She’d meant the admonition for Kara, who could be acerbic if she took a dislike to someone—but Charles raised an eyebrow at her before he turned back to Kara and offered a long-fingered hand.
“From Montana?” asked Kara as she took his hand and shook it firmly once.
He nodded and began French-braiding his hair with quick, practiced motions. “My father sent me out here because he’d heard there was a man giving Anna a bad time.”
And with that one statement, Anna knew, he won Kara over completely.
“Justin? You’re gonna take care of that rat bastard?” She gave Charles an appraising look. “Now, you’re in good shape, don’t get me wrong—but Justin is a bad piece of business. I lived in Cabrini-Green until my mama got smart and married her a good man. Those projects, though, they grew a certain sort of predator—the kind that loves violence for its own sake. That Justin, he has dead eyes—sent me back twenty years the first time I saw him. He’s hurt people before and liked it. You’re not going to frighten him off with just a warning.”
The corner of Charles’s lip turned up and his eyes warmed, changing his appearance entirely. “Thank you for the heads-up,” he told her.
Kara gave him a regal nod. “If I know Anna, there’s not an ounce of food to be found in the whole apartment. You need to feed that girl up. There’s bagels and cream cheese in those bags on the table—and no, I don’t mean to stay. I’ve got a week’s worth of work waiting on me, but I couldn’t go without knowing that Anna would eat something.”
“I’ll see that she does,” Charles told her, the small smile still on his face.
Kara reached way up and patted his cheek in a motherly gesture. “Thank you.” She gave Anna a quick hug and pulled an envelope out of her pocket and set it on the table next to the bagels. “You take this for watching the cat so I don’t have to take him to the kennels with all those dogs he hates and pay them four times this amount. I find it in my cookie jar again, and I’ll take him to the kennels just for spite because it will make you feel guilty.”
Then she was gone.
Anna waited until the sound of her footsteps reached the next landing, then said, “How did you change so fast?”
“Do you want garlic or blueberry?” Charles asked, opening the bag.
When she didn’t answer his question, he put both hands on the table and sighed. “You mean you haven’t heard the story of the Marrok and his Indian maiden?” She couldn’t read his voice, and his face was tilted away from her so she couldn’t read that, either.
“No,” she said.
He gave a short laugh, though she didn’t think there was any humor behind it. “My mother was beautiful, and it saved her life. She’d been out gathering herbs and surprised a moose. It ran over her and she was dying from it when my father, attracted by the noise, came upon her. He saved my mother’s life by turning her into a werewolf.”
He took out the bagels and set them on the table with napkins. He sat down and waved her to the other seat. “Start eating and I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”
He’d given her the blueberry one. She sat opposite him and took a bite.
He gave a satisfied nod and then continued. “It was one of those love at first sight things on both their parts, apparently. Must have been looks, because neither one of them could speak the other’s language at first. All was well until she became pregnant. My mother’s father was a person of magic and he helped her when she told him that she needed to stay human until I was born. So every month, when my father and brother hunted under the moon, she stayed human. And every moon she grew weaker and weaker. My father argued with her and with her father, worried that she was killing herself.”
“Why did she do that?” Anna asked.
Charles frowned at her. “How long have you been a werewolf?”
“Three years last August.”
“Werewolf women can’t have children,” he said. “The change is too hard on the fetus. They miscarry in the third or fourth month.”
Anna stared at him. No one had ever told her that.
“Are you all right?”
She didn’t know how to answer him. She hadn’t exactly been planning on having children—especially as weird as her life had been for the last few years. She just hadn’t planned on not having children, either.
“This should have been explained to you before you chose to Change,” he said.
It was her turn to laugh. “No one explained anything. No, it’s all right. Please tell me the rest of your story.”
He watched her for a long moment, then gave her an oddly solemn nod. “Despite my father’s protests, she held out until my birth. Weakened by the magic of fighting the moon’s call, she did not survive it. I was born a werewolf, not Changed as all the rest are. It gives me a few extra abilities—like being able to change fast.”
“That would be nice,” she said with feeling.
“It still hurts,” he added.
She played with a piece of bagel. “Are you going to look for the missing boy?”
His mouth tightened. “No. We know where Alan Frazier is.”
Something in his voice told her. “He’s dead?”
He nodded. “There are some good people looking into his death, they’ll find out who is responsible. He was Changed without his consent, the girl who was with him was killed. Then he was sold to be used as a laboratory guinea pig. The person responsible will pay for their crimes.”
She started to ask him something more, but the door to her apartment flew open and hit the wall behind it, leaving Justin standing in the open doorway.
She’d been so intent on Charles, she hadn’t heard Justin coming up the stairs. She’d forgotten to lock her door after Kara left. Not that it would have done her much good. Justin had a key to her apartment.
She couldn’t help her flinch as he strode through the door as if he owned the place. “Payday,” he said. “You owe me a check.” He looked at Charles. “Time for you to go. The lady and I have some business.”
Anna couldn’t believe that even Justin would take that tone with Charles. She looked at him to gauge his reaction and saw why Justin had put his foot in it.
Charles was fussing with his plate, his eyes on his hands. All his awesome force of personality was bottled up and stuffed somewhere it didn’t show.