"This would be an excellent time for some PR with the Boston Police Department - which is important for the Olde Towne Pack. Isaac told me they've had some issues this year."
He rolled his seat back from the desk and looked at his mate. She looked a little antsy and her brown eyes glowed slightly, highlighted with her wolf's light blue.
It was dark outside, which meant she'd been cooped up in here for hours with nothing to do but watch TV. And it was close to the full moon. It wasn't fair to make her sit around any longer.
"This may be a wild-goose chase, but I'm on to something and I'd like to finish it up," he told her. "Would you agree to letting Isaac be your escort?" Brother Wolf didn't like it, but Charles didn't want to smother her. He might be finished in five minutes - or twelve hours. And Isaac was a good fighter; Charles had seen it last night. He'd been outmatched in sheer size and strength and hampered by not being able to see their opponent, but he'd fought smart.
"I don't need a bodyguard," said Anna, not fooled for a moment by Charles calling Isaac an escort, but Charles hadn't expected to get away with it. "We're going somewhere that will be filled with cops and FBI agents and werewolves. It should be pretty safe. And isn't an Alpha above being a bodyguard?"
"Humor me," said Charles.
She sighed heavily - then ruined it with a sly grin. "I told Isaac to come pick me up - and that you were going to make him responsible for my health and well-being."
"If you knew what I was going to say, why did you come in here and bother me?" He growled with mock annoyance.
Anna laughed. "I'm going to go change."
"Let me know when you leave," he said, already caught up in his work again. Where had he been before she interrupted him?
When he next emerged, she was gone.
"HE LETS YOU out alone?" Isaac, without Charles to put him on edge, was more relaxed than Anna had thought, but also more pushy.
"I'm with you. Besides, werewolf here," she told him with a thumb to her chest. "Not exactly a frail princess in need of rescuing."
"That's not what I heard about you," Isaac said. "I asked about you. Omega. I was informed by my second that we should be honored that you were visiting our city. We should bring you gifts and see if we can get you to abandon your pack and join ours. When I pointed out that that meant Charles would come, too - and displace me - I was told that the blessing of having an Omega in the pack would outweigh even putting up with Charles."
Anna laughed. "Old wolves. Think they know everything."
"And then he wonders why I don't ask him more questions," Isaac agreed. "So do it."
Anna looked at him just as a raindrop hit her nose. The clouds had been threatening and the air smelled wet, but that was the first drop. "Do what?"
"'That voodoo that you do,'" Isaac said. At her expression he turned to walk backward so she could get the full effect of his eye roll and comic exaggeration. "What? You don't know Adam Ant?"
"'A thrill a day keeps the chill away,'" she sang, then said dryly, "Not his best song. You want me to what? Zap you with my awesome cosmic super Omega powers?"
"That's what I said." Isaac turned so he was walking beside her once more. "Only my request sounded cool, and yours sounds like it belongs on Saturday morning cartoons."
"They are more of an anti-superpower," Anna explained as the first few drops of water became a more steady rainfall. "If I were in a comic book, I'd be the lone stupid girl in a team of awesome, powerfully charged males. Like Sue, Invisible Girl - who was invisible in so many ways - in the Fantastic Four. Which should have been called the Fantastic Three and the Cute and Clueless Girl Who Runs Around Getting into Trouble and Being Rescued."
Isaac grinned, his expression lighter, that edge that Alphas always carried with them softened. "Not even Jessica Alba could save Sue from being wimpy."
Anna sighed in a misery-shared way. "I like superhero movies. Still, it was better than Catwoman - and Catwoman had much better material to draw from."
"So are you going to whammy me?" Isaac asked again.