“Being a werewolf gives you time to get over your childhood,” Adam whispered into Ben’s ear. “Or it gives you time to destroy yourself with it. I’d rather you be one of the survivors, do you hear me?” He stepped back. “Now go downstairs.”
He waited until the door closed behind Ben, and then shook his head. “I owe you,” he told the door. “I won’t forget.”
He dropped down beside the bed as if he were too tired to stand. With the same suddenness, though I thought I was more than adequately hidden, he reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me out from under the bed and onto his lap.
I shivered, torn between the knowledge that I didn’t deserve his touch and the tentative understanding that he didn’t blame me, no matter how much I thought he should.
“My father always told me that when I heard good advice, I needed to listen to it,” he said.
He continued to hold me firmly by the scruff of the neck with one hand, but the other caressed my face. “We’re going to wait for a talk until that stuff has worn off completely.” His caress stopped. “Don’t misunderstand me, Mercedes Thompson. I am mad at you.”
He bit my nose once, hard. Wolves do that to discipline their young—or misbehaving members of the pack. Then he tipped his head so it rested on mine and sighed.
“Not your fault,” he told me. “But I’m still mad as…mad as heck that you scared me like that.
“Darn it, Mercy, who would have thought that a pair of humans caused all this misery? Even if you had called me, I wouldn’t have objected to you going…at least not because I thought it was dangerous. I wouldn’t have sent a guard with you just to go talk to some human.” He put his face against my neck then gave a half laugh. “You smell like my aftershave.”
Hard arms pulled me tightly against him as he said in a quiet voice, “It’s only fair to warn you that you sealed your fate tonight. When you knew you were in trouble, you came to me. That makes twice, Mercy, and twice is almost as good as a declaration. You are mine now.”
His hands, which had been moving in circles in my fur, stopped and took a good hold. “Ben says you might run. If you do, I will find you and bring you back. Every time you run, Mercy. I won’t force you, but…I won’t leave or let you leave either. If you can fight that cursed fairy drink, you can certainly overcome any advantage being an Alpha gives me if you really want to. No more excuses, Mercy. You are mine, and I am keeping you.”
My independent nature, which would doubtless reassert itself soon, would be outraged by this possessive, arrogant, and medieval concept. But…
Tim’s wish that I would always be alone had hit me particularly hard…because it was something I already knew. Nothing like being a coyote raised among werewolves to make you understand that different means not belonging. I didn’t belong with my human family either, though I loved them and they loved me.
Under the weight of the unvarnished, possessive intent that began in Adam’s words and carried through to his body, my whole world shook on its axis.
He slept eventually, curled up around me as if he were in wolf form, but the lines of strain stayed behind, making him look older—as if he were thirty, say. With Adam surrounding me, I watched as the sky lightened and the new day began.
Somewhere in the house a phone rang.
Adam heard it, too. Jesse’s door opened and she ran down the stairs and picked up the phone.
I couldn’t quite hear what she said as she was downstairs in the kitchen, but the tone of her voice went from polite to carefully respectful.
Adam stood with me in his arms, then set me on the bed. “You stay there.”
“Dad? It’s Bran on the phone.”
He opened the door. “Thanks, Jesse.”
She handed him the phone and peered around the door to look at me. Her eyes were puffy. Had she been crying?
“You go get ready for school,” Adam told her. “Mercy’s going to be fine.”
Today was Thursday morning. The thought galvanized me—I had to get to work…Then I settled back into the bed. I wasn’t going back to my garage, not with stray bits of Tim scattered here and there. I should call Gabriel and tell him not to show up after school. I should…
“…someone sent them the video of you tearing Mercy’s rapist apart. While I appreciate the sentiment, and doubtless would have done the same thing, it leaves us in an awkward position. That bill cannot pass.” Bran’s voice wafted over me like a cool breeze of calm that had nothing to do with what he was saying, and everything to do with his being Bran.
“How much of the video did they get?” Adam growled.
“Not enough, apparently. Whoever sent it represented it as an Alpha werewolf attacking a human without provocation. I would like you to take the whole video—I trust it doesn’t show our Mercy changing shape?”
“No. But it shows her without clothes.”
“Mercy won’t care, but perhaps it might be possible to add those black rectangles the news reporters use.”
“Yeah. I’m sure Ben can do it.” Adam sounded tired. “You want me to go with it, don’t you?”
“I’m sending Charles with you. I’m sure that once they have seen the entire video, most of the men on the committee will be ready to cheer you on. The others will keep their mouths shut.”
“I don’t want that video getting on the Internet,” Adam growled. “Not Mercy’s—”
“I think we can make sure that doesn’t happen. The congressman was very clear about who sent him the tape. I’ll see that it is taken care of.”
Adam wasn’t looking at me. I hopped off the bed and slipped through the still open door.
I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want to think about people watching a video of last night. I wanted to go home.
Warren was standing at the foot of the stairs talking to Ben, so I dodged into Jesse’s room before he looked up.
“Mercy?” Jesse was sitting on her bed with her homework scattered in front of her.
I’d hopped onto the sill of her open window, which was still screenless, but something in her voice made me pause. I jumped onto her bed and nuzzled her neck. She gave me a quick hug before I wriggled free and darted out the window.
I’d forgotten that Tim had mangled my arm—foreleg in coyote form—but it held up just fine when I jumped off a low spot of the roof onto the ground. Nemane had been as good as her word about the other things the goblet could do.
I ran all the way home and stopped on the front porch. I couldn’t open the door as I was, but I didn’t want to change to human anytime in the next decade.
Before I had time to worry too much, Samuel opened the door for me. He closed the door and followed me to my room, opening that door as well.
I jumped on my bed and curled up with my chin on my pillow. Samuel sat down on the foot, giving me plenty of room.
“I have, entirely illegally, snooped into the medical records of one Timothy Milanovich,” he told me. “His doctor is a friend of mine and agreed to leave me in his office for a few minutes. When Milanovich’s fiancée left him, he had himself tested and was negative for any disease that you might worry about.”
And I didn’t have to worry about pregnancy either. As soon as I’d realized that there was a possibility of ending up in either Adam or Samuel’s bed, I’d started on the pill. Being illegitimate makes you sensitive about things like that.
I sighed and closed my eyes, and Samuel got off the bed. He closed my door behind him.
It opened again after only a few minutes, but it wasn’t Samuel. Warren in his wolf form lurked solemnly behind his Alpha.
“I meant what I said, Mercy,” Adam told me. “No running. I have to go to Washington and you’d better be here when I get back. Until then, one of my pack will stay with you.”
The bed sank heavily under Warren’s weight as the huge wolf tucked himself beside me. He licked my face with a rough tongue.
I lifted my head and met Adam’s gaze.
He nodded once, and was gone.
Chapter 13
For a whole day I indulged myself. I slept on my bed with whatever wolf had been sent to stay with me. Whenever I started to have a nightmare, someone was always there. Samuel, Warren, Honey, and Darryl’s mate, Aurielle. Samuel dragged one of the kitchen chairs into my room and played his guitar for hours.
The next morning I woke up and knew I had to do something or all this pity and guilt was going to make me go stir crazy. If I let them all treat me like I was broken, then how was I going to convince myself I wasn’t?
It was Friday. I should be at work…My lungs froze at the thought of going back into my shop. I breathed my way through the panic attack.
So I wouldn’t go to work. Not today at least.
What to do…
I lifted my head to the pile of wolves that were threatening to make my twin bed collapse under their weight and considered my minions. Darryl wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t twitch without Adam’s say-so—and Aurielle wouldn’t go against her mate. She opened her eyes to look at me. Like me, both of them should have been at work: Aurielle at her high school and Darryl at his high-price think tank. Neither of them would do for the main project, but for now it didn’t matter. Today would be reconnaissance.
It was actually Warren who came with me, shifting to his human form so he could play “walk the coyote” while Darryl and Aurielle stayed at Adam’s house to play guardians for Jesse.
“So how far are we going to walk?” Warren asked.
I staggered a few steps, fell on my side, and then dragged myself forward weakly before hopping back up and continuing to walk briskly down the shoulder of the highway.
“If things get that bad, I’ll give Kyle a call and tell him he needs to come pick us up,” Warren said dryly.
I gave him a canine grin and turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. The Summers’ house was a nice two-story house built in the past decade on a two-acre parcel. They had a dog who took one look at me and came at us in a silent rush that stopped dead as soon as Warren growled—or maybe it just smelled the werewolf on him.
I put my nose to the ground and searched for the trail I’d hoped was there. It was summer and just a quarter mile away was the river. Most self-respecting boys would…yes. Here it was.
I’d thought about finding Jacob Summers at home, but it would be hard to explain why I needed to talk to him alone. I wasn’t even quite sure what I was going to tell him—or if I was going to say anything at all.
The road continued most of the way to the river, sort of petering out just after it crossed the canal. I found Jacob’s favorite place by following his trail. There was a pretty good sized boulder right on the edge of the river.
I hopped on it and stared out at the river, just as Jacob must.
“You aren’t thinking of jumping in, are you, Mercy?” Warren asked. “I wasn’t much of a swimmer when I was human and matters haven’t improved over the years.”
I gave him a scornful look, then remembered that Tim had told me to drown myself for love of him.
“Glad to hear it,” he said and sat on the rocky shore beside me.
He leaned over and picked up a tangle of fishing line complete with hook and sinker and a couple of old beer cans. He put the hook in the cans. Suddenly he straightened and looked around.
“Do you feel that?” he asked me. “Temperature just dropped about ten degrees. Do you suppose your Fideal friend is about?”
I knew why it was colder. Austin Summers stood beside me and petted me with his cool, dead hand. When I looked up at him, he was just staring at the river, as I had been.
Warren paced back and forth along the shoreline, looking for Fideal, unaware that we’d been joined by someone else.
“Tell my brother.” Austin didn’t look away from the deep blue water. “Not my parents, they wouldn’t understand. They’d rather believe that I committed suicide than hear that I’d succumbed to Tim’s magical potion. They get that kind of stuff mixed up with Satanism.” He smiled faintly with a hint of contempt in his voice. “But my brother needs to know I didn’t abandon him, all right? And you’re right. Here is a good place. It’s his thinking place.”
I leaned into his hand a little.
“Good,” he said.
We sat there a long time before he faded away. I lost his scent soon after, but I felt his fingers in my fur until I hopped off the rock and headed back home, with Warren walking beside me, two crumpled beer cans in his hand.
“So did you have something you wanted to do?” Warren asked. “Or did you just want to stare at the river—which you could have done without coming all of this way.”
I wagged my tail, but made no effort to answer him any other way.
The next step required me to be human. It took me twenty minutes in the bathroom with the door shut before I managed it. It was stupid, but for some reason I felt more vulnerable as a human than I did as a coyote.
Warren knocked on the door to tell me that he was going home to catch some shut-eye and that Samuel was home for the night.
“Okay,” I said.
I could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re going to be just fine, girl.” He banged his knuckles one more time on the door and left.
I stared at my human face in the mirror and hoped he was right. Life would be simpler as a coyote.
“You wuss,” I told myself and got in the shower without warming it up first.
I showered until the water was cold again, which took a while. One of the upgrades Samuel had put in was a huge hot water tank, even though there hadn’t been anything wrong with the old one.
With goose bumps on my skin, I braided my hair without looking in the mirror. I’d forgotten to bring in clothes so I wrapped myself in a towel. But the bedroom was empty, and I dressed in peace.
Safely covered in a sweatshirt with a picture of the two-masted sailing vessel, Lady Washington, on the front and black jeans, I headed into the kitchen to look for a newspaper to see when Austin Summer’s funeral was going to be—if they hadn’t already held it. I figured after the funeral was as good a time as any for Jacob Summers to head for the river.
I found yesterday’s newspaper on a counter in the kitchen and made myself a cup of chocolate from the water that was already hot in the teakettle. It was the instant kind, but I didn’t feel like doing the work to make the good stuff. So I dumped a handful of stale minimarshmallows on top.
I took the paper and my mug and sat down at the table next to Samuel. Unfolding the paper, I began to read.
“Feeling better?” he said.
Politely I said, “Yes, thank you.” And went back to reading, ignoring him when he tugged at my braid.
I’d made the front page. I hadn’t expected that. When you run with werewolves and other things that people aren’t supposed to know too much about, you get used to fake news. MAN DIES IN MYSTERIOUS FIRE, ARSONIST SOUGHT, or WOMAN FOUND STABBED TO DEATH. Things like that.
LOCAL MECHANIC KILLS RAPIST was just above STUDENT DROWNS IN COLUMBIA. I read my story first. When I finished, I put down the newspaper and took a thoughtful sip of cocoa in which the marshmallows had softened to chewy.
“Now that you can talk, tell me how you are,” Samuel said.
I looked at him. He appeared composed and self-contained, but that wasn’t how he smelled.
“I think Tim Milanovich is dead. I killed him and Adam ripped him into pieces small enough that not even Elizaveta Arkadyevna is witch enough to call back to unlife if she decided to make zombies instead of money.” I took another sip of cocoa, chewed on a marshmallow, and said reflectively, “I wonder if killing your rapist will ever become a recognized therapy practice. Worked for me.”
“Really?”
“
Honest to Pete,” I said, slamming my cup down on the table. “Really. That is, if everyone else quits running around here like their best friend died and it was their fault.”
He smiled, just a little and only with his lips. “Message received. No victims in this house?”
“Damn straight.” I picked up the newspaper.
Thursday. Today was Friday. Tad was going to fly down Friday if his father was still in danger.
“Did someone call Tad?” I asked.
He nodded. “You asked us to do that. Adam called him when he got back from the police station. But apparently Uncle Mike had gotten the word to him first.”
I didn’t remember asking. There were a few hazy bits from Wednesday, but I didn’t like having things I didn’t remember doing. It made me feel helpless. So I changed the subject.
“So are we going to blame Tim for O’Donnell’s murder?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “The police and the fae want to tie up some loose ends and make sure everyone has their story straight. Since Milanovich is dead, there won’t be a trial. Objects found in his house will be linked to O’Donnell and some robberies in the reservation. Officials will conclude that O’Donnell and Milanovich were working together and Milanovich got greedy and offed O’Donnell. Zee connected O’Donnell to the robberies and went to his house to talk, finding O’Donnell already dead. He was taken in for questioning, but released when the evidence proved that he didn’t do it. They are being vague on the evidence. Milanovich decided to try out one of the things he and O’Donnell stole on you but you killed him defending yourself.”
He grinned faintly. “You’ll be happy to know that the newspaper is going to report that the magical objects they stole were obviously not as powerful as the thieves thought, which is why you were able to kill Milanovich.”
“Weak magical objects being considerably less frightening than powerful ones,” I observed. “And Austin Summers?”
“They’re going to try and keep him out of it—but his connection to both Milanovich and O’Donnell is too close to just leave the family wondering. The police will gently tell them that there is some evidence that he was involved, but no one knows exactly how—and never will since everyone is dead.”
Mercedes Thompson 03: Iron Kissed Page 27