Adam’s head was bowed as he absorbed the blow—Peter’s death and Adam’s failure to prevent it. All the other wolves in the pack were rivals, dominants who would move against the others should the wolf above them in the pack show weakness. But Peter was safe. Submissive wolves, rare, as precious as rubies, were not driven to be on top, so they could be trusted absolutely—cherished and protected from all harm.
Not your fault, I told Adam urgently. Not your fault they brought us here. Not your fault they shot Peter. Not his fault that he’d been hampered by the tranquilizer, the silver, and the shackles.
Adam didn’t care what I thought. He was the Alpha, it was his duty to protect the pack, and Peter most of all had been his to keep safe. I could feel Adam’s wild rage, Adam’s desire to kill—balanced by the clear understanding that he had the rest of the pack to protect.
He swayed a little on his knees, as if his rage were a physical thing that tugged on his shoulders. I tightened my grip and felt his gratitude at my presence as he fought and bargained with his anger—and I felt his shame for the way he craved Jones’s flesh between his teeth.
Jones is dead, I promised. He just doesn’t know it yet. But we are patient, we can wait until the time is ripe.
Adam went still. He forgets sometimes, does Adam, that I am as much a predator as he is.
Adam looked up, and we saw that Jones looked smug, the gun still in his hand. He thought that Adam’s bowed head and the way he’d not regained his feet meant that he was broken. The soldier who stood beside Jones’s desk was blank-faced but more wary.
Adam sorted through possibilities before he decided that Jones needed to be a little more afraid because that fear would slow him down if he decided a second example might be needed. And if that fear made him try something, Adam would kill him sooner rather than later and deal with the soldier instead.
Adam stood slowly, which was a lot more difficult than he made it look since his hands were chained behind his back and his ankles shackled together. It required strength and balance, and he used the movement to center himself.
He let his wolf meet Mr. Jones’s eyes, tensed his shoulders, and twisted the cuff on his left wrist. Metal screamed. I felt the burn as steel cut into his wrist before the joint of the cuff broke. He continued to watch Jones, daring him to do something, anything, as he repeated the procedure on his right wrist. He didn’t bother moving quickly, even after the handcuffs fell to the ground. As he brought his freed hands forward, Jones jerked the gun up, but the soldier slammed it down on the desk, unfired.
“You want to shoot them all and try again, Mr. Jones?” he said. “You aren’t going to be able to get another pack the same way—and Hauptman was specifically required.”
Jones fought for the gun, but the other pulled it away with contemptuous ease.
“Shut up,” the soldier gritted. “You’ve made a proper cluster of this. Just sit there and keep your mouth closed. I told him you were the wrong choice for this.”
Adam turned his attention to the manacles at his ankles. His deliberate inattention was an insult, a power play—and it scared me. I wanted to watch Jones and company to make sure that they didn’t shoot Adam.
They won’t, he assured me as he pried the manacle off his right ankle with a sharp twist of his hands. They have gone to too much trouble to get me to kill me right now. They will wait until I kill their senator and prove that the werewolves need to be eliminated. Bran warned me that I was becoming too well-known, that someone would try to make some sort of play against me.
And when you don’t kill Senator Campbell? I asked. Adam would not do their bidding, there was no question in my mind about that.
I will do anything to keep my pack safe, Adam corrected me gently as he pulled the second ankle restraint into two separate pieces before twisting them together. Even kill Campbell. Make sure Bran understands that when you tell him about this, so he’s not taken by surprise.
That’s what Bran failed to see when he’d been worried that Adam’s temper meant that he should be kept out of the public’s eye. Adam had a hot temper, but he was always, always in control because he needed to protect the ones he cared about—even if it destroyed him instead.
“Understand this,” Adam said in a guttural voice, staring at the soldier, though I knew his attention was also on Jones. “If another of my pack is harmed, all bets are off. You might be able to kill me, but not before I have taken care of ‘Jones,’ you, and a fair swath of the rest of your men.”
“Understood.”
Mercy, get Samuel, get Bran. Find out where they have us. Get the pack free before I have to do what they want, Adam told me, then sent me away from him and back to my own body in Samuel’s guest bedroom.
I opened my own eyes and realized that there was noise downstairs—a wolf growling and a woman’s singsong voice. Magic, fae magic, shivered over my skin in a rising tide.
I bolted to my feet and down the stairs, taking them six or eight at a time. Ben would have felt Peter’s death. Wounded and scared, that couldn’t have been a good thing.
Ariana was curled up in a corner of the room crooning in a language that sounded vaguely like Welsh but wasn’t because I couldn’t understand a word. Ben, in the middle of his change, was crouched on the couch, all of his attention on the stranger in the room.
Jesse and Gabriel were both standing between Ben and Ariana. Gabriel was bleeding—neither of them would be a match for Ben, three-quarters changed and raging because of the drugs in his system, the mess of the pack, Adam’s rage, and Peter’s death.
All of this I saw as I took the last leap that would have taken me to the floor if I hadn’t altered my trajectory. I twisted in the air and hit Ben instead, and we both hit the floor.
I pinned him like my mother had taught me to pin calves or goats when I was ten years old, and she decided that I should follow her footsteps as a rodeo queen. Her efforts were doomed—I didn’t like horses, not like she did, and she only had two weeks to visit before she had to go back to her own life. But goat tying had been fun, and I’d practiced for most of a summer. I hadn’t thought about it for a decade or two, but the motions came right back to me as soon as my hands were on the enraged werewolf. Desperation is a really good way to inspire muscle memory.
“Ben, stop,” I said, holding his head twisted and pressing a knee on his shoulder. “Ariana is not an enemy.” I glanced at her, and added, “Not unless you scare her into doing something horrible to one of us. We need to get Jesse and Gabriel safe, then find the pack. I need you, so suck it up.” He was still struggling, and I put my mouth right next to his ear.
“They killed Peter, Ben.” I whispered, but I let him hear my own grief.
Peter had once charged out with a sword and saved the pack from an enraged fae that I’d brought to their doorstep. He was a great big sweetie who loved his mate and played video games with a devastating intensity and a love of planning that led his team to victory more than once, despite his disinterest in winning or losing. He left a gaping hole in the pack that had us all reeling.
“They killed Peter,” I told Ben. “And we need to make them pay.”
Ben stilled beneath me and started to shake. I released my hold but stayed on top of him, burying my face in his fur so I could hide my tears. It wasn’t only my grief that wracked me, but Ben’s, Adam’s, Honey’s, and that of the whole pack. We had failed to protect our heart, and now he was dead.
It wasn’t fair. Ben wasn’t through his change yet, maybe halfway, and at that stage, I had been assured, his skin would hurt if someone breathed on it. But I clung to him and let the wave of emotion hit me and waited for it to ebb.
“Mercy?” asked Jesse. “Mercy, what happened? Is Dad okay? Mercy?”
There was controlled panic in her voice, and it pulled me back to myself. I had no time to wait for anything.
“Ben?” I asked. “Can I let you up?”
In answer, he stood up, on four paws, shedding me as he did so.
So much for my mother’s tactics. He avoided looking at Ariana—I could smell her panic, too—and stared at the blinds that blocked the darkness from the room. I rolled the rest of the way to my feet and rubbed my face to clear my eyes.
I’d forgotten about the damned wreck again and yelped when I put pressure on my cheekbone. The EMTs had sworn it was okay, but it sure felt as though it might be broken to me. Bruises shouldn’t hurt so much.
My left shoulder ached, along with the opposite hip and knee, but worst of all was the ache in my heart. I glanced at Ariana, who wasn’t looking at any of us. She was still muttering to herself, and the smell of fae magic was growing uncomfortably strong.
“Ariana?” I asked. “It’s okay. Ben’s sorry. He won’t hurt you or anyone else.” I remembered the fae’s need for truth and clarified carefully. “He won’t hurt anyone here.”
She didn’t respond. Samuel had lectured all of the wolves about what to do if Ariana checked out and started to get scary. The artifact she’d made, the Silver Borne, kept her power muted—but she had been the last of the powerful fae born after humans began to use iron. Even muted, she could wipe out a city block or rend all of us into painful shreds if that was the form her madness took.
If she really freaked out, Samuel was worried that the Silver Borne might give her back everything it had taken from every fae for as long as it had existed. That would be bad.
“Talk,” I told Jesse and Gabriel, who had stayed where they were, between Ben and Ariana. “Talk in a normal voice, it doesn’t matter about what. She’s not listening to what we’re saying right now, just the tone of our voices. If we can keep it calm, she might be able to recover. She doesn’t want to hurt us. Ben, stay quiet, stay still. We can’t help anyone, can’t do anything if we get wiped out by one of our friends.”
“Should we leave?” Gabriel absently wiped the blood off his arm. It wasn’t anything deep, and he’d been my right hand in the garage for long enough to ignore the minor wounds: old cars are full of sharp edges.
“You don’t run from predators,” Jesse said. “Not until she calms down a little.”
“Right,” I agreed. “But if I tell you to run, I want you to go and don’t look back. That means all of you—especially you, Ben.”
Ben glanced at me. He knew what I meant. If I didn’t make it out of here, it would be up to him to keep Jesse and Gabriel safe, to let Bran know what had happened.
“Did you get in contact with Dad?” Jesse asked at the same time Gabriel said, “Something set Ben off. But it wasn’t anything in the room, I don’t think.”
“Calm topics,” I told them. “Happy thoughts.” But it was too late for that now. “I talked to your dad, Jesse. Adam is okay.”
“Ben?” asked Jesse. “What set Ben off?”
“Peter’s dead,” I told them, keeping an eye on Ariana. Jesse went white.
“Who is Peter?” Gabriel knew some of the pack, but he hadn’t met Peter.
“Peter is special,” Jesse said. “Dad calls him the Heart of the Pack, with capital letters, like it’s a title.”
“That’s right,” I told them. “He kept everyone centered because he didn’t have to be on top. He could say things that no one else could. And it was his right to be protected by the rest of the pack.”
Ben moaned, a sad, very wolfish sound.
Ariana looked up, her gaze focused on me. I had to fight to keep my eyes on hers because her pupils and irises had vanished, and her eyes swallowed the light.
“I liked Peter,” she said, and my heart started beating again. If she was tracking that well, we might be okay. “Samuel asked him to help us with my fear of werewolves. Peter was … kind.”
She wasn’t all back—the smell of magic wasn’t fading, and her voice sounded wrong. And her eyes were really freaky.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I kept talking. “Adam and the pack, all the pack except Ben, are being held by a group of human radicals—some of whom appeared military trained. They’re trying to blackmail Adam into killing Senator Campbell of Minnesota. They’re still claiming government ties, but they are lying.”
“Republican,” supplied Gabriel, trying not to stare at Ariana’s eyes and mostly failing. It was a good thing for him that the fae don’t see it as an act of aggression the way the wolves do. A lot of the fae liked being stared at. When she met his gaze, he gamely kept talking. “Campbell is anti-fae, anti-werewolf, and—oddly for a Republican—anti-gun. Good speaker and a likely presidential candidate in the next election.”
“Gabriel’s taking a class in current events,” Jesse told me. She looked away from Ariana and took a step closer to me. She didn’t see the fae start forward as if to pounce, then catch herself—but Gabriel and I did. Gabriel moved a half step sideways so that he was between Ariana and Jesse.
Oblivious to her near death, Jesse asked, “Who are they? The National Rifle Association?”
“No clue,” I told her. “The NRA …” I gave her a weary smile. “It seems like a lot of trouble for them to go to since there are plenty of other anti-gun senators, and none of them have made much headway against private gun ownership since the assassination attempt on President Reagan before you were born.”
“Then who?”
“If Campbell died and was killed by a werewolf, it would destroy the détente between those who want to kill the wolves and those who want to see them as good people with a terrible disease,” Gabriel said. “After the fae killed that senator’s son who got away with murder, the only reason everyone isn’t running around killing anyone who is other is because the fae have withdrawn and haven’t done anything to hurt anyone else. Public opinion—after the first few days of panic—is behind them, even if the government is throwing fits. Freeing a serial killer because he killed only fae and werewolves wasn’t justice. That the guilty man had money and political ties just made the fae’s cause more righteous.”
“Campbell’s death would give the humans-only side a martyr,” said Ariana. Her voice, still laden with magic, was not her usual one, but she was looking at me as though she knew who I was, so I thought we were over the worst. “Campbell is well liked and an obstacle for those who are more extreme. He has been a voice for moderation in their leadership. Campbell has argued against several of the more radical suggestions for how to deal with non-humans.”
“Moderate” was not a word I’d have applied to him. But there were more extreme voices, that was true.
“That answers ‘why,’ doesn’t it,” I murmured. “Ariana, are you back with us?”
“Not … not quite, sorry,” she managed.
“Do you have a good way to reach Samuel or Bran?”
“No.” She hesitated. “Yes. I know where they are—in Montana. I can drive.”
“Okay,” I said. “Take Phin’s car, it’ll be harder to trace.” Phin drove an older Subaru, built before the days of GPS and electronic surveillance. Our enemy might not be the government, but they had access to government-level spy equipment.
“Is it safe for us to leave?” I asked. “Or do you need a few more minutes?”
Safe for us, not for her. I didn’t want to do anything to provoke her—and Jesse had been right, never let predators think that you might be running away.
“I will go upstairs,” she said. “Don’t move until after I have closed the door.”
Ben, who’d completed his change and stood in full-werewolf form, quivered when she walked behind him, but he didn’t turn to look at her. It spoke of his willpower—it is hard to have someone who might harm you where you cannot see them. But he managed.
She stopped on the stairway. “Be careful, Mercedes. There are people who would mourn if you took hurt.”
“Always am,” I said, and she laughed. But she didn’t look at us, just kept climbing.
When I heard the door close upstairs, I led the way out the door, with Ben taking rear guard. I eased the door open slowly, but there were no suspicious cars awaiting us.
&
nbsp; Even so, I didn’t breathe easily again until we were on the highway headed back toward Kennewick.
“Where are we going?” asked Gabriel.
“I need to stow you and Jesse somewhere safe,” I told him. “There are too many big bad things out there that would love to get their hands on the two of you.”
He shrugged. “Not me, Mercy. I’m just your hired hand. It’s Jesse they want.”
I glanced at him. “You planning on going back to the trailer and waiting to see what happens to her?”
He growled. Pretty good growl for a human.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “So I need somewhere safe for you both.”
“You have someplace in mind?” asked Jesse tightly. I heard the rebellion in her voice and didn’t blame her—how often had I been told to take the sidelines because a coyote wasn’t in the same weight class as a werewolf? It sucked. But if they took her, too—I think that Adam would sacrifice the world for his daughter.
“I have a place in mind,” I said.
“Where?” asked Jesse, but Gabriel guessed.
“Oh hell, no,” he said.
3
Gabriel was still arguing when we drove into the apartment complex in east Kennewick where his mother and sisters lived.
“Look,” I said, not for the first time, “if they know all of the pack, then they know about you and Jesse, and they can guess I’ve stashed you with her. They’ll also know that you and your mother haven’t spoken a word since before last Christmas. They will know her feelings on the werewolves.”
Sylvia Sandoval had been interviewed by the local paper when Adam and I had gotten married a few months ago because her son worked for me, and Adam was a local celebrity. She had been quite clear on how she felt about the werewolves.
“They’d never believe that she’d give the Alpha’s daughter shelter,” I told him.
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