He opened his eyes and looked around. There were any number of abandoned warehouses nearby-and blackberries, the infamous weed of the Pacific Northwest, were taking over their empty parking lots, creating a sanctuary for those who didn't mind their thorns.

One mystery down. Charles let the sound of one of his grandfather's songs run through his head, bringing clarity and peace-despite the spirit that patted and petted him. If he'd been alone, he would have knocked the spirit away-Brother Wolf didn't like to be touched by anyone except Anna. But no one else could see it... and he had enough of a reputation for oddness. He didn't need people to know that he saw things no one else did, too.

When he could be reasonably sure that Brother Wolf would allow him to behave in a civilized manner, he stood up.

"Vampires," he said. "Bring her into the warehouse for Arthur." It wouldn't help the British wolf-except as confirmation that she was out of the vampires' hands.

FRUSTRATED, Anna looked at the bag dangling twenty feet over their heads, up one of the long shafts that occasionally perforated the ceiling of this level-after their near disaster with the airless room, Anna was pretty sure that the shafts were useful.

As she stared at it, a wolf snatched victory out of their reach.

It was too dark to be sure who it was, even if she had known all the other wolves in their furred form. The wolf leapt out of an opening a story above the bag, snatched the prize, and disappeared into another opening a floor lower, still well over Anna's head. Watching helplessly as their prize was stolen out from under... okay, above their noses, was maddening.

Isaac snorted in disgust.

And Brother Wolf was... surrounding her, his anxiety, his fear and love making her stagger against Isaac-which Brother Wolf did not like at all.

Something was wrong. But when she asked, Brother Wolf couldn't or wouldn't tell her.

She had to get to Charles. Now. The problem was, Anna didn't know precisely how to get back-oh, she could have backtracked, but they had wandered all over the place and would have had to go through the narrow tunnel again.

Up would be good.

She was running full speed ahead when a white wolf pushed in front of her. A second wolf was hard on her tail-Isaac and Ric.

It was Isaac who found the first set of stairs headed up. They emerged on the ground floor of the smaller warehouse, and when they made for the door, a werewolf in human form stopped them.

"If you cross the outer door, you are officially done," he said.

The Alpha wolf stared coldly at him and the man dropped his eyes, throwing up his hands as he backed away. "Just saying what I'm told, man. You go outside, that's out of bounds."

They ran past him and out into the fresh air. Ric, his fur gray in the light of the yard, sneezed his pleasure at leaving the underground labyrinth behind. Anna took in a deep breath and smelled-vampire.

She stumbled to a halt, examining their surroundings for the enemy. At last she saw him standing on the other side of the chain-link fence a hundred yards away.

It took a moment for her eyes to link the spiffily dressed older man to the vicious killer she'd last seen sitting on top of Tom. But her nose had already made the connection. She'd gotten two good strides in when she hit the side of the white wolf, who'd run in front of her to stop her, his attention on the vampire as well.

The dead man laughed and motioned with his hand. A blue minivan drove up, and he climbed in. It took off before he'd finished closing the door.

Isaac growled low in his chest, an echo of the noise she was making, too. He'd known what that one was, all right. Ric gave them both a puzzled look-but Anna had never run into vampires before yesterday either.

There didn't seem to be much point in sticking around here, so Anna turned and made for the main room of the bigger warehouse, where the lights were blazing, Brother Wolf's presence an ache in her chest.

Inside the warehouse, all of the wolves who had stayed in human form were gathered in a tight group, focused inward. There were too many of them for her nose to tell her anything.

All of the clothes had been pushed against the wall, and it took her a while to sort hers out. By the time she had them collected, Charles had found her. His eyes were all for the gathering in the center of the room, and there was an odd stiffness to his body that worried her.

She changed, her body protesting the shift even more than it had when she'd taken wolf form. She, like all the wolves, had been well trained not to make much noise while she shifted, but, damn, it hurt.

"Ow, ow, ow," she whispered as her hands slowly, grat ingly, reluctantly re-formed as wholly human. She tucked them under her arms and squeezed, the pressure helping the pain. Every change was different, but she hated the ones where her hands were the last thing to make it to human. There are so many nerves in a hand, and all of them hurt. It left her light-headed.

Charles growled at her pain.

She looked up, but there was no one anywhere close to them. Ric and his Alpha were still caught up in their change on the other side of the pile of clothing. She glanced at him and let her body grow still. His eyes were yellow, and the corner of his mouth twitched, then twitched again, as if he had a nervous tic.

"Charles?" her voice was still hoarse from the change.

"Sunny's dead." His voice was guttural, and she knew that he was on the verge... of something.

Anna worried about it for all of a half second before his words registered. "Arthur's Sunny?"

He nodded a quarter of an inch, his eyes locked on her face. "Vampires. We found her body just outside the gates."

And the vampires had hidden, waiting for the wolves to find Sunny. When he-the vampire in the suit-saw Anna, he made sure she saw him, too. Staring into those wild gold eyes, she decided it was something she would tell Charles in a while. The vampires were gone. She had the plate number, but it wouldn't matter: probably the van was rented anyway.

A wolf howled, a wild mournful cry, and a half dozen other voices lifted in song to show their sympathy for one who had lost his mate-all of them from human throats.

Charles held out his hand, and Anna let him pull her to her feet. She was a little stiff still-and he looked as though he needed something to do.

He used his body to shield her from the sight of anyone in the rest of the room, as if he knew she didn't really like being naked in front of a bunch of strangers. Most wolves got over that in the first year of being changed. For Anna, it was still an effort. Not because of modesty, but because clothing gave her the illusion of safety from the attention of the males of her first pack.