"Wait," his father told him, and the command wrapped around his body like steel hawsers, freezing him where he stood when all he wanted to do was follow the truck. "Samuel still needs a look at you. I'll send Sage to her, shall I?"

His father's touch, his voice, and something more helped him gather his thoughts. He was out of control.

He closed his eyes and drew on his father's touch to soothe the beast until he could think more clearly.

"I did it again, didn't I?" he asked, though he didn't really need Bran's affirmative. He took a deep breath and nodded. "Sage would be good."

He didn't like anyone in his house: his father and brother, yes, but other people only as necessary. Still, he didn't want Anna alone, either. Sage would do.

She wouldn't hurt his Anna and could protect her until he was there. Keep the males away. Something restless inside settled down a little more firmly. But he watched as his father called Sage on his cell and listened to him ask her to go meet Anna. Then allowed himself to be towed off to the clinic in Samuel's car. His father followed in his Humvee.

"Da told me you had to kill Gerry," he told his brother. Gerry had been Doc Wallace's son, responsible for hurting any number of people and killing several others in his quest to find a drug that could subdue Bran in a convoluted plot to force the good doctor to accept his dual nature. Gerry hadn't been concerned about collateral damage.

Samuel nodded, his face grim. "He left me no choice."

Even distracted by his need to protect his mate and the burn of the wounds that weren't healing right, Charles heard what his brother wasn't saying. So he gave it voice. "You're wondering how many people we would kill to protect our da? How many we would torture and destroy?"

"That's it," his brother whispered. "We've killed people. Wolves and innocents for our father. How are we so different that we survive and Gerry deserved to die?"

If Bran had sent Samuel with Mercy to the Tri-Cities to cure his melancholy, it hadn't worked very well. Charles struggled to pull his attention from his mate and come up with something to help his brother. Without Bran touching him, it was more difficult than it should have been to collect his thoughts.

"Our father has kept the packs under his mantle safe and controlled. Without his leadership, we'd be as chaotic and scattered as the European wolves-and the human death toll would be a lot higher, too. What would the results be if Gerry's plan had succeeded?" Charles asked. Sage would take care of Anna for him. There was no reason for this unholy, driving need to be with her.

"Gerry thought his father would embrace the wolf in order to defeat the Marrok," Samuel murmured. "Who is to say that he wasn't right? Maybe he could have saved his father. Is it any more wrong, what he did, than when Da sends you out to kill?"

"And if Gerry was right? If all his plans had borne fruit, if all his father needed was a reason to accept his wolf, and if, with the help of Gerry's new drug, he killed our father and took over as Marrok-then what?" Charles asked. "Doc was a good man, but how do you think he would be as the Marrok?"

Samuel thought, then sighed. "He wasn't dominant enough to hold it. There'd have been chaos as the Alphas fought for supremacy, and Gerry tried to kill them off like a jackal in the shadows." He parked in front of the clinic but made no move to get out. "But wouldn't you kill for Da anyway? Even if it wasn't important for the wolves' survival in this country? Was Gerry so wrong?"

"He broke the laws," Charles said. He knew that such things weren't so black and white for his brother. Samuel had never been forced to accept things as they were, not the way Charles had. So he picked through the facts for something that might help.

"Gerry killed innocents. Not for the survival of the pack, but for a thin chance of his father's survival." He smiled a little as something, the right something, came to him. "If either you or I kill an innocent to protect Da, and not for the survival of us all, he'd kill us himself."

Tension left Samuel's shoulders. "Yes, he would, wouldn't he?"

"Feel better being on the side of angels?" Charles asked, as their father pulled in next to them.

Samuel grinned tiredly. "I'll tell Da you called him an angel."

Charles got out and met his father's amused gaze over the hood of Samuel's car with a shrug.

* * * *

Samuel turned on the lights in the clinic and led the way to one of the examination rooms.

"Okay, old man," he said. "Let's see those bullet holes." But his smile dropped away when Charles started to struggle with his suit jacket.

"Wait," he said, and opened a drawer to grab a pair of scissors. When he saw Charles's face, he grinned. "Hey, it's just a suit. I know you can afford to replace it."

"Fittings," snarled Charles. "Four fittings and traveling to the city to be poked and prodded. No, thank you. Da, can you help me get this off and keep your son and his scissors out of reach?"

"Put the scissors down, Samuel," Bran said. "I expect that if he managed to get it on, we can get it off without cutting it. No need to growl, Charles."

With help, sliding out of the jacket was possible, but it left Charles sweating and his father murmuring soothing words. They didn't even ask for his help unbuttoning the shirt when they took it off of him.

Samuel got a good look at the bright pink vet wrap and grinned. "That wasn't your idea."

"Anna."

"I think I like this little wolf of yours. She may scare a little easy all right, but she faced down Asil without breaking a sweat. And anyone who'd dare to wrap you in pink-"

Samuel was abruptly serious, though, when he cut through the silly pink stuff and saw the holes, fore and aft. He put his face next to the wound and sniffed before rewrapping Charles in something a little less spectacular.

Charles was amused to find he preferred the pink because she had put it on him.

"Almost lost you with that one, little brother. But it smells clean and looks like it's healing well enough. Drop the pants now, I want to look at that leg you've been trying not to favor."

Charles didn't like to take off his clothes-too much Indian in him, he supposed. That and a little reluctance to bare his wounds. He didn't like other people knowing his weaknesses, even his brother and father. He reluctantly skimmed his slacks down.