Tag swore with feeling, for which Charles couldn’t blame him. The abrupt cessation of whatever they had been struggling against made him feel like he’d been engaged in a game of tug-of-war and the rope had broken, leaving him sprawling (if only metaphorically) in the mud. It was disorienting on the verge of being painful.

Even so, Charles kept singing until he reached a place where his song had a natural stopping place. Breaking off untidily felt both ungrateful and unwise.

As Charles fell silent, Tag started toward Anna at a run, but stopped when Charles held up a hand. Charles was watching Anna’s tensing back, felt the bond between them still shut painfully tight—but now it no longer seemed like outside interference. It felt as if she had rejected him utterly—which was not like his Anna. The scent of her fear threatened to send Brother Wolf into a frenzy.

“Anna, my love?” Charles said softly, knowing his struggle with Brother Wolf did not show on the outside.

She turned then, staggering a little—for which he could not blame her. Her face was composed, her body controlled, but all the same she reminded him of a deer, ready to flee at the slightest movement. Her eyes were terrified. He hadn’t seen that look on her face in a long time.

What had the music done to her, to leave her panic-stricken and afraid?

She tried to speak, but had to lick her lips. “Who are you?” she asked.

* * *

*

PACK MEETINGS ARE the worst, Anna told herself stoutly, trying, by the understatement, to buck up her spirits as she cowered in the back corner of the room, attempting to be invisible. She wished she were safe in her Oak Park apartment and not in the Western Suburb Chicago Pack’s stronghold in Naperville.

She knew she couldn’t really hide, not in a room filled with werewolves. She hated knowing it was going to be rough tonight—after this long in the pack, she’d gotten a feel for when trouble was brewing. She could feel the anticipation in the air. She hated that she cowered, head down, trying not to be noticed.

Her father once said she argued so much that when she died, she’d argue with St. Peter at the pearly gates. He’d been proud of her obstinance—he was a lawyer by profession and by calling. He would not recognize her now.

It was a good thing, she told herself, that she was not allowed to contact him anymore.

At first she’d tried to pay attention to what her Alpha said in these meetings, but she’d learned he could read her feelings through the pack bond. It was better not to listen than for Leo to know how much she despised him. He didn’t like being disrespected.

She could tell by the tone of Leo’s voice that he was ready to wrap things up, and her senses prickled at the heightened danger as the crowd of werewolves, who also picked up on Leo’s cues, started to fidget.

He was looking at her. Justin. She forced herself to keep her eyes down as her breath stuttered and her heart raced painfully in her chest.

Calm down, she told herself. Calm down. Panic makes him worse. Makes them all worse.

Leo quit talking and people began to move around. Anna had found one gambit that sometimes worked to keep her safe. She’d taken note of where Isabelle was and charted a path toward the Alpha’s mate’s side. Sometimes Isabelle would take her part—and usually even he moderated his behavior in front of Isabelle, who liked to pretend she was a good guardian of her pack.

Halfway to her goal, Anna glanced up from the floor to make sure Isabelle hadn’t moved—and met his eyes. He was pacing her through the crowd.

Cold terror numbed her fingers, because she knew that look, knew he’d decided she was his prey tonight. Again. It had been two weeks; she had hoped for three but had known it was unlikely. He liked her fear. Her pain.

Chest tight, she . . .

A deep voice wound around her, calling her, lulling her with gentleness. She didn’t understand the words, but for a moment she felt safe. She . . .

. . . looked for Isabelle. But the Alpha’s mate was no longer standing where she had been, and Anna couldn’t locate her. A rough hand grabbed her hair and jerked her head back harshly.

We have you safe. You are ours. No hand will touch you if you do not wish it.

A deep throbbing music tried to surround her with safety, but it dissipated in the pain of Justin’s human-blunt teeth digging into her neck, drawing blood. The scent attracted attention. Someone let out a low whoop that seemed to stir the whole room. The pack would join Justin’s hunt tonight. She knew she was lost.

Safe, insisted the music.

“Anna, my love,” said a deep voice.

And, abruptly, as if by magic, everything changed.

Instead of a dark room, too full of werewolves, too full of men, she stood in brilliant sunlight, wearing unfamiliar clothing, on the side of a mountain. Before her there was nothing but evergreen forest as far as she could see. It was autumn, she thought a little numbly, taking in the colored leaves of the undergrowth. But she knew it was summer.

Her neck hurt where Justin had bitten her. She turned around, half expecting Justin’s hold on her hair to stop her. Expecting that he would be there—that this was some game he was playing.

Justin wasn’t there. But she saw then that she wasn’t in untouched wilderness. She was standing in an amphitheater of sorts, surrounded by a circle of rocks spread around the space as though they were intended to be seating. Scattered about the rocks were broken instruments. Maybe Justin had knocked her out and she was dreaming. It was the sort of scene her subconscious might come up with: the death of her music. But it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real.

Two men stood on the opposite side of the clearing from her. The larger of the two stood farther away, poised on the balls of his feet as if he were ready to move at any moment, held back by something just barely adequate to keep him where he was. His orange hair hung down in tangled waves over his shoulders. But it wasn’t that one, huge and menacing as he looked, who drew her attention.

About halfway between her and the redheaded man was a Native American man with wolf-gold eyes. She could not look away from him, although she knew quite well what happened when she met the eyes of dominant males, even by accident.

He was big, too, with wide shoulders and graceful hands. He wore his hair in a long braid and, incongruously in a man with such masculine features, gold studs in his ears. In contrast to his rather extraordinary looks, his clothing was mundane: a green flannel shirt, jeans, and worn leather lace-up boots.

Dangerous. She knew that with absolute certainty. This man was dangerous.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Her breath was harsh, her throat sour with bile, as she struggled to accept her current situation and evaluate it while she was still trying to deal with the sudden change of place. She was in danger and she had no idea what to do about it. The urge to run was almost overwhelming, but she fought it back because fleeing would be a terrible mistake.

And some part of her remembered the moment after Justin bit her neck, remembered the harsh hands and the . . . and the . . . She had run then, she knew it. Knew it had done no good. They had outnumbered her.

She fought not to remember it. Not to remember the hands, the greedy mouths—to jump in time to afterward.

Afterward.

Afterward, when she was alone in her apartment, she’d sat fully clothed in her bathtub and pulled up her shirtsleeve. This time, she thought, dragging the silver knife down the inside of her wrist and watching the blood well. This time it would work.

And somehow, Anna knew that memory, of sitting in the bathtub so she wouldn’t cause a big mess for someone else to clean up. That part was true, too. She looked down at her arms and saw long silvery scars. How could there be scars and Justin’s bite still be bleeding?

“Hey,” said the Native American man. He had a deep voice, the one she remembered calling to her in the darkness of her terror. Surely he hadn’t been in the pack meeting room, though that had been where she’d heard him.

“Stay here, sweetheart,” he said. “Stay with me.”

She put her hand to the side of her neck, felt the sting of the open wound and the stickiness of blood. But she didn’t look at her hand. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the man who had spoken to her.

He was scary—she knew people were scared of him. How did she know that? And why did it make her sad? Jeepers, her mind was in a muddle. She had to cling to the present moment because she was in danger—later, when she was safe, she could figure it all out.

Why did she want to go to him?

Someone growled and she jerked her eyes to the second man. Second werewolf, she understood. They were both werewolves. His face was twisted in rage and her breath caught.

“Tag,” said the first man without looking away from Anna. “Go back up to the sign. You are scaring her.”

Tag. She should know that name. She knew that name.

She put her hands up to her face, covering her eyes. Stupid thing to do, the scared woman inside of her said. But there was something wrong with her vision; she was seeing two different things and she didn’t know what was real. “Seeing” was the wrong verb, but she couldn’t find a better one. “Remembering” wasn’t the right word, surely.