"¡Cabron!" She stomped her foot. "Hijo de puta."

Hard to believe that she was two centuries old and not the young girl she looked and acted. Like Peter Pan, she'd never grown up.

"She loved me. She chose me in the end. That's why she is with me and not with you. But"-she held up a finger- "you wanted me. That's why she made me go away. You wanted me, and it made her angry. I was young and helpless, a child in your care, and you wanted me."

"Why would I want you?" he asked her coldly. "I had Sarai, who was more woman than you could ever be. I wanted Sarai; for Sarai I lived and died. You were never more to me than a stray pet Sarai wanted to take care of."

He let his truth ring in her ears, and when her hands came up, full of magic, he made no move to defend himself. He was confident that she wouldn't kill him-not before she convinced him that she was right. Or until he drove her into a real rage.

Honor demanded that he fight to live as long as he could, to try to stop this threat he'd brought to the Marrok. Anything short of death, Asil could handle. And while she was concentrating on him, she wasn't paying any attention to what he and Sarai were doing-and, more importantly, she wasn't paying any attention to Bran.

But Sarai's wolf wasn't so sanguine. In the instant before the witch's power hit him, she flashed him pictures of things that she'd seen the witch do to people. Things that might have made him question his earlier assessment that as long as he didn't die, he'd be fine.

If he'd needed proof that he was only dealing with a shadow of his mate, he'd have known it then. Sarai would have known that scaring him in advance wasn't helpful. But it did remind him that if he didn't block her out, she'd feel his pain, too. And even if she was only a shadow, he didn't want her hurt. He pulled up his shields to block Sarai out just before the witch hit him with more fury than finesse.

He screamed because he wasn't braced, because it hurt worse than he'd thought possible, and because his wolf decided that it wasn't going to let him just lie down and take it.

Changing at that moment was as imperative as it was stupid. Pain quadrupled and sizzled down nerve endings he wished he didn't have. Time changed for him, seconds became hours until he existed only in a limbo of agony. Then it stopped. His whole body went numb as he completed the change. It was only a moment, a space of freedom that Sarai bought him as she took his pain for him. Leaving him in wolf form, standing two feet from Mariposa and in full control of his body.

For the first time, Mariposa looked frightened, and he ate that fear as if it were fresh, dripping meat. He paused to savor it before he launched himself upon her. But that gave her one instant too many because she had time to scream his mate's name.

"Sarai!"

And his open jaws met with fur instead of skin, with Sarai's blood and not Mariposa's. As his fangs sank deep, the pain of Mariposa's magic ripped through him again, only to stop when Bran made his move.

* * * *

"This stuff isn't vile," Anna told Charles. "If I were, say, five and still enjoyed sticky-creamy sweet things, I might actually like it."

Anna barely whispered while she munched on freeze-dried ice cream. He'd apparently convinced her that consuming calories was important. It was too bad that she fed it to Walter and him, too. Though Walter seemed to appreciate it.

Charles grunted as he stared down the valley at the small figures who walked across the meadow. The wind blew the occasional word their way, but it was coming from the wrong direction to alert the others that they were being watched.

"I wonder why he's doing that," Anna said, as Asil changed to his wolf.

It didn't look deliberate to Charles-maybe it was some sort of bizarre punishment. But if so, it backfired. Asil staggered to his feet-and in the middle of it, his movements were suddenly graceful and directed as he launched himself at the witch.

All three of them-Charles, Anna, and Walter-stood up. They were too far away to affect the outcome, but...

The thing that looked like Asil's mate's wolf just appeared out of nowhere to intercept him. And that's when his father made his move. The witch, distracted by the fight between the two wolves, almost missed it.

Almost.

And Charles was too far away to change what happened.

* * * *

Asil felt her frustration, but Sarai couldn't ignore the prime directive of her creation, guarding Mariposa. Not yet. He hadn't given her enough. So they fought because she couldn't stop until he was dead or the witch stopped her.

Normally, it would have been no contest. Warrior she might have been, but Asil had taught her all that she knew, and in this form he outweighed her by fifty pounds of muscle. He was faster and stronger, but she was fighting to kill him. He was fighting to stay alive without hurting her.

If she killed him, she would have forever to grieve, and he couldn't bear it. He felt the witch's leash fall away from him, saw Sarai hesitate as it fell from her as well.

And then that moment of freedom was over.

"Asil, sit," Mariposa said, her voice hoarse, but the whip of her power settled over him and forced him to do as she said, leashed and held as tightly as ever.

"Sarai, stop." She hadn't noticed that Sarai had made no move to continue her attack. Because she wasn't looking at Sarai; she was still looking at Bran.

Asil followed her gaze.

At first he thought Bran was dead. But Mariposa staggered over to the still figure and kicked it. "Up. Get up."

Stiffly, it rose to its feet. The body was still Bran's, a gray wolf with a silly splash of white on the end of his tail. But when it looked up at the witch, there was nobody home.

Asil had seen zombies with more personality. And if he hadn't been a wolf, he'd have used the sign his mother had taught him to ward off evil, which would have been useless. It wouldn't work unless it was made by a witchblood- and if Mariposa didn't know it, he didn't want to be the one to teach her.

Even the guardian, shadow of his mate that she was, had more inside than whatever animated the Marrok.

Satisfied Bran was obeying her again, she looked at Asil. "Hussan, change back to human."

Ah Allah, it hurt. Too many changes in too few hours, but her orders were pitiless. He staggered to his feet and felt the sharp kiss of the ice crystals in the snow. Cold didn't usually bother him-less even than most werewolves. But he felt it now.