Bone Crossed

10

MARSILIA FROZE FOR A MOMENT, STARING AT THE PLACE Stefan had been. Then she looked at me, a look of such malevolence I had to work not to step back even though there was half of a very large room between us.

She closed her eyes and brought her features back under control. “Wulfe,” she asked, “do you have it?”

“I do, Mistress,” the vampire said. He stood up and drifted over to her, pulling an envelope out of his back pocket.

Marsilia looked at it, bit her lip, then said in a low voice, “Give it to her.”

Wulfe altered his path so he came more directly to us. He handed me the envelope that was none the worse for the time it had spent in his pocket. It was heavy paper, the kind that wedding invitations or graduation announcements are engraved on. Stefan’s name was gracefully lettered across the front. It was sealed with red wax that smelled like vampire and blood.

“You will give this to Stefan,” Marsilia said. “Tell him there is information here. Not apologies or excuses.”

I took the envelope and felt a strong desire to crumple it and drop it on the floor.

“Bernard is right,” I said. “You used Stefan. Hurt him, broke him, in order to play your little game. You don’t deserve him.”

Marsilia ignored me. “Hauptman,” she said with calm courtesy, “I thank you for your warning about Blackwood. In return for this, I accede to your truce. The signed documents will be sent to your house.”

She took a deep breath and turned from Adam to me. “It is the judgement of this night that the action you took against us ... killing Andre ... has not resulted in damage to the seethe. That you had no intention of moving against the seethe was borne out by your truth-tested testimony.” She sucked in a breath. “It is my judgement that the seethe suffered no harm, and you are not an ally turned traitor. No further punishment will be taken against you—and the crossed bones will be removed ...” She glanced down at her wrist.

“I can do it tonight,” said Wulfe in gentle tones.

She nodded. “Removed before dawn.” She hesitated, then said in a quiet voice, as if the words were pulled from her throat, “This is for Stefan. If it were up to me, your blood and bones would nourish my garden, walker. Take care not to push me again.”

She turned on her heel and left out the same door Bernard had taken.

Wulfe looked at Adam. “Allow me to escort you out of the seethe so that no harm comes to you.”

Adam lowered his eyelids. “Are you implying I cannot protect my own?”

Wulfe dropped his eyes and bowed low. “But of course not. Merely suggesting that my presence might save you the trouble. And save us the mess to clean up afterward.”

“Fine.”

Adam led the way. I let the other wolves pass me and tried not to be hurt when Mary Jo and Aurielle deliberately avoided looking at me. I didn’t know what cause ... or rather which cause was bothering them—coyote, vampire prey, or causing Marsilia to target the pack. It didn’t matter, really—there was nothing I could do about any of it.

Warren, Samuel, and Darryl waited until the others were gone, then Warren gave me a little smile and went ahead. Darryl paused, and I looked at him. I outranked him, which put me at the end of the pack, to protect us from attack from behind. Then he smiled, a warm expression I couldn’t say I’d ever seen on his face, not directed at me anyway. And he went ahead.

“Oh no, you don’t,” said Samuel, amused. “I’m outside the pack, and so I can tag along with you.”

“I really need a good night’s sleep,” I told him as I fell into step beside him.

“I guess that’s what comes from fraternizing with vampires.” He put a hand over my shoulder. A cold hand.

I’d been so busy sweating with fear I’d become accustomed to both the feeling and the smell. I hadn’t noticed that Samuel was scared, too.

The last time he’d come here, Lily had taken him for a snack—and Marsilia had done worse, robbing him of his will until he was hers.

For me it would have been terrifying. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to a werewolf who lived only because he controlled his wolf. All the time.

I reached up and put my hand over his. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. And all the way through the room, I was conscious of the two still bodies on the floor, and of the vampires and their menageries, who sat silently on the bleachers, obedient to orders I couldn’t hear. They watched us leave with their predatory eyes, and I felt them on my back all the way to the door.

Just like the ghost in the bathroom at Amber’s house.

I SAT SHOTGUN IN THE SUBURBAN ADAM HAD DRIVEN over. I didn’t know if it was a rental or a new vehicle—which is what it smelled like. Paul, Darryl, and Aurielle filled the first backseat. Samuel drove his own car, a nifty new Mercedes in bing cherry red.

Mary Jo, who had been heading toward Adam’s vehicle until she saw me, abruptly changed directions and got into Warren’s old truck. Alec, trailing her around like a lost puppy, followed.

“And I thought Bran could be Byzantine,” I said finally, trying to relax in the safety of the leather upholstery as Adam drove through the gates.

“I didn’t catch it all,” said Darryl. He must have been tired because his voice was even deeper than usual, buzzing my ears so I had to listen closely to catch all of his words. “For some reason she had to convince Stefan that he was out of the seethe. Then, when her traitors approached him, he had to refuse their offers before he could witness that they’d made them?”

“That’s what it sounded like to me,” said Adam. “And only with his witness and their maker’s consent could she deal with her traitors.”

“Makes sense,” offered Paul almost shyly. “The way the seethe works, if he belonged to her—his witness is hers. If those two were imposed on her, she couldn’t have them killed at her word. She’d need outside verification.”

I wondered if I’d been set up. I thought of Wulfe’s oh-so-convenient aid when I’d killed Andre. He’d known I was looking for Andre—I’d stumbled upon his resting place before I found Andre’s. I’d thought he kept it from the Mistress for his own reasons ... but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Marsilia had planned it.

My head hurt.

“Maybe we were suspecting the wrong vampire of trying to take over Marsilia’s seethe,” Adam said.

I thought about the vampire who had been Bernard’s maker and had stood to watch this ... trial.

I didn’t want to be sympathetic; I wanted to hate Marsilia cleanly for what she had done to Stefan. But I’d become passing familiar with evil and all its shades, and that vampire, Bernard’s maker, set off every alarm that I had. Not that all vampires weren’t evil ... I wished suddenly that I could say except for Stefan. But I couldn’t. I’d met his menagerie, the ones Marsilia had killed—and I knew that for most of them, except for the very few who became vampire, Stefan would be their death. Still, the other vampire had hit pretty high on my coyote’s “get me out of here” scale. There had been something in his face ...

“Makes me glad I’m a werewolf,” said Darryl. “All I have to worry about is when Warren will lose his self-control and challenge me.”

“Warren’s self-control is very good,” said Adam. “I wouldn’t wait dinner on his losing it.”

“Better Warren as second than a coyote in the pack,” said Aurielle tightly.

The atmosphere in the car changed.

Adam’s voice was soft, “Do you think so?”

“‘Rielle,” Darryl warned.

“I think so.” Her voice brooked no argument. She was a high school teacher, Darryl’s mate, which made her ... not precisely third in the pack—that was Warren. But second and a half, just below Darryl. If she had been a man, I didn’t think she would have ranked much lower.

“Unlike vampires, wolves tend to be straightforward critters,” I murmured, trying not to feel hurt. Rejection, for a coyote raised by wolves, was nothing new. I’d spent most of my adulthood running from it.

I wouldn’t have thought that exhaustion and hurt was a recipe for epiphany, but there it was. I’d left my mother and Portland before she could tell me to go. I’d lived alone, stood on my own two feet, because I didn’t want to learn to lean on anyone else.

I’d seen my resistance to Adam as a fight for survival, for the right to control my own actions instead of a life spent following orders ... because I wanted to obey. The duty that Stefan clung to with awful stubbornness was the life I’d rejected.

What I hadn’t seen was that I had been unwilling to put myself in a place where I could be rejected again. My mother had given me to Bran when I was a baby. A gift he returned when I became ... inconvenient. At sixteen, I’d moved back in with my mother, who was married to a man I’d never met and had two daughters who hadn’t known of my existence until Bran had called my mother to tell her he was sending me home. They had been all that was loving and gracious—but I was a hard person to lie to.

“Mercy?”

“Just a minute,” I told Adam, “I’m in the middle of a revelation.”

No wonder I hadn’t just rolled over at Adam’s feet like any sensible person would when courted by a sexy, lovable, reliable man who loved me. If Adam ever rejected me ... I felt a low growl rise in my throat.

“You heard her,” said Darryl, amused. “We’ll have to wait for her revelation. We have a prophet for our Alpha’s mate.”

I waved at him irritably. Then looked up at Adam, whose eyes were, quite properly, on the road.

“Do you love me?” I asked him, pulse pounding in my ears.

He gave me a curious look. He was wolf, he knew intensity when he heard it. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“You’d better,” I told him, “or you’ll regret it.”

I looked over my shoulder at Aurielle, holding the full force of my will close to me. Adam was mine.

Mine.

And I would take up all the burdens he could give me, even as he did the same with mine. It would be an equal sharing. That meant he protected me from the vampires ... and I protected him from what problems I could.

I stared at Aurielle, met the predator in her eyes with the one in mine. And after only a few minutes, she dropped her eyes. “Suck it up and deal with it,” I told her, and I put my head on Adam’s shoulder and fell asleep.

IT WAS, SADLY NOT VERY LONG BEFORE ADAM STOPPED the car. I stayed where I was, half-awake, while Darryl, Aurielle, and Paul got out of the car. We stayed where we were until I heard Darryl’s Subaru fire up, and Adam started for home.

“Mercy?”

“Mmm.”

“I’d like to take you home with me.”

I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and sighed. “Once I go horizontal, I’m going to be out like a light,” I told him. “It’s been days”—I tried to remember, but I was too tired—“several at least since I had a good night’s sleep.” The sun, I noticed, was brightening in the sky.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’d just ...”

“Yeah, me too.” But I shivered a little. It was all very well and good to get hot and heavy over the phone, but this was real. I stayed awake all the way to his house.

AN ALPHA’S HOME IS SELDOM EMPTY—AND WITH THE recent troubles, Adam was keeping a guard there, too. When we came in, we were greeted by Ben, who gave us an offhand salute and trotted back downstairs, where there were a number of guest bedrooms.

Adam escorted me up the stairs with a hand on the small of my back. I was sick-to-my-stomach nervous and found myself taking in deep breaths to remind myself that this was Adam ... and all we were going to do was sleep.

Repairs were in progress on the hall bathroom. The door was back up, and mostly the hall wall next to it just needed taping, texturing, and painting. But the white carpet at the top of the stairs was still stained with brown spots of old blood—mine. I’d forgotten about that. Should I offer to have his carpet cleaned? Could blood be cleaned out of a white carpet? And what kind of stupid person puts white carpet in a house frequented by werewolves?

Bolstered by indignation, I took a step into his bedroom and froze. He glanced at my face and pulled a T-shirt out of a drawer and threw it at me. “Why don’t you use the bathroom first,” he said. “There’s a spare toothbrush in the top right-hand drawer.”

The bathroom felt safer. I folded my dirty clothes and left them in a small pile on the floor before pulling on his T-shirt. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his shoulders were broad, and the sleeves hung down past my elbows. I washed my face around the stitches in my chin, brushed my teeth, then just stood there for a few minutes, gathering courage.

When I opened the door, Adam brushed by and closed the bathroom behind him—pushing me gently into his room to face the bed with its turned-down comforter.

There should be only so much terror you can feel in a night. I should have met my limit and then some. And the fear of something that wasn’t going to happen—Adam would never hurt me—shouldn’t have been enough to register.

Still, it took every bit of courage I had to crawl into his bed. Once I was there, though, in one of those odd little psychological twists everyone has, the scent of him in the sheets made me feel better. My stomach settled down. I yawned a few times and fell asleep to the sound of Adam’s electric razor.

I awoke surrounded by Adam, his scent, his warmth, his breath. I waited for the panic attack that didn’t come. Then I relaxed, soaking it up. By the light sneaking in around the heavy blinds, it was late afternoon. I could hear people moving around the house. His sprinklers were on, valiant defenders of his lawn in the never-ending battle against the sun.

Outside, it was probably in the seventies, but his house—like mine since Samuel moved in—had a chill edge to the air that made the warmth surrounding me that much better. Werewolves don’t like the heat.

Adam was awake, too.

“So,” I said ... half-embarrassed, half-aroused, and, just to round things out, half-scared, too. “Are you up for a trial run?”

“A trial run?” he asked, his voice all rumbly with sleep. The sound of it helped a lot with the halves I was feeling—virtually eliminating embarrassed, reducing scared, and pushing aroused up a few notches.

“Well, yes.” I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. I could feel his willingness to participate in my trial pressed against my backside. “Thing is, I’ve had different things happen with these stupid panic attacks. If I stop breathing, you could just ignore it. Eventually I start breathing again, or I pass out. But if I throw up ...” I let him draw his own conclusions.

“Quite a mood breaker,” he observed, his face on the back of my neck as he wrapped an arm more fully around me on top of the covers.

I tapped his arm with my finger, and warned, only half in jest, “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve heard stories about what happens to people who laugh at you. I like my coffee without salt, please. Tell you what,” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “Why don’t we just play for a bit—and see how far it gets? I promise not to be”—amusement fought with other things in his voice—“dismayed if you throw up.”

And then he slid down in the bed.

When I flinched, he stopped and asked me about it. I found I couldn’t say anything. There are things you don’t tell someone you’re still trying to impress. There are other things you don’t want to remember either. Panic tightened my throat.

“Shh,” he said. “Shh.” And he kissed me there, where he’d caused me to shy. It was a gentle, caring touch—almost passionless, and moved on to somewhere less ... tainted.

But he was a good hunter. Adam isn’t patient by nature, but his training was very thorough. He worked his way back to the first bad spot and tried again.

I still flinched ... but I told him a little. And like the wolf he was, he laved the wound in my soul, bandaging it with his care—and moved on to the next. He explored thoroughly, found each mental wound—and a few I didn’t know I had—and replaced them with other ... better things. And when passion began to grow too wild, too fast ...

“So,” he murmured, “are you ticklish here?”

Yep. Who’d have known it? I looked at my inner elbow as if I’d never seen it before.

He laughed, bounced over a little, and made a raspberry noise with his mouth on my belly. My knees jerked up in reflex, and I bopped him on the head with my elbow.

“Are you all right?” I pulled away from him and sat up—all desire to laugh gone. Trust me to clobber Adam while we’re making out. Stupid, clumsy idiot, me.

He took one look at my face, put both arms over his head, and rolled on his back, moaning in agony.

“Hey,” I said. And when he didn’t stop, I poked him in the side—I knew some of his ticklish spots, too. “Stop that. I didn’t hit you that hard.” He’d been taking lessons from Samuel.

He opened one eye. “How would you know?”

“You have a hard head,” I informed him. “If I didn’t damage my elbow, I didn’t hurt your head.”

“Come here,” he said opening his arms wide, eyes glittering with laughter ... and heat.

I crawled over on top of him. We both closed our eyes for a bit while I made myself comfortable. He ran his hands over my back.

“I love this,” he told me, a little breathless and yellow-eyed.

“Love what?” I turned my head and put my ear on his chest so I could hear the pounding of his heart.

“Touching you ...” He deliberately ran a hand over my bare butt. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

He dug in with his fingers. Tension from the night before had left me tight, and it felt good. I went limp, and if I could have purred, I would have.

“Someone looking at us might think we’re asleep,” I told him.

“You think so? Only if they don’t notice my pulse rate ... or yours.”

He hit just the right spot, and I moaned.

“Just like Medea,” he murmured. “All I have to do is put my hands on you. You can be spitting mad ... and then you lean against me and go all soft and still.” He put his mouth against my ear. “That’s how I know you want me as much as I want you.” His arms were tight around me, and I knew that I wasn’t the only one with wounds.

“I don’t purr as well as Medea,” I told him.

“Are you sure about that?”

And he proceeded to show me what he meant. If I didn’t ever reach Medea’s volume, I came close. By the time he got down to business, there was no room in the inferno he’d made of me for fear or memory.

There was only Adam.

THE NEXT TIME I WOKE UP I WAS SMILING I WAS ALONE in the bed, but that didn’t matter because I could hear Adam downstairs—he was talking to Jesse. Either they were making lunch—I checked the window shades—dinner, or someone was getting chopped into small bits.

Soon I’d start worrying. But for now ... the vampires weren’t going to kill everyone I knew. They weren’t even going to kill me. The sun was up. And matters between Adam and me were right and tight.

Mostly. We had a lot of things to talk about. For instance, did he want me to move in? For a night, it was wonderful. But his house wasn’t exactly private; any of his pack could be here on any given day.

I liked my home, scruffy as it was. I liked having my own territory. And ... what about Samuel? I frowned. He was still ... not whole, and for some reason bunking at my house was helping. With me he could have a pack, but not be Alpha and responsible for everyone. I wasn’t sure it would work out so well for him if I moved in with Adam—and I knew it wouldn’t work out if he moved over here, too.

See, worrying already.

I took a deep breath and let it go. Tomorrow I would worry about Samuel, about Stefan, and about Amber, whose ghost was the least of her problems. I was just going to enjoy today. For the whole day I was going to be happy and carefree.

I slid out of bed and realized I was stark naked. Which was only to be expected. But there was no sign of underwear on the floor or in the bedding. I was head and shoulders under the bed when Adam said, from the doorway, “I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter A.”

“I’ll spy your little eye and squish it,” I threatened, but, since the bed hid me, there was a grin on my face. I’m not body shy—not growing up among werewolves. I can fake it so people don’t get the wrong idea ... but with Adam it would be the right one. I wiggled the something in question, and he patted it. “I’ve been smelling whatever you’ve been cooking”—something with lemon and chicken—“it’s making me hungry. But I can’t find my underwear.”

“You could go without,” he suggested, sitting on the bed just to the right of me.

“Hah,” I said. “Not on your life, buster. Jesse and who knows who else are down there. I’m not running around without underwear.”

“Who would know?” he asked. “I would know,” I told him, pulling my head out from under the bed only to see that he had my bright blue panties dangling from a finger.

“They were under the pillow,” he said with an innocent smile.

I snatched them and put them on. Then I hopped up and went to the bathroom, where the rest of my clothes were. I dressed, took a step toward the bathroom, and had a flashback.

I’d been here, unworthy, soiled ... stained. I couldn’t face them, couldn’t look into their faces because they all knew...

“Shh, shh,” Adam crooned in my ear. “That’s over. It’s over and done with.”

He held me, sitting on the bathroom floor with me on his lap, while I shook and the flashback faded.

When I could breathe normally again, I sat up with an attempt at dignity. “Sorry,” I said.

I’d thought that last night would have taken care of the flashbacks, the panic attacks—I was cured, right?

I reached up and grabbed a hand towel and wiped my wet face—and found that it just kept getting wet. I’d been so sure everything would be back to normal now.

“It takes longer than a week to get over something like that,” Adam told me, as if he could read my mind. “But I can help, if you’ll let me.”

I looked at him, and he ran a thumb under my eyes. “You’ll have to open up, though, and let the pack in.”

He smiled, a sad smile. “You’ve been blocking pretty ferociously since sometime on the trip back from Spokane. If I were to guess, I expect it was when you let Stefan bite you.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, and I guessed it showed.

“Not on purpose?” he said.

Somehow, I’d slid off his lap and was leaning against the opposite wall. “Not that I know.”

“You had a panic attack on the way home,” he told me.

I nodded and remembered the warmth of the pack that had pulled me out of it. Remarkable, awesome—and buried under the rest of the events of the past two nights.

His lids lowered. “That’s better ... a bit better.” He looked up from the floor and focused on me, yellow highlights dancing in his irises. He reached out and touched me just under my ear.

It was a light touch, just barely skin to skin. It should have been casual.

He laughed a little, sounding just a bit giddy. “Just like Medea, Mercy,” he said, dropping his hand and drawing a breath that sounded just a little ragged. “Let me try this again.” He held out his hand.

When I put mine in it, he closed his eyes and ... I felt a trickle of life, warmth, and health dribbling from his hand to mine. It felt like a hug on a summer’s day, laughter, and sweet honey.

I spread out into it through him, sliding into something I just knew were warm depths that would surround me with—

But the pack didn’t want me. And the minute the thought crossed my mind, the trickle dried up—and Adam jerked his hand back with a hiss of pain that brought me up to my knees. I reached out to touch him, then pulled my hand back so I didn’t hurt him again.

“Adam?”

“Stubborn,” he said with an appraising look. “I got bits and pieces from you, though. We don’t love you, so you won’t take anything from us?” The question in his voice was self-addressed, as if he weren’t quite sure of his analysis.

I sat back down on my heels, caught by the accuracy of his reading.

“Instincts drive the wolf ... coyote, too, I imagine,” he told me after a moment. He looked relaxed, one knee up and the other stretched out just to the side of me. “Truth is without flourishes or manners and runs with a logic all its own. You can’t let the pack give without giving in return, and if we don’t want your gift ...”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t understand how the pack worked, but the last part was right. After a bit, he said, “It’s inconvenient sometimes to be a part of the pack. When the pack magic is in full swing—like now with the moon close to her zenith—there’s no hiding everything from each other all the time like we do as humans. Some things, yes, but we can’t chose which ones stay safely secret. Paul knows I’m still angry with him over his attack on Warren, and it makes him cringe—which just makes me angrier because it’s not remorse for trying to attack Warren when he was hurt but fear of my anger.”

I stared at him.

“It’s not all bad,” he told me. “It’s knowing who they are, what’s important to them, what makes them different. What strengths they each contribute to the pack.”

He hesitated. “I’m not sure how much you’ll get. If I want to, at full moon in wolf form, I can read everyone almost always—that’s part of being Alpha. It allows me to use the individuals to build a pack. Most of the pack get bits and pieces, mostly things that concern them or big things.” He gave me a little smile. “I didn’t know that bringing you into the pack would work at all, you know. I couldn’t have done it with a human mate, but you are always an unknown.” He looked at me intently. “You knew Mary Jo had been hurt.”

I shook my head. “No. I knew someone had been hurt—but I didn’t know it was Mary Jo until I saw her.”

“Okay,” he said, encouraged by my answer. “It shouldn’t be bad for you then. Unless you need them, or they need you, the pack will just be ... a shield at your back, warmth in the storm. Our mate bond—when it settles down—will probably add a little oddity to it.”

“What do you mean ‘when it settles down’?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Hard to explain.” He gave me an amused look. “When I was learning how to be a wolf, I asked my teacher what mating felt like. He told me it was different for different couples—and being Alpha adds a twist to it as well.”

“So you don’t know?” Because that wasn’t an answer—and Adam didn’t evade questions. He answered or told you he wasn’t going to.

“I do now,” he said. “Our bond”—he made a gesture with his hand indicating something in the small space in the bathroom that lay between us—“feels to me like a bridge, like the suspension bridge over the Columbia. It has foundations and the cables and all that it needs to be a bridge, but it doesn’t span the river yet.” He looked at my face and grinned. “I know it sounds stupid, but you asked. Anyway, if all you felt when Mary Jo was dying was that someone was hurt, that you caught the few who don’t welcome you as part of our pack is my fault. You felt them through me. On your own, you won’t even be aware of it unless certain conditions are met. Things like proximity, how open you are to the pack, and if the moon is full.” He grinned. “Or how grumpy you are with them.”

“So if I don’t feel it, it shouldn’t matter if they don’t want me?”

He gave me a neutral look. “Of course it matters—but it won’t be shoved down your throat every minute of the day. Mostly, I expect you’ll know the ones who don’t want a coyote in the pack. As Warren knows the wolves who hate what he is more than what he does.” Briefly, sorrow lit his eyes for Warren’s trials, but he kept speaking. “Just as Darryl knows the wolves who resent being given orders by a black man made uppity by a good education.” He smiled, just a little. “You aren’t alone, most people are prejudiced about something. But you know, after a while the edges wear down. You know who hated Darryl the most when he joined us, way back when we were still in New Mexico?”

I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.

“Aurielle. She thought he was an arrogant, self-important snob.”

“Which he is,” I observed. “But he’s also smart, quick, and given to small kindnesses when no one is watching.”

“So,” he nodded. “We are none of us perfect, and as pack, we learn to take these imperfections and make them only a small part of who we are. Let us bring you truly into our shelter, Mercedes. And the wolves who resent you will deal with it as you will deal with the ones you don’t like, for whatever reason. I think, with the healing you have already done on your own, the pack can help stop your panic attacks.”

“Ben’s rude,” I said, considering it.

“See, you already know most of us,” Adam said. “And Ben adores you. He doesn’t quite know how to deal with it yet. He’s not used to liking anyone ... and liking a woman ...”

“Ish,” I said, deadpan.

“Let’s try again,” he suggested, and put out his hand.

This time when I touched him, all I felt was skin and calluses, no warmth, no magic.

He tilted his head and evaluated me sternly. “It’s hard to argue with instinct, even with reason and logic, isn’t it? May I knock?”

“What?”

“May I see if I can touch you first? Maybe that’ll allow you to open to the pack.”

It sounded harmless enough. Warily, I nodded ... and I felt him, felt his spirit or something, touch me. It wasn’t like when I’d called Stefan. That had been as intimate as talking was—not very much. Adam’s touch reminded me more of the presence I felt sometimes in church—but this was unmistakably Adam and not God.

And because it was Adam, I let him in, accepting him into my secret heart. Something settled into place with a rightness that rang in my soul. Then the floodgates opened.

THE NEXT TIME I WAS CONSCIOUS OF ANYTHING REAL, I was back in Adam’s lap but on his bedroom floor instead of in the bathroom. A number of the pack surrounded us and stood with their hands linked. My head hurt like the one and only time I’d gotten truly drunk, only much worse.

“We’re going to have to work on your filtering skills, Mercy,” said Adam, his voice sounding a little rough.

As if that was a signal, the pack broke apart and became individuals again—though I hadn’t been aware they were anything else until it was gone. Something stopped, and my head didn’t hurt so much. Uncomfortable at being on the floor when everyone else was on their feet, I rolled forward and tried to use my hands to get leverage so I could stand.

“Not so fast,” Samuel murmured. He hadn’t been one of the circle, I’d have noticed him, but he pushed his way through to the front of the line. He gave me a hand and pulled until I was on my feet.

“I’m sorry,” I told Adam, knowing something bad had happened, but I couldn’t quite focus on what it had been.

“Nothing to be sorry for, Mercy,” Samuel assured me with a little edge to his voice. “Adam is old enough to know better than to draw his mate into the pack at the same time as he seals your mate bond. Sort of like someone teaching a baby to swim in the ocean. During a tsunami.”

Adam hadn’t gotten up when I did, and when I looked at him, his face was grayish underneath his tan. He had his eyes closed, and he was sitting as if moving would be very painful. “Not your fault, Mercy. I asked you to open up to me.”

“What happened?” I asked him.

Adam opened his eyes, and they were as yellow as I’d ever seen them. “Full-throttle overload,” he said. “Someone probably should call Darryl and Warren and make sure they’re all right. They stepped in without notice and helped tuck you back into your own skin.”

“I don’t remember,” I said warily.

“Good,” said Samuel. “Fortunately for us all, the mind has a way of protecting itself.”

“You went from fully closed to fully open,” Adam said. “And when you opened yourself up to me, the mate bond settled in, too. Before I realized what happened you ...” He waved his hands. “Sort of spread out through the pack bonds.”

“Like Napoleon trying to take over Russia,” said Samuel “There just wasn’t enough of you to go around.”

I remembered a bit then. I’d been swimming, drowning in memories and thoughts that weren’t mine. They’d flowed over me, around me, and through me like a river of ice—stripping me raw as the shards passed by. It had been cold and dark; I couldn’t breathe. I’d heard Adam calling my name ...

“Aurielle answered,” reported Ben from the hallway. “She says Darryl is fine. Warren’s not picking up, so I called his boy toy’s cell. Boy will check up and call me back.”

“I bet you didn’t call him a boy toy to his face,” I said.

“You can effing believe I did,” answered Ben with injured dignity. “You should have heard what he called me.”

Kyle, Warren’s human boyfriend, who in his day job was a barracuda divorce lawyer, had a tongue that could be as razor-sharp as his mind. I’d bet money on the outcome of any verbal skirmish between Kyle and Ben, and it wouldn’t be on Ben.

“Is Dad all right?” asked Jesse. The wolves moved aside almost sheepishly to let her through—and I realized they must have kept her away while the matter was still in doubt. Judging by Adam’s eyes, he held on to control by a gnat’s hair—so keeping his vulnerable human daughter away had been a good idea. But I knew Jesse—I wouldn’t have wanted to have been the one keeping her back.

Adam got hastily to his feet and almost didn’t lean on Mary Jo—who’d put her hand out when he swayed.

“I’m just fine,” he told his daughter, and gave her a quick hug.

“Jesse’s the one who called Samuel,” Mary Jo told him. “We didn’t even think of it. He told us what to do.”

“Jesse’s the bomb,” I said with conviction. She gave me a shaky grin.

“The trick,” Samuel said to me, “is to join with the pack and with Adam—without losing yourself in them. It’s instinctive for the werewolves, but I expect you’re going to have to work on it.”

IN THE END, I WENT HOME FOR DINNER, SLIPPING OUT ALMOST unnoticed in the gathering that followed our close call. I needed some time alone. Adam saw me leave, but made no move to stop me—he knew I’d be back.

There was a bowl of tuna fish, pickles, and mayo in the fridge, so I made a sandwich and fed what was left to the cat. As she ate with delicate haste, I called Kyle’s cell phone.

“Uhmm?”

The sound was so relaxed, I pulled the phone away from my ears to make sure it was Kyle’s phone I’d gotten. But there it was on the little screen-KYLE’s CELL.

“Kyle? I was calling to see how Warren was.”

“Sorry, Mercy,” Kyle laughed, and I heard water splash. “We’re in the hot tub. He’s fine. How are you? Ben said you were all right.”

“Fine. Warren?”

“Was passed out in the hallway, where he’d evidently been headed to the kitchen with an empty glass.”

“Wasn’t empty when I was carrying it,” Warren’s warm Southern-touched voice sounded amused.

“Ah,” said Kyle, “I didn’t notice much besides Warren. But he woke up in a few minutes—”

“Cold water in your face does that,” observed Warren, amused.

“But he was stiff and sore—thus the hot tub.”

“Tell him I’m sorry,” I told Kyle.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” said Warren. “Pack magic can be tricky sometimes. That’s what Adam, Darryl, and I are for, sweetheart. I don’t feel you in the pack anymore. Problems?”

“Probably not,” I told him. “Samuel says I just burned out the circuit for a while. It should come back on line soon.”

“Apparently it wasn’t necessary that I pass anything on,” said Kyle dryly.

A car pulled into the driveway—a Mercedes, I thought. But I didn’t recognize the individual car. “Give Warren a hug from me, instead,” I said. “And enjoy the hot tub.”

I hung up before Kyle could say something outrageous in response and went to the door to see who was there.

Corban, Amber’s husband was just coming up the steps. He looked disconcerted when I opened the door before he knocked. He also looked upset, his tie askew, his cheeks unshaven.

“Corban?” I said. I couldn’t imagine why he was here when a phone was so much easier. “What’s wrong?”

He recovered from his momentary hesitation and all but hopped up the last step. He put out a hand, and I noticed he was wearing leather driving gloves—and holding something odd-looking. That’s all I had time to notice before he hit me with the Taser.

Tasers are becoming commonplace among police departments, though I’d never actually seen one in the flesh before. Somewhere on YouTube there is a cameraphone video showing what happened to a student who broke some rule or other in a university library. He was Tasered, then Tasered again because he wouldn’t get up when they told him to.

It hurt. It hurt like ... I didn’t know what. I dropped to the ground and lay there frozen while Corban frisked me. He went through my pockets, dropping my cell phone to the porch. He grabbed my shoulders and knees and tried to jerk lift me.

I’m a lot heavier than I look—muscle will do that—and he was no werewolf, just a desperate man whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I’d make sure he was sorry, I thought through the haze of pain. “I don’t get mad I get even” was more of a credo than a cliché to me.

The people I’d seen Tasered were only knocked out of commission for a few seconds. Even the kid in the library had been able to make noise. I was absolutely helpless, and I didn’t know why.

I tried touching the pack or Adam for help. I found where the connection should have been, but the Taser had nothing on the pain when I tried to force contact. My head hurt so badly it felt like my ears should be bleeding.

It was still daylight, so calling Stefan wasn’t going to be much help.

The second time, he got me up and took me to his car. His trunk popped with a beep, and he dumped me in it. My head bounced off the floor a couple of times. When I got out of this, Amber was going to be a widow.

Scrabbling fingers pulled my hands together behind my back, and I recognized the signature sound of a zip tie. He used another on my ankles. Prying my mouth open, he stuffed it with a sock that tasted of fabric softener and smelled faintly of Amber, then he wrapped what felt like an Ace bandage around that.

“It’s Chad,” he told me, eyes wild. “He has Chad.”

I caught a glimpse of the fresh bite mark in his neck just before he shut the trunk.