Smoke Bitten

by Patricia Briggs

  “I remember,” said Adam.

  “I haven’t seen him since,” Carlos admitted. “I heard he didn’t adjust to his wife’s death well and he left his pack.”

  Honey knew the next one, a soft-faced man with gray eyes and medium-brown hair.

  “That’s Kent Schwabe,” she said, sorrow in her voice. “He was a good man, Adam. Ended up in a bad pack, though—I think in Florida. Charles killed that Alpha back in the 1960s, and the whole pack was dismantled. We were casual acquaintances, though, so I don’t know what happened to Kent after that.”

  “He moved to Texas,” Adam told her. “He ended up in Galveston.”

  “That’s Gartman’s pack,” said Warren, sitting up a little straighter.

  It hadn’t been a question, but Adam nodded. “That’s right.”

  Warren growled. “Some damn fool should take that Alpha right out of existence. World would be a better place.”

  Adam tipped his head toward Warren. “Oh?”

  “I expect you’ve heard people say he keeps the peace. That his wolves don’t cause no trouble and they never say a bad word about him,” said Warren. “I know, because I talked to Bran about that one a few times. Bran is watching him, but he can’t do anything until he gets a complaint or something happens.”

  Adam said, carefully, “I understand that he’s a hard man.”

  “Hell,” Warren said. “I don’t mind a hard man.”

  “I’ve heard that,” said Ben, his British accent carrying through the room.

  Warren gave him a roguish look—he and Ben were friends.

  “Kyle aside,” Warren said—and there were a few soft laughs from the pack. “Gartman’s not hard, Adam, he’s polecat mean. Some of his pack stay with him because they like that—he allows them to be mean, too. Most of them are too afraid to squeak.”

  “Good to know,” Adam said. “I hadn’t heard anything bad about him—until last night.” He changed the photo again.

  This time it was a thin-faced woman in profile. No one knew her.

  “This is Nonnie Palsic. She’s old. My informant—”

  Charles, I thought, though officially Charles shouldn’t be giving us information since we weren’t affiliated with the Marrok. I’m sure the Marrok told Charles that, too, knowing exactly how well his son would follow that directive.

  “—tells me that she’s around four hundred years old. She’s mated to this man.”

  He changed the screen to show an ordinary-looking guy with a baseball in one hand and a bat over his shoulder.

  Adam looked over the room, and when no one spoke up, he announced, “This is James Palsic. He is older than his mate, possibly a lot older than his mate. I met James about twenty years ago—so did any of you who were in my pack when we were in Los Alamos. He was an engineer on assignment. Worked at the National Lab down there for two months before he went back to Washington, D.C.”

  When no one said anything, Adam smiled. “I have noticed that people don’t tend to remember him. I’ve been told that it’s not magic. Not sure I believe it. It is true that he is very low-key. He was one of the wolves I scented last night. Li Qiang was the other.”

  “I didn’t know that you knew Li Qiang,” said Carlos.

  “I’ve never met him,” Adam told him. “But I picked you up at the airport when you came back from the funeral.”

  Carlos flushed and looked away.

  “Hey,” said Adam. When Carlos looked at him, Adam told him, “Not anyone’s business.”

  The words and the tone had a bite to them, were a reproof. But Carlos relaxed, gave a nod, and settled back in his seat. “All right,” he said.

  “About six months ago,” Adam continued, “there was a disturbance in Gartman’s pack. By the time Bran found out about it, it was over. Gartman had executed four wolves, and Harolford and a few of the remaining rebels were on the run. No sign of them since then, though Bran and Gartman have both been looking.”

  “Those six you just showed us,” said Warren.

  “Yes,” Adam agreed.

  “I’ve also heard of Gartman,” said Darryl, his voice so deep that if Gartman had been in the room, he’d better have hoped he could run faster than our second. “Harolford and the others, they are in trouble and they have to find somewhere out of Gartman’s reach. Our pack, not affiliated with the Marrok, might look like a good place to make a stand—if they can take us.”

  “They hunted on our territory until you noticed,” Honey said. “To see how alert we are.”

  “No telling how long they’ve been in the Tri-Cities,” Elliot said.

  I cleared my throat. “The goblins keep a pretty thorough watch. Unless they have someone with Adam’s skills, if they had been here long, we’d have known about it.”

  We paid the goblins to keep watch for us—as did the vampires. There just weren’t enough werewolves to cover the whole of the Tri-Cities and the surrounding areas. I didn’t have any idea how many goblins there were. But if a supernaturally gifted being stepped foot on our territory, mostly we knew about it within a few hours.

  “Maybe they paid off the goblins,” said Auriele.

  I was about to disagree when Adam said, “Or maybe they are owed a favor—the goblins wouldn’t betray us for money. But all of the fae have to abide by the bargains they make. These wolves have done a couple of things that make me think they’ve been watching us awhile—or that maybe they have a way to get information on us that doesn’t involve them being here.”

  “Renny?” asked Mary Jo.

  Adam nodded. “That’s one. How would they know about Renny without being here?”

  Jesse stood up.

  Adam nodded at her.

  “Facebook,” she said. “Mary Jo posted a photo of their last date together.” She sat down triumphantly.

  Mary Jo slumped lower in her seat, but she nodded when she did.

  “Facebook,” said Adam, sounding blindsided.

  Darryl stood up. “It would be a good idea for the pack members who are out to avoid having a social media presence.”

  “Make it so,” Adam said as Darryl sat down. “Too many people know who you are—and that makes your friends and families targets.”

  “To those who want to take the pack from us,” said Darryl heavily, his dark eyes flecked with gold.

  Adam smiled—and for the first time in weeks it was a happy smile. Though nothing could erase the exhaustion on his face, that expression lit his face and sweetened the beautiful features.

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  5

  “Is there a reason we’re happy about this, boss?” asked Warren warily.

  I happened to be watching Sherwood and saw him grin in sudden comprehension. He knew what Adam was doing.

  Adam nodded in answer to Warren’s question. “I think so. I’m going to conscript them, if I can. We need more bodies. They need a place to be safe. It might take some negotiation.”

  Auriele looked at Adam, and there was just a hint of a sneer on her mouth when she said, “Try to take them before they take the pack from you?”

  Beside her, Darryl stiffened.

  The smile melted from Adam’s face and his eyes grew cold. “Make no mistake, Auriele. They cannot take this pack from me.” He stared at her a moment, until she dropped her eyes. It was not voluntary, that averting of Auriele’s eyes. I could see it in the stiffness of her shoulders.

  “What the hell, ’Riele?” said Darryl in a voice that I don’t think he intended to carry.

  She shot him a venomous look.

  “Auriele,” said Adam in a soft, dangerous voice. “Do you want to challenge me for the pack?”

  She shot to her feet. “Darryl—”

  “Darryl is welcome to make his own decisions,” Adam told her, without looking at Darryl, who was shaking his head vehem
ently.

  “No,” said Darryl. “Absolutely not.” Obviously he didn’t want Adam—or maybe Auriele, who was also not looking at her mate—to be under any misapprehension of his intentions.

  “Auriele,” said Adam. “Go to my office and wait for me there.”

  I was pretty unhappy with Auriele at that point. But that didn’t stop the hackles rising on the back of my neck at his tone of voice. Auriele was a strong member of the pack, and I didn’t like her being talked to like she was a misbehaving twelve-year-old. It brought up shadows in my memory of just such pronouncements from the Marrok.

  But I was not a werewolf, and not caught up in the need for pack and order that the werewolves were. I knew that the argument she wanted was something that Adam could not tolerate here with the whole pack in attendance. If he didn’t stop her right now, she might force him to do something that he didn’t want to do.

  The wolves were all of them dangerous—to other members of the pack, to the community, and to themselves. A wolf without boundaries killed people that their human halves would not want killed. Auriele knew how far she could push the rules of the pack—and she was pushing beyond them. That wasn’t safe for her or the people around her.

  Still, it struck me that Auriele and Adam were both acting a little out of character. I looked around the room and felt the tension in the air—but there had been something hovering in the meeting room since I’d first come in—before the Renny incident even. And I wondered, if Adam was locking down the bond between the two of us because he didn’t want to damage/pollute/scare me (or whatever excuse he was using), what had been happening with the pack bonds? He couldn’t shut those down—so what was he doing? And how was it affecting the pack?

  Auriele hesitated for a heartbeat, then wrapped herself in righteous fury that I was not wholly unsympathetic with given Adam’s tone of voice, before she headed out the door. I wondered how much of her over-the-top behavior had been pushed on her by the pack bonds she shared with Adam. I’d had a few members of the pack make me act stupidly before. They had been doing it on purpose—but I knew that it could happen. For that matter, I wondered if Adam’s patronizing tone came from the same source that had made him act weird yesterday.

  Adam watched her leave, then looked at Darryl.

  “I would like to bring you into that conversation, too,” he told Darryl.

  “My mate is passionate in defense of those she loves,” Darryl growled defensively.

  Yes, but she wasn’t stupid, I thought, sitting back. Yesterday and today she had been acting entirely out of character. Something else besides Christy was going on. Something maybe like Adam’s struggles and the pack bonds.

  “Her loyalty is one of her best qualities,” Adam told Darryl sincerely—though he was quite aware that the rest of the pack were listening. “And so is her intelligence. So when I’m done here, we are going to sit down with her and figure out what is interfering with her usual good sense. It isn’t that she suddenly decided she needs to take over the pack. If Auriele wanted this pack, I’d figure that out a few months after I’d agreed to take a twenty-year sabbatical in the Yucatán Peninsula and left y’all in her tender and competent care.”

  The stress level in the room resolved into a wry wave of amused agreement. Darryl . . . Darryl kept a game face on. I couldn’t tell if he knew what was bothering Auriele or not. Adam, I thought, would know about what the pack bonds could do better than I did. He’d do his best to keep the pack safe and stable. But for how long?

  Adam swept his gaze over the room again. And I saw how tired he looked, saw the weight on his shoulders—and I was the only one in the room who knew that there was a reason that had nothing to do with no sleep, Auriele’s dramatic moment, mind-bending escapees from Underhill, or invading werewolves. That meant that I was going to have to be the one who helped him out.

  “So,” said Adam. “We have an invasion commencing and something of mostly unknown capabilities out creating havoc. Be careful out there. Watch your backs. Tell your families what’s going on and tell them to keep an eye out. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you think something is wrong. If you want to bring your families here to stay until matters clear up—we can do that. That they hit Mary Jo’s boyfriend—”

  “Of two weeks,” said Mary Jo.

  “Of two weeks,” agreed Adam, “implies that they are watching us. They have spent some time studying how we function.”

  “What do you plan to do?” asked Elliot.

  Adam smiled. “At its heart, taking over a pack is simple: kill the Alpha in a challenge. I plan on not dying. Go home.” He waved his hand.

  There was a rumble of laughter as the mass exodus took place. Darryl wasn’t laughing. He stayed in his chair and stretched out his legs, his arms folded across his chest.

  Adam caught my eye and nodded for me to stay where I was. Warren gathered Jesse and Aiden and exited with the rest. When everyone was gone, I shut the door.

  Darryl glanced around to make sure the door was closed, then looked at Adam. “I don’t know what it is, either. She’s been upset—you know, the kind of upset that when I ask about it I get the ‘nothing is wrong’ answer.” He grimaced at Adam. “Which is highly irritating when she knows that I can tell she’s lying, but telling her that—something she already knows—will only give her an excuse to blow up at me. And she is looking for excuses to blow up.”

  At least, I thought, Adam isn’t giving me that “nothing is wrong” answer anymore. I wasn’t entirely sure that it was an improvement. If he’d been lying to me, I could be mad at him. That might feel better than this lump in my throat.

  “Let’s go see what we can do for her,” Adam said.

  “Why am I here?” I asked him. “You don’t need me for this. She doesn’t even like me.”

  “Sure she does,” said Darryl unexpectedly. “Why do you think she’s so mad at you about Christy?”

  “That makes sense how?” I asked, flummoxed.

  “As much sense as lying to your mate who is a werewolf,” Darryl answered. “She is smart, passionate, and loyal. In situations that draw on all three of those, logic flies out the window.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “But that doesn’t tell me why you need me to come.”

  “I don’t know about him,” Darryl said. “But I’m hoping she’ll be so focused on you that she’ll forget to be mad at me. I want to be able to sleep tonight without having to keep one eye open.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly. “Happy to help.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Adam’s office was not large enough for four people to fit comfortably. That was even more evident when three of them were dominant werewolves.

  Adam sat in the chair behind his desk. Auriele occupied the other chair, a leather and maple work of art that Christy had given Adam for their anniversary one year. That left Darryl holding up a wall and me sitting on Adam’s desk.

  Auriele was sitting as though she were modeling for a portrait, she was that still. She held her body like a dancer just before the music starts, back upright and body tense. Her legs were tucked back, ready to push her to her feet at any time.

  She had barely acknowledged any of us.

  Adam pursed his lips. “So how do you think Harolford—always assuming he is the one in charge—will work his attack? Slow and steady? Or blitzkrieg with all barrels firing?”

  Auriele finally looked up. “Are you asking me?” Her tone was incredulous.

  Adam looked at Darryl, who was keeping his face neutral, and then me before looking at Auriele. His face was slightly amused. “Yes.”

  She glared at him. He raised an eyebrow.

  “I thought we were going to talk about my behavior,” she said, her voice a growl.

  Adam tilted his head. “Why? You know what you did today was stupid. We know that there is something behind it that’
s a lot more traumatic than my ex-wife’s disappointment about Jesse’s choice of schools. I’m not going to ask you about it. Just inform you that”—his voice dropped low and softened dangerously as his eyes turned yellow—“you need to stop letting it affect you to the point where you are useless to the pack.”

  She met his eyes for a long moment before water gathered on her lower lids. I twisted around and opened a drawer in Adam’s desk to grab a tissue. When I turned around, Darryl was kneeling beside her, one of his big arms wrapped around her. To accommodate his hold, she had slid to the very edge of the chair.

  I handed her the tissue. She grabbed it and wiped her eyes.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “I’m sorry, Mercy. I should have talked to you before I acted. I know that Christy isn’t logical about you.”

  I made a humming noise. “It’s probably the blue hair dye that I may or may not have put in the shampoo container she left in my shower,” I told her. “I wouldn’t like me, either, if I were her.”

  Her lips turned up and she gave a half laugh. “Yes, Mercy. I’m sure that the blue dye is the real reason that Christy doesn’t like you.”

  She looked at Adam. “I’m sorry. I had some family news a few days ago.” She drew in a breath, and when she spoke again, she was talking to Darryl. “My youngest sister is pregnant with twins.”

  The silence that followed was full of sharp edges.

  Auriele and Darryl had no children. Male werewolves could father children—but female werewolves could not carry them. The moon’s call ensured that all werewolves had to change. The change from human to wolf is violent, too violent for a fetus to survive the first trimester.

  Auriele’s youngest sister was not a werewolf.

  “Surrogate,” said Darryl, his voice decisive.

  “Who would be a surrogate for a werewolf?” Auriele shot back. The speed of her response told me that this was an old argument.