She grabbed her clothing and put it on as quickly as she could, shoving her feet into her tennis shoes while she tucked her socks in her pockets.

"Is Arthur all right?" she asked.

Charles closed his eyes and pulled her to him, pressing his nose into the crook of her neck, breathing in like a marathon runner.

"No," he said. "And neither am I."

Her skin hurt, her bones ached, and she wanted to be held as much as a person who'd fallen asleep on the beach for four hours without sunscreen would want to cuddle. But because he needed it, she relaxed against him.

Sunny had been killed by vampires.

"Sunny would have been an Omega if she'd been turned." She made it a statement, but she meant it as a question.

"Yes."

Anna shivered, and his grip tightened. Her change-sensitive skin protested, her sore muscles complained, but her wolf wanted to burrow inside of him, to keep him safe.

SHE was here, she was safe. He let the reality of her, of her scent, push away the need to make something bleed.

He was holding her too tightly, he knew it. Just as he knew she needed time to recover, and he couldn't give it to her. The sound of her pain as she changed had stirred the wolf up again. Brother Wolf wanted blood or sex, and he wasn't going to get either. No blood-and no sex, not until he calmed down a lot. Brother Wolf wouldn't hurt Anna, but he might scare her.

Holding Anna was the next best thing. Gradually, as she softened against him, Brother Wolf consented to settle down a bit. It would be a long time before he calmed enough to cede Charles full control again. It was too easy to see Arthur's agony and understand that it could have been his own.

The attacks were odd. Too focused on the wrong things, the wrong people, to accomplish anything. The attack on Anna could have been an attempt to kidnap her for ransom or hostage. But Sunny's death accomplished nothing. An na's death would accomplish nothing. He couldn't see why Omegas would be targeted-especially since one wasn't a wolf. So maybe they had targeted the mates of two of the three most powerful or dominant wolves at the conference. What would that accomplish? Especially given that the talks had done all that they could.

He couldn't see the shape of what the vampires, or whoever hired them, were after yet. Nothing fit.

Omega.

Anna thought the vampires were working for a wolf. Her personal experience with the enemy gave her instincts weight, and he would trust her insight-Brother Wolf did, and that was good enough for him.

Whatever the ultimate goal, Charles could think of at least one reason why a wolf might hire someone to murder Sunny and attack Anna. A wolf, especially a dominant wolf, would have a hard time deliberately hurting an Omega, even a human Omega.

Maybe even Chastel wouldn't have been able to do it.

Charles made himself let Anna go and stepped back to give her space. He tried to ignore the relief in her body posture-it wasn't a reaction to him. It was the feel of the change still lingering on her flesh that made her want to stand alone.

"You're the first ones back," he told Anna. "What brought you in so early?"

She gave him an odd look. "Brother Wolf told me you needed me here."

He had no idea what to say to that. Should he admit that he had no idea what Brother Wolf had been up to? Would that worry her? Before he had to make a decision, Dana broke free of the group around Arthur and approached Charles.

"There is some concern for Arthur's sanity," she murmured softly as soon as she was close.

And there were no other wolves here who would stand a chance of controlling Arthur if he lost it, she meant. They needed him to be on watch.

"I'm coming," Charles said.

"I'll come over, too," Anna told him. "It can't hurt, right?"

He didn't want her anywhere near the other wolves. There were too many of them. If they all attacked her, there was no way for him to protect her.

But an Omega wolf could be useful.

"Thank you," he told Anna as he argued silently with Brother Wolf. "That would help."

Arthur was sitting on the ground, cradling his mate in his arms and whispering to her while the others held a wary vigil. His face was streaked with tears and his nose ran. "Sunny girl, my sunny girl."

He looked up, and his eyes focused on Charles. "She is gone."

"Yes," Charles said.

"Vampires did this," he whispered. Then he roared, his voice echoing in the tall room. "They hurt her!"

"I know. I will find them."

"Kill them." Arthur's face was ravaged, almost unrecognizable in his grief and rage. In his pain.

"I will."

Arthur tightened his hold on his wife, tucking her head against his shoulder. "She hated growing old," he said, rocking her. "Now she won't have to. My poor Sunny girl."

Angus said to Charles, though he made no effort to quiet his voice, "He'll survive. If the madness was going to take him, it would have already done so. That being so, it might be a good thing to remove our fallen and wounded from the hunting grounds altogether." He looked at Arthur a moment. "Arthur, would you let us take you home? The others will be here soon, fresh from the hunt." A dead body smelling of fear and pain was not, probably, going to send any of these wolves into a frenzy. But there was no use in taking the chance.

"Yes." Arthur stood up, his wife cradled in his arms. Charles thought that Angus might be a little too quick to pronounce Arthur well. He swayed a little and looked shocky-still, it would be better to get him away from the hunt.

But he couldn't go alone. He hadn't brought any of his pack-a statement of strength and, maybe, trust. But that left him alone in a foreign county with his dead wife.

Angus met Charles's eyes briefly, maybe he saw the panic in them-Charles wasn't up to comforting Arthur tonight. Offering comfort wasn't something he was very good at on his best day.

The Emerald City Alpha looked over his shoulder at one of his wolves. "Send someone to find Alan Choo. Bring me Tom." He glanced at Charles, not long enough to be a challenge, just enough to indicate he was talking to him when he said, "Alan's cousins own a funeral parlor. His family takes care of our dead, they know what we are, and they can help Arthur now. And if Tom and his witch can fight off a pack of vampires-they should be able to keep Arthur on track."

"You wanted me, Angus? I was just outside." Tom's usually easy glide was a little stiff-the only thing that showed he wasn't fully recovered from his fight. His calm gaze took in the distraught werewolf and Sunny's corpse. "I see. You send someone after Alan, too?"