If Mariposa succeeded, she would kill him. He'd taken Sarai away from her again, and she wouldn't stand for it. If Charles or Bran succeeded in killing Mariposa, his Sarai would be gone for good. A witch's creations did not survive their maker.

So he held her and breathed in her scent and pretended that this moment would never end. Pretended it was Sarai he held...almost he caught a hint of cinnamon.

As her scent faded into fir and pine, snow and dreary winter, he wondered if he had been able to see the future that long ago day when a frightened and bruised child had been brought to his home, would he have had the fortitude to kill her? He put his head down on his knee in bleak despair, holding tight to a small, battered scrap of buff fur.

He didn't have it in him to be glad that Mariposa was dead and Sarai's wolf freed at last.

Which would have been a premature celebration at any rate, because madness swept through him like a fire in a forest in August. He was too tired, but the rage didn't care, just gathered him in an implacable grip and demanded that he change. A wild howl echoed down the mountainside, and Asil called out in return.

The Beast had awakened. Asil opened his hand and let the wind take the last part of Sarai from him before he answered his master's call.

* * * *

Anna didn't think about running until she was halfway to Charles and sprinting.

He couldn't be dead. She could have killed that blasted witch two or three minutes earlier. It couldn't be her fault he was dead-that his father had killed him.

She brushed by the Marrok, and his power roared over her as she dashed through it and fell, sliding in the snow. She crawled the last two feet to Charles. His eyes were closed, and he was covered with blood. She reached out, but she was afraid to touch him.

She was so sure he was dead that when his eyes opened, it took a moment for it to register.

"Don't move," he whispered, his eyes focused beyond her. "Don't breathe if you can help it."

* * * *

Charles watched the wolf who was no longer his father stalk forward, madness mated to cunning in an unholy combination.

Bran had miscalculated. Maybe if the witch hadn't died and broken the control unexpectedly. Maybe if Charles had just given his father his throat at the beginning of the fight, trusting that his father couldn't kill him, even under compulsion. Maybe if it had been Samuel here, instead of him.

Or maybe it was something that would have happened no matter what anyone had done, once the witch had subjugated his father entirely-the way Bran's mother had subjugated him so many centuries ago.

"Why" didn't matter anymore, because his clever, chameleon-like da was gone. In his place was the most dangerous creature who had ever set foot on this mountain.

Charles had thought he was done in. His chest burned, and he was having real trouble breathing. One of those sharp claws had pierced a lung-he'd had that happen often enough he knew what it felt like. He was on the point of giving up, when Anna suddenly appeared-taking no more notice of his da than if he'd been a poodle.

With Anna in danger, Charles found himself much more alert-though his attention was split in his frantic need to know that she was all right.

She looked terrible. Her hair was sweat-dampened and deformed by her absent hat. Windburns reddened her face that he wouldn't have noticed was dirty, too, except for the tear tracks that ran from her eyes to her jaw in ragged lines. He whispered a warning to her, but she smiled (as if she hadn't heard a word he'd said or the danger he'd implied)-and terrified as he was, he was momentarily dumbstruck.

"Charles," she said. "I thought you were dead, too. No. Don't move-" And she put her hand on his shoulder to make sure he didn't. "I..."

Asil growled hungrily, and Anna turned to look.

Asil was not a small wolf. He wasn't as big as Samuel or Charles, but he was big enough. His fur was so dark a brown as to be mistaken for black in the growing shadows. His ears were pinned, and there was saliva dripping from his jaws.

But Anna wasn't stupid-her attention, like most of Charles's, focused on the Marrok. Bran was watching them as a cat waits for a mouse to do something interesting-like run.

Her breath caught, and the scent of her fear forced him to sit up-which was a dumb move-but his da was watching Anna now and ignored Charles.

Caught in Bran's mad gaze, Anna reached out instinctively and grabbed Charles's hand.

And it happened.

Unexpected, unheralded, the mating bond settled over him like a well-worn shirt-and for a moment he didn't hurt, wasn't tired, sore, beat-up, cold, naked, and terrified. For a moment his father's rage, eating him up from the shadows, was as nothing to the joy of the moment.

Anna took a deep breath and gave him an astonished look that clearly said, You told me we needed sex for this to happen. You're supposed to be the expert.

And then reality settled in.

He gave her a jerk that skidded her back so he was mostly between her and the two mad wolves, who were watching her with utter intentness.

She freed her hand gently, and he was glad of it-he told himself-he needed both hands to defend them. If he could manage to get to his feet.

He could feel her scooting farther behind him, which he appreciated-though he'd half expected her to fight him. Then two cold hands settled on his bloody shoulders and she leaned against his back, one of her breasts pressed on his old wound.

She drew in a breath and began to sing. And the song she chose was the Shaker song that his father had chosen to sing for Doc Wallace's funeral, "Simple Gifts."

Peace swept over him like a tropical wind, as it hadn't since the first couple of hours after he'd met her. She had to be tranquil, Asil had said, or something of the sort. She couldn't give calm that she didn't have. So she sang and drew the peace of the song into her-and gave it to the wolves.

On the third line Charles joined in with a descant that complemented her rich alto. They sang it through twice, and when they were finished, Asil heaved a sigh and settled on the snow as if he were too exhausted to move.

Charles let Anna pick the songs. The next one was the Irish song "The Black Velvet Band." To his weary amusement, she picked up a little bit of an Irish lilt as she sang it. He was pretty sure from the phrasing, she'd learned the song from listening to the Irish Rovers. In the middle of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," his father walked tiredly over to Anna and put his head in her lap with a sigh.