before he faced the Marrok again. He needed real control that would allow him to lay out his argument logically and explain why the Marrok was wrongheaded-instead of simply bashing heads with him the way they had the last four times Charles had spoken to him. Not for the first time, he wished for a more facile tongue. His brother could sometimes change the Marrok's mind-but he never had. This time, Charles knew his father was wrong.
And now he'd worked himself up into a fine mood.
He focused on the snow and took a deep breath of cold air-and something heavy landed on his shoulders, dropping him facedown in the snow. Sharp teeth and a warm mouth touched his neck and were gone as quickly as the weight that had dropped him.
Without moving, he opened his eyes to slits, and from the corner of his eye, he glanced at the sky-eyed black wolf facing him warily... with a tail that waved tentatively and paws that danced in the snow, claws extending and retracting like a cat's with nervous excitement.
And it was as though something clicked inside Brother Wolf, turning off the fierce anger that had been churning in Charles's gut for the past couple of weeks. The relief of that was enough to drop his head back into the snow. Only with her, only ever with her, did Brother Wolf settle down wholly. And a few weeks were not enough time to get used to the miracle of it-or to keep him from being too stupid to ask for her help.
Which was why she'd planned this ambush, of course.
When he was up to it, he'd explain to her how dangerous it was for her to attack him without warning. Though Brother Wolf had apparently known exactly who it was who'd attacked: he'd let them be taken down in the snow.
The cold felt good against his face.
The frozen stuff squeaked under her paws, and she made an anxious sound, proof that she hadn't noticed when he'd looked at her. Her nose was cold as it touched his ear and he steeled himself not to react. Playing dead with his face buried in the snow, his smile was free to grow.
The cold nose retreated, and he waited for it to come back within reach, his body limp and lifeless. She pawed at him, and he let his body rock-but when she nipped his backside, he couldn't help but jerk away with a sharp sound.
Faking dead was useless after that, so he rolled over and rose to a crouch.
She got out of reach quickly and turned back to look at him. He knew that she couldn't read anything in his face. He knew it. He had too much practice controlling all of his expressions.
But she saw something that had her dropping her front half down to a crouch and loosening her lower jaw in a wolfish grin-a universal invitation to play. He rolled forward, and she took off with a yip of excitement.
They wrestled all over the front yard-making a mess of his carefully tended walk and turning the pristine snow into a battleground of foot-and-body prints. He stayed human to even the odds, because Brother Wolf outweighed her by sixty or eighty pounds and his human form was almost her weight. She didn't use her claws or teeth against his vulnerable skin.
He laughed at her mock growls when she got him down and went for his stomach-then laughed again at the icy nose she shoved under his coat and shirt, more ticklish than any fingers in the sensitive spots on the sides of his belly.
He was careful never to pin her down, never to hurt her, even by accident. That she'd risk this was a statement of trust that warmed him immensely-but he never let Brother Wolf forget that she didn't know them well and had more reason than most to fear him and what he was: male and dominant and wolf.
He heard the car drive up. He could have stopped their play, but Brother Wolf had no desire to take up a real battle yet. So he grabbed her hind foot and tugged it as he rolled out of reach of gleaming fangs.
And he ignored the rich scent of his father's anger-a scent that faded abruptly.
Anna was oblivious to his father's presence. Bran could do that, fade into the shadows as if he were just another man and not the Marrok. All of her attention was on Charles-and it made Brother Wolf