“He could not keep Honey,” Adam said coolly, because it had been obvious from Bonarata’s expression at Elizaveta’s reply that the vampire had been considering how he might do that very thing.
“No?” asked Bonarata silkily.
“No,” said Marsilia.
He turned on his heel so that he faced Marsilia. Her shoulders were back, her weight was balanced over the balls of her feet: she was ready for a fight.
Bonarata’s mask held for a heartbeat, then it was gone.
Adam realized that they had done what they set out to do—upset the Master Vampire in the middle of his own game. The bonhomie of their first meeting was no longer a solid disguise behind which Bonarata could run the show. Adam could see the monster quite clearly—and as Bonarata looked at Marsilia, Adam could see the man, too.
A man with a million regrets that mostly surrounded the woman who defied him.
Ironically, now that Adam knew where Mercy was and he just had to shake himself free of Bonarata, Adam would have been happier with the genial host. They could have taken care of business in a cool and logical fashion, and Adam would be on his way by now.
Instead, Adam could feel his wolf’s satisfaction as it settled itself for the brutal fight the beast foresaw. Something would happen. The energy of the room had tipped into potential violence. Because if Bonarata said the condescending pablum Adam could see his mouth forming—Marsilia was going to hit him.
No matter how happy that would make his wolf, it would be faster to go if a fight didn’t break out, so Adam broke up the moment between Marsilia and Bonarata by saying, “If you don’t have a witch of my Elizaveta’s power at your call, how did you heal Mercy from her ‘near-fatal’ wounds?”
His intention was to turn the vampire’s ire from Marsilia to himself and to force Bonarata to backtrack. Because, logically, either Bonarata had lied about what he’d done for Mercy—and Adam knew those wounds had been bad, he’d felt her pain and seen the blood—or just now Bonarata had lied about not having a witch.
Bonarata dragged his eyes from Marsilia, and the look he gave Adam was almost grateful. It was a guy thing. He, too, knew whatever he had been about to say to Marsilia wouldn’t have been useful. It had just been beyond his power to not say it. Adam was happy to help.
“We didn’t have a witch mend your wife,” Bonarata said. “A healer did it. Come and meet her.”
A healer?
Bonarata didn’t wait for questions. He looked around the dining room and led them to a back table with a soft-looking vampire male who was playing games designed to encourage the girl sitting next to him to eat. Adam recognized those games because he’d played them more than a time or two when Jesse was a toddler.
This girl was a lot older than a toddler. She was dark-haired and blue-eyed and oddly unfinished. A mundane human would look at her and think Down syndrome or something of the sort. Adam observed her and his nose told him that she was fae and human. She looked like she was fourteen or fifteen, but, having fae blood, she could have been four or five hundred years old and looked no different.
She was too thin, and there were circles under her eyes, but when she looked up and saw Bonarata, her face lit up. She left her place and trotted (there was no other word that fit the high-stepping shuffle) around the table and made happy noises as she raised her arms.
Bonarata laughed—a big booming laugh that suited him oddly well and was nothing any vampire had any business having—and wrapped his arms around her. He swung her around twice and set her down gently on the floor. He stopped her too-loud babbling that didn’t, to Adam’s ears, appear to actually be words.
She quieted and looked up at the vampire with the eagerness of a corgi awaiting orders.
“Stacia,” Bonarata said, “Stacia, these are my friends. Marsilia. Elizaveta. Adam. Larry. Austin. Matt. People, this is my friend Stacia.”
She gave each of them a cheerful wave until she got to Adam. She squinted, stuck out her tongue in thought—then clapped her hands suddenly and her mouth rounded in surprise. She looked at Bonarata and wiggled her fingers with such abandon it took Adam a moment to realize she was using a form of sign language.
She turned back to Adam and gave him a huge smile. She patted his arm, sending a zing of power all the way from the skin where she touched up to his nose. He didn’t flinch. He took her hand in his and kissed it.
He knew what he was looking at. This child was the single reason Bonarata’s machinations hadn’t killed Mercy.
She blushed and clasped her hands together, pressed close to her stomach. But the smile she gave Adam was pure delight.
“She says that you belong to the pretty lady she healed,” Bonarata said. “She thinks that you should go find her and give her a hug.”
The girl patted Bonarata. He laughed. “Okay. A very big hug.” She nodded firmly, apparently having no trouble understanding English, even though she apparently didn’t speak it—and maybe no other language except her own. “And you need to go eat, young lady. You are too thin.”
She gave him a sweet smile and took the hand of the vampire who was evidently her caretaker and let him lead her back to her food.
On the way through the dining hall, Bonarata said, “We found her in a ghetto in some little town in the middle of the Great War.”
World War I, Adam thought, a century ago.
“She is fae,” said Larry.
“Partly,” Bonarata said. “Or so we think.”
“More than half,” Larry told him seriously. “Don’t let the fae know you have her here. She’d be useful to them, and I don’t think they’d treat her as well as you do. They’ve little patience with creatures who are not perfect.” He spoke, as he often did, as though he did not consider himself to be one of the fae.
“So I have always thought,” agreed Bonarata as he turned, presumably to take them to where they would be eating this evening.
He paused. Looked sharply at Adam and took a step closer and inhaled.
The vampire who’d brought drinks to their room earlier approached before Bonarata could comment on the scent he’d finally noticed.
“Your pardon,” she told them. “Our seating arrangements had to be rapidly rearranged. Ms. Arkadyevna, Mr. Harris, Mr. Sethaway, Mr. Smith. I have you seated over there, the little table with the peach-rose flower arrangement. There was not time to find a cordial dining companion, so I thought it was best to seat you among yourselves.”
Bonarata held up a hand. “One moment, Annabelle. Could you find Guccio, please, and bring him here?”
“Adam met Guccio wandering the hall with a witched bag that allowed him to walk in the day,” Marsilia told Bonarata in a low voice, because people were starting to look at them.
“Ah,” murmured Bonarata. “I’d been told that piece of witchcraft was no more.”
They all watched as Annabelle walked quickly through the room and found Guccio talking to a small group of vampires near the table where they’d eaten before. Guccio looked over at Bonarata, then said something to Annabelle and patted her shoulder before breaking off from the others and weaving his way to Bonarata’s side.
“Why is it that Adam carries your mark?” Bonarata’s voice was almost cheerful.
And now the whole room fell silent. No one looked at Bonarata, but they were listening as hard as they could.
Guccio blushed and swore. Then he said contritely, “I am sorry, Master. I had hoped to have a word before this meal, but I was distracted with some confusion about a delivery of—I suppose that part doesn’t matter. It was a stupid thing. I was going through an old trunk last night and happened upon this”—he pulled the gris-gris out of his shirt—“I didn’t even know if it worked or not anymore. Mary made it for me a long time ago. I thought I’d try it.” He took a deep breath, then said, in a voice that was raw, “I miss the sun.”
There was a sympathetic echo that had no sound, but it swept through the room just the same. Those words found a home with every vampire here. A human might not have noticed it, but Adam’s wolf was on high alert, and that left Adam taking note of everything.
“It still worked, but Mary’s spells always brought out the wild in me,” Guccio continued.
A second, lesser reaction in the hall. There were a number of people, Adam judged, who knew what Guccio was saying and agreed with it. He thought about Elizaveta’s words—how such objects should be used with caution because the . . . evil could bleed through.
“I was just walking,” Guccio said, his eyes half-closed, as though he was reliving that moment in his dreams. “I could feel the sun above me, reaching through the walls of the house, and suddenly there he was. I touched him before I thought.” He gave Adam an apologetic smile. “I am sorry. It will fade in a day or two as long as I don’t touch you again.”
“It is of no matter,” said Adam.
—
MATT SMITH’S SUSPICION TURNED INTO A CERTAINTY. He’d been concerned since this morning when Adam had come in to tell them he’d had a run-in with Guccio. It was not like an Alpha to allow another person to trespass—to mark him as if he were prey—then dismiss it as nothing.
Matt stepped forward and touched Adam on the shoulder. When the other werewolf looked at him, Matt dropped his gaze.
“I need to have a word, sir,” he said. “It’s important.”
Bonarata frowned at him and said, “It will wait until after breakfast, I trust. I would not have my cook offended for a light matter.”
Matt could have heaved a sigh of relief, but he didn’t. If there were words better guaranteed to get him his five minutes alone, he wasn’t sure what they were.
“Of course not,” said Adam. “We wouldn’t dream of offending your cook. You will start without us. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Adam?” said Marsilia.
Adam glanced at Matt, who shook his head. This was a matter for wolves.
“Start without me,” he told Marsilia, and he headed for the nearest door, which happened to be the one that led back into Bonarata’s art gallery.
Matt trailed after him, doing his best to look apologetic. He knew people well enough to understand that no one who wasn’t seated at the table with the little healer half-blood would get to eat until he and Adam got back.
Adam shut the door behind them. “There are cameras in this room,” he said. “And this model includes a mic, so don’t say or do anything that you don’t want Bonarata to know about.” And Adam would know, wouldn’t he? Security was what the Columbia Basin Alpha did for his other job.
Matt said baldly, “You’ve been Kissed by a vampire, Adam.”
Adam stared at him. “No,” he said without conviction. “I looked.” His breathing grew rapid, and so did the pulse in his neck. “There were no bite marks.”
He pulled up his sleeve, and there were two rough puncture marks on the inside of his arm. “See?” he said. “Vampire bites heal as slowly on a werewolf as any wound on a mortal. If I had been bitten, there would be marks.” His voice was slowing, slurring, as something inside—probably his wolf—fought to uncover the lies he’d been fed, lies that blinded him to the red marks on his skin.
Matt wished there were pack bonds between them—pack bonds always made it easier to get an Alpha to listen to him. He raised his eyes and met Adam’s.
“You were bitten,” he said. “Without the pack here to anchor you, a powerful enough vampire can make you remember whatever he wants you to remember. You have to fight it, Adam. Listen to your wolf and fight it.”
Adam held his gaze and broke out in a sweat as the brown lightened to gold. The wolf inside Adam, in another place and time, might have objected to another wolf holding his eyes. But this was not a dominance fight. Matt’s status, instead of making this a fight, made it an offer of help acceptable to Adam’s wolf.
Matt had hoped it would work. But dominant wolves were unpredictable. This could have ended in bloodshed.
“Shit,” said Adam, the words dragging out of him like pulling a body out of quicksand. “Shit. Damn it to hell. I’ve been bitten by a fucking vampire.”
“Change,” Matt suggested. “That will help.”
Adam shook his head and gritted his teeth. “Can’t,” Adam said. “Can’t lose face with Bonarata. I have to stay human. I have to get out of here tonight to get Mercy—and before I do, I need to figure out why the hell Bonarata stole her in the first place. Stupid fucking vampires.”
“Agreed,” said Matt. “Though pretty undiplomatic if we are being recorded. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not now,” Adam said. “I’ll fight this out myself. Now that I know what’s going on. I think I’ve got this.” He took a deep, ragged breath. “This will teach me not to listen to my wolf. It’s been telling me there is something wrong since”—Adam looked at Matt and flashed him a surprisingly sweet smile, given the sweat trickling down his forehead—“since Mercy disappeared, I guess. And that was the problem. Too hard to tell one hissy fit from another.”
He fell silent. Matt put a hand tentatively on the other wolf’s shoulder, and when Adam didn’t shrug him off, he left it there. They didn’t share a bond, but Matt was older than he looked, and there were ways to feed power through touch.
Adam lifted his head and opened blind eyes when he felt the initial rush. He sucked in two gulps of air, then said in a hoarse voice, “You’ll have to teach me how to do that when this is all over. I can think of all sorts of times that would come in handy.”
Matt smiled, though the other wolf couldn’t see him. “Will do.” And then he fed him more power.
It wasn’t as much help as Adam’s pack would have been. With a pack, Guccio would never have been able to get such a hold on an Alpha’s mind. It said something about Guccio’s ranking among the vampires that he could do it at all. He caught a whiff of Honey and knew that Adam was pulling on that bond, too.
He could tell when Adam freed himself because the Alpha wolf’s body relaxed, and his breathing eased. When Adam opened his eyes, they were dark brown once more.
“I’ve left the tie in place,” he told Matt. “I don’t want to give Guccio warning. Let’s see what he does with it.”
Matt’s eyebrows rose. “Is that wise?”
“Probably not,” Adam said with a toothy smile. “But I’ve got it. Do me a favor, though?”
“Anything,” Matt said.
“If I start doing what Guccio says, take that gun in your ankle holster and shoot me with it, would you?”
Matt grinned. “Sure thing.”
—
ADAM TOOK THE LEAD BACK TO THE DINING HALL. THE filthy tie that Guccio had imposed upon him made him feel like Little Miss Muffet on her tuffet—but he couldn’t afford to react to the great spider.
He tried to look as if all that he’d been discussing with Smith had been the latest episode of Doctor Who, though he couldn’t do anything about the sweat. Thankfully, his suit would hide any sign of dampness even if there was nothing to be done about the smell.
As he’d surmised, despite having told them all to eat without them, everyone was seated with food growing cold on their plates or in their glasses, depending upon what kind of monster they were.
Without saying another word, Smith headed to the table with the goblins and Elizaveta, who was frowning at him. He felt something, and a gentle breeze, that smelled of Elizaveta, brushed his skin. Her face went blank; and then she looked pleased. She greeted Smith with a pleasant smile.
Adam sat down opposite Bonarata, with Marsilia on his left and Guccio on his right. There was a warmish American-style breakfast on his plate, enough food to satisfy a werewolf. If he were to guess, conversation hadn’t been going too well while he was gone. Marsilia’s mouth was
tight around the edges, Guccio looked amused, and Bonarata looked particularly bland.
“Sorry to keep you,” Adam said to Bonarata. “Urgent pack business.”
“I thought your pilot wasn’t pack,” Bonarata said.
“He isn’t,” agreed Adam pleasantly, dumping ketchup on his eggs. “But sometimes submissive wolves run into problems if they’re around too much violence. Since he is here because of me, he has the right to ask me for help.” Which was sort of true—violence became a problem for most people eventually unless they were true sociopaths, and there was no need to tell everyone that Adam had been the one in need of help.
The food was good, even cold, and Adam made his way through the meal with the dedication of a man drained from fighting off a vampire attack. As soon as he took the first bite, other people started eating, too.
A male vampire stopped by the table and handed Bonarata a note. He read it, frowned, and looked at Adam.
“This concerns the bad news I had,” he said. “I sent out word yesterday that my people were to locate your mate and assist her if necessary and otherwise just keep watch and send me word.”
As opposed to kill her on sight, Adam thought.
“My people have all been contacted except for one—and from him I have had no word at all.”
“He is in Prague,” said Adam.
Bonarata looked at him with narrowed eyes, and Adam knew he was right.
“Mercy has this . . . this uncanny ability to go where the trouble is thickest,” Adam told him. He had decided a while ago that it wasn’t deliberate, and that it had something to do with being Coyote’s daughter. He was pretty sure that Mercy was completely oblivious. “My wife went to Prague. A city where, my people tell me, there are two vampire seethes in a place that should only be territory enough for one. Hopefully she is safe with Libor of the Vltava.”
“You sent Bran’s foster child, whom he loves, to Libor of the Vltava,” said Bonarata. Because, evidently, Bonarata knew there was something up between Bran and Libor.
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