would be different here, where there was room to run without hurting anyone.
She should have known better. She did know better.
It wasn't Charles's fault that he was a monster, too.
It had been easy to lay the destruction of the Chicago pack's holding cell on the silver poisoning. But tonight, confronting Asil, he'd shown her that he wasn't any different than any other male werewolf: angry, possessive, and dangerous.
She'd allowed herself to believe that it was just the Chicago pack. That the mess Leo and his mate had created was the reason for the terrible thing the pack had been.
She'd wanted a knight in shining armor. A voice of reason in the madness, and Charles had provided it for her. Did he know that was what she'd been looking for? Had he done it deliberately?
As the water matted her hair and ran into her eyes and over her cheeks like tears, her last question clarified and answered her greatest fear: of course Charles hadn't set out to be her knight deliberately, that was just who he was.
He was a werewolf dominant enough to back down the Alpha of a pack without the resources an Alpha could draw on. He was his father's hit man, an assassin feared even by other members of his own pack. He could have been like Justin: ravening and cruel.
Instead, he knew the madness of what they were and managed, not just to overcome it, but to use it, to make something better. She had the sudden picture of his beautiful hands gently arranging flowers while his wolf craved violence in the worst way.
Charles was a monster. His father's assassin. She wouldn't allow herself to believe a lie again. If Bran had told him to, he would have killed Jack. Killed him knowing that the human was only a victim, that he was probably a good man. But it wouldn't have been casual. She'd seen the relief that had flowed over him when Bran had found an alternative to killing the human.
Her mate was a killer, but he didn't enjoy it. Looking at it clearly, she was a little awed at how he'd managed to be so civilized and still meet the demands of who and what he was required to be.
The water was cooling off.
She shampooed her hair, enjoying the way the soap rinsed away so easily; Chicago water was much softer. She conditioned her hair with something that smelled of herbs and mint, recognizing the scent from Charles's hair. By that time, the water was starting to become uncomfortably cold.
She took a long time combing out the tangles without looking at the mirror and concentrated on feeling nothing. She was good at that, having perfected it over the past three years. When she faced him again, she didn't want to be a whiney, scared-of-herself nitwit again. So she needed to control her fear.
She knew one way to do that. It was a cheat, but she gave herself permission, if only for tonight because she'd made such a fool of herself by hiding in the bathroom.
She stared at herself in the mirror and watched her brown eyes pale to silvery blue and back. So much and no more. The strength and fearlessness of the wolf wrapped around her and gave her calm acceptance. Whatever happened, she would survive. She had before.
If Charles was a monster, it was by necessity rather than choice.
She dressed in the yellow shirt and jeans, then opened the bathroom door slowly.
Charles was leaning, still golden-eyed, against the wall opposite the door. Other than his eyes, he was the epitome of relaxation-but she knew to believe the eyes.
She'd checked her own with a glance at the mirror before she'd opened the door.
"I've decided you need to know about Asil," he told her as if there had been no break in their conversation.
"All right." She stayed in the doorway, the steamy room warm at her back.
He spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he were pulling his words out from between his teeth. "Asil's not really his name, though it's what most people call him. They also call him the Moor."
She stiffened. Uneducated about her own kind she might be, but she'd heard of the Moor. Not a wolf to mess with.
He saw her reaction, and his eyes narrowed. "If there is a wolf in this world older than my father, it might be Asil."
He seemed to be waiting for her to comment, so she finally asked, "You don't know how old Asil is?"
"I know