3
WORD HAD GOTTEN OUT THAT I WAS BACK IN THE SHOP
and my regular customers started stopping in to express their
sympathy and support. The graffiti only made things worse. By nine
I was hiding in the garage, with the big overhead doors shut, even
though that meant that the garage was hot and stuffy, and my
electric bill was going to suffer.
I left Zee to handle the customers, poor customers.
Zee is not a people person. Years ago, when I first came to work
here, his nine-year-old son was in charge of the front desk and
everyone was properly grateful.
I spent most of the morning trying to figure out
the troubles of a twenty-year-old Jetta. Nothing more fun than
sorting through intermittent electrical problems, as long as you
have a year or two to waste. The owner got off her job at three in
the morning and twice had gone to start her car and found the
battery drained though the lights were off.
There was nothing wrong with the battery. Or the
alternator. I was upside-down in the driver’s seat, with my head up
the Jetta’s dash, when a sudden thought came to me. I rolled over
and looked at the shiny new CD player in the ancient car, which had
held only a cassette player when it had last visited here.
When Zee came in, I was using Power Words to
describe service techs who didn’t know how to tie their own shoes
but felt free and easy meddling in one of my cars. I’d been taking
care of this Jetta for as long as I’d been working on cars, and
felt a special affection for it.
Zee blinked at me a couple of times to hide his
amusement. “We could give your bill to the place that put her
stereo in.”
“Would they pay for it?” I asked.
Zee smiled. “They would if I took it in.” Zee took
a personal interest in our customers’ cars, too.
We locked up for lunch and went to our favorite
taco wagon for authentic Mexican tacos. That meant no cheese or
iceberg lettuce, but cilantro, lime, and radishes instead—a
more-than-fair trade in my view.
The wagon was parked in a lot next to a Mexican
bakery just across the cable bridge over the Columbia River,
putting it in Pasco, but just barely. Some wagons are step vans,
but this one was a small trailer laden with whiteboards that listed
the menu with prices.
The sweet-faced woman who worked there spoke barely
enough English to take orders—which probably didn’t matter because
there were very few English-only speakers among her patrons. She
said something and patted my hand when I paid—and when I checked
the bag to make sure the little plastic cups of salsa were there, I
saw she’d added a couple of extra of my favorite tacos in our bag.
Which proved that everyone, even people who couldn’t read the
newspaper, knew about me.
Zee drove us to the park on the Kennewick side of
the river, where there were waterfront picnic tables for us to eat
at. I sighed as we walked along the river’s edge between the
parking lot and the tables. “I wish it hadn’t made the papers. How
long before everyone forgets, and I don’t get any more pitying
looks?”
Zee grinned wolfishly at me. “I’ve told you before;
you need to learn Spanish. She congratulated you on killing him.
And she knows a few other men who could benefit from your efforts.”
He picked a table and sat down.
I sat down across from him and set the bag between
us. “She did not.” I don’t speak Spanish, but everyone who lives in
the Tri-Cities for long picks up a few words—besides she hadn’t
said very much, even in Spanish.
“Maybe not the last part of it,” agreed Zee,
pulling out a chicken taco and squeezing one of the lime segments
over it. “Though I saw it in her face. But she did say, ‘Bien
hecho.’”
I knew the first word, but he made me ask for the
last, waiting until curiosity forced the words out of my mouth.
“Which means? Good—”
“Good job.” His white teeth sank into the
tortilla.
Stupid. It was stupid to let other people’s
opinions matter, but having someone else who didn’t view me as a
victim cheered me up immensely. After pouring green hot sauce over
my goat taco, I ate with a renewed appetite.
“I think,” I told Zee, “that I’ll go to the dojo
tonight after I get done with work.” I’d already missed Saturday’s
early-morning session.
“It should be interesting to watch,” Zee said,
which was as close as he could come to lying. He had no desire to
watch a bunch of people working themselves up into a noxious puddle
of sweat and fatigue (his words). He must have been elected to be
my bodyguard for a little longer than just the workday.
SOMEONE HAD TALKED TO THEM ALL. I COULD SEE IT IN
the casual way they greeted me as I walked into the dojo. Muscles
in Sensei Johanson’s jaw twitched when he first saw me, but he led
us through the opening exercises and stretches with his usual
sadistic thoroughness.
By the time we started sparring, the muscles in my
lower back, which had been tense for the last week, were loose and
moving well. After the first two bouts, I was relaxed and settled
into my usual love-hate relationship with my third opponent, the
devastatingly powerful brown belt who was the bully of the dojo. He
was careful, oh so careful that Sensei never saw him do it, but he
liked to hurt people ... women. In addition to the full-contact
part of Sensei’s chosen form, Lee Holland was the other reason I
was the only woman in the advanced class. Lee wasn’t married, for
which I was glad. No woman deserved to have to live with him.
I actually liked to spar with him because I never
felt guilty about leaving bruises behind. I also enjoyed the
frustrated look in his eyes as his skilled moves (his brown belt
justly outranked my own purple) constantly failed to connect as
well as they should.
Today there was something else in his eyes when he
looked at the stitches on my chin, a hot edge of desire that
seriously creeped me out. He was turned on that I had been raped.
Either that or that I’d killed someone. I preferred the latter but,
knowing Lee, it was probably the former.
“You are weak,” he told me, whispering so no one
else could hear.
I’d been right about what had excited his
interest.
“I killed the last person who thought that,” I
said, and front kicked him hard in the chest. Usually, I tempered
my speed to something more humanly possible. But his eyes made me
quit playing human. I’m not supernaturally strong, but in the
martial arts, speed counts, too.
I was moving at full tilt when I stepped around him
while he was still off balance. Tournament martial arts have two
opponents facing each other, but our style encourages us to strike
from the back or the side—keeping the enemies’ weapons facing the
wrong way. I stepped hard on the back of his knee, forcing him to
drop to the floor. Before he could respond, I hopped back three
feet to give him a chance to get up, this being only sparring and
not a death match.
Our dojo did some grappling, but not much. Shi Sei
Kai Kan is all about putting your opponent down fast and moving on
to the next guy. It was developed for warfare, when a soldier might
be facing multiple opponents. Grappling left you vulnerable to
attack from another opponent. And I had no desire to get up close
and personal with Lee.
He roared with humiliation-charged rage and came
for me. Block and block, twist and dodge, I kept him from
contacting me.
Someone called out sharply, “Sensei! Check out
Lee’s fight.”
“Enough, Lee,” Sensei called from the far side of
the dojo, where he’d been working with someone. “That’s
enough.”
Lee didn’t appear to hear him. If I hadn’t been so
much faster than him, I’d have been hurt already. As it was, I made
sure he couldn’t connect any of his hits. For a while, at least,
until I got cocky and overconfident.
I fell for a sham move with his right hand, while
he slammed me in the diaphragm and laid me out on the floor with
his left. Ignoring my lack of breath as much as I could, I rolled
and stumbled to my feet. And as I rolled, I saw that Adam was
standing in the doorway in a business suit. He had his arms folded
on his chest as he waited for me to deal with Lee.
So I did. I thought it was Adam’s presence that
gave me the idea. I’d spent some time at his dojo—in his
garage—practicing a jumping, spinning roundhouse kick. It was
developed as a way to knock an opponent off his horse, a
sacrificial move that the foot soldier would not expect to survive.
Mounted warriors had more value as a weapon than foot soldiers, so
the sacrifice would be worth it. In modern days, the kick is mostly
for demos, used in combat with another skilled person on the ground
it is generally too slow, too flashy, to be useful. Too slow unless
you happened to be a part-time coyote and supernaturally
fast.
Lee would never expect me to try it.
My heel hit Lee’s jaw, and he collapsed on the
floor almost before I’d decided to use the move. I collapsed right
next to him, still fighting for breath from his hit to my
diaphragm.
Sensei was beside Lee, checking him out almost
before I landed. Adam put his hand on my abdomen and pulled my legs
straight to facilitate breathing.
“Pretty,” he said. “Too bad you pulled it; if
anyone deserved to lose his head ...” He didn’t mean it as a joke.
If he’d said it with a hair more heat, I’d have been worried.
“Is he all right?” I tried to ask—and he must have
understood.
“Knocked out cold, but he’ll be fine. Not even a
sore neck for his trouble.”
“I think you’re right,” Sensei said. “She pulled
it, and angled her foot perfectly for a tournament hit.” He held
Lee still as the big man moaned and started to stir.
Sensei looked at me and frowned. “You were stupid,
Mercy. What is the first rule of combat?”
By this time I could talk. “The best defense is
fast tennis shoes,” I said.
He nodded. “Right. When you noticed he was out of
control—which I’m sure was about two full minutes at least before I
did, because I was helping Gibbs with his axe kick—you should have
called for help, then gotten away from him. There was no point in
letting this continue until someone got hurt.”
From the sidelines, Gibbs, the other brown belt,
said, “She’s sorry, Sensei. She just got her directions confused.
She kept running the wrong way.”
There was a general laugh as tension
dispersed.
Sensei guided Lee though a general check to make
sure nothing was permanently damaged. “Sit out for the rest of the
lesson,” he told Lee. “Then we’ll have a little talk.”
When Lee got up, he didn’t look at me or anyone
else, just took up a low-horse stance with a wall at his
back.
Sensei stood up, and I followed suit. He looked at
Adam.
Who bowed, fist to hand and eyes hidden behind dark
sunglasses he hadn’t been wearing when I’d first glimpsed him in
the doorway. Most of the werewolves I know carry dark glasses or
wear hats that can shadow their eyes.
“Adam Hauptman,” he said. “A friend of Mercy’s.
Just here to observe unless you object.”
Sensei was an accountant in real life. His day job
was working for an insurance firm, but here he was king. His eyes
were cool and confident as he looked at Adam.
“The werewolf,” he said. Adam was one of five or
six of his pack who had chosen to come out to the public.
“Hai,” agreed Adam.
“So why didn’t you help Mercy?”
“It is your dojo, Sensei Johanson.” Sensei raised
an eyebrow, and Adam’s sudden smile blazed out. “Besides, I’ve seen
her fight. She’s tough, and she’s smart. If she had thought she was
in trouble, she’d have asked for help.”
I glanced around as I rolled over and stood up, as
good as new except for the pretty bruises I was going to have on my
belly. Zee was gone. He wouldn’t have lingered, with Adam to take
over guard duty. His nose had wrinkled at the smell of sweaty
bodies when we’d come in—he’d been lucky it was relatively cool
this fall. In full summer, the dojo smelled from a block away, at
least it did to my nose. To me the scent was strong but not
unpleasant, but I knew from the comments of my fellow karate
students that most humans disliked it almost as much as Zee
did.
Drama over, Adam went back to the sidelines,
loosening his tie and pulling his suit jacket off as a concession
to the heat. Sensei had us do three hundred side kicks (Lee was
called from his position of disgrace to participate) first to the
left, then to the right. We all counted them off in Japanese—though
I suspected if a native speaker had dropped in, they might’ve had
difficulty understanding what we were saying.
The first hundred were easy, muscles warm and
limber from earlier calisthenics; the second ... not so much.
Somewhere about 220, I lost myself in the burning ache until it was
almost a shock when we stopped and switched sides. Wandering
through the ranks of students (there were twelve of us tonight)
Sensei adjusted people’s form as he saw necessary.
You could tell those of us who were more serious
because our two hundredth kicks looked just like our first.
Students less diligent lost height and form as exhaustion took its
toll. There were still some students in good form on the three
hundredth kick—but not me.
AFTER CLASS, PEOPLE WERE TOO BUSY TRYING NOT TO
stare at the werewolf—all the while getting in a good look—to pay
any attention to me. I changed in the bathroom and took my time,
out of courtesy, so that they would all have time to change in the
anteroom in front of the dojo before I came out.
Sensei was waiting for me when I emerged.
“Good job, Mercy,” he told me with an emphasis that
told me he wasn’t talking about Lee. It was odd that the words he
had for me were the same ones, in a different language, that the
woman in the taco wagon had used, meant the same way.
“If it hadn’t been for this”—I tilted my head to
indicate the dojo—“I would have died that night instead of my
attacker.” I gave him a formal bow, two fists down. “Thank you for
your teaching, Sensei.”
He returned my bow, and we both ignored the
suspicious watering of eyes.
Adam was waiting near the front door carefully
examining his fingernails. He had chosen to be amused by all the
people staring at him, which was a good thing. He had a temper.
Sweat darkened his Egyptian-cotton shirt, so it clung to the round
lines of his shoulders and arms, announcing to anyone that he was a
hard body.
I took a deep breath to cool my jets and introduced
him around. Only Lee met his eyes for longer than a moment, and at
first I thought Adam was going to lose it. He gave Lee a scary
smile. I was afraid of what he—either he—was going to say, so I
grabbed Adam’s arm and tugged him out the door.
If he’d wanted to, Adam could have shaken me off,
but he went along with it. I hadn’t brought my car because the dojo
was just a short hike across cheatgrass and down the railroad
tracks from my shop. Adam’s SUV wasn’t there either.
“Did you drive a different car?” I asked in the
parking lot.
“No, I had Carlos drop me off after work so I could
walk back with you to your shop.” Carlos was one of his wolves, one
of three or four who worked for him at his security business, but
not one I knew well. “I remember you told me you liked to cool down
on the walk back.”
I’d told him that several years earlier. He’d been
waiting for me at my shop with a warning ... I looked down at the
asphalt and turned my head so he wouldn’t see my smile.
It had been after I first hauled the old parts car
out of my pole barn and stuck it in the middle of the field so Adam
couldn’t help but see it out of his window. He’d been dispensing
orders left and right and, knowing werewolves as I had, I hadn’t
dared to defy him outright. Instead, knowing how organized and neat
Adam was, I’d tortured him with the battered old Rabbit.
He’d stopped by the garage and found my car but not
me. He’d never said, but I thought he must have trailed me to the
dojo—and instead of complaining about the junkmobile, he’d dressed
me down about wandering around the Tri-Cities by myself at night.
Exasperated, I’d snarled right back at him. I’d told him I used the
not-very-long walk back to my shop as an after-workout cool off. It
had been after his divorce, but not by much. Years ago.
He’d remembered all this time.
“What are you so smug about?” he asked me.
He’d remembered what I’d told him, as if I’d been
important to him even then ... but I could have described the exact
shade of the tie that he had worn that day, the tone that worry had
given his voice.
I hadn’t wanted to admit I was attracted to him.
Not when he’d been married, and not when he’d been single. I’d been
raised by werewolves, had left them, and didn’t want to find myself
back in that claustrophobic, violent environment. I especially had
no desire to date an Alpha werewolf.
And yet here I was, walking with Adam, who was as
Alpha as could be.
“Why didn’t you jump into the fight with Lee?” I
asked, changing the subject. He’d wanted to—that’s why the glasses
had come on, so that everyone wouldn’t see that his eyes had
lightened to the wolf’s gold.
He didn’t answer right away. The man-made bank up
to the railroad track, which was the shortest route to my shop, was
steep, and the small gravel made it a bit treacherous. I was sore,
so I ran up it. My quads, tired from three hundred kicks, protested
the additional effort I was asking of them, but running meant the
climb was over faster.
Adam ran easily up the slope behind me, even in
slick dress shoes. Something about the way he was following me made
me feel nervous, like I was a deer being stalked. So I stopped at
the top and stretched out my tired legs. I’d be damned if I would
run from Adam.
“You had him,” Adam said, watching me. “He’s better
than you in form, but he has never fought for his life. I wouldn’t
want you tied up and alone with him for very long, but he never had
a chance in the dojo.” Then his voice deepened with a slightly
rougher tone. “If you hadn’t been stupid, you wouldn’t have even
gotten hit. Don’t do that again.”
“Nossir,” I told him.
I’d been trying not to think about Adam all
day—since the crossed bones on my door made it clear that Marsilia
wasn’t finished with me. I knew, even though Zee would check out
other things, I knew that it had been the vampires marking my
business. And, like Tony had said, it felt like a death threat. I
was a dead woman, it was only a matter of time. All I could do was
figure out a way to keep other people from dying with me.
Adam would die for his mate. He wouldn’t let me
just leave, either. Christy, his first wife, hadn’t been his mate
or they’d still be married. I had to figure out some way to undo
what I had done last night.
But it was hard to believe in death with him here
beside me, the rich autumn sunlight glinting in his dark hair and
lightening his eyes, making him squint and highlighting faint laugh
lines.
He took my hand in a casual move I had no way of
evading without making a big deal of it. Especially when I didn’t
want to evade him. He tilted his head as if trying to figure me
out—had he caught what I was thinking? His hand was broad-palmed
and warm. The calluses on it made it no softer than my own
work-roughened skin.
I turned away from him, but kept his hand as I
started down the track to my shop. It was awkward for about four
steps, then he made an adjustment to his gait, and suddenly the
rhythm of our bodies synced.
I closed my eyes, trusting my balance and Adam to
keep me headed in the right direction. If I cried, he’d ask me why,
and you can’t lie to a werewolf. I needed to distract him.
“You’re wearing a new cologne,” I told him, and my
voice was husky. “I like it.”
He laughed, a warm rumbly sound that settled in my
stomach like a warm piece of apple pie. “Shampoo most likely—” Then
he laughed again and tugged me off balance until I bumped against
him. He let go of my hand and took a light grip on my far shoulder,
his arm warm across my back. “No. You’re right, I’d forgotten.
Jesse sprayed something at me as I left the house tonight.”
“Jesse has excellent taste,” I told him. “You smell
good enough to eat.”
The arm across my shoulders stiffened. I thought
back over what I’d said and felt my cheeks warm right up. Part of
it was embarrassment ... but part of it wasn’t. But it hadn’t been
the Freudian slip that had caught his attention.
Adam stopped. Since he was holding me, I stopped,
too. I looked at him, then followed his gaze to my shop.
Whoops. Oh well, I’d been looking for a way to
distract him so he wouldn’t wonder why I was upset. This wasn’t the
ideal way to do it.
“I guess Zee didn’t tell you?”
“Who did it?” There was a growl in his voice. “The
vampires?”
How to answer that without telling a lie, which he
would smell, or starting a war?
If I had known that Marsilia knew I’d killed Andre,
I never would have told Adam I was willing to be his mate. Another
wolf might understand that a war with the vampires wasn’t going to
save me, just get more people killed. A war with the vampires here
in the Tri-Cities might spread like the plague throughout all the
Marrok’s dominion.
But Adam wouldn’t let it go. And Samuel would be at
his side. I would never be the great love of Samuel’s life, nor he
of mine. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love me, just as I loved
him. And Samuel would bring his father, the Marrok, into it.
Don’t panic, keep it casual, I told myself. “The
vamps added some decoration to my door, but most of it was Tim’s
cousin and a friend. You can watch it on the video if you want.
Gabriel’s mother and siblings are coming out Saturday to help paint
it. The police are taking care of it, Adam.” The last was because
he was still stiff. “Tony thinks it’s Christmasy. Maybe I’ll leave
it for a few months.”
He turned his hot gaze on me.
“She still believes in her cousin, Adam. She thinks
I made it all up to get out of a murder charge.” I let him hear the
sympathy for Courtney’s plight in my voice, knowing Adam wouldn’t
approve. About wrong and right, Adam was pretty black-and-white.
He’d be irritated with my attitude, and it would distract him. Keep
the focus on Courtney and off the vampires.
Adam didn’t relax, but he did start walking
again.
USUALLY I SHOWER AT THE SHOP AFTER PRACTICE, BUT I
didn’t want Adam to get a good look at the crossed bones on the
door. I wanted to keep him thinking about things other than the
vampires until I knew what my options were. So we jumped in my
Vanagon (my poor Rabbit was still in repairs from the damage a fae
had done to it last week).
Maybe I’d move. If I traveled to another vampire’s
territory, it might slow Marsilia down, especially if it was a
vampire who didn’t like her. Running away would chafe, but if I
stayed, she’d kill me—and Adam wouldn’t take it well and a lot of
people would probably die besides me.
I could try to take out Marsilia.
I actually gave that serious consideration, which
was a sign of just how desperate I was. Sure, I’d killed two
vampires. The first one I’d killed with a lot of help and a
boatload of luck. The second one I’d taken while he slept.
I had about as much chance of taking out Marsilia
as my cat Medea did of taking on a mountain lion. Maybe less.
While I thought, I chattered to Adam all the way
home. My home. Gas was expensive, and he wouldn’t mind walking the
short distance back to his.
If he wanted to wait while I showered, I figured I
could walk with him. I glanced at the sky and decided I had time to
take a shower without risking Adam’s being the first one to talk to
Stefan.
I needed to find out what the artwork on my door
meant—and to make sure that running would work. Stefan might know,
but neither question was something I wanted to ask in public. I’d
figure out how I was going to get him alone when the time
came.
“Mercy,” Adam said, breaking into my monologue
about Karmann Ghias and air-cooled versus water-cooled engines as I
turned into my drive. He sounded both amused and resigned. It was a
tone I heard from him a lot.
“Hmm?”
“Why did the vampires paint a pair of bones on your
door?”
“I don’t know,” I told him in a deliberately
relaxed voice. “I don’t even know that it was the vampires. The
camera didn’t catch who it was exactly. Zee and I just figured it
was the vampires because of Stefan. He’s going to check with Uncle
Mike to be sure it wasn’t a fae, though.”
“I won’t let Marsilia hurt you,” he told me in the
quiet tones he used when making a vow of honor.
The wolves do that, some of the older ones, anyhow.
I wouldn’t have thought Adam was one of them. He was a 1950s model,
stuck forever looking like he was in his midtwenties. When I say
older wolves, I mean a lot older than 1950, a couple of hundred
years at least.
It’s not that modern men don’t have honor, just
most of them don’t think of it that way. It gives them a
flexibility that the previous generations didn’t have. Some of the
old lobos take their vows very, very seriously.
What I wouldn’t have given to be stupid enough to
believe that Adam could promise that Marsilia wouldn’t kill me-and
even more to believe that he wouldn’t kill himself trying to keep
his word.
I wasn’t resigned to my fate or anything like it,
but if I had learned one thing being raised by werewolves, it was
to keep a clear eye on probable outcomes and how to mitigate
damage. And if Marsilia wanted me dead ... well that was just the
most probable outcome. Really probable. Enough so that I could feel
another stupid panic attack hovering. My first today, if I didn’t
count a little shortness of breath once or twice.
“She’s not dumb enough to attack me,” I told him,
opening my door. “Especially once she hears I’ve officially
accepted you as my mate. That puts me under your pack’s protection.
She won’t be able to do much to me.” It should have been true ...
but I didn’t think it would be that easy. “Stefan’s the one in
trouble.”
He got out and waited for me to round the front of
the van, then he asked, “Would you go out with me tomorrow ... to
someplace nice? Dinner and a little dancing.”
It hadn’t been what I expected him to say, not when
he was watching me with those cool, assessing eyes. It took me a
moment to change subjects, my impending death at Marsilia’s hands
being a little preoccupying.
Adam wanted to take me on a date.
He touched my face—he liked to do that and had been
doing it more and more lately. I could feel the warmth of his
fingers all the way to my toes. Suddenly, my approaching demise
wasn’t so engrossing.
“All right. That would be good.” I put my hand on
my stomach to settle the butterflies, unsure as to whether it was
the notion of going on another date with Adam or the knowledge that
I was going to have to break it off with him before I brought death
to him and his pack. Maybe I’d have to go on the run tonight-would
it hurt him more that I’d agreed to a date? Should I find a reason
that tomorrow wouldn’t work?
A sudden thought came to me. If I hurt him enough,
drove him from me in anger ... would he care when Marsilia killed
me, or would he let it go? A newly familiar breathlessness started
to shiver up from my stomach—that panic attack that had been
hovering.
“I need to take a shower,” I told him, my voice
very steady. “But then I’d like to talk to Stefan.”
“No problem,” he said agreeably, going up my front
steps ahead of me. He opened the door and held it for me. “I’ll
wait while you shower—Samuel’s not home.”
There was no reason to feel like Adam’s prey, I
told myself firmly as I walked past him into my own house. No
reason to feel Adam’s intent eyes on my back. He couldn’t read my
mind to know that I was planning on running. But I didn’t turn back
as I said, “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right out.” And I closed
my bedroom door on him and leaned against it.
I SCRUBBED MY HANDS FIRST, USING A STIFF-BRISTLED
brush and Fast Orange to get the last of the day’s grime off. It
never managed to get it all, but if it bothered Adam to run around
with someone who had dirt ingrained in the skin of her hands, he’d
never said anything. When they were as good as they were going to
get, I stepped into the shower.
Could I change my mind about being Adam’s
mate?
I’m not as sensitive to pack magic as the
werewolves are. They don’t talk much about it. Secretive bunch,
those werewolves. I’ve been finding out that there’s a lot more to
it than I’d believed. I knew it was possible for a mated pair to
dissolve their union, though I’d never met any who had.
Had my agreement been just words, or had it started
some process in the pack magic? Consent, I knew, was necessary for
a lot of magic to take place. I am immune to some magic. Maybe
mating would turn out to be one of those things. I also knew pack
magic worked subtly differently for the Alpha than it did for the
rest of the pack. Adam had bound himself to me by declaring me his
mate before his pack—and it had had an effect on the pack’s magic,
and on Adam. I was pretty sure it didn’t work quite that way for
most wolves, that both had to agree, and that their mating was a
more private matter.
I frowned. There was a ceremony. I was almost
certain of it. Something happened to make a couple into a mated
pair—and then there was some sort of werewolf-only ceremony. Maybe
Adam had done it backward? Maybe mating an Alpha was no different
than mating with any other wolf.
Maybe I was going to drive myself crazy. I needed
real information, and I had no idea who to ask.
It couldn’t be any of Adam’s pack—it would
undermine his authority. Besides, they’d just go tell him I was
asking. Samuel didn’t seem like a good choice either, not after
we’d only just agreed not to try it as a couple. Or Bran, for the
same reason. I knew he had sent Samuel to the Tri-Cities in a
misguided attempt at matchmaking. I wasn’t sure Samuel had told him
it hadn’t worked. I wished, not for the first time, that my foster
father, Bryan, was still around. But he’d killed himself a good
long time ago.
I turned my face in to the hot spray of my shower.
Okay. So assume the mating thing wasn’t permanent. How would I make
Adam hate me?
Well, I certainly wasn’t sleeping with Samuel. Or
hurting Jesse.
Water hit the healing wound on my chin, and I
tipped my head down. Making him leave me had seemed logical, but
Adam wasn’t the kind of person to leave when things got rough. And
even if I managed it, wouldn’t he still care if Marsilia killed me?
Maybe if I had a few months or a year to work on it, I might
manage.
Could I run? With my bank balance, I might make it
as far as Seattle.
The threatening panic attack faded as relief
swamped me. First time being broke had ever made me happy.
I might be a dead woman, but I was going to get to
keep Adam for however long I had left.
THOUGH ADAM’S HAND WAS COURTEOUSLY UNDER MY arm as
we walked across my field to the barbed-wire fence between our
properties, there was a proprietary feeling to the charged air that
always seemed to accompany him. Mine, it said.
If it weren’t for Marsilia, doubtless I’d have been
grumpy about the possessiveness stuff. As it was, I was unhappy
because I couldn’t just relax into the safety he represented ...
not without risking his getting hurt because of me.
Maybe I needed to leave, money or not.
My stomach was back in knots, and if I didn’t
bottle everything up, I was going to have that stupid panic attack,
and not safely behind the sound of water and the closed bathroom
door. Right here where anyone could see. Next to the poor beat-up
Rabbit, with Adam’s phone number painted on the roof. For a good
time call ...
He stopped. “Mercy? What are you so angry
about?”
He would know. Even I could smell it: anger and
fear and ... I had it all, and I had nothing.
It was too much. I closed my eyes and felt my body
shake helplessly and my throat close, refusing to let air through
...
Adam caught me as I fell and pulled me against him,
in the shadow of the old car. He was so warm, and I was so cold. He
put his nose against my neck. I couldn’t see him, lack of air left
me with black dots impairing my vision.
I heard the growl shake Adam’s chest, and his mouth
closed on mine—and I sucked a deep breath though my nose. I could
breathe again, and the weight on my stomach lifted, and I was left
shaking, with blood ... no, snot running down my face.
Embarrassed beyond anything, I jerked free of
Adam’s hold—knowing with humiliating certainty that he let
me go. I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt. And settled in
the shelter of the Rabbit, my cheek against the cooling
metal.
Weak. Broken. God damn it. God damn me. I
felt the wave of it hovering, ready to descend upon me again.
Despair and helpless anger ... They were all dead. All dead, and
it was my fault.
But no one was dead. Not yet.
All dead. All of my children, my loves, and it
was my fault. I put them at risk and failed. They died because of
my failure.
I smelled Stefan.
Adam’s golden eyes met mine, the color proving the
wolf ascendant. He kissed me again, pressed something against my
lips, forcing it between my teeth with a forefinger and thumb
without removing his mouth from mine.
It was such a small scrap of bloody meat to burn
down my throat as it had. It meant something.
“Mine,” he told me. “You aren’t Stefan’s.”
The dry grass crackled under my head, and the
coarse dirt made a noise like sandpaper that echoed behind my eyes.
I licked my lips and tasted blood. Adam’s blood.
The Alpha’s blood and flesh ... pack.
“From this day forward,” said Adam, his voice
pulling me out of wherever I had been. “Mine to me and mine. Pack
and only lover.” There was blood on his face, too, and on the hands
he touched my face with.
“Yours to you, mine to me,” I answered, though it
was a dry croaking voice that made the noise. I didn’t know why I
answered, other than the old “shave and a hair cut” involuntary
response. I’d heard this ceremony so many times, even if he’d added
the “only lover” part.
By the time I remembered why I shouldn’t do it,
what it meant, it was already too late.
Magic burned through me, following the path of that
bit of flesh—and I cried out as it tried to make me other than I
was, less or more. Pack.
I felt them all through Adam’s touch and Adam’s
blood. His to protect to govern. All of them were mine now, too—and
I theirs.
Panting, I licked my lips and stared at Adam. He
let me go, coming to his feet and taking two steps away from me
where I lay against the side of the old car. He’d bitten his
forearm savagely.
“He can’t have you,” he told me, his gold eyes
telling me the wolf was still speaking. “Not now. Not ever. I don’t
owe him that.”
Belatedly, I realized what had happened. I wiped my
mouth with my wrist to give myself time to think. My wrist was pink
with Adam’s blood.
Stefan was awake ... and somehow he’d invaded my
mind. It had been his panic attack I’d felt.
All dead... I had a sick, sick feeling that
I knew who he meant. I’d met some of the people, human people who
fed Stefan. Had learned how horribly vulnerable they were if
something happened to the vampire who fed off them and protected
them.
I glanced at the setting sun. “It’s a little early
for a vampire to be up, isn’t it?” I asked.
Time for everyone to calm down. Me, included.
My sense of the pack was fading, but it would never
completely go away. Not now that Adam had made me pack. It was more
usual to do it in a full pack meeting, but the pack wasn’t
required. Just a bit of the Alpha’s flesh and blood and an exchange
of vows.
I hadn’t thought it possible to induct someone who
wasn’t a werewolf. I certainly hadn’t thought that he could make me
pack. Magic works oddly on me sometimes, and at others I’m pretty
much immune to it. But from the results I could feel, it had worked
just fine this time.
Adam had turned and stood with his back to me, his
shoulders hunched, his hands fisted at his side. He didn’t answer
my question, but said stiffly, “I’m sorry for that. I
panicked.”
I put my forehead down on my knees. “There’s been a
lot of that going around recently.”
I heard the dry grass crunch as he walked back to
me. “Are you laughing?” he sounded incredulous.
I looked up at him. The last rays of the sun
silhouetted him in golden rays and obscured the expression on his
face. But I could see shame in the set of his shoulders. He’d made
me pack without asking me—without asking the pack either, though
that wasn’t strictly necessary, just traditional. He was waiting
for me to yell at him as he felt he deserved.
Adam was used to paying for the consequences of his
choices—and sometimes the choices were hard ones. He’d been making
a lot of hard choices for me lately.
Stefan had been so far in my head that I had
smelled like him. And Adam had made me pack to save me. He was
prepared to pay the price—and I was pretty sure there would be a
price extracted. But not by me.
“Thank you, Adam,” I told him. “Thank you for
tearing Tim into small Tim bits. Thank you for forcing me to drink
one last cup of fairy bug-juice so I could have use of both of my
arms. Thank you for being there, for putting up with me.” By that
point I wasn’t laughing anymore. “Thank you for keeping me from
being another of Stefan’s sheep—I’ll take pack over that any day.
Thank you for making the tough calls, for giving me time.” I stood
up and walked to him, leaning against him and pressing my face
against his shoulder. “Thank you for loving me.”
His arms closed around me, pressing flesh painfully
hard against bone. Love hurts like that sometimes.