"I'm deadheading," he told her, though she could see that for herself.

Sometimes he was so impatient with all of it-meaningless conversations that mimicked ones he'd had a thousand, thousand times. Just as he got tired of people who had to work out the same issues over and over.

He wondered how Bran kept his air of bemused interest at his people's petty problems. Still, thought Asil with a thread of self-directed, bitter amusement, I must not be so tired of life, because I grabbed at the ring when Bran offered a chance at it, didn't I?

Sage ignored his shortness with relentless cheer. It was one of the things he liked about her, that he didn't have to constantly apologize for his volatile mood swings.

She took off her coat and settled in just to his right to start on the next row of bushes, so he knew she was in the mood for a good talk. Otherwise, she'd have started on the other side of the bushes, where she wouldn't get in the way of his work.

"So what do you think of Charlie's mate?" she asked.

He grunted. It had been wicked of him to tease Bran's boy, but he had been unable to resist; it wasn't often Charles was off balance. And Anna reminded him so much of his own Sarai, not in looks-Sarai had been almost as dark as he was-but they both had the same inner serenity.

"Well, I like her," Sage said. "She has more backbone than you'd think given the way her old Alpha abused her."

That shocked him. "Abuse an Omega?"

She nodded. "For years. I guess Leo was a real piece of work-killed off half his pack or let his crazy mate do it. He even ordered one of his wolves to force the Change on Anna. What I don't understand is why Charles didn't slaughter the whole pack; none of them did anything to protect her. How hard is it to pick up the phone and call Bran?"

"If Leo ordered them not to, they wouldn't be able to call," Asil said absently. He'd known Leo, the Chicago Alpha, and liked him, too. "Not unless they were nearly as dominant as Leo-which is unlikely."

Leo had been a strong Alpha, and, he would have sworn, an honorable man. Perhaps Sage was mistaken. Asil clipped a few brown-edged roses, then asked, "Do you know why Leo did these things?"

She looked up from her own task. "I guess his mate was going age-crazy. She killed all the females in the pack out of jealousy, then went out and turned a bunch of good-looking men, just for fun. Apparently Leo hoped that having an Omega like Anna in the pack would keep his mate stable. It worked, more or less. He had Anna brutalized, though, to keep her under his thumb."

Asil paused, a cold chill running down his back. When speaking of an unmated female in a pack, "brutalized" was a terrible word, much worse than "abused." This modern era's definition of "abuse" was different than the one he'd grown up with. "Brutalized" hadn't changed a bit.

"Brutalized how?" he asked hoarsely, suddenly remembering the rare rage he'd left Charles in when he'd brought Anna flowers. He had a brief image of a glimpse he'd had of Anna over Charles's shoulder. Had she been frightened?

Damn his penchant for causing trouble. What had he done?

Sage dug her fingers into the dirt, doubtless reliving her own brutal assault, which had resulted in her seeking sanctuary here in Aspen Creek a few years before he had come here. He should apologize for bringing that up, too. Clumsy, clumsy, Asil.

"What do you think they did to her?" she said finally, darkness clinging to her voice.

"Allah," he said softly-he'd never managed to get Charles so worked up before. And he'd left that poor child to deal with the results, thinking that any Omega could soothe her mate. He hadn't realized she'd already been hurt before. Truly he should have forced Bran to kill him a long time ago.

"What's wrong?"

"I need to go talk to Charles," he said, setting down his knife and getting to his feet. He was getting old and complacent, too ready to believe he was omniscient. He'd thought the boy had been waiting until his wounds were healed before consummating their attachment-instead he'd almost certainly been trying to give the girl time.

That Charles had come this morning to ask about Omegas might mean that something had gone wrong...and on the heels of that thought, he realized that Charles hadn't been asking about Sarai when he asked what happened if an Omega was tortured. He'd been asking about Anna.

"Talking with Charles is going to be difficult," Sage said dryly. "He took Anna and went after some rogue over in the Cabinets. There's no cell phone reception out there."

"The Cabinets?" He frowned at her, remembering the limp Charles had been hiding in church yesterday. He'd been doing a better job this morning, but Asil could still see he was stiff. "He was wounded."

"Umm." She nodded. "I heard he got shot in Chicago, silver bullets. But there's some rogue werewolf running around attacking people. Killed one and wounded another in less than a week-Heather Morrell's partner was the one wounded. If we're going to keep it out of the news, the rogue has to be taken out as soon as possible, so he doesn't hurt anyone else. And who else does Bran have to send after him? Samuel's not suitable, even if he hadn't just headed back to Washington this morning. Word is that Bran's worried it might be a ploy on the part of the European wolves, to see if they can cause enough trouble that Bran reconsiders going public. So he needs a dominant wolf."

How Sage knew so much about everything that went on in the Marrok's pack had ceased to astound Asil a long time ago.

"He could have sent me," said Asil, not really paying attention to his own words. It was good news if Anna had gone with Charles, wasn't it? Surely it meant he hadn't done any permanent harm to her with his teasing.

Sage looked at him. "Send you? Could he, really? I saw you at church yesterday morning."

"He could have sent me," Asil repeated. Sage, he knew, was beginning to suspect that his madness was feigned. Bran probably thought so, too, since he hadn't just killed him, though Asil had requested it of him repeatedly-fifteen years of "not yet." It was too bad that both Sage and Bran were wrong. His madness was a more subtle thing, and it might kill them all in the end.

Asil was a danger to everyone around him, and if he weren't such a coward he'd have made Bran take care of the problem when he'd first arrived here, or any day since then.