Well, she was right in that, if not for quite the reason she thought. Sage hopped out and shut the tailgate. Anna stirred herself and began reapplying bungee cords, ignoring the pain in her burnt hand.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, honey,” Sage said. “They’ll probably just have to undo the tarp all over again when they load whatever they found in Hester’s cabin.”
Anna let her hands drop, and Sage muttered to herself, “Leave it alone. Leave it . . .” She snorted, shook her head, and asked, “Are you all right, Anna? Is there anything I can do?”
Anna made a helpless gesture because, while Sage had been moving bodies, Anna had decided that the first person who needed to hear that she knew one of the dead men was her mate. And because she couldn’t tell Sage she was fine. Sometimes living with werewolves sucked—like when it made little social lies impossible.
When she didn’t answer, Sage gave her a sympathetic smile. “Sometimes it hits me, too.” She looked at the truck bed, at Hester’s cabin, then a sweeping glance that took in the pack altogether. Sage closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she said, “What I wouldn’t give to live an ordinary life, you know? No monsters. No dead bodies. The kind of life where I could get outraged that some guy is getting paid more than me for doing the same job. That a speeding ticket is enough to ruin my whole day.”
Anna started to agree but then stopped and shook her head. “No. Then I wouldn’t have Charles. He’s worth all the rest.”
“Charlie?” said Sage. She started to say something else, but she shook her head and gave Anna a rueful smile. “Charlie sure thinks the sun rises and sets on you, that’s for sure.”
Even without telling Sage everything, the other woman had helped Anna find balance. Just having someone else there helped, someone who reminded Anna by her very presence that she wasn’t in Chicago and that there were people here she could trust to have her back.
So Anna had recognized one of the dead men. That was no excuse to break into a cold sweat of memory. He was dead, after all, and memories couldn’t hurt her unless she chose to let them. And she was no one’s victim these days.
Taking emotion out of the discovery, there were some interesting implications about her knowing one of the men, weren’t there? Especially given the ammunition that had killed Hester.
“Are you okay?” Sage asked again. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Anna gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. She did want to talk things out but not with Sage. At least not with Sage first. “You already have, thank you. I was just having a moment—it’s been a long day. Let’s get the truck over before Leah has an aneurysm.”
“Do you think she would?” asked Sage, with interest. “That she could?” She made a happy noise. “It probably wouldn’t kill her, but it might get her to cool her jets a little. We could wait here for a while longer, don’t you think?”
“Leah’s a werewolf,” Anna said dryly. “I think she’ll survive a little frustration. Do you want to ride over with me?”
“No,” said Sage. “I’m also on my way to find Tag and ‘make sure the enfant terrible has not forgotten where he put the fuel for the fire.’” The last was said in Asil’s unmistakable accent.
“I thought Tag was up at the cabin telling stories about Hester,” Anna said.
Sage nodded. “So did Asil. But he wasn’t. So I’m to fetch him—” The sound of a great diesel engine engaging rumbled through the air.
Sage threw up her hands. “What does he think he’s doing with that backhoe?” She hopped on the edge of the truck bed and balanced on it for a moment and looked, presumably, over the cars to where the backhoe had been parked. She shook her head. “I have no idea. None. That man. But I guess I’d better find out.”
She leaped, cleared the bed of the truck, and took off running, presumably for the backhoe with Tag in it.
* * *
• • •
ANNA DROVE THE truck right up to the front door of the cabin and hopped out. By the time she had the tailgate down, Asil and Charles had come out of the cabin with their discoveries.
Between them they carried a small cedar chest, each holding on to one of the handles on either end. Impossible to see how heavy the box was—two werewolves could probably stroll around carrying a VW Bug from the bumpers and not show much strain. Balanced diagonally across the top of the chest and overhanging the sides was something—Anna was pretty sure it was the sword Jonesy had killed himself with—wrapped in a blanket.
They gently set the box down on the tailgate. Sage had rearranged the bodies so there would be some room, but neither she nor Anna had envisioned an entire cedar chest. Charles and Asil unhooked the tarp the rest of the way and rolled it back, working together as a silent team, one on either side of the truck. They were so apparently unconcerned with all the attention they were getting that Anna knew they were very conscious of the eyes on them.
They must have found the mother lode of fae magic. Anna glanced at the pack and saw that same realization on the faces around her: excitement, greed, and—on the smartest of them—worry. Only an idiot would get excited about having something the lords of Faery might want.
Charles hopped up on the truck bed and redistributed the dead men again so there was room for the cedar chest. He set the wrapped sword down on the bed and hopped back out. Anna shut the tailgate, and he and Asil rolled the tarp back and secured it.
Charles looked up. “I need not tell you how dangerous the cargo in the back of the truck is,” he said to the pack at large. “Neither Asil nor I know exactly what we found here. We’re taking it back and putting it in my da’s safe room, where it will stay until he gets back. The Marrok will dispose of it as he sees fit.”
After he spoke, he slowly panned his gaze over the gathering, meeting the eyes of each pack member until they looked away.
Silence hung powerfully in the air as the pack waited for Charles to say something else. But apparently, he’d said all he felt necessary, because he held his peace.
Asil frowned at him, cleared his throat, and said, in a clear, cold voice that was missing his usual accent, “We do not need to remind any of you what would happen if the Gray Lords discovered that we found fae artifacts in Hester’s home. We lost two of our own here, and if I read the signs aright—and I always read the signs aright—we are about to find ourselves engaged in war with an unknown enemy. We do not need to add a battle with the Gray Lords on top of it.”
From the back of the crowd, Tag growled, “What he means is, shut our mouths or someone will come pay a visit.”
He bristled—and Anna was pretty sure that it was Asil’s implied threat that Tag was bristling at. Charles, she thought, hadn’t been wrong in his assessment that he’d said enough.