Not that she wouldn’t rather be driving in Hell itself if she could do it with Charles, but she’d take the good where she found it.
They were going to see Wellesley first, and Anna couldn’t help a frisson of fan-girl excitement. Wellesley was an artist, their artist.
His oil paintings held places of honor in the homes of the pack—and she’d seen them cherished by other packs when she and Charles traveled. There were two in her living room that would be less out of place hanging in the National Gallery of Art in Washington or maybe the Met than on the walls of a modest home in the wilds of Montana.
He was an artist who should have been world famous instead of werewolf famous. She considered that a moment. Maybe he was famous, but if so, it was under a different name—because she’d looked before, to see if she could find his work in the real world.
“What’s he like?” she asked Asil, because she knew that Bran used Asil to deal with Wellesley most of the time. They got on together, and she gathered that Wellesley could be difficult.
He glanced at her as if he couldn’t fathom who she was talking about.
“Wellesley,” she said impatiently.
His eyebrows shot up. “He’s one of Bran’s wildlings. That means he’s broken.”
She growled at him, and he grinned—and the expression made his normally austere face look friendly and approachable. “I am sorry, querida, but I don’t know how to answer that. He is troubled in a way that is very like schizophrenia but is more likely a damaged interaction with his wolf. He is very shy, but I think that is a product of his condition rather than a natural tendency.” He paused. “I can tell you that you aren’t his only fan. People keep trying to get me to ask him about commissioning a piece.” He laughed. “Just this morning, Sage petitioned Leah to switch with me so she could come and meet him.”
When she’d first come to the pack, she’d thought that Sage and Leah didn’t like each other. But she’d grown to understand that they were possibly as close to friends as two very dominant women (werewolves or not) could be. Leah actively liked Sage and usually behaved herself in front of her. Sage snipped and snarked at her and about her but ultimately had Leah’s back.
“So why are you and I together instead of Sage and I?” Anna asked.
“Because there is the distinct possibility that putting Charles and me in the same car together might make the universe implode,” said Asil. “I might have said that to Leah when she looked like she might make the switch.” He paused, and said slyly, “I waited until Charles could hear me, then I told her that I’d been looking forward to a whole day traveling with you.”
Anna’s first thought was surprise that Charles hadn’t put his foot down and paired Sage and Asil together instead. Her second thought was that Asil had made that suggestive comment in front of Sage, too.
“Aren’t you and Sage dating?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” Asil said. “Currently, she is playing hard to get.”
Anna took a good look at his face to see if it was okay if she asked for more details.
“She believes I am arrogant and treat her as though she cannot take care of herself,” he clarified.
“She’s right,” Anna said.
“Yes.” He gave her a graceful bow of his head. “She is.” He took a deep breath and gave Anna a humorless smile that told her he was more upset about it than he let on. “I am too old to change who I am—a man a hair less arrogant would be lost to the beast that lives inside me. You cannot look at a person, and say, ‘If I could change this or that, if I could pick what I want and discard other things, I could love this one.’ Such a love is pale and weak—and doomed to failure.”
She thought about that. “I tried to change Charles,” she said in a small voice. “I told Bran to quit sending him out on killing missions.”
Asil sighed. “You are so sensible most of the time, I forget how young you are. That was not changing Charles; that was trying to change the world so Charles could survive. That is protecting your mate from the things he cannot protect himself from.”
“Maybe Sage is trying to save you, too,” Anna said thoughtfully. “Saving you from death, really. If you keep trying to protect her when she doesn’t need it, she might have to shoot you.” Sage was a pretty good shot.
Asil fell silent; he didn’t smile at her attempt at humor. After a moment, he said, “I will consider this. It will not change how I act, but perhaps it will make her argument less aggravating.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking. She was sort of afraid he wasn’t.
“I can tell you a few things about Wellesley,” Asil said after they’d traveled far enough to leave the subject of Sage behind them, along with several miles of twisty dirt track. “He can use magic—and not always on purpose. He isn’t a witch—his magic is closer to Charles’s magic, I think. But it makes him especially good at pack magic. He comes on pack hunts sometimes, but no one except Bran and I know it. And probably Charles. If Wellesley doesn’t want you to notice him, he is difficult to perceive, and you’ll have trouble remembering details about him, like exactly what he looks like.”
He paused. “I am old and powerful, so I have no such trouble. It is for this reason Bran started sending me to deal with him.”
“So he could come on pack hunts, or go into Aspen Springs, and no one would notice?” Anna asked. Because that was what Asil was avoiding saying. “He could gather information without anyone the wiser.”
“Yes,” Asil said. “I’ve known a few other wolves who could do this.” He paused. “I’m fairly certain that Bran can do a bit more.”
Anna nodded solemnly. She thought there was a reason that visiting wolves sometimes seemed not to notice Bran until he drew attention to himself. Part of it was his ability to hide the force of his personality, but on several occasions, she would swear that people just didn’t notice him at all.
“He likes to sing,” Asil said.
“Wellesley?” she asked. They’d just been talking about Bran, but she was fairly sure that Asil wouldn’t feel impelled to tell her something everyone knew.
Asil nodded. “He is a bass and usually slightly flat. Like Johnny Cash.”
“Johnny Cash wasn’t flat,” Anna objected, having newly become a fan, much to the amusement of certain members of the pack. “He just sang melodies in unexpected ways—choosing other notes in the chords than the note our ear thinks the melody should probably carry.”
“Or the songwriter intended,” said Asil.
“It reduced the range of the songs,” Anna continued doggedly. “But made them sound like Johnny Cash songs.”