proper motion, and it had been a long time since he'd been a good Muslim, he could not stop the impulse to pray. "Allaahu Akbar-"

THE witch flung out her hands, and even as far away as Charles was, he could feel the stain of her magic-corrupt and festering magic, but powerful. Very powerful.

Charles saw his father fall-and then Bran was gone.

He froze. Breathless with the suddenness of it. The cool presence that had been there for as long as he could remember left a huge, empty silence. His lungs didn't want to move, but suddenly he could get air in and all Brother Wolf wanted was to howl to the heavens.

Charles fought and fought to keep Brother Wolf quiet, but there was an odd undercurrent of savage rage that he'd never felt before, deeper and darker than the usual violent urges; and he understood, or hoped he did.

Bran wasn't gone. He was Changed.

His father mostly talked of the present or near present. Ten years, twenty, but not a hundred or more. It was something Charles had grown to appreciate as he himself grew older.

But Samuel could sometimes be persuaded to tell stories to his younger brother. And Bran as berserker had been one of his favorite stories until he'd grown old enough to understand that it wasn't just a story. If it weren't for that story, he might have been tempted to overlook the darkness seeping into him, he might have thought that Bran had truly been broken.

He used his hope to soothe Brother Wolf, and together they ran down the pack magic that cradled them in the Alpha's care. Searching, searching, they found it, changed, shut down almost entirely, until only a little of the poison rage seeped through. Bran still lived.

But as what?

Chapter FOURTEEN

Though Charles wanted to pelt down the hill as soon as the witch was gone, he led the way in a slow, controlled jog that Anna could easily keep up with in her snowshoes.

As they got closer, the trees and underbrush obscured the place where Asil and his father waited. Cautiously, Charles slowed and stopped.

He looked at her and then at Walter. She nodded silently and crouched where she was. Walter settled in like the old soldier he was. If it weren't for him, Charles would have stayed right where he was. He would not chance Anna's life on a hunch. But Walter would take care of her if something happened, so Charles was free to take a risk.

When Charles walked out into the open, Asil had finished his prayer, but just knelt where he was, with his head bowed-as if he were trying very hard not to give offense to the Marrok.

"Slowly," murmured Asil without looking up. Asil's ears had always been keen-or maybe he'd picked up Charles's scent. "We are bound to her, your father and I. I must do what the witch has commanded, as if she were my Alpha." He turned his head finally and met Charles's eyes with despair. "Your father she has bound tighter. She figured out who he was and took his free will from him like a puppet master attaching strings to his marionette.

"I'm hoping," Asil explained, still in that soft, soft voice, "that when he comes out of this change he is still sane." Tiredly he rubbed his jaw. "I have to wait and see, but you do not. You need to take your mate and leave here, gather up the pack in Aspen Creek and run to the ends of the earth. If she holds him, every wolf who owes him allegiance will be hers.

"She's quite mad-she wasn't exactly stable before-but she's tied herself to Sarai's dead wolf. The living and the dead do not good bedfellows make."

Charles waited.

Asil gave him a slight smile. "I think that she overestimates her strength. If she does not hold him..." He looked at Bran. "Well, then, perdito, I think then it is better to be far, far away."