Silver Borne mt-5

by Patricia Briggs

  “Ariana is a gift,” said Bran. “But if it hadn’t been for what you did, Samuel wouldn’t have been around to receive it.”

  “That’s what friends are for,” I told him. “Lift you when you’re down—and kick you in the rump when you need it. Adam helped. Speaking of friends, thank you for the Pack Magic 101 that kept me from being Zombie Mercy.”

  He smiled, an expression that made him look about sixteen. If you didn’t know him, it would be hard to believe that this young man with the diffident expression was the Marrok.

  “Did you get all of that?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure how much made it through.”

  I looked at his innocent expression. “How much did you get back?”

  He gave me wide eyes, then grinned. “I think that we both were getting a bit of a boost from an interested party.”

  “Who?”

  “Zee had no trouble freeing the forest lord from his chains. He’s a charming fellow, by the way, very gracious as well as powerful. She kidnapped him from his own place in northern California about a year, year and a half ago. His wife and family were very glad to hear that he’ll be coming home soon. Daphne, the fairy queen, apparently visited the reservation and decided this would be a good place to roost. She enthralled a nasty witch and used her to grab the forest lord—because she didn’t have enough power to enthrall him.”

  “You think he helped us?”

  “Someone did. I’d just about given up.” He looked around at the remnants of my home. “I have a more probable answer, but I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around it. Have you decided what you are going to do with this yet?”

  “It was insured,” I told him. “I might as well replace it.” Gabriel might need to live somewhere.

  He and Zee had kept the shop going for the month I’d been missing. His mother wasn’t happy with his doing that, so he was living at Adam’s house. In the basement—as far from Jesse’s bedroom as Adam could manage.

  “Look,” said Bran. “Your oak tree didn’t burn down.”

  “Yeah,” I said, pleased. “Scorched a bit, but I think it’ll be okay.” I took a step toward it, and my foot caught something and moved it. I thought at first it was a broom handle, but when I bent down to retrieve it, it turned out to be my old friend the walking stick.

  “Ah,” said Bran. “I wondered where that had gotten off to.”

  I gave it a thoughtful look. “You’ve seen it?”

  “It was sitting on the couch in Adam’s basement,” he said. “When I picked it up—suddenly all my efforts bore fruit at last, and I found you among the pack bonds as if you had never been missing.”

  I gave him a wry smile. “It does seem to show up at interesting moments.”

  “So,” he said, “have you given any thought to raising sheep?”

  “Not at the present time,” I replied dryly. “No.”

  We walked a little more in companionable silence.

  “I have some photos,” Bran said abruptly. “Of Bryan and Evelyn.” My werewolf foster family. “Some of your old school pictures, too, if you want them.”

  “I’d like that,” I said.

  He looked back toward Adam’s house, and I saw that someone else was headed over.

  “Looks like you’ve been missed. I’ll leave you alone.” He kissed my forehead and jogged off.

  He met Adam at the barbed-wire fence, and Adam said something I couldn’t quite hear that made Bran laugh.

  “Hey,” I said, as Adam approached me. His response was a blast of warmth that had me blushing.

  “Do you have keys to your van?” he asked, his voice a dark caress that gave me goose bumps. He smelled of need and impatience.

  “They’re in the van.”

  “Good,” he said, taking my arm and walking briskly toward the pole barn that had survived the fire without a scorch mark. “If I had to go get my truck, someone might notice us leaving. I have keys to Warren’s apartment. He said the guest room has clean sheets.”

  He stopped at the van. “I need to drive.”

  Normally, I’d have argued with him just on general principle, but sometimes, especially with Adam so intense that he was ready to explode, it was just better to give Alpha males their way. Without a word, I headed toward the passenger side of the van.

  He didn’t speed and he didn’t talk. We made it to Richland without hitting a red light, but there our luck ran out.

  “Adam,” I said gently, “if you break my steering wheel, we’ll have to walk the rest of the way to Warren’s house.”

  He loosened his hands but didn’t look at me. I put a hand on his thigh, and it vibrated under my palm.

  “If you want to make it to Warren’s,” he said, his voice almost guttural, “you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself.”

  There is something incredibly arousing about being wanted. I pulled my hand back and sucked in a deep breath. “Adam,” I said.

  The light turned green at last. I had the whimsical thought that my time in Elphame had completely skewed my internal clock, because I could have sworn we were there for hours instead of seconds.

  Warren lived in an A house, one of a group of “Alphabet Houses” built during World War II to accommodate the exploding population of nuclear-industry workers in Richland. The one he lived in was still a duplex. Both sides were dark—and the other duplex had a FOR RENT sign on the window.

  Adam parked the van and slid out without looking at me. He closed the door with exquisite gentleness that said a lot about his state of mind. I got out and didn’t even bother to worry about whether my prized Vanagon Syncro was locked—which I suppose said equally as much about my state of mind.

  Adam unlocked the door of Warren’s apartment and held it open for me. As soon as we were both inside, he closed the door and locked it.

  When he turned to face me, his eyes were bright gold and his cheeks were flushed. “If you don’t want this,” he told me, as he had since the . . . incident with Tim, “you can say no.”

  “Race you to the bedroom,” I said, and started for the stairs.

  He caught my arm in a very careful grip before I took more than two steps. “Running . . . would not be a good idea right now.” He was ashamed of his lack of control; maybe someone else would have missed it in his voice. Maybe I would have, too, if it weren’t for the bond between us.

  I put my hand over his and patted it. “Okay,” I said. “Why don’t you take me to bed?”

  I hadn’t been ready for him to grab me and pick me up that fast or I wouldn’t have squeaked.

  He froze.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  He took me at my word and carried me to the stairs. I halfway expected him to run, but instead his pace was deliberate, his step almost heavy. The stairs were narrow and steep, and he was careful not to bang my head or feet.

  He set me down just inside the guest bedroom and closed the door. He stood there, his back to me, breathing heavily.

  “A month,” he said. “And neither Zee nor any of the fae we knew could tell us if we’d ever get you back. Samuel’s woman couldn’t find you—everything you had burned up in the fire. Neither the van nor the Rabbit worked as a close enough tie. She tried to approach me to see if she could use me, but she couldn’t even walk into the same room as me—not half-crazed as I was. Touching me was out of the question. I thought I had lost you.”

  I remembered feeling Mary Jo and Paul hunting me. “You looked for me.”

  “We did,” he agreed. Abruptly he turned and hauled me against him. He was shaking, and he hid his face in my hair. It was useless, if he was trying to prevent me from understanding what he was feeling. I had a Technicolor view through our bond.

  I hugged him as hard as I could so he’d know I was real, that I didn’t mind him holding me hard. “I’m here,” I said.

  “I couldn’t find you either,” he told me, his voice a bare whisper. “Our bond was broken, and I couldn’t tell if you’d done it on pur
pose, if the queen had managed it—or if you were dead. We could feel you in the pack bonds, but that’s been known to happen when people die. Bran came and he couldn’t find you either. Then yesterday, Darryl was feeding us lunch and dropped the pan on the floor.”

  I’d heard about that already, from various people, but I didn’t interrupt.

  “Darryl thought someone was messing with Auriele, and stormed halfway up the stairs—only to be met by Auriele, who was worried about him for the same reason. That’s when Bran came up from the basement and said . . .” He stopped speaking.

  “He said, ‘I’ve done the hard part, Alpha. Now tell us where your mate is,’ ” I said. “And he was holding the walking stick in his hand.”

  “And there you were,” Adam told me. “Inside of me, just where you belonged.”

  He drew back, moving his hands to my cheeks. The heat of his skin felt precious to me, his hot amber eyes feeding the fires in my heart—and my body.

  His nostrils flared, like a stallion scenting a mare. His hands dropped to my coat, and he ripped it down the back and threw it on the floor before backing away from me.

  “Damn it,” he said gruffly, his head against the door. “Damn it . . . I can’t do this.”

  I pulled my shirt over my head and stripped off my jeans and underwear. Warren didn’t keep his house at seventy degrees—since he was mostly sleeping at Kyle’s these days. But I didn’t feel the cold, not while I could feel the force of Adam’s need roaring like a welding torch.

  “What can’t you do?” I asked gently, pulling back the bedding and lying down on the sheets.

  “I can’t be gentle. I know . . . I know you need care, and I can’t do that right now.” He pulled open the door. “I’ve got to go. I’ll send—”

  “If you leave me naked and waiting on the bed without making love to me, I’ll—”

  I didn’t get to finish the threat. I think it was the word “naked,” though maybe it was “bed,” but before I finished my sentence, he was on me.

  He was right; he wasn’t gentle. Up until that point in our relationship, our lovemaking had been passion tempered with humor and sweetness. I’d been hurt and he’d been so careful of me.

  In the darkness of Warren’s guest bedroom, sweetness and humor had no place in him. And though there was care in his touch, he was anything but careful. Not that he hurt me—quite the contrary. But he was fire and need that went so far beyond simple desire that it consumed me—and like the phoenix, I found myself reborn in the crucible.

  I met his urgency with my own, digging my fingers into the silk-covered stone of his arms as his sinful mouth tasted my skin wherever it fell. He was hot and hard, his need forcing me to rise to meet his fire with my own. Sweat dripped onto my skin, and the scent of it was an aphrodisiac because it was all Adam. If he needed me, I needed him every bit as much.

  He rose over me, closing his golden eyes as he pushed through me, into me, became a part of me with one heavy thrust. Only when he was all the way in did he look at me again, and in that look was triumph and a claiming so basic that it should have scared me.

  “Mine,” he said, rocking his hips against my own in a move that was more about possession than passion.

  I raised my chin and held his eyes in a challenge only I could make without consequences. I tightened my belly and dug my heels into the mattress to give my own thrust power. “Mine,” I said.

  Adam’s wolf smiled at me and nipped my shoulder. “I can live with that,” he said. And then he demonstrated what that possession would mean when it involved an Alpha werewolf who knew how to be patient and thorough when hunting coyotes.

  * * *

  I DREAMED I WALKED IN THE SNOW, BUT I WASN’T AFRAID. There was a thick golden rope wrapped securely around me. It was free of fray or knot and led me into the forest, lighting my way with its bright warmth. I followed it with a light heart and the humming anticipation of finding something wonderful. At last I came to the end of the rope and a blue-gray wolf with golden eyes.

  “Hello, Adam,” I told him.

  * * *

  “SHH,” SAID ADAM SLEEPILY. HE PULLED ME TIGHTER against him and rolled over the top of me as if that would make me be quiet. “Sleep.”

  My body was tired. I was warm and safe. A return to sleep should have come easily, especially since I’d awakened from such a good dream. But it had reminded me of what it had felt like to be lost.

  “I couldn’t find you either,” I told Adam, burrowing against him. He was thinner than he’d been the last time I’d been in bed with him. The fire had left no scars, and he kept his hair short anyway, but the ribs I could feel told me I had cost him.

  “I quit trying,” I admitted. “I was so afraid she was going to use me to enthrall the whole pack. I didn’t understand that she couldn’t do that, that she didn’t have the power.” I closed my eyes and let myself remember how terrified I had been. I opened them again, almost immediately, needing to see him to feel safe. “In that place, it felt like she had all the power to do anything.”

  He was so still that I thought he might have gone back to sleep, until he spoke. “She hurt you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “She did.” I wouldn’t lie to him. “But it was just pain, not real damage. I knew you would come for me if I could just hold out.” I let him hear the sureness of that in my voice.

  He rolled over until I was on top of him. His hands moved to my shoulders, and he gave me a little shake. “Don’t ever make me go through that again. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “I won’t,” I promised him rashly. “Never again.”

  He laughed then, and hugged me tight. “Didn’t Bran teach you not to make promises you can’t keep?” He sighed. “I suppose if you won’t shut up so I can sleep, I might as well find something to do with the time.”

  When he was through, we both slept.

  * * *

  ADAM WENT WITH ME TO RETURN THE BOOK TO PHIN the next morning, an hour before the store opened. The book was still wrapped in Kyle’s towel and had apparently traveled from Kyle’s linen closet to Adam’s with no fuss. Darryl and Auriele had brought it to us, along with a new coat for me and clothes for Adam, since his hadn’t survived. Darryl didn’t crack a smile, though it would have been obvious to him what we’d been doing, even if he’d been a human and didn’t have the nose of a wolf. Instead, both he and Auriele had observed us with a satisfaction I found a little disconcerting. I was glad when they’d left us.

  Phin was at his desk in the bookstore, looking very much as he had the first time I’d seen him, except that he’d lost a little weight: a man of indeterminate age with fading golden hair and good-humored eyes. There were a few new bookcases, but otherwise the bookstore looked much as it had the first time I’d seen it.

  “Hey, Mercy. Adam,” Phin said with a friendly smile.

  “Hey. I have something for you.” I unrolled the towel carefully and set the book on the counter.

  When I touched it, the leather was butter soft under my fingertips.

  “Ariana has a fine sense of irony,” observed Adam, reading the title for the first time—Magic Made was embossed on the cover and spine in gold. “Hard to believe that is glamour.”

  “It isn’t, quite,” said Ariana, coming around the end of a bookshelf.

  She’d changed her appearance. She didn’t look like a middle-aged woman anymore; instead, she’d altered her real appearance just enough that she looked human. Her skin was tanned and human-smooth, her eyes gray, and her hair as blond as Phin’s must have been when he was a young man.

  She looked at Adam for a moment, and he stayed still with the coaxing quietness of a man trying not to startle a wild creature.

  “You’ve changed,” she told him, relaxing a little. “She contents your wolf.”

  “I’m sorry I frightened you.” Adam’s voice was carefully gentle, and I remembered that he’d said she hadn’t been able to stay in the same room with him.

  She shook her hea
d. “Not your fault—neither the old fear or the new. But still, you are not so terrifying now.” With a resolute breath and raised chin, she strode across the store to us.

  She looked at the book and shook her head. “You cause me more trouble.” To Adam and me, she said, almost shyly, “Would you like to see what it really looks like?”

  “Please,” I said.

  She put both of her hands on the book, and I felt a wave of magic. She picked up the book, and when she moved it, a small silver statue of a bird was left behind. A lark, I thought, though I was no expert. It was no bigger than the palm of my hand and amazingly realistic. I looked at the book sitting next to it.

  “The best disguises are real,” she said. “I just used the book to hide the artifact.”

  Adam put his hand on my shoulder, bent down, and said, “Such a small thing to cause so much trouble.” And he kissed the top of my ear.

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