"He might have seen a flicker," she had told him as they waited for the cops and officials to do their cleanup bit on Gallops Island. "But it's been nearly a week since they killed Jacob. Magic goes fast when you waste it the way these guys do. Like to like, the magic released by Jacob's death would have lit up a little, enough to tell him that there was something in the room, especially if it were a little dark, but not enough to see what it was."

And Charles had attacked as if he knew exactly where he was aiming. Fast. Freaking fast and powerful. Isaac had heard the thunk as the other wolf had landed on the beast, had watched him hang on after the creature had rolled over on him a couple of times. By that time Isaac's clock had been rung but good, so all he remembered were bits and pieces of the end of the fight - but it was enough to wow him.

Isaac had been in his share of fights, both before and after his Change. He knew without arrogance that he was damned good, and five years of karate before he'd been Changed - inspired by the desire to never let anyone throw him into a locker again - had proved useful in his job as Alpha. But if he ever went in a ring against Charles, he might as well roll over and show his throat before the first round of hostilities began. No wonder the Marrok used Charles as his cleanup man. Who was going to stand up to that?

Isaac drove the van because when Horatio, the wolf who owned the van - Horatio was not his real name, but he wanted to be an actor and his grasp of Shakespeare was really good, so the nickname stuck - got a good look at Charles's set face, he'd tossed Isaac the keys. Then he'd suggested that he could stop by Isaac's house sometime in the morning to pick up the van if they didn't really need him to come along. He'd waited to make sure that Isaac wouldn't order him to drive, but looked extremely relieved when Isaac gave him the nod. Horatio had more common sense in his little finger than anyone in this van had in his whole body - including Isaac.

Horatio was a good fighter, though. He might have been handy when they ran into the bad guys. Isaac glanced over his shoulder at Charles, who was playing intently with the phone he'd taken from Isaac. Beauclaire was sitting in the far backseat, so maybe he wasn't so oblivious to Charles's state after all. The Marrok's Wolfkiller kept his body turned in the exact direction of their goal. Probably they didn't need Horatio. Probably they didn't need anyone except Charles.

And Horatio would have insisted on driving if he'd come; it was his van, after all. Charles had chosen to give Agent Fisher the shotgun seat - which might have been old-fashioned manners; old wolves did things like that. It was unlikely that he'd done it so he could screw with Isaac by sitting behind him, even if that was the end result. The black cloud of intensity Charles shed made Isaac all sorts of jumpy and would have had Horatio, who was much more high-strung, driving like a six-year-old trying to throw a bowling ball.

It was late, maybe one in the morning, and traffic was correspondingly light so Isaac punched it a little. Not so fast that the cops would feel like it was imperative to pull him over, but not so slow that the wolf in the backseat would decide to take over.

It was a delicate balance. Horatio didn't have any kind of GPS navigation in his old van, but Agent Fisher used her phone to imitate one. They decided that I-93 would be the fastest way there, even though it was a farther distance than taking the back roads.

"Pull over," said Charles, his voice rough.

Isaac wasn't going to argue with him. So he eased the van to a stop on the shoulder of the road.

Charles hopped out, patted the side of the car, and said, "Go on out to the address I gave you. I'm going to run the direct path and I should beat you there."

It wasn't until then that Isaac realized Charles had begun changing to wolf. Isaac couldn't speak - except to swear at the worst bits - while he changed, and Charles could have a regular conversation, or something pretty close to it. Damn. When he grew up, he wanted to be like Charles.

Charles shut the door and took off into the darkness, still on two legs, but his gait was an odd leaping glide, neither human nor lupine. Funny, Isaac mused, how being a werewolf had made him complacent, made him think he knew all there was about being a wolf.

He pulled back onto the interstate and asked, "How long until we get there?"

"Fifteen, twenty minutes," Leslie said. "He thinks he can beat us?"

These weren't Isaac's usual stomping grounds, but he had a fair idea of geography - and a pretty good idea of how fast a ticked-off werewolf was. He mentally added 10 percent more speed just because it was Charles and said, "I think he can, too."

CHARLES WASN'T SURE if this was a good idea or not, but Brother Wolf was done with riding in a car when he had four good feet and Anna needed them. He changed the rest of the way as he ran, which wasn't his favorite way to do it, but he managed.

Isaac's phone, which Charles had left on the seat of the van, had suggested that he could cut through some woods, a few cemeteries and golf courses, and end up where he wanted to be. He didn't expect it to be quite that simple - which was a good thing. Fences, waterways, and houses kept him from a direct path, but he managed. As he got closer, his link to Anna sharpened. He still couldn't talk to her, but he could feel her pain and fear - and that made him flatten out and run even harder.

He narrowly missed being hit by a Subaru Outback on a narrow highway, left it stopped dead with the sour smell of burnt rubber and the driver asking his companion, "Did you see that? What was that thing?" Only as he approached the house did he slow down.

She wasn't hurting anymore.

And now that he could think instead of panic, he knew what Anna had done. Who knew better what a shift felt like than another werewolf? She was smart, his mate. The wolf was tougher than the human and better able to defend herself, so she'd shifted to her lupine form.

She didn't need immediate rescuing; she wasn't hurting now, so he could take a moment. Brother Wolf was all for finding where they had her and killing everyone involved. Charles was okay with the last half, but thought that resting until he wasn't breathing like a steam engine would make it more possible. He dropped to the ground under a bunch of lilac bushes near a sign that read WESTWOOD DANCE STUDIO: ESTABLISHED 2006.

Charles would go in when he was at his best, not panting like a greyhound after a race. Brother Wolf wasn't happy, but he had learned that sometimes his human half was wiser - and sometimes not.