10
MARSILIA FROZE FOR A MOMENT, STARING AT THE PLACE
Stefan had been. Then she looked at me, a look of such malevolence
I had to work not to step back even though there was half of a very
large room between us.
She closed her eyes and brought her features back
under control. “Wulfe,” she asked, “do you have it?”
“I do, Mistress,” the vampire said. He stood up and
drifted over to her, pulling an envelope out of his back
pocket.
Marsilia looked at it, bit her lip, then said in a
low voice, “Give it to her.”
Wulfe altered his path so he came more directly to
us. He handed me the envelope that was none the worse for the time
it had spent in his pocket. It was heavy paper, the kind that
wedding invitations or graduation announcements are engraved on.
Stefan’s name was gracefully lettered across the front. It was
sealed with red wax that smelled like vampire and blood.
“You will give this to Stefan,” Marsilia said.
“Tell him there is information here. Not apologies or
excuses.”
I took the envelope and felt a strong desire to
crumple it and drop it on the floor.
“Bernard is right,” I said. “You used Stefan. Hurt
him, broke him, in order to play your little game. You don’t
deserve him.”
Marsilia ignored me. “Hauptman,” she said with calm
courtesy, “I thank you for your warning about Blackwood. In return
for this, I accede to your truce. The signed documents will be sent
to your house.”
She took a deep breath and turned from Adam to me.
“It is the judgement of this night that the action you took against
us ... killing Andre ... has not resulted in damage to the seethe.
That you had no intention of moving against the seethe was borne
out by your truth-tested testimony.” She sucked in a breath. “It is
my judgement that the seethe suffered no harm, and you are not an
ally turned traitor. No further punishment will be taken against
you—and the crossed bones will be removed ...” She glanced down at
her wrist.
“I can do it tonight,” said Wulfe in gentle
tones.
She nodded. “Removed before dawn.” She hesitated,
then said in a quiet voice, as if the words were pulled from her
throat, “This is for Stefan. If it were up to me, your blood and
bones would nourish my garden, walker. Take care not to push me
again.”
She turned on her heel and left out the same door
Bernard had taken.
Wulfe looked at Adam. “Allow me to escort you out
of the seethe so that no harm comes to you.”
Adam lowered his eyelids. “Are you implying I
cannot protect my own?”
Wulfe dropped his eyes and bowed low. “But of
course not. Merely suggesting that my presence might save you the
trouble. And save us the mess to clean up afterward.”
“Fine.”
Adam led the way. I let the other wolves pass me
and tried not to be hurt when Mary Jo and Aurielle deliberately
avoided looking at me. I didn’t know what cause ... or rather which
cause was bothering them—coyote, vampire prey, or causing Marsilia
to target the pack. It didn’t matter, really—there was nothing I
could do about any of it.
Warren, Samuel, and Darryl waited until the others
were gone, then Warren gave me a little smile and went ahead.
Darryl paused, and I looked at him. I outranked him, which put me
at the end of the pack, to protect us from attack from behind. Then
he smiled, a warm expression I couldn’t say I’d ever seen on his
face, not directed at me anyway. And he went ahead.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Samuel, amused. “I’m
outside the pack, and so I can tag along with you.”
“I really need a good night’s sleep,” I told him as
I fell into step beside him.
“I guess that’s what comes from fraternizing with
vampires.” He put a hand over my shoulder. A cold hand.
I’d been so busy sweating with fear I’d become
accustomed to both the feeling and the smell. I hadn’t noticed that
Samuel was scared, too.
The last time he’d come here, Lily had taken him
for a snack—and Marsilia had done worse, robbing him of his will
until he was hers.
For me it would have been terrifying. I couldn’t
imagine what it would feel like to a werewolf who lived only
because he controlled his wolf. All the time.
I reached up and put my hand over his. “Let’s get
out of here,” I said. And all the way through the room, I was
conscious of the two still bodies on the floor, and of the vampires
and their menageries, who sat silently on the bleachers, obedient
to orders I couldn’t hear. They watched us leave with their
predatory eyes, and I felt them on my back all the way to the
door.
Just like the ghost in the bathroom at Amber’s
house.
I SAT SHOTGUN IN THE SUBURBAN ADAM HAD DRIVEN
over. I didn’t know if it was a rental or a new vehicle—which is
what it smelled like. Paul, Darryl, and Aurielle filled the first
backseat. Samuel drove his own car, a nifty new Mercedes in bing
cherry red.
Mary Jo, who had been heading toward Adam’s vehicle
until she saw me, abruptly changed directions and got into Warren’s
old truck. Alec, trailing her around like a lost puppy,
followed.
“And I thought Bran could be Byzantine,” I
said finally, trying to relax in the safety of the leather
upholstery as Adam drove through the gates.
“I didn’t catch it all,” said Darryl. He must have
been tired because his voice was even deeper than usual, buzzing my
ears so I had to listen closely to catch all of his words. “For
some reason she had to convince Stefan that he was out of the
seethe. Then, when her traitors approached him, he had to refuse
their offers before he could witness that they’d made them?”
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” said Adam.
“And only with his witness and their maker’s consent could she deal
with her traitors.”
“Makes sense,” offered Paul almost shyly. “The way
the seethe works, if he belonged to her—his witness is hers. If
those two were imposed on her, she couldn’t have them killed at her
word. She’d need outside verification.”
I wondered if I’d been set up. I thought of Wulfe’s
oh-so-convenient aid when I’d killed Andre. He’d known I was
looking for Andre—I’d stumbled upon his resting place before I
found Andre’s. I’d thought he kept it from the Mistress for his own
reasons ... but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Marsilia had planned
it.
My head hurt.
“Maybe we were suspecting the wrong vampire of
trying to take over Marsilia’s seethe,” Adam said.
I thought about the vampire who had been Bernard’s
maker and had stood to watch this ... trial.
I didn’t want to be sympathetic; I wanted to hate
Marsilia cleanly for what she had done to Stefan. But I’d become
passing familiar with evil and all its shades, and that vampire,
Bernard’s maker, set off every alarm that I had. Not that all
vampires weren’t evil ... I wished suddenly that I could say except
for Stefan. But I couldn’t. I’d met his menagerie, the ones
Marsilia had killed—and I knew that for most of them, except for
the very few who became vampire, Stefan would be their death.
Still, the other vampire had hit pretty high on my coyote’s “get me
out of here” scale. There had been something in his face ...
“Makes me glad I’m a werewolf,” said Darryl. “All I
have to worry about is when Warren will lose his self-control and
challenge me.”
“Warren’s self-control is very good,” said Adam. “I
wouldn’t wait dinner on his losing it.”
“Better Warren as second than a coyote in the
pack,” said Aurielle tightly.
The atmosphere in the car changed.
Adam’s voice was soft, “Do you think so?”
“‘Rielle,” Darryl warned.
“I think so.” Her voice brooked no argument. She
was a high school teacher, Darryl’s mate, which made her ... not
precisely third in the pack—that was Warren. But second and a half,
just below Darryl. If she had been a man, I didn’t think she would
have ranked much lower.
“Unlike vampires, wolves tend to be straightforward
critters,” I murmured, trying not to feel hurt. Rejection, for a
coyote raised by wolves, was nothing new. I’d spent most of my
adulthood running from it.
I wouldn’t have thought that exhaustion and hurt
was a recipe for epiphany, but there it was. I’d left my mother and
Portland before she could tell me to go. I’d lived alone, stood on
my own two feet, because I didn’t want to learn to lean on anyone
else.
I’d seen my resistance to Adam as a fight for
survival, for the right to control my own actions instead of a life
spent following orders ... because I wanted to obey. The duty that
Stefan clung to with awful stubbornness was the life I’d
rejected.
What I hadn’t seen was that I had been unwilling to
put myself in a place where I could be rejected again. My mother
had given me to Bran when I was a baby. A gift he returned when I
became ... inconvenient. At sixteen, I’d moved back in with my
mother, who was married to a man I’d never met and had two
daughters who hadn’t known of my existence until Bran had called my
mother to tell her he was sending me home. They had been all that
was loving and gracious—but I was a hard person to lie to.
“Mercy?”
“Just a minute,” I told Adam, “I’m in the middle of
a revelation.”
No wonder I hadn’t just rolled over at Adam’s feet
like any sensible person would when courted by a sexy, lovable,
reliable man who loved me. If Adam ever rejected me ... I felt a
low growl rise in my throat.
“You heard her,” said Darryl, amused. “We’ll have
to wait for her revelation. We have a prophet for our Alpha’s
mate.”
I waved at him irritably. Then looked up at Adam,
whose eyes were, quite properly, on the road.
“Do you love me?” I asked him, pulse pounding in my
ears.
He gave me a curious look. He was wolf, he knew
intensity when he heard it. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“You’d better,” I told him, “or you’ll regret
it.”
I looked over my shoulder at Aurielle, holding the
full force of my will close to me. Adam was mine.
Mine.
And I would take up all the burdens he could give
me, even as he did the same with mine. It would be an equal
sharing. That meant he protected me from the vampires ... and I
protected him from what problems I could.
I stared at Aurielle, met the predator in her eyes
with the one in mine. And after only a few minutes, she dropped her
eyes. “Suck it up and deal with it,” I told her, and I put my head
on Adam’s shoulder and fell asleep.
IT WAS, SADLY NOT VERY LONG BEFORE ADAM STOPPED
the car. I stayed where I was, half-awake, while Darryl, Aurielle,
and Paul got out of the car. We stayed where we were until I heard
Darryl’s Subaru fire up, and Adam started for home.
“Mercy?”
“Mmm.”
“I’d like to take you home with me.”
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and sighed. “Once I go
horizontal, I’m going to be out like a light,” I told him. “It’s
been days”—I tried to remember, but I was too tired—“several at
least since I had a good night’s sleep.” The sun, I noticed, was
brightening in the sky.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’d just ...”
“Yeah, me too.” But I shivered a little. It was all
very well and good to get hot and heavy over the phone, but this
was real. I stayed awake all the way to his house.
AN ALPHA’S HOME IS SELDOM EMPTY—AND WITH THE
recent troubles, Adam was keeping a guard there, too. When we came
in, we were greeted by Ben, who gave us an offhand salute and
trotted back downstairs, where there were a number of guest
bedrooms.
Adam escorted me up the stairs with a hand on the
small of my back. I was sick-to-my-stomach nervous and found myself
taking in deep breaths to remind myself that this was Adam ... and
all we were going to do was sleep.
Repairs were in progress on the hall bathroom. The
door was back up, and mostly the hall wall next to it just needed
taping, texturing, and painting. But the white carpet at the top of
the stairs was still stained with brown spots of old blood—mine.
I’d forgotten about that. Should I offer to have his carpet
cleaned? Could blood be cleaned out of a white carpet? And what
kind of stupid person puts white carpet in a house frequented by
werewolves?
Bolstered by indignation, I took a step into his
bedroom and froze. He glanced at my face and pulled a T-shirt out
of a drawer and threw it at me. “Why don’t you use the bathroom
first,” he said. “There’s a spare toothbrush in the top right-hand
drawer.”
The bathroom felt safer. I folded my dirty clothes
and left them in a small pile on the floor before pulling on his
T-shirt. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his shoulders were
broad, and the sleeves hung down past my elbows. I washed my face
around the stitches in my chin, brushed my teeth, then just stood
there for a few minutes, gathering courage.
When I opened the door, Adam brushed by and closed
the bathroom behind him—pushing me gently into his room to face the
bed with its turned-down comforter.
There should be only so much terror you can feel in
a night. I should have met my limit and then some. And the fear of
something that wasn’t going to happen—Adam would never hurt
me—shouldn’t have been enough to register.
Still, it took every bit of courage I had to crawl
into his bed. Once I was there, though, in one of those odd little
psychological twists everyone has, the scent of him in the sheets
made me feel better. My stomach settled down. I yawned a few times
and fell asleep to the sound of Adam’s electric razor.
I awoke surrounded by Adam, his scent, his warmth,
his breath. I waited for the panic attack that didn’t come. Then I
relaxed, soaking it up. By the light sneaking in around the heavy
blinds, it was late afternoon. I could hear people moving around
the house. His sprinklers were on, valiant defenders of his lawn in
the never-ending battle against the sun.
Outside, it was probably in the seventies, but his
house—like mine since Samuel moved in—had a chill edge to the air
that made the warmth surrounding me that much better. Werewolves
don’t like the heat.
Adam was awake, too.
“So,” I said ... half-embarrassed, half-aroused,
and, just to round things out, half-scared, too. “Are you up for a
trial run?”
“A trial run?” he asked, his voice all rumbly with
sleep. The sound of it helped a lot with the halves I was
feeling—virtually eliminating embarrassed, reducing scared, and
pushing aroused up a few notches.
“Well, yes.” I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t
need to. I could feel his willingness to participate in my trial
pressed against my backside. “Thing is, I’ve had different things
happen with these stupid panic attacks. If I stop breathing, you
could just ignore it. Eventually I start breathing again, or I pass
out. But if I throw up ...” I let him draw his own
conclusions.
“Quite a mood breaker,” he observed, his face on
the back of my neck as he wrapped an arm more fully around me on
top of the covers.
I tapped his arm with my finger, and warned, only
half in jest, “Don’t laugh at me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve heard stories about
what happens to people who laugh at you. I like my coffee without
salt, please. Tell you what,” he said, his voice dropping even
lower. “Why don’t we just play for a bit—and see how far it gets? I
promise not to be”—amusement fought with other things in his
voice—“dismayed if you throw up.”
And then he slid down in the bed.
When I flinched, he stopped and asked me about it.
I found I couldn’t say anything. There are things you don’t tell
someone you’re still trying to impress. There are other things you
don’t want to remember either. Panic tightened my throat.
“Shh,” he said. “Shh.” And he kissed me there,
where he’d caused me to shy. It was a gentle, caring touch—almost
passionless, and moved on to somewhere less ... tainted.
But he was a good hunter. Adam isn’t patient by
nature, but his training was very thorough. He worked his way back
to the first bad spot and tried again.
I still flinched ... but I told him a little. And
like the wolf he was, he laved the wound in my soul, bandaging it
with his care—and moved on to the next. He explored thoroughly,
found each mental wound—and a few I didn’t know I had—and replaced
them with other ... better things. And when passion began to grow
too wild, too fast ...
“So,” he murmured, “are you ticklish here?”
Yep. Who’d have known it? I looked at my inner
elbow as if I’d never seen it before.
He laughed, bounced over a little, and made a
raspberry noise with his mouth on my belly. My knees jerked up in
reflex, and I bopped him on the head with my elbow.
“Are you all right?” I pulled away from him and sat
up—all desire to laugh gone. Trust me to clobber Adam while we’re
making out. Stupid, clumsy idiot, me.
He took one look at my face, put both arms over his
head, and rolled on his back, moaning in agony.
“Hey,” I said. And when he didn’t stop, I poked him
in the side—I knew some of his ticklish spots, too. “Stop that. I
didn’t hit you that hard.” He’d been taking lessons from
Samuel.
He opened one eye. “How would you know?”
“You have a hard head,” I informed him. “If I
didn’t damage my elbow, I didn’t hurt your head.”
“Come here,” he said opening his arms wide, eyes
glittering with laughter ... and heat.
I crawled over on top of him. We both closed our
eyes for a bit while I made myself comfortable. He ran his hands
over my back.
“I love this,” he told me, a little breathless and
yellow-eyed.
“Love what?” I turned my head and put my ear on his
chest so I could hear the pounding of his heart.
“Touching you ...” He deliberately ran a hand over
my bare butt. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”
He dug in with his fingers. Tension from the night
before had left me tight, and it felt good. I went limp, and if I
could have purred, I would have.
“Someone looking at us might think we’re asleep,” I
told him.
“You think so? Only if they don’t notice my pulse
rate ... or yours.”
He hit just the right spot, and I moaned.
“Just like Medea,” he murmured. “All I have to do
is put my hands on you. You can be spitting mad ... and then you
lean against me and go all soft and still.” He put his mouth
against my ear. “That’s how I know you want me as much as I want
you.” His arms were tight around me, and I knew that I wasn’t the
only one with wounds.
“I don’t purr as well as Medea,” I told him.
“Are you sure about that?”
And he proceeded to show me what he meant. If I
didn’t ever reach Medea’s volume, I came close. By the time he got
down to business, there was no room in the inferno he’d made of me
for fear or memory.
There was only Adam.
THE NEXT TIME I WOKE UP I WAS SMILING I WAS ALONE
in the bed, but that didn’t matter because I could hear Adam
downstairs—he was talking to Jesse. Either they were making lunch—I
checked the window shades—dinner, or someone was getting chopped
into small bits.
Soon I’d start worrying. But for now ... the
vampires weren’t going to kill everyone I knew. They weren’t even
going to kill me. The sun was up. And matters between Adam and me
were right and tight.
Mostly. We had a lot of things to talk about. For
instance, did he want me to move in? For a night, it was wonderful.
But his house wasn’t exactly private; any of his pack could be here
on any given day.
I liked my home, scruffy as it was. I liked having
my own territory. And ... what about Samuel? I frowned. He was
still ... not whole, and for some reason bunking at my house was
helping. With me he could have a pack, but not be Alpha and
responsible for everyone. I wasn’t sure it would work out so well
for him if I moved in with Adam—and I knew it wouldn’t work out if
he moved over here, too.
See, worrying already.
I took a deep breath and let it go. Tomorrow I
would worry about Samuel, about Stefan, and about Amber, whose
ghost was the least of her problems. I was just going to enjoy
today. For the whole day I was going to be happy and
carefree.
I slid out of bed and realized I was stark naked.
Which was only to be expected. But there was no sign of underwear
on the floor or in the bedding. I was head and shoulders under the
bed when Adam said, from the doorway, “I spy with my little eye
something that begins with the letter A.”
“I’ll spy your little eye and squish it,” I
threatened, but, since the bed hid me, there was a grin on my face.
I’m not body shy—not growing up among werewolves. I can fake it so
people don’t get the wrong idea ... but with Adam it would be the
right one. I wiggled the something in question, and he patted it.
“I’ve been smelling whatever you’ve been cooking”—something with
lemon and chicken—“it’s making me hungry. But I can’t find my
underwear.”
“You could go without,” he suggested, sitting on
the bed just to the right of me.
“Hah,” I said. “Not on your life, buster. Jesse and
who knows who else are down there. I’m not running around without
underwear.”
“Who would know?” he asked. “I would know,” I told
him, pulling my head out from under the bed only to see that he had
my bright blue panties dangling from a finger.
“They were under the pillow,” he said with an
innocent smile.
I snatched them and put them on. Then I hopped up
and went to the bathroom, where the rest of my clothes were. I
dressed, took a step toward the bathroom, and had a
flashback.
I’d been here, unworthy, soiled ... stained. I
couldn’t face them, couldn’t look into their faces because they
all knew...
“Shh, shh,” Adam crooned in my ear. “That’s over.
It’s over and done with.”
He held me, sitting on the bathroom floor with me
on his lap, while I shook and the flashback faded.
When I could breathe normally again, I sat up with
an attempt at dignity. “Sorry,” I said.
I’d thought that last night would have taken care
of the flashbacks, the panic attacks—I was cured, right?
I reached up and grabbed a hand towel and wiped my
wet face—and found that it just kept getting wet. I’d been so sure
everything would be back to normal now.
“It takes longer than a week to get over something
like that,” Adam told me, as if he could read my mind. “But I can
help, if you’ll let me.”
I looked at him, and he ran a thumb under my eyes.
“You’ll have to open up, though, and let the pack in.”
He smiled, a sad smile. “You’ve been blocking
pretty ferociously since sometime on the trip back from Spokane. If
I were to guess, I expect it was when you let Stefan bite
you.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, and I
guessed it showed.
“Not on purpose?” he said.
Somehow, I’d slid off his lap and was leaning
against the opposite wall. “Not that I know.”
“You had a panic attack on the way home,” he told
me.
I nodded and remembered the warmth of the pack that
had pulled me out of it. Remarkable, awesome—and buried under the
rest of the events of the past two nights.
His lids lowered. “That’s better ... a bit better.”
He looked up from the floor and focused on me, yellow highlights
dancing in his irises. He reached out and touched me just under my
ear.
It was a light touch, just barely skin to skin. It
should have been casual.
He laughed a little, sounding just a bit giddy.
“Just like Medea, Mercy,” he said, dropping his hand and drawing a
breath that sounded just a little ragged. “Let me try this again.”
He held out his hand.
When I put mine in it, he closed his eyes and ... I
felt a trickle of life, warmth, and health dribbling from his hand
to mine. It felt like a hug on a summer’s day, laughter, and sweet
honey.
I spread out into it through him, sliding into
something I just knew were warm depths that would surround me
with—
But the pack didn’t want me. And the minute the
thought crossed my mind, the trickle dried up—and Adam jerked his
hand back with a hiss of pain that brought me up to my knees. I
reached out to touch him, then pulled my hand back so I didn’t hurt
him again.
“Adam?”
“Stubborn,” he said with an appraising look. “I got
bits and pieces from you, though. We don’t love you, so you won’t
take anything from us?” The question in his voice was
self-addressed, as if he weren’t quite sure of his analysis.
I sat back down on my heels, caught by the accuracy
of his reading.
“Instincts drive the wolf ... coyote, too, I
imagine,” he told me after a moment. He looked relaxed, one knee up
and the other stretched out just to the side of me. “Truth is
without flourishes or manners and runs with a logic all its own.
You can’t let the pack give without giving in return, and if we
don’t want your gift ...”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t understand how the
pack worked, but the last part was right. After a bit, he said,
“It’s inconvenient sometimes to be a part of the pack. When the
pack magic is in full swing—like now with the moon close to her
zenith—there’s no hiding everything from each other all the time
like we do as humans. Some things, yes, but we can’t chose which
ones stay safely secret. Paul knows I’m still angry with him over
his attack on Warren, and it makes him cringe—which just makes me
angrier because it’s not remorse for trying to attack Warren when
he was hurt but fear of my anger.”
I stared at him.
“It’s not all bad,” he told me. “It’s knowing who
they are, what’s important to them, what makes them different. What
strengths they each contribute to the pack.”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure how much you’ll get. If
I want to, at full moon in wolf form, I can read everyone almost
always—that’s part of being Alpha. It allows me to use the
individuals to build a pack. Most of the pack get bits and pieces,
mostly things that concern them or big things.” He gave me a little
smile. “I didn’t know that bringing you into the pack would work at
all, you know. I couldn’t have done it with a human mate, but you
are always an unknown.” He looked at me intently. “You knew Mary Jo
had been hurt.”
I shook my head. “No. I knew someone had been
hurt—but I didn’t know it was Mary Jo until I saw her.”
“Okay,” he said, encouraged by my answer. “It
shouldn’t be bad for you then. Unless you need them, or they need
you, the pack will just be ... a shield at your back, warmth in the
storm. Our mate bond—when it settles down—will probably add a
little oddity to it.”
“What do you mean ‘when it settles down’?” I asked
him.
He shrugged. “Hard to explain.” He gave me an
amused look. “When I was learning how to be a wolf, I asked my
teacher what mating felt like. He told me it was different for
different couples—and being Alpha adds a twist to it as
well.”
“So you don’t know?” Because that wasn’t an
answer—and Adam didn’t evade questions. He answered or told you he
wasn’t going to.
“I do now,” he said. “Our bond”—he made a gesture
with his hand indicating something in the small space in the
bathroom that lay between us—“feels to me like a bridge, like the
suspension bridge over the Columbia. It has foundations and the
cables and all that it needs to be a bridge, but it doesn’t span
the river yet.” He looked at my face and grinned. “I know it sounds
stupid, but you asked. Anyway, if all you felt when Mary Jo was
dying was that someone was hurt, that you caught the few who don’t
welcome you as part of our pack is my fault. You felt them through
me. On your own, you won’t even be aware of it unless certain
conditions are met. Things like proximity, how open you are to the
pack, and if the moon is full.” He grinned. “Or how grumpy you are
with them.”
“So if I don’t feel it, it shouldn’t matter if they
don’t want me?”
He gave me a neutral look. “Of course it
matters—but it won’t be shoved down your throat every minute of the
day. Mostly, I expect you’ll know the ones who don’t want a coyote
in the pack. As Warren knows the wolves who hate what he is more
than what he does.” Briefly, sorrow lit his eyes for Warren’s
trials, but he kept speaking. “Just as Darryl knows the wolves who
resent being given orders by a black man made uppity by a good
education.” He smiled, just a little. “You aren’t alone, most
people are prejudiced about something. But you know, after a while
the edges wear down. You know who hated Darryl the most when he
joined us, way back when we were still in New Mexico?”
I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.
“Aurielle. She thought he was an arrogant,
self-important snob.”
“Which he is,” I observed. “But he’s also smart,
quick, and given to small kindnesses when no one is
watching.”
“So,” he nodded. “We are none of us perfect, and as
pack, we learn to take these imperfections and make them only a
small part of who we are. Let us bring you truly into our shelter,
Mercedes. And the wolves who resent you will deal with it as you
will deal with the ones you don’t like, for whatever reason. I
think, with the healing you have already done on your own, the pack
can help stop your panic attacks.”
“Ben’s rude,” I said, considering it.
“See, you already know most of us,” Adam said. “And
Ben adores you. He doesn’t quite know how to deal with it yet. He’s
not used to liking anyone ... and liking a woman ...”
“Ish,” I said, deadpan.
“Let’s try again,” he suggested, and put out his
hand.
This time when I touched him, all I felt was skin
and calluses, no warmth, no magic.
He tilted his head and evaluated me sternly. “It’s
hard to argue with instinct, even with reason and logic, isn’t it?
May I knock?”
“What?”
“May I see if I can touch you first? Maybe that’ll
allow you to open to the pack.”
It sounded harmless enough. Warily, I nodded ...
and I felt him, felt his spirit or something, touch me. It wasn’t
like when I’d called Stefan. That had been as intimate as talking
was—not very much. Adam’s touch reminded me more of the presence I
felt sometimes in church—but this was unmistakably Adam and not
God.
And because it was Adam, I let him in, accepting
him into my secret heart. Something settled into place with a
rightness that rang in my soul. Then the floodgates opened.
THE NEXT TIME I WAS CONSCIOUS OF ANYTHING REAL, I
was back in Adam’s lap but on his bedroom floor instead of in the
bathroom. A number of the pack surrounded us and stood with their
hands linked. My head hurt like the one and only time I’d gotten
truly drunk, only much worse.
“We’re going to have to work on your filtering
skills, Mercy,” said Adam, his voice sounding a little rough.
As if that was a signal, the pack broke apart and
became individuals again—though I hadn’t been aware they were
anything else until it was gone. Something stopped, and my head
didn’t hurt so much. Uncomfortable at being on the floor when
everyone else was on their feet, I rolled forward and tried to use
my hands to get leverage so I could stand.
“Not so fast,” Samuel murmured. He hadn’t been one
of the circle, I’d have noticed him, but he pushed his way through
to the front of the line. He gave me a hand and pulled until I was
on my feet.
“I’m sorry,” I told Adam, knowing something bad had
happened, but I couldn’t quite focus on what it had been.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Mercy,” Samuel assured me
with a little edge to his voice. “Adam is old enough to know better
than to draw his mate into the pack at the same time as he seals
your mate bond. Sort of like someone teaching a baby to swim in the
ocean. During a tsunami.”
Adam hadn’t gotten up when I did, and when I looked
at him, his face was grayish underneath his tan. He had his eyes
closed, and he was sitting as if moving would be very painful. “Not
your fault, Mercy. I asked you to open up to me.”
“What happened?” I asked him.
Adam opened his eyes, and they were as yellow as
I’d ever seen them. “Full-throttle overload,” he said. “Someone
probably should call Darryl and Warren and make sure they’re all
right. They stepped in without notice and helped tuck you back into
your own skin.”
“I don’t remember,” I said warily.
“Good,” said Samuel. “Fortunately for us all, the
mind has a way of protecting itself.”
“You went from fully closed to fully open,” Adam
said. “And when you opened yourself up to me, the mate bond settled
in, too. Before I realized what happened you ...” He waved his
hands. “Sort of spread out through the pack bonds.”
“Like Napoleon trying to take over Russia,” said
Samuel “There just wasn’t enough of you to go around.”
I remembered a bit then. I’d been swimming,
drowning in memories and thoughts that weren’t mine. They’d flowed
over me, around me, and through me like a river of ice—stripping me
raw as the shards passed by. It had been cold and dark; I couldn’t
breathe. I’d heard Adam calling my name ...
“Aurielle answered,” reported Ben from the hallway.
“She says Darryl is fine. Warren’s not picking up, so I called his
boy toy’s cell. Boy will check up and call me back.”
“I bet you didn’t call him a boy toy to his face,”
I said.
“You can effing believe I did,” answered Ben with
injured dignity. “You should have heard what he called me.”
Kyle, Warren’s human boyfriend, who in his day job
was a barracuda divorce lawyer, had a tongue that could be as
razor-sharp as his mind. I’d bet money on the outcome of any verbal
skirmish between Kyle and Ben, and it wouldn’t be on Ben.
“Is Dad all right?” asked Jesse. The wolves moved
aside almost sheepishly to let her through—and I realized they must
have kept her away while the matter was still in doubt. Judging by
Adam’s eyes, he held on to control by a gnat’s hair—so keeping his
vulnerable human daughter away had been a good idea. But I knew
Jesse—I wouldn’t have wanted to have been the one keeping her
back.
Adam got hastily to his feet and almost didn’t lean
on Mary Jo—who’d put her hand out when he swayed.
“I’m just fine,” he told his daughter, and gave her
a quick hug.
“Jesse’s the one who called Samuel,” Mary Jo told
him. “We didn’t even think of it. He told us what to do.”
“Jesse’s the bomb,” I said with conviction. She
gave me a shaky grin.
“The trick,” Samuel said to me, “is to join with
the pack and with Adam—without losing yourself in them. It’s
instinctive for the werewolves, but I expect you’re going to have
to work on it.”
IN THE END, I WENT HOME FOR DINNER, SLIPPING OUT
ALMOST unnoticed in the gathering that followed our close call. I
needed some time alone. Adam saw me leave, but made no move to stop
me—he knew I’d be back.
There was a bowl of tuna fish, pickles, and mayo in
the fridge, so I made a sandwich and fed what was left to the cat.
As she ate with delicate haste, I called Kyle’s cell phone.
“Uhmm?”
The sound was so relaxed, I pulled the phone away
from my ears to make sure it was Kyle’s phone I’d gotten.
But there it was on the little screen-KYLE’s CELL.
“Kyle? I was calling to see how Warren was.”
“Sorry, Mercy,” Kyle laughed, and I heard water
splash. “We’re in the hot tub. He’s fine. How are you? Ben said you
were all right.”
“Fine. Warren?”
“Was passed out in the hallway, where he’d
evidently been headed to the kitchen with an empty glass.”
“Wasn’t empty when I was carrying it,” Warren’s
warm Southern-touched voice sounded amused.
“Ah,” said Kyle, “I didn’t notice much besides
Warren. But he woke up in a few minutes—”
“Cold water in your face does that,” observed
Warren, amused.
“But he was stiff and sore—thus the hot tub.”
“Tell him I’m sorry,” I told Kyle.
“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” said Warren. “Pack magic
can be tricky sometimes. That’s what Adam, Darryl, and I are for,
sweetheart. I don’t feel you in the pack anymore. Problems?”
“Probably not,” I told him. “Samuel says I just
burned out the circuit for a while. It should come back on line
soon.”
“Apparently it wasn’t necessary that I pass
anything on,” said Kyle dryly.
A car pulled into the driveway—a Mercedes, I
thought. But I didn’t recognize the individual car. “Give Warren a
hug from me, instead,” I said. “And enjoy the hot tub.”
I hung up before Kyle could say something
outrageous in response and went to the door to see who was
there.
Corban, Amber’s husband was just coming up the
steps. He looked disconcerted when I opened the door before he
knocked. He also looked upset, his tie askew, his cheeks
unshaven.
“Corban?” I said. I couldn’t imagine why he was
here when a phone was so much easier. “What’s wrong?”
He recovered from his momentary hesitation and all
but hopped up the last step. He put out a hand, and I noticed he
was wearing leather driving gloves—and holding something
odd-looking. That’s all I had time to notice before he hit me with
the Taser.
Tasers are becoming commonplace among police
departments, though I’d never actually seen one in the flesh
before. Somewhere on YouTube there is a cameraphone video showing
what happened to a student who broke some rule or other in a
university library. He was Tasered, then Tasered again because he
wouldn’t get up when they told him to.
It hurt. It hurt like ... I didn’t know what. I
dropped to the ground and lay there frozen while Corban frisked me.
He went through my pockets, dropping my cell phone to the porch. He
grabbed my shoulders and knees and tried to jerk lift me.
I’m a lot heavier than I look—muscle will do
that—and he was no werewolf, just a desperate man whispering, “I’m
sorry. I’m sorry.”
I’d make sure he was sorry, I thought through the
haze of pain. “I don’t get mad I get even” was more of a credo than
a cliché to me.
The people I’d seen Tasered were only knocked out
of commission for a few seconds. Even the kid in the library had
been able to make noise. I was absolutely helpless, and I didn’t
know why.
I tried touching the pack or Adam for help. I found
where the connection should have been, but the Taser had nothing on
the pain when I tried to force contact. My head hurt so badly it
felt like my ears should be bleeding.
It was still daylight, so calling Stefan wasn’t
going to be much help.
The second time, he got me up and took me to his
car. His trunk popped with a beep, and he dumped me in it. My head
bounced off the floor a couple of times. When I got out of this,
Amber was going to be a widow.
Scrabbling fingers pulled my hands together behind
my back, and I recognized the signature sound of a zip tie. He used
another on my ankles. Prying my mouth open, he stuffed it with a
sock that tasted of fabric softener and smelled faintly of Amber,
then he wrapped what felt like an Ace bandage around that.
“It’s Chad,” he told me, eyes wild. “He has
Chad.”
I caught a glimpse of the fresh bite mark in his
neck just before he shut the trunk.