Free Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs Page B

parents to watch over their children. One woman talked with extreme animation into her cell phone while a man of approximately the same age was deeply engrossed in a book.
    Michael and Mackie bolted for the play fort as soon as their feet hit the sand of the playground at the edge of the sidewalk. Evidently that was where walking with grown-ups was no longer necessary.
    “Tell me about your mother,” Anna said. “Where does she work?”
    “She’s a trainer like Kage,” he said with a wry smile. “But instead of training horses, she trains people to sell things. She’s very good at it. She’s part owner in a company that sells that training to other companies. And because she really
is
very good at selling things, lots of companies hire her company.
    “People like her,” he said. They’d stopped on the edge of the sidewalk, right where Mackie and Michael had taken off. But now Max walked with quick determination toward an empty bench. “She says everyone likes her because she’s good at selling herself, too.”
    He swallowed and said without humor, “Except for Hosteen. Kage says that if she really
were
selling herself she’d have the sheiks at her feet with piles of money. Then she says, ‘There’s that one who came to buy a filly from you. He’d have bought me, too.’ And then Kage says…” He looked at Anna. “It’s not going to be like that anymore. You can’t bring people back from the dead—they come back different.”
    Anna pursed her lips and then nodded. “Life changes people more than death does, in my experience. Ten years from now you wouldn’t see her the same way you do now, any more than you see her the same way you did when you were Michael’s age.”
    Max’s face flushed. They’d reached the bench, but he didn’t sit down. “You don’t have to patronize me. I understand you’re a million years old like Kage’s grandfather and that means you know
so
much more than I do. But this is different from being a child looking at a parent. I’ve seen Hosteen when he isn’t playing human, and I don’t want to look in my mother’s eyes and know she’s thinking how good my liver would taste.”
    “I’ll be twenty-six on my next birthday,” Anna said mildly. “That gives me ten years on you. Take it from me,
anyone
who lives with you is going to occasionally wonder how your liver might taste, and not because they are hungry. It comes with being a teenager—you inspire violence in the hearts of those who love you. It mostly goes away when you hit twenty.”
    He laughed reluctantly.
    Seriously she said, “Your mother’s basic nature won’t change. She is quick thinking and fierce. She will probably still throw dishes at Kage and hit the floor with them to make a point. She’ll have to learn to pull her throws, though, or she’ll leave marks on the floor. She loves you, and respected you enough to know that you were capable of protecting those two kids until Kage could get home to help you. None of that will be different.”
    He dropped down on the bench.
    “This would never have happened if she hadn’t married Kage,” he said bleakly. “Our lives were normal until she met him.”
    “It’s a little too early to look for causes,” she told him, deciding to respond to the logic of his statement instead of the emotion.
    She sat down beside him and looked at the fountain instead of at him. “It might have been an attack aimed at your great-grandfather and his pack. Or maybe your mother was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although I admit when someone connected with werewolves is attacked by supernatural means, my first thought is that it has something to do with the supernatural elements in the victim’s life. What do you know about Hosteen’s pack? Have they done anything recently that might attract the attention of the fae?”
    “I don’t know anything about the werewolves,” Max said. “Hosteen Sani hates my mother. He did not attend the wedding. He hates her