Iron Kissed

by Patricia Briggs

Chapter 6

 

  I didn't bother going around to the front of Adam's house, just opened the kitchen door and ran in. There was no one in the room.

  Adam's kitchen had been built to cordon bleu specifications - Adam's daughter, Jesse, had once told me that her father could really cook, but mostly they didn't bother.

  As in the rest of his house, Adam's ex-wife had chosen the decor. It had always struck me as odd that, except for the formal living room, which was done in shades of white, the colors in the house were much more welcoming and restful than she had ever been. My own house was decorated in parents' castoffs meet rummage sale with just enough nice stuff (courtesy of Samuel) to make everything else look horrible.

  Adam's house smelled of lemon cleaner, Windex, and werewolves. But I didn't need my nose or ears to know that Adam was home - and he wasn't happy. The energy of his anger had washed over me even outside the house.

  I heard Jesse whisper, "No, Daddy," from the living room.

  It was not reassuring that the next sound I heard was a low growl, but then Ben wouldn't have called me if things had been good. I was pretty surprised he'd called me at all; he and I weren't exactly great friends.

  I followed Jesse's voice into the living room. The werewolves were scattered all over the big room, but for a moment the Alpha's magic worked on me and all I could pay much attention to was Adam, even though he was facing away from me. The view was nice enough that it took me a moment to remember that this must be a crisis situation.

  The only two humans in the room huddled together under Adam's intense regard on Adam's new antique fainting couch that had replaced the broken remains of his old antique fainting couch. If I had been Adam, I wouldn't have wasted money on antiques. Fragile things just don't fare well in the house of an Alpha werewolf.

  One of the humans was Adam's daughter, Jesse. The other was Gabriel, the high school boy who worked for me. He had an arm around Jesse's shoulders, and her diminutive stature made him look bigger than he actually was. Sometime since I'd last seen her, Jesse had dyed her hair a cotton candy blue, which was cheerful, if a little odd. Her usual heavy makeup had slid down her face, striping it with metallic silver eye shadow, black mascara, and tearstains.

  For a moment I thought the obvious. I'd warned Gabriel to be careful with Jesse and explained the downside of dating the Alpha's daughter. He'd heard me out and solemnly promised me that he'd behave himself.

  Then I realized that under the streaks of makeup were the faint marks of new bruises. And part of what I'd thought was more mascara was actually a trickle of dried blood that ran from one nostril to her upper lip. One bare shoulder had a patch of road rash that still had gravel in it. No way that Gabriel had done that - and if he had, he wouldn't be living now.

  Damn, I thought, growing cold. Someone was going to die today.

  Gabriel's submissive posture must have been a reaction to something Adam had done, because as I watched him, he straightened his shoulders and lifted his gaze to Jesse's father's face. Not a really smart move with an enraged Alpha, but brave.

  "Did you know them, Gabriel?" I couldn't see Adam's face, but his voice told me that his eyes would be bright gold.

  I took another step into the room and a wave of his power almost sent me to my knees - as it did all of Adam's wolves, who fell to the floor almost as one. The motion made me actually look at them and realize that there weren't as many as I'd originally thought. Werewolves have a tendency to fill up the spaces in a room.

  There were only four. Honey, one of the few women in Adam's pack, and her mate had their heads bowed and were holding each other's hands in a white-knuckled grip.

  Darryl kept his face up and expressionless, but there were a few drops of perspiration on the mahogany skin of his forehead. Chinese and African blood ran in his veins and combined in a rather awesome mixture of color and feature. By day he was a researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; the rest of the time he was Adam's second.

  Next to Darryl, Ben looked as pale as his hair and almost fragile - though that was deceptive because he was tough as nails. Like Honey, he'd been gazing at the floor, but just after he'd dropped to the floor, he looked up and gave me a rather frantic look that I had no idea how to interpret.

  Ben had fled England to Adam's pack to avoid questioning in a brutal multiple rape case. I was pretty sure he was innocent. . . but it says something about Ben that he'd have been my first suspect also.

  "Daddy, leave Gabriel alone," said Jesse with a shadow of her usual spirit.

  But neither Adam nor Gabriel paid attention to her protest.

  "If I knew who they were and where to find them, sir, I wouldn't be here now," Gabriel said in a grim voice that made him sound thirty. "I'd have dropped Jesse off with you and gone after them. "

  Gabriel had grown up the oldest male in a house that had more than a passing acquaintance with abject poverty. It had made him driven, hardworking, and mature for his age. If I thought him reckless for going out with Jesse, I thought Jesse very wise for choosing him.

  "Are you all right, Jesse?" I asked, my own voice more of a growl than I'd planned.

  She looked up with a gasp. Then jumped up from her seat, where she'd been trying not to lean too close to Gabriel and give her father a target for his anger. She ran to me, burying her face in my shoulder.

  Adam turned to look at us. Being a little better versed in prudence than Gabriel (even if I used it only when it suited me), I dropped my gaze to Jesse's hair almost immediately, but I'd seen enough. His eyes blazed just this side of change, icy yellow, pale like the winter morning sun. White and red lines alternated on his wide cheekbones from the force he was using to clench his jaws.

  If a news camera ever captured a shot of him looking like this, it would ruin all the spin-doctoring the werewolves had been doing over the last year. No one would ever mistake Adam in such a fury for anything except a very, very dangerous monster.

  He wasn't just angry. I'm not sure there is an English word for just how much rage was in his face.

  "You have to stop him," Jesse murmured as quietly as she could in my ear. "He'll kill them. "

  I could have told her that she couldn't whisper quietly enough that her father wouldn't hear, not when he was in the same room with us.

  "You protect them!" he roared in outrage and I saw what little humanity he was clinging to disappear into the anger of the beast. If he hadn't been as dominant, if he hadn't been Alpha, I'm not sure he wouldn't have already changed. As it was, I could see the lines of his face begin to lose their solidity.

  That's all we needed.

  "No, no, no," Jesse chanted into my shoulder, her whole frame shaking. "They'll kill him if he hurts someone. He can't. . . he can't. . . "

  I don't know what my mother intended when she sent me to be fostered with the werewolves on the advice of a cherished great-uncle who was a werewolf. I don't know that I could have given away my child to strangers. But I'm not a teenage single parent working a minimum wage job who'd discovered her baby could change into a coyote pup. It had worked out for me - at least as well as most people's childhoods. And it had left me with a certain skill for managing enraged werewolves, which was a good thing, my foster father had told me often enough, since I sure had a talent for enraging them.

  Still, it was easier to deal with them when I wasn't what had set them off. The first step was to get their attention.

  "That's enough," I said in firm, quiet tones that carried right over the top of Jesse's voice. I didn't need her warning to know that she was right. Adam would hunt down and kill whoever did this to his daughter, and damned be the consequences. And the damned consequences would be fatal to him, and maybe to every werewolf anywhere.

  I raised my eyes to meet Adam's fierce gaze and continued more sharply. "Don't you think you've done enough to her? What are you thinking? How long has she been here and no one has clea
ned her wounds? Shame on you. "

  Guilt is a wonderful and powerful thing.

  Then I turned, hauling Jesse, who stumbled in surprise, over to the stairs. If Darryl hadn't been in the room, I couldn't have left Gabriel. But Darryl was smart, Adam's second, and I knew he'd keep the boy out of the line of fire.

  Besides, I didn't think Adam would stay in the living room for very long.

  We made it only about three steps before I felt Adam's hot breath on the back of my neck. He didn't say anything, just stalked us all the way up to the upstairs bathroom. There seemed to be about a hundred steps more than the last time I'd come up here. Anything feels longer when you have a werewolf behind you.

  I sat Jesse down on the closed lid of the toilet and glanced back at Adam. "Go get me a washcloth. "

  He stood in the doorway for a moment, then turned and punched the door frame, which buckled. Maybe I should have said "please. " I gave a worried glance upward, but other than a little plaster dust, the ceiling seemed unaffected.

  Adam stared intently at the splinters that were splattered with blood from his split knuckles, though I don't think he really saw the damage he'd done.

  I had to bite my lip to keep from saying something sarcastic like "Now that was helpful" or "Trying to keep the local carpenters in work?" When I get scared, my tongue gets sharp - which is not an asset around werewolves. Especially werewolves who are mad enough to take out doorways.

  Jesse and I both waited, frozen, then he screamed, a sound more howl than human, and he hit the door frame again, and this time he took out the whole wall, his fist pushing through the remnants of the frame, the next two wall studs, and all the drywall between.

  I risked a glance behind me. Jesse was so scared I could see the whites all the way around her eyes. I suspect she could have seen mine if she were looking at me instead of her father.

  "Talk about overprotective fathers," I said in a suitably amused tone. The lack of fear in my voice surprised me as much as anyone. Who'd have thought I was such a good actor?

  Adam straightened and stared at me. I knew he wasn't as large as he looked - he wasn't that much taller than me - but in that hallway he was plenty big.

  I met his gaze. "Could you get me a washcloth, please?" I asked as pleasantly as I could manage.

  He turned on his heel and stalked silently toward his bedroom. Once he was out of sight, I realized that Darryl had followed us up the stairs. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, letting out two long breaths. I tucked my cold hands in my jeans.

  "That was too damn close," he said, maybe to me, maybe to himself. But he didn't look at me as he pushed himself upright with a shrug of his shoulders and headed back down the stairs, taking them two at a time in a manner more common among high school boys than doctors of physics.

  When I turned back to Jesse, she held a gray washcloth to me with a shaking hand.

  "Hide that," I said. "Or he'll think I sent him away just to get rid of him. "

  She laughed, as I'd meant her to. It was wobbly, and stopped abruptly when a cut broke open on her lip. But it was a laugh. She'd be all right.

  Because I didn't really care if he knew I'd sent him on a useless errand, I took the washcloth and used it to thoroughly clean the scrape on her shoulder. There was another road rash on her back just above the waistline of her jeans.

  "You want to tell me what happened?" I asked, rinsing the washcloth to get rid of the gravel on it.

  "It was dumb. "

  I raised an eyebrow. "What? You thought you'd add some more color to your complexion so you punched yourself a couple of times and then skidded on the pavement?"

  She rolled her eyes, so I guess I wasn't as funny as all that. "No. I was at Tumbleweed with some friends. Dad brought me over and dropped me off. I was supposed to get a ride back, but there were too many kids to fit in Kayla's car when we got to the parking lot. I'd forgotten my cell phone at home, so I started walking back to find a place to call. "

  She stopped talking. I handed her the washcloth so she could do her own face. "I've been running cold water over it; it should feel okay on your bruises. I think your dad will feel better if you get cleaned up a bit. You'll look pretty bad tomorrow, but most of the bruising won't show for a couple hours yet. "

  She looked in the mirror and gave a gasp of dismay that reassured me that most of the damage was surface. She hopped off the toilet and opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out makeup remover.

  "I can't believe Gabriel saw me looking like this," she muttered, dismayed, as she scrubbed at the mascara on her cheeks. "I look like a freak. "

  "Yep," I agreed.

  She looked at me, started to laugh, and then her face crumpled again. "Tuesday, I have to go to school with them," she said.

  "They were Finley kids?" I asked.

  She nodded and went back to cleaning her face. "They said that they didn't want a freak in their school. I've known - "

  I cleared my throat rather loudly, interrupting her - and she gave me a little smile. Her father could hear us, so it was better not to give him too many hints about her attackers. If they'd done more to her, I wouldn't be so concerned for them. But the incident wasn't worth people dying over it. What was needed was an education, not a murder. However, those boys needed to understand just how dumb attacking the Alpha's daughter was.

  "I didn't expect it at all. Not from them," she said. "I don't know what they'd have done if Gabriel hadn't seen what was happening. " She gave me a smile then, a real smile that didn't stop when she pressed the cold cloth against her lip, which was beginning to swell up pretty well. "You should have seen him. We were in that little parking lot behind the art gallery, you know, the one with the giant paintbrushes out front?"

  I nodded.

  "I guess Gabriel was walking on the little road below us and heard me cry out. He was up the hill and over the fence as fast as my father could have done it. "

  I doubted that - werewolves are fast. What I didn't doubt was that the effect of being rescued by someone like Gabriel, who, with his velvety brown skin, his black eyes, and his fair share of muscle, was not exactly hard on the eyes at any time.

  "You know," I told her with a conspiratorial smile, "it's probably a good thing that he didn't know who they were, either. "

  "I'll find out," said Gabriel behind my right shoulder.

  I'd heard him coming. Maybe I should have warned her, but he deserved to hear the hero worship in her voice. He wasn't the only one in the hall, but the wolves, who'd all followed him up, were keeping out of Jesse's sight.

  Gabriel gave me an ice pack and watched Jesse duck behind the washcloth to hide her blush. His face was set. "I could have caught up to them, but I wasn't sure how badly hurt Jesse was. Cowards - " He started to spit, then realized where he was and restrained himself. "Takes a pair of real macho men to pick on a girl half their size. "

  He looked at me. "On the way home, Jesse said that she thought she'd been set up. Those girls she was with, one of them, the girl with the car, has a thing for one of the boys. And the boys knew where to wait for her. There aren't many places you could beat someone up without people seeing them. They'd pulled her behind one of those big dumpsters. Someone put a lot of planning into this. "

  Finley High is a small school.

  "Do you want to transfer to Kennewick High?" I asked her, knowing that her father was listening from the bedroom. I couldn't hear him, but I could feel his intent and see it in the stiff postures of the wolves. If we weren't very careful, the whole pack would be after those stupid boys.

  "Gabriel goes to Kennewick, and I know he has a lot of friends who will watch out for you. Or you could go to Richland, where Aurielle teaches. " Aurielle was another of Adam's three female wolves, Darryl's mate, and a high school chemistry teacher.

  Jesse whipped the washcloth off her face and gave me a look that reminded me that she was her father's daughter.
"I wouldn't give them the satisfaction," she said coldly. "But they won't take me by surprise again. I fought like a girl because I couldn't believe they were really going to hit me. I won't make that mistake again either. "

  "You'll have to start practicing aikido again, then," said Adam, his voice as quiet and calm as if he hadn't just thrown a hissy fit a few minutes ago. "You're three years out of practice, and if you are only half their weight, you'll have to do better than that. "

  He walked out of his bedroom, a dark blue washcloth in his hand. If his eyes had been darker, I'd have bought the calm facade. He'd managed somehow to stuff all that anger and Alpha energy down and out of sight. But I'd believe the cold yellow eyes before I believed the quiet voice. He handed me the washcloth, but his gaze was on Jesse.

  "Yes," she said with grim determination.

  "She hurt them," Gabriel said. "One of them had a bloody nose and the other was holding on to his side while he ran off. " He gave her an assessing look, which I was glad Adam didn't see. "I bet they're more hurt than she is. "

  Darryl cleared his throat, and when Adam looked at him, he said, "Send her with an escort to and from school. " Jesse was a general favorite. If Adam hadn't been so enraged, there would have been a lot more growls from the wolves. Darryl's eyes were lighter than they usually were, too. The gold was eerie in his dark face.

  "Send her with a werewolf," I suggested, "in wolf form. For the first few days he can wait for her in front of the school, somewhere very visible. "

  "No," said Jesse. "I won't be a freak show. "

  Adam raised an eyebrow. "You'll do as you're told. "

  "It's a territorial thing," I told Jesse. "Even mundane people play those stupid games. They tried a power play and your father cannot just let it go. If he does, the harassment will get worse - until someone dies. " That's what all the werewolf politics and posturing that I complained about so much really did, kept people alive.

  "You should call the police and the school and warn them," said Honey. "So no one gets hurt. "

  "Do a show and tell," suggested Gabriel. "Call Jesse's biology teacher - or aren't you taking a course in Current Affairs? That would be better. You can take your class out and give them an up-close and personal with a werewolf. Same effect but less embarrassing for Jesse. "

  Adam smiled, showing lots of teeth. "I like that. "

  Jesse brightened a little. "Maybe I can get extra credit. "

  "The school will never go for it," Darryl said. "The liability is too great if something happened. "

  "I'll check into it," Adam said.

  Jesse was a little pale, but she wasn't seriously injured. A hot shower would help with the soreness - and she needed to shower before her father calmed down enough to realize that she didn't need to tell him who had attacked her. If I could get their scent, so could he.

  I made a dismissive gesture at the whole lot of them, Gabriel, Adam, and werewolves. "Go downstairs and work it out," I told them. "I want to get a better look at some of Jesse's bruises so I can make sure that she doesn't need Samuel to come check her out. "

  I took Jesse by the hand. "We'll use Adam's bathroom. . . " I couldn't actually remember if he had a bathroom, but I couldn't imagine that this house didn't have a master bedroom suite, and besides, he'd come out of it with a washcloth. "Since Adam has chosen to remodel this one. " Sure my tone was a little snide - but if he was irritated with me, he wasn't going to be thinking about finding Jesse's assailants.

  Jesse followed me through the crowded hallway and into Adam's bedroom. There was an open door on the far side that could only be a bathroom. I tugged her into it and shut the door.

  Then I whispered, very, very quietly, "You need to shower and get rid of their scent before your father thinks of it - if he already hasn't. "

  Her eyes widened. "Clothes?" she mouthed.

  "Everything," I said.

  She gave her tennis shoes a rueful glance, but turned on the shower and stepped into the big stall, shoes, clothes, and all.

  "I'll go get clean clothes," I told her.

  Adam met me at the hall doorway. He jerked his chin toward the bathroom, where anyone could clearly hear that someone was showering. "Scent," he said.

  "Her clothes were very dirty," I told him a little smugly. "Even her shoes. "

  "Sh - " He bit it off before he could complete the word. Adam was a little older than he looked. He'd been raised in the fifties, when a man didn't swear in front of women. "Shoot," he said, the word obviously not giving him the satisfaction to be gotten out of cruder terms.

  "Cheeses crusty, got all musty, got damp on the stone of a peach," I agreed. He looked blank, so I repeated it with proper emphasis. "ChEEZ-zes crusty. Got Al-musty. Got DAMp on the StoneofapeaCH. My foster father used to say those around me all the time. He was an old-fashioned sort of wolf, too. He especially liked the Stoneofapeach. 'Stoneofapeach, Mercedes. You don't have the sense God gave little apples. "

  Adam closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the door frame.

  "Gonna be expensive if you break another wall," I offered helpfully.

  He opened his eyes and looked at me.

  I threw up my hands. "Fine. You want to support the Carpenters' Union, that's your business. Now move, I told Jesse I'd be back with clothes. "

  He stepped back with exaggerated courtesy. But when I walked past him, he swatted my rump. Hard enough to sting.

  "You need to be more careful," he growled. "Keep interfering in my business and you might get hurt. "

  I said sweetly as I continued to Jesse's room, "The last man who swatted me like that is rotting in his grave. "

  "I have no doubt of it. " His voice was more satisfied than contrite.

  I turned to face him, yellow eyes and all.

  "I'm thinking of picking up a parts car for the Syncro. I have plenty of room in the field. "

  Someone listening in might have thought my last comment was off topic, but Adam knew better. I'd been punishing him with my Rabbit parts car for several years. Clearly visible from his bedroom window, it now sat on three tires and had various pieces missing. The graffiti was Jesse's suggestion.

  If Adam hadn't been as uptight, it wouldn't have worked - but he was one of those "everything in its place and a place for everything" kind of people. It bothered him - a lot.

  Adam grinned briefly in appreciation, then his face sobered. "Tell me you, at least, had the brains to catch their scent. "

  I raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that? Then instead of harassing Jesse, you'd be tormenting me. "

  One of them had been a stranger to me, but the other. . . there was something about his scent that was ringing a bell, but I'd wait until I was out of here before I tried to work it out.

  He gave a bark of fierce laughter.

  "Liar," he said.

  He took two quick steps forward, wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, and held me for his kiss. I hadn't expected it - not while he was still so close to changing. I'm sure that's why I didn't pull out of his hold.

  The first touch of his lips was soft, tentative, asking where his hands had demanded. The man was diabolical. I could have resisted force, but the question of his kiss was an entirely different matter.

  I leaned into him because he asked with the light touch and the gentle withdrawal of his lips that begged me to follow where he led. The heat of his body, welcome in the overcooled house, rewarded me as I leaned closer to him, as did the hard planes of his body, so I was drawn to press even tighter against him.

  He danced like that, too. Leading instead of pulling. It had to have been deliberate, something he worked at, because he was as dominant as they came - Alphas are. But Adam was more than just dominant: he was smart, too. And he didn't play fair.

  Which is how he ended up against the wall with me plastered all over him when someone. . . Darryl, quietly cleared his throat.

  I jerked
free and hopped back to the middle of the hallway. "I'll just get Jesse's clothes now," I told the carpet on the floor and then took my red face into Jesse's room and shut the door. I didn't mind getting caught kissing, but that had been a lot more carnal than a kiss.

  Sometimes good hearing isn't a blessing.

  "Sorry," Darryl said, though his voice carried more amusement than apology.

  "I bet," growled Adam. "Damn it. This has got to stop. "

  Darryl gave a full-throated laugh that lasted quite a while. I'd never heard him laugh like that. Darryl was pretty uptight usually.

  "Sorry," he said again, sounding more apologetic this time. "Looked to me like you'd rather it not stop. "

  "Yeah. " Adam sounded suddenly tired. "I should have gone after her a long time ago. But after Christy got through with me, I wasn't sure I wanted another woman ever. And Mercy is more gun-shy than I ever was. " Christy was his ex-wife.

  "Then Samuel came to compete for the prize," Darryl said.

  "I am not a prize," I muttered.

  I knew they both heard me, but all he said was, "Samuel has always been the competition. I prefer him here, so at least I'm competing with a flesh-and-blood man, and not a memory. "

  "If you're going to talk about me behind my back," I told Adam, "at least do it where I can't hear you. "

  They must have followed my request because I didn't hear any more of their conversation. The shower was still going, so I sat down in the middle of Jesse's room - pulled a bottle of nail polish out from under one hip - and then took the opportunity to pull myself together. Adam was right; this had gone on too long.

  Samuel had been behaving himself like an angel, for the most part - and Adam had been likewise. But it seemed to me that Adam had been more restless than usual and his temper more uncertain.

  That was troubling news because Adam had a hot temper, worse even than most werewolves. Otherwise, Samuel had told me, the Marrok would have used Adam more heavily as one of the spokesmen for the werewolves. He had the looks and the speaking abilities for it. Adam had attracted some attention from the press anyway because he was doing some consulting and negotiating in Washington, D. C. His control was very, very good, but when he lost it, he went berserk and the Marrok wouldn't risk it.

  I was pretty sure that Adam would have exploded over Jesse's bruises anyway - but maybe he'd have regained his control better if he hadn't already been on edge.

  Jesse's door opened and Honey came in, shutting the door behind her. Honey was one of those people who can make me feel grubby, even when I'm wearing a perfectly presentable T-shirt. She could have been a recruitment poster model for the trophy wife. She intimidated me in an entirely different way than the werewolves usually did, and it had taken me a long time to get over it.

  She stepped gingerly over the usual teenager mess that Jesse had scattered on her floor - Jesse's room looked even worse than mine usually did, which made it pretty bad.

  "You've got to do something, Mercedes," she told me softly. As long as the rest of the pack was downstairs, they wouldn't hear us. "The whole pack is restless and short-tempered - and Adam almost lost it today. Pick someone, Adam or Samuel, it doesn't matter. But you have to do it soon. " She hesitated. "When Adam declared you his mate - "

  For my safety, he said, and he was probably right. Timber wolves will kill a coyote in their territory - and werewolves are every bit as territorial as their smaller brethren.

  "He didn't ask me," I interrupted her, with heat. "I wasn't there and I didn't find out about it until it was done. It wasn't my fault. "

  She shook her mane of honey-colored hair and crouched down beside me. If she could have seen the floor, I think she'd have been sitting like I was, because she was technically lower in the pack (thanks to Adam declaring me his mate), but she was too fastidious to sit on a pile of dirty clothes.

  "I'm not saying it is anyone's fault," she said. "Fault doesn't change what is. We can all feel it, the weakness in the pack. It is allowed for you to refuse him absolutely, and then things will return to normal. Or accept him, and things will change another way, a better way. But until then. . . " She shrugged.

  It was easy, even for someone like me who was around them all the time, to forget that there was more to the magic of the werewolves than their change. I think it's because the change was so spectacular - and the rest of the magic is the pack's business and affects no one else. I didn't consider myself pack - and until Adam had made his claim, no one else had either.

  My foster father told me once that he was always aware on some level of all the other pack members. They knew when one of their own was in distress; they knew when one died. When my foster father committed suicide, it took a while for them to find the body, but they'd all known when to go looking. I'd seen Adam call his pack to him with more than the sound of his voice and had seen them heal him of silver damage that should have killed him.

  I hadn't realized that there might be more to Adam declaring me his mate than the simple act until I'd been able to help Warren control his wolf when he was too hurt to do it himself. I'd been grateful, but I hadn't looked at it any closer.

  I was getting a headache; dread sometimes does that to me. "Tell me that again and be clear, please. "

  "When he declared you his mate, he offered you an invitation to join us. He opened a place for you that you have not filled. That opening is a weakness. Adam mostly keeps it from us, but he only does it by absorbing all of the effects himself. His wolf knows there is a weakness, a place where harm might come to us, and it leaves him on alert, on edge, all the time. We can feel that, and respond to it. " She gave me a tight smile. "That's why I was so unpleasant to you when he sent me to play bodyguard against the vampires. I thought you were playing games and leaving us to pay the price. "

  No. No game playing. Just a lot of panicking. Whomever I chose in the end, Adam or Samuel, I'd lose the other one - and that was more than I could bear.

  "All of us depend upon our Alpha to help us live among the humans," Honey said. "Some of Adam's wolves have human women as mates. It is his willpower that allows us to control ourselves, particularly as the moon nears her zenith. "

  I put my aching head on my knees. "What was he thinking? Damn it. "

  She patted me on the shoulder, an awkward touch that managed to convey both comfort and sympathy. "I don't think he was thinking of anything except to place his claim on you before another wolf killed or claimed you. "

  I gave her a look of disbelief. "What is going on? Is everyone losing their minds? I haven't had so much as a date for ten years and now there's Adam and Samuel and - " I'd have bitten off my tongue before I continued and mentioned Stefan. I hadn't seen the vampire since he and the Wizard had killed two innocents to take the blame for killing Andre so Marsilia didn't kill me. It was just as well as he wasn't my favorite person.

  "I know why Samuel wants me," I told her.

  "He thinks that the two of you could have children - and you can't forgive him for wanting you for practical reasons. " There was something in Honey's voice that told me that she liked Samuel - and maybe it hadn't been just my perceived "game playing" with Adam and her pack that she'd resented. But the expression on her face told me more. She understood Samuel's point from experience; she wanted children, too.

  I don't know why I started talking to Honey. I didn't know her that well - and had spent most of that time disliking her. Maybe it was because there was no one else I knew who was in a position to understand.

  "I don't blame Samuel for realizing that a shapeshifter who changed into a coyote and was not bound by the moon might be a good mate," I told her, speaking very quietly. "But he let me love him without telling me exactly why he was so interested. If the Marrok hadn't interfered, I'd probably have been his mate when I was sixteen. "

  "Sixteen?" she said.

  I nodded.

  "Peter is a lot older than me," she said, speak
ing of her husband. "That was hard. But I wasn't sixteen and. . . " She paused, thinking. Finally she shook her head. "I don't recall ever hearing how old Samuel is, but he's older than Charles, and Charles dates back to Lewis and Clark. "

  The outrage that filtered into her voice, still pitched not to carry to the other werewolves, was like a balm. It gave me the courage to tell her a bit more.

  "I am happy with who I am," I told her. "The incident with Samuel let me break with the pack and join the human world. I'm independent and good at my job. It's not glamorous, but I like fixing things. "

  "And still," she said, voicing the thing I hadn't said.

  I nodded. "Exactly. And still. . . what if I'd taken him up on his offer? I tell myself that I'd be a lesser person, but Samuel isn't the kind of man to iron all the personality out of his wife. Half the trouble I got into when I was a teen he got me into - and got me out of the other half. "

  "So you'd be a doctor's wife, and free to do as you please - because Samuel's not the control freak that most of the dominant males are. "

  There it was. Oh, not Samuel. She, like most people, saw what he wanted them to see. Gentle, laid-back Samuel. Hah.

  But, I'd always wondered why Honey had married her husband, who was so far down in the pack power structure when she was as dominant as all but the top two or three wolves. Since she took her rank from her husband, she was a lot lower than she'd been before she'd taken Peter as her mate. There weren't actually all that many submissive wolves out there. The kind of determination it takes to survive the Change isn't usually found in a person who isn't at least a little dominant.

  "Samuel is as much a control freak as any of them. He just hides it better," I said. "The reality of it is that he'd have wrapped me in cotton wool and protected me from the world. I'd never have grown or become the person I am. "

  She raised an eyebrow. "Like what, a mechanic? You work for less than minimum wage. I saw Gabriel do the paychecks - he clears more than you do. "

  I'd been wrong. She'd never understand.

  "Like owning my own business," I told her, though I knew it was futile to expect her to comprehend what I meant. I'd turned down everything that she'd wanted out of life - status, both in the werewolf world and the human one, and money. "Like being able to take something that doesn't work and fix it. Like being able to hold my own with Adam today instead of falling on my knees and looking at the ground. Like deciding what I'm going to do every day - including going after that demon-riding vampire who almost killed Warren. I'm not all that, especially not compared to the werewolves, but you have to admit that I was uniquely suited to taking him out. The werewolves couldn't. The vampires and fae wouldn't. What would have happened if I hadn't been able to kill him? Samuel would never let his wife risk her life to do something like that. "

  I realized something then. As scary as it had been (and I had the nightmares and the scars to prove it), as stupidly dangerous as it still was - and possibly deadly - I was proud of killing those two vampires. No one else would have been able to do it. Just me.

  Samuel would never let me do something like that.

  I could never have Samuel without giving up something I cherished about myself. It was the first time I'd let myself look at that because then I'd have to admit that Samuel could never be for me.

  The question was, would Adam be any better? And if I took Adam, Samuel would leave. Part of me still loved Samuel, and I was not ready to give him up.

  I was so screwed.

  "You think that Adam would have let you go after that thing if you were his mate?" asked Honey in disbelief.

  Maybe.

  "I didn't mean to walk in on anything," said Jesse in a small voice.

  I realized that I hadn't been hearing the water from the shower for a while. I hadn't heard her approach either.

  She'd wrapped a towel around herself, but she was still quick at closing the door behind her. She gave Honey a wary look, but then dismissed her.

  "I overheard that last part," she told me. "Dad told me to stay out of his affairs. But I thought you ought to know that he told me not too long ago that if you don't fall out of a plane now and then, you never learn to fly. "

  "He gave me bodyguards," I told her dryly. Honey had been one of them.

  She rolled her eyes at me. "He's not stupid. But if there is something you have to do, he'll be at your back. " I gave her an incredulous look and she rolled her eyes again. "Okay, okay, he'll lead the way. But he won't make you stay behind. He doesn't waste his resources that way. "

  When Jesse had been missing, and Adam too hurt to do anything about it, he'd all but recruited me to find her, knowing that the people who had her had almost killed him. For some reason that recollection let me breathe deeply again.

  Knowing that I could not have Samuel hurt. I think giving up Adam might just break me - which didn't mean that I might not have to anyway.

  I hopped to my feet.

  "I'll keep it in mind," I told her and then changed the subject. "How are you feeling?"

  She smiled and held out a rock-steady hand. "I'm fine. You were right; a hot shower really helped. I'll have some bruises, but I'm all right. Gabriel helped, too. He's right. I did defend myself, better than they expected. I know to watch for them now and. . . " Her smile widened just short of splitting her lip again. "Dad's given me bodyguards. " She said it in the same exasperated tones I used.