Fire Touched

4

Tad and Zee followed me to Adam’s SUV, with Aiden tagging along behind like a stray puppy uncertain of his welcome. We walked very slowly because Adam was hurt, and so was Zee—and I wasn’t certain about Tad. Traffic was still stopped, and people watched us as we walked.

“Hey, Mercy,” someone called, “do you know what’s up?”

I looked over, but I recognized neither the voice nor the face of the woman who was standing outside her car, a toddler on her hip.

“Troll on the Cable Bridge,” I told her. “We dealt with it. They’re working on getting traffic moving, but I think the bridge is going to need major repairs before anyone can use it.”

“Troll?” A teenager in a minivan filled with other teenagers stuck his head out the window. “You mean like a real troll? Lives under bridges, tries to eat goats? That kind of troll?”

I nodded and smiled but kept walking.

He let out a happy sound. “Trolls versus werewolves. Our werewolves for the win!”

Adam opened his mouth and let his tongue loll out. Someone in the teen’s van let out a wolf whistle, and it wasn’t because of Adam’s big pink tongue.

“Grandma, what big teeth you have,” I murmured.

The corners of his lips turned up, but he closed his mouth.

About halfway back to the car, traffic started moving again, though it wasn’t going to be breaking any speed records. After that, we got honked at—which made Zee say something rude in German. Tad grinned and waved at everyone.

“Quit frowning, Dad,” he said. “If you smile, they’ll forget all about us in a day. If you go around looking like that, they’ll wonder how many other trolls are going to be wandering into the Tri-Cities.”

Zee smiled.

Tad rolled his eyes. “Not like that, old man—that will give them nightmares.”

“Be careful what you ask for,” I said.

Tad rubbed the top of my head. “I’ll keep that in mind, short stuff.”

“I told you to feed him more coffee,” I told Zee. “Look what happened when he outgrew me.”

“Children whine too much,” the old fae said. “Just how far away did you park—and why didn’t we get a ride there?”

“Sorry,” I said, meaning it, because I needed to get Adam home so he could change and his shoulder could be checked to make sure it had healed right. Werewolves heal fast, which was good up to a point—but if a bone wasn’t set correctly, it would heal just as it was. Then it would need to be rebroken. “But there is no back way here, and no one could have driven us until the traffic cleared anyway.” And the traffic still wasn’t cleared.

It hadn’t felt like a long way when we were running for the bridge, but with two—possibly three—people who were hurt, it was too long. I’d have offered to run ahead and grab the SUV, but I knew that neither Adam nor Zee would have allowed it unless they were on their deathbeds.

Tad said somberly, “Hey, Mercy? I’m sorry it took us so long to come help with the troll. We didn’t know about it until we saw the traffic backed up. We’d taken refuge in one of the old warehouses in the Lampson scrap yard. I was headed out to find someone with a cell phone I could borrow to call you when I saw the troll.”

“No one died,” I told him, then corrected myself: “None of our pack died. If you hadn’t made it when you did, Adam and I would have been toast. You timed it pretty close, though.”

“It’s all in the timing,” he agreed—then grinned at me. “But close is still good.”

We walked slowly to the SUV, with its soft upholstery for sore bodies. And I felt Aiden’s eyes on me all the way.

Not quite hostile. Not quite. But, my coyote self was certain, not altogether friendly, either.

Our house wasn’t really a single-family dwelling. An Alpha’s house was the center of the pack, designed to be part meetinghouse, part hotel, part hospital. Sometimes it was just Adam, Jesse, and me who lived there, but Joel and his wife currently were living in the suite on the main floor. There were two extra bedrooms on the second floor, and I’d sent Zee to one and Tad to the other. Aiden had been, not ungently, settled in the safe room in the basement and told to make himself at home. The safe room had camera surveillance, and the doors were alarmed and lockable. When the doors were locked, the room would hold an out-of-control werewolf. Aiden had merely smiled at the doors.

“These locks won’t hold me,” he’d told me.

“You’re a guest, not a prisoner,” I said, more worried about Adam, who was in our mini-clinic getting checked out, than whether or not our guest liked his accommodations. “This is the last private room in the house. If you’d rather, you can sleep in the rec room, which is set up as a bunk room, too. But I’ll warn you that there are a number of pack who view those rooms as public property.”

“No,” he said after a moment, as if he was trying to figure out how to react. “This is fine. I was just warning you.”

“You gave your word,” I said. “And we gave ours.”

“Yes,” he agreed. Then he relaxed, as if we’d stepped back into something he knew. “So we did. Twenty-four hours.” He gave me an enigmatic smile that did not belong on the face of a child.

The safe room was next door to the clinic. We both heard the crack of breaking bones. I froze, my stomach clenched. Adam’s control was back in place because I had felt nothing through our link.

Aiden jumped like a startled cat and showed the whites of his eyes.

“Our Alpha’s shoulder healed wrong,” I told him, feeling sick. “They had to rebreak it.”

We both listened to the silence. “Tough man,” he said, finally.

“Oh, yes,” I agreed. “If you’ll excuse me?”

“Of course.”

But Warren stopped me as I headed to the clinic. Before I could say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” I found myself chopping vegetables while Warren and his very-human partner, Kyle, barbecued hamburgers outside. We were setting up a barbecue dinner because, evidently, in between sadistic-but-necessary medical procedures, Adam had called for a meeting of the pack.

In the front of the meeting room, the only spot of the room clear of chairs, Adam settled one hip on the library table that usually held whatever notes he’d brought with him. Tonight there weren’t any notes. If we were going to talk about Aiden and my offer of sanctuary to anyone who came to us for help, I guess he wouldn’t need notes, would he? My stomach was clenched. I was causing trouble for him again.

Medea hopped on the table and stropped her stub-tailed body against Adam, claiming him in front of the room of werewolves. He rubbed her under her chin absently, his attention elsewhere.

The meeting room was upstairs, adjacent to the family bedrooms. I’d asked Adam why he hadn’t put it downstairs with the rest of the public rooms.

“A pack needs to be family,” he’d said simply. “If I don’t welcome them into my life, into my home, there will always be a distance between us. They need to trust me, to trust that I will take care of them—how can they do that if I treat them like business associates?”

The meeting room was packed with chairs, the kind you see in a high school band room or at a hotel banquet. More or less comfortable to sit in and strong enough to hold a heavy person, but stackable so we could get them out of the way if we needed to.

Adam glanced at his watch, so I knew he was waiting for a few latecomers. He looked almost normal except for the grim tint to his mouth that I blamed on his shoulder. He moved both arms freely, but I knew it must still hurt. As Alpha, he could draw upon the whole pack for power, so he healed faster than any of the rest of the werewolves. But he’d been hurt pretty badly.

I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him, though. If I were a paranoid person, I’d have said he had been avoiding me. I worried that he resented me for making him have this meeting.

Next time I felt the urge to make pronouncements, I’d set down the stupid walking stick before I opened my mouth. I wasn’t sure, even now, that it had been the walking stick’s fault. I wasn’t certain I’d been wrong—but I did know I’d been overly theatric.

Beside me, Warren patted my leg. Warren, bless him, had saved a spot for me right by the door—so I could escape first, he’d told me. But also, I thought, beside him, to show his support for me when I came under fire.

“Didn’t the pack used to have meetings a lot more often than we do now?” I asked him. “We have pack breakfast Sundays, but other than that, or some emergency, the whole pack only meets before the full-moon hunt. But I seem to remember a lot more meetings when I used to only live on the other side of the back fence.”

Warren laughed soundlessly; I could feel his body shake next to me.

“Oh, meetings,” he said after a moment. “Yes, there were meetings. You can always tell if Adam is ticked off with the pack by the number of meetings we have. Some days, when someone was really stupid, we had meetings twice on the same day. I think it’s his military background. There are a lot of us who are grateful to you for keeping him happy—saves on our gas bill, and some of us even have time for date nights once in a while. Or hobbies.”

I saw Adam’s lips quirk before he blanked his face again. Etiquette among werewolves was that you tried to ignore private conversations. But like everyone else in the room, he could hear us just fine.

Ben entered with Zack and Joel, both of whom still looked a little shaky, but Zack was by far the most battered. The hit with the Miata had fractured his pelvis and four ribs. Werewolves are tough, but Zack was as far from an Alpha as he could get; he’d be in pain for days yet. Ben kept a hand under Zack’s arm. The cool expression on Ben’s face meant that he was still working as their . . . babysitter? Escort? Something. On his own, he might still have decided to make sure they were safe, but he’d have had his happy mask on and come in making rude comments designed to get a rise out of someone. Under orders, he tended to be much more businesslike, especially lately.

Ben had watched over Joel at the barbecue, too, making sure he got plenty to eat. Zack had been in our mini-clinic with Adam, getting patched up.

As soon as Ben entered, Adam nodded to Darryl, who shut the meeting-room door and went back to his seat in the front of the room. I felt the pack magic surround us, sliding over walls and doors and windows, encasing us in secrecy so that no one outside this room could hear us. It would block our ability to hear anything going on outside, too.

I’d have been more worried about that last, given that we had a stranger in the house, but Tad had promised, out of Jesse’s hearing, to keep Adam’s human-fragile daughter busy and safe “while the werewolves discussed what to do with their fae . . . guests.”

Adam crossed his arms, and said, “Do we have anyone who would like to start?”

Mary Jo shot to her feet, body tense, though her eyes were lowered.

“Not you, I think,” said Adam thoughtfully. I’d never seen him refuse to allow a wolf their say in a meeting. “Someone else.”

Mary Jo’s mouth squinched down until it was hard to be sure it was there. But she sat down without saying anything because there had been something in that thoughtful voice, an edge that was not calm, not quiet, no matter how relaxed Adam’s posture was.

A wave of . . . unease swept through the room as Adam’s werewolf gold eyes passed over them. Adam was well and truly angry. I wondered if there was some way I could fix it. I’d set the pack up against the whole of the fae. I had no trouble fighting with Adam when I knew I was right. Over this? I found myself wishing I hadn’t eaten the half of the burger I’d consumed at the barbecue to appease Kyle, who had, he said in his usual sardonic fashion, cooked it just for me. Warren must have told him what I’d done because the two of them had mother-henned me just as Ben had Joel.

Now that food sat, an indigestible lump, in my stomach.

Ben stood up, his body language casual, confident that he, at least, wasn’t the subject of Adam’s ire. This time.

Adam raised an eyebrow.

Ben took that as permission. “Tad told me that his father will be fine, and it was probably better just to leave him alone unless he asks for help. He also assured me that his father is more than capable of dealing with . . .” Ben stumbled.

“Aiden,” said Zack. “Probably not his real name, ’cause it means ‘little fire.’”

“Welsh?” Warren asked.

“Irish, I think,” said Zack. “Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t also be ‘fire’ in Cornish, or Welsh, or a hundred and one related languages.” I’d known English wasn’t Zack’s original language any more than Zack was his real name. When he’d first come to us, he’d hesitated answering to it, as if he had to remind himself that “Zack” meant someone was addressing him. It wasn’t unusual for wolves, especially old ones, to adopt new names. I wouldn’t have picked him out as Irish. Maybe he’d just spent some time in Ireland, the same way he’d spent some time in the US. Maybe I was overanalyzing, and he just knew that “Aiden” meant “little fire” because he’d read it in a book somewhere.

Zack’s speech had been a little blurry. The troll had crushed his jaw, too. But his eyes were happy. Very happy.

I leaned forward in my seat so I could get a better look at his face. He looked like a man who knew something no one else did. He’d been closeted with Adam in medical.

I frowned at him, but he didn’t see it.

“So Mercy’s fae friend can save us from her other fae friend,” said Alec bitterly. There were subpacks in the pack, groups of people who just liked one another and hung out together. Alec was one of Mary Jo’s cadre.

He didn’t get up because Ben had the floor. But Zack’s contributions, made while he was sitting down, had opened the way for audience participation.

Adam stared at him until Alec dropped his eyes. It didn’t take very long.

“Indeed,” said Adam, very softly. “Zee has shown himself to be a friend.”

Alec, his head bowed very low, tried not to squirm. Ben didn’t react at all, just waited for the drama to be done.

I tried, but couldn’t recall any time Zee did anything to help the pack. Okay, he had helped Adam find me when a fairy queen wouldn’t let me go—but that didn’t really count because he was helping Adam find me, helping me, not helping the pack.

“Are you finished, Ben?” asked Adam.

Ben glanced at Joel, who didn’t do anything I could see, but Ben nodded and sat down. Joel stood up.

Adam said, “How are you?”

Joel smiled. “Better than I’ve been in a long time,” he said, sounding it. “The boy told me he hadn’t killed the tibicena, and he’s right. I can feel it. But so far, I’ve been able to stay me for the past four hours.”

“The boy—Aiden—helped you,” said Adam.

Joel glanced at me. “I haven’t been able to stay human for longer than an hour or two since Guayota gave me to the tibicena,” he said. “Since Aiden drew out the fire, I’m in charge. I don’t know how long it will last, but absolutely he helped me.” He waited to see if Adam had more questions. When Adam didn’t say anything else, Joel sat down.

George stood up. George was pretty far up in the pack hierarchy. A good man and steady. I liked him.

Adam invited him to speak with a tilt of his head.

“We are werewolves,” George said heavily. “Mercy is not, so maybe she doesn’t understand how this works. We are pack, and we look out for ourselves. We cannot afford to take on the world and lose focus, forget what’s important. We take care of pack.”

“And that’s why you became a police officer, is it, George?” I couldn’t help myself, though I knew I should hold my peace. “Not to protect and serve all the citizens of Pasco, but to take care of the pack.”

He flushed angrily. “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

I met his gaze and held it. “Okay,” I said mildly.

“I do my job,” he said.

“Okay,” I agreed. He did.

George worked for the Pasco Police Department. From what I’d overheard during the barbecue, he’d been in among the police on the Pasco side of the bridge today. Pasco had lost two police officers and had another three in the hospital in various states of non-life-threatening injuries, one of whom he’d dragged off the bridge—right out from under the nose of the troll. Which was why I thought he was being pretty hypocritical.

“Mercy, quit playing games with the grumpy werewolf,” murmured Warren. When I glanced at him, he was staring at George. “You might start a fight. Remember, werewolves look out for pack.” He bit off the last word.

George sat down and stared away from me—away from Warren, too.

“He’s right,” Paul said earnestly, standing up but not waiting for an invitation from Adam to talk. “George, I mean, not Warren. We cannot be responsible for everyone in the Tri-Cities, like Mercy said. Like she tried to make us be.” Paul had been on the bridge for my grand declaration. Paul was not one of my staunchest supporters. “Some of you think this meeting is to discuss the boy she brought home. But she did more than that. Mercy offered sanctuary to anyone who came to the pack for help.”

“Point of fact.” I stood up, though there wasn’t supposed to be more than one person standing (other than Adam). I wasn’t going to talk to Paul from a position of weakness. “I reserved the right of the pack to offer sanctuary to anyone we chose to help. A small but important distinction.” I sat down again.

“You challenged the Gray Lords,” Paul said. His short reddish beard tended to hide anything but strong emotions, but there was a tone of entreaty in his voice. “We can’t take on the Gray Lords, Mercy.”

He had a point. But he was looking at what I had done from the wrong point of view. I stood up again. And then hesitated, waiting for Adam to ask me to sit down until it was my turn to speak. Adam was a stickler for order and proper procedure in the pack meetings. But he simply watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. So I decided to go ahead and answer Paul’s statement.

“I grew up in the Marrok’s pack,” I said.

“Good for you,” said Mary Jo.

I pulled out as much patience as I could manage and ignored her. Getting in a snark fest with Mary Jo would not be useful. Instead, I looked around the room at everyone else. “Can any of you imagine the fae sending a troll into the Marrok’s territory? Into Aspen Creek—or, say, Missoula?” I let them think about it. “Can you imagine what the Marrok would do if they did?”

I saw a few appreciative grins. No. Bran would not allow a rampaging troll in his territory.

“What’s your point?” asked Auriele, Darryl’s mate. She wasn’t one of Mary Jo’s crowd, and recently, we’d been cautiously cordial.

“The fae in Walla Walla either do not respect us, or they did not think that we would come to the aid of the human inhabitants in this city,” I told her, told them. “Maybe both. As a result, people died, and wolves got hurt. If they know that we will defend our territory against them, maybe they’ll think twice before sending in another troll. Or something worse. My point is that right now we cannot afford not to take on the Gray Lords.”

“But the Marrok isn’t here,” Paul, still standing, said.

Paul wasn’t the smartest person in most rooms, but he was just saying what I saw in other people’s faces.

“No,” I agreed. “Do you think Bran would go kill the troll himself? He has more critical work to do.” Facing the troll himself would give it too much importance, would acknowledge that it was a real threat.

“He’d send Charles,” said Paul. “Or Colin Taggart, or the Moor.” He grinned suddenly. “I’d like to see a fight between the Moor and a troll.”

“Or he’d send Leah,” someone muttered. Bran’s mate could take care of business—I didn’t have to like her to acknowledge that.

“And then he’d go after whoever sent it and make sure they didn’t make that mistake again,” said Alec.

“Right,” I agreed soberly. “The point is that the fae would never send a troll into Bran’s territory because they’d go through exactly the same thought process that we just did.”

“This is not the Marrok’s pack,” said Paul. “We don’t have Tag or Charles.”

“No,” I agreed. “We have Adam, Darryl, Warren, and Honey. We have you, Paul. We have Auriele, George, and Mary Jo. And we did take down that troll, with only a fraction of our pack: Adam, Darryl, Zack, and Joel. We had no casualties.”

“They didn’t do it alone,” said Mary Jo. “They needed Tad.”

I held my hands palm up. “We have friends and allies,” I said. “Good. Those are assets, too. Right now, we are in a position of power. We’ve killed their troll and drawn a line in the sand. It’s up to them to cross that line—and maybe they won’t.”

“Maybe they will,” said George. “And before this, we weren’t an enemy of the fae.”

“Weren’t we?” I asked. “Weren’t we? Then why did they feel free to send that troll into our town?”

“It’s not our town,” said Alec. “We’re werewolves. We’re a pack. We don’t own the town.”

I looked around at the stubborn faces. I’d been waiting for Adam—or Warren or Darryl or someone—to throw in with me. Without support from someone the pack respected, they’d never listen to me.

I threw up my hands, both figuratively and literally.

“Fine,” I said, and sat down. I couldn’t help but send an apologetic look Adam’s way because I was pretty sure I’d made everything worse. But he wasn’t looking at me. He had folded both of his arms and closed his eyes. There was a white mark growing on his cheekbone that told me he was gritting his teeth.

If he was mad at me, I thought, then we’d have it out in private. But, sitting next to Warren, I’d had some time to review my actions today. Other than feeling a little squirmy about the drama level, I was okay with everything I’d done on that bridge. I prepared arguments to defend myself. If I felt hurt that Adam hadn’t understood, I tucked that hurt down and away. I didn’t want anyone here knowing that I was hurt.

Warren’s long-fingered hand closed over my knee. He squeezed, then patted it, his face serene. Warren, at least, understood what I’d been saying.

Honey stood up and looked around. “I am ashamed,” she said.

She let that statement hang in the air for a moment. Then she continued, “I am so ashamed of all of you. I look around, and all I see are stupid people.”

“It’s not stupid to be afraid of the fae,” said Mary Jo hotly.

“No?” Honey disagreed. “But that’s not what makes you stupid, Mary Jo. You aren’t arguing with Mercy because she’s wrong, you’re arguing with her because you don’t know who she is. You still think she’s some dumb bimbo who seduced our Alpha and stumbled into a stupid magic trick that allowed her to become part of the pack. That she is a mistake. That she is a weakness.”

She looked around the room. “Idiots. Every one of you. We drove a volcano god out of our territory, and you are afraid of the fae?” She made a noise. “Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t us—it was Mercy, wasn’t it? She put herself between Guayota and us. She nearly died to protect us—and you are all still wondering if she should be a member of our pack.”

“She is a weakness,” said Darryl reluctantly. “Guayota saw it, too. She was the first of us he went after.”

“And she defeated him,” Honey said. “She drove him out of her garage.”

“Tad and Adam defeated him,” Mary Jo said.

“That’s a theme here, isn’t it?” said Honey. “Mercy stands up for what is right—and her friends back her up.” She paused. “Why do you think that is?”

Her lip curled when no one said anything. “Because they know she’ll have their back in return. Pack is about not standing alone. About having people you trust to have your back. There is not another person in this room that I would rather have at my back than Mercy.”

“What about Adam?” asked Mary Jo instantly.

“Not excepting Adam,” Honey told her stoutly. “Your pardon, Adam, if you find that offensive. But because you are our Alpha, you have other considerations, other responsibilities. Mercy, once she has your back, she has your back.”

Adam didn’t open his eyes. He just waved her apology away.

“Offering sanctuary to the fae boy was the right thing to do,” Honey said. “He’d given aid to our fellow pack member. It is right and proper that he ask for something in return.”

“And Joel wouldn’t be a member of the pack who needed help if it weren’t for Mercy,” said Mary Jo fiercely.

Honey opened her mouth, but Adam spoke first.

“Enough,” he said, and his voice was silky-soft. “Sit down, Honey.”

She sat, but her mouth was screwed up in anger.

Adam opened his eyes and surveyed the room with bright gold irises. “Y’all are mistaken about the reason for this meeting.” His Southern accent was unusually thick. It should have made his anger sound softer, but it didn’t.

Beside me, Warren’s mouth quirked up.

“We are not here to discuss Aiden and the sanctuary he was promised. We are not here to discuss the fae in any way, shape, or form. We are here to discuss Mercy. And your attitude toward my wife. My mate.”

He rocked to his feet and began pacing slowly back and forth. “Mercy is a tough, smart woman. She can defend herself—I do not have to protect her. She is not weak or dependent or needy. She doesn’t need the pack. She doesn’t need me.”

I shot to my feet. “That’s not true,” I said hotly.

He tilted his head a little, his eyes meeting mine. His eyes softened. “I misspoke,” he said in a steady voice. “She doesn’t need me to make sure she has enough food or a place to live—that is my privilege, but she doesn’t need me to do that. She doesn’t need me to keep her safe or to make her a whole person. She doesn’t need me to do anything except love her. Which I do.”

Well now, I thought, abruptly breathless. I nodded at him and plunked down in my seat before my weakened knees gave out.

After I sat down, Adam started that slow pace back and forth again. It was a hunter’s gait. When he spoke, it was even more quietly than he had before. “When she agreed to be my mate and when she agreed to be part of the pack, I understood that she would not welcome my standing between her and you. She’s defended herself all of her life, and she is capable of defending herself from you when she cares enough to do so.” He stopped and looked around, an eyebrow raised in challenge.

Warren coughed the words “blue dye” into his hand.

Adam’s smile flickered into being, then disappeared. “She has rightfully earned the reputation, that goes back to her days in the Marrok’s pack, of being someone people respected. No one in Bran’s pack wanted to get on her bad side because Mercy always comes out on top. And she has acquitted herself very well in my pack, defending herself from whatever you’ve thrown at her. But today on the bridge, I discovered something.”

He let the pause linger.

“I’m done with it.” All hint of softness was gone from his voice. “I am done with listening to you attack my mate while she is trying to save you. Again. I called this meeting to give notice. If I hear or hear about any of you saying anything to my mate that is in the least bit disrespectful, I will end you. No warnings, no second chances. I will end you.”

And he walked through the aisle left between the chairs and out of the room without looking me in the eyes.

Darryl stood up in the silence and addressed the room. “Adam has authorized both Warren and me to help anyone who wishes to leave this pack in light of this announcement. Do not go to Adam. I assure you that he is quite serious.”

I sat where I was, dumbstruck. On the one hand—that was pretty sexy. On the other—holy cow. He couldn’t do that. I’d just started making real inroads into the general prejudice of the pack. He’d silenced them. My life was going to be hellish, full of people who hated me but couldn’t say anything out in the open so we could hash it out. It would just fester.

“For what it’s worth,” Warren said to me, “if he hadn’t done that, I think Honey would have. And that would have been a disaster.” He looked at my face. “It’ll be okay, kid.”

I opened my mouth. “He can’t do that.”

Ben grinned at me. “Of course he can. This isn’t a democracy, Mercy. That was brilliant.”

I shook my head. “That was a disaster.”

“How so?” asked Mary Jo, who had gotten up and was standing in the queue to get out of the room. “And I mean that respectfully, Mercy.”

She didn’t sound sarcastic, but it lurked in her eyes.

“He can’t dictate how people feel,” I said.

“Some people need to shut their mouths in order to use their brains,” said George. He sounded . . . thoughtful.

I stared at him.

“And I’m beginning to think that I’m one of them,” he said. “I think . . . I think that you’re right. The Tri-Cities is our territory. If we don’t police our territory, then who could blame the fae for thinking we wouldn’t do anything when they sent a troll through downtown? It never occurred to me that the pack wouldn’t help. I saw Darryl up there, and thought, ‘Good, they’ve made it.’ And if I know that—maybe we should make sure that the rest of the world knows it, too. It might stave off incidents like the one we had today.”

He crouched so his head and mine were at an equal height, ignoring the way that meant he blocked the path out of the room.

“Honey was right,” he said. “If it had been Darryl up there on the bridge, promising the sun, moon, and stars, we’d all have backed him. And you not only outrank Darryl, you’ve proven that you deserve that rank to anyone who isn’t an outright idiot. We should have backed you. And now we will.”

“This isn’t a third-world dictatorship,” I said.

“Yes,” said Mary Jo slowly. “Yes, it is, Mercy.” Her voice softened. “It has to be. We are too dangerous. Controlling our wolves is much, much easier when we are a pack, following a leader. This needed to happen a long time ago.”

Warren stayed by me as the room cleared of strangely happy werewolves. When Honey made it to us, she slid into the row of chairs in front. She pulled out one chair and stacked it on its neighbor, then took another and turned it around until she faced us. She sat on this one, crossed her legs at the knee, and waited, bland-faced, for the room to clear. Under her gaze, it cleared a little faster than it had been. Darryl gave her an ironic salute as he passed, which she returned.

When we were the only three left, she said, “Okay. Any ideas on how this petitioning for sanctuary is going to work? Word of it is going to spread, and I expect that this Aiden character isn’t going to be the last. There are a lot of people in hiding from the powerful groups—the fae, the witches, the vampires—who will look upon this as an invitation. Do we take them all? What if the bad guys demand sanctuary?”

“Like Gary,” said Warren in a serious voice.

Gary was my older half brother. My very-much-older half brother who was smitten with Honey and had made no bones about it—he wasn’t, strictly speaking, a bad guy. On the other hand, he wasn’t a poster child for the heavenly choir, either.

Honey flushed, raised her chin, and said, “Like Gary. Are we mediators? A hotel for the night? And how will we deal with expenses?”

“Do you really think that it’s going to get that big?” I said, taken aback. “I was looking upon it more like a line in the sand. A ‘this is our territory and we will defend it’ rather than a clarion call of blanket protection for anyone who wanted to show up.”

She examined me with a small smile. “Who knows?” she said. “I was just trying to distract you from your intention of cornering Adam in a private place and ripping him a new one. I figured it would be easier for me to do it than whatever Warren had planned.”

Warren grinned at her, but when he turned to me, his face was sober. “He had to do it, Mercy. I’m surprised he let it go this long, but he was worried that you would run if he stepped in too soon.”

That startled me. “Did he tell you that?” I asked.

“Today,” Warren said. “Darryl and me both, while he was getting fixed up. And Zack, too, I guess, because Zack also needed repairs. You were a tough hunt for him. He had to all but turn himself inside out not to scare you away.” He looked up at the ceiling, then he looked at Honey. “The rest of this conversation is private, I think. You’ve distracted her from her panic, thank you.”

Honey nodded her elegant head and left, the foggy shape of her dead husband’s ghost followed her. Peter was fading now, I thought with sad satisfaction. It wasn’t safe for the living to cling too hard to the dead; it pulled the living in the wrong direction.

She shut the door behind her.

Warren closed his eyes a moment, and I felt when the pack magic slid back into place, locking us into a private space where no one could overhear.

When he opened his eyes, they were yellow, but that faded. “When you found me alone all those years ago and sent me to Adam, I thought that it would be the usual talk—don’t get in our way, don’t make a stink, and we might not come for you some night and run you out of our territory.”

“That’s not Adam,” I said.

He nodded. “No. He’s not the usual Alpha at all, is he? For which we are all grateful. He’s taking a lot of flak, you know. Not from Bran, but from other places. We are the only pack on the planet that has members who are not werewolves or human mates of werewolves, and even that last is right uncommon.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you upset the applecart over how our female werewolves are ranked, much to the betterment of their lot everywhere, no matter how much Honey hates it,” he said. “And she hates it less every day. You and Adam, you’ve broken a lot of traditions between the two of you. You are probably lucky you haven’t become targets of other packs. It may not have happened since Bran assumed control—but our history is full of packs who were exterminated when they got uppity.”

“What does that have to do with anything that happened tonight?” I asked, honestly puzzled.

“Most of the pack members are actually pretty happy about a lot of the changes. That one about the women, that is the best one because it allows the pack power structure to lay as it should instead of how the Alpha thinks it best. Makes our bonds tighter, healthier.”

I waited, and he smiled at me. “Well, now, Mercy. Today, you did the right thing—and whatever he said today about not judging that decision, he and I and Darryl talked a lot about it. We all think it was not only the right decision, it was the only decision you could make.” His Texas accent got momentarily thicker. “An’ when you held up thet flaming walking stick, thet was ahlmighty somethin’.” He grinned, and his voice went back to normal, which still had a Texas flavor. “But it’s going to cause a real whoop-de-do all over the place, and we cannot afford to have the pack focused on you instead of on business, or some of our people are going to get hurt.”

“The vampires?” I asked. “Adam thinks Marsilia is going to be up in arms because I claimed the Tri-Cities for us?”

“No, ma’am,” said Warren. “Darryl is worried about that, but Adam says, and I reckon he’s right, that Marsilia will be pleased at having that little bit to throw at any other vampires who think to come here and challenge her like that one did a while back. Besides, we can handle the vampires. Stefan won’t move against you”—he didn’t say why not; Warren was one of the few who knew about the bond between Stefan and me—“and that leaves Marsilia herself, and Wulfe. The rest of them aren’t old or powerful enough to give Zack a fair fight.”

“So where is the problem?” I asked. “The Gray Lords?”

“Uniting the pack against the fae won’t be no trick.” Warren reached up to tip his cowboy hat—and rubbed his ear instead when he realized it was sitting on his knee because we were inside. Warren didn’t wear hats inside a building because it was rude. He was also perfectly capable of speaking with good grammar, he just didn’t always bother. “The fae are pretty good at making themselves unlikeable—excepting Zee and Tad.”

“Excepting Tad,” I said. “Zee can be as obnoxious as the best of them when he wants to be.” But I was still working through what he said—and I figured it out. “Oh holy wow. Oh wow. Oops.”

Warren smiled. “See, I knew you’d think of it when you got going. But if it helps, Adam thinks that pot was boiled when Darryl and Zack jumped in to face off with the troll.”

“Bran,” I said. “Bran is going to be livid.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“He just got things smoothed over from when Charles took out that monster in Arizona,” I said. Livid wasn’t even in the ballpark of what Bran was going to be.

“We figured he’d get the news when it broke on the national front—about twenty minutes ago.”

“National news,” I said.

He tipped his imaginary hat to me. “Yes, ma’am. One of our local reporters was close enough to get your declaration on camera, complete with fiery sigils lit up and down your walking staff.”

I sucked in a breath. This wasn’t my fault. At least, it wasn’t all my fault. It was the fault of the fae for letting a troll loose in my town.

There was no way we could have left that troll to the police. The troll’s appearance was outside my ability to affect—therefore this was not my fault. I felt guilty anyway.

“So what does Bran have to do with Adam’s sudden, knuckle-dragging declaration of protection?” I asked.

“Wait a moment,” Warren said. “He wrote it down because he was worried I might mess it up.” He lifted his hip off the chair and dug around in the back pocket of his jeans. “Here it is.” He handed me a three-by-five card that had seen better days. He’d folded it in half to stick it into his pocket—and Adam had bled on it. There was writing on both sides.

In small, neat engineers’ block lettering I read:

1. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.

2. I cannot afford dissent in the pack over anything if we are to square off against Bran. If they are showing disrespect to my mate, they are not committed to me. They need to be loyal to me, that will matter to Bran.

3. The rest of the packs all over will now have to decide what they are going to do. If they don’t follow our example, they are going to appear weak. If they follow our example in this, in making our territories truly our territories, they will follow, will they or not, the other changes that have begun in our pack. For this to happen, we must be united.

4. Even if Bran eases off, the fae will not. I had a little talk with Zee. They want Aiden. They will not be gentle, and Aiden has done nothing to raise their ire, but that won’t save him from torture or worse. I’m not ready to turn someone over for torture just because it would be easier for me. So—here, too, we cannot afford for the pack to be divided.

I turned the card over. The writing on this side was different, more angular, larger, and the pen had dug into the surface of the card.

5. Most importantly. I love you. And I am done with standing by while my pack thinks it is acceptable to disrespect you. I am done.

After the last “done,” he’d written, “I’m sorry,” but it was crossed out. Evidently he wasn’t sorry.

Warren tapped the card. “The back side he wrote after we had to break his shoulder blade a second time. Apparently, all we did the first time was open a hairline fracture into a full break in the wrong place. Which is why we’d brought Zee down. He’s better with a hammer than any of us.”

I flinched. “He should have let me be there,” I said.

“He needed an excuse to be strong,” said Warren. “He was afraid that he couldn’t hold the illusion of strength if you were there.”

I tucked the card into a front pocket. “You win,” I said. “I won’t yell at him about his declaration. I wouldn’t have even if you hadn’t added that last bit.”

Warren wrapped his long-fingered hand around the back of my neck and pulled me over so he could kiss the top of my head. “Go ahead and yell at him,” he said. “He’s tough, he won’t mind. Just don’t leave, and he’ll be good.”

“I wouldn’t have left him over this,” I said, feeling insulted. Then I rubbed my face. “It’s just . . . Warren, I was raised with werewolves. I was raised among the wolves in the Marrok’s pack, where no one was allowed to say anything bad about Bran’s mate, Leah. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night and use phrases I learned from Ben and aim them at her because now I can.”

“Adam told me that your experience with Leah would make you madder about Adam’s stance,” Warren said. “I’ve met Leah, and she deserves the worst Ben’s potty mouth can offer. Adam knew putting you in Leah’s position wasn’t going to make you happy.”

I opened my mouth to agree, but honesty stopped me. “It’s going to rankle,” I said. “But I’m all right with it.” I looked at the bloody note. “It’s the idea that he thought I might leave him over this that he’s going to pay for.” I gritted my teeth. “Idiot.”

Warren grinned and hit his leg with his hat. “I told him he was worried over nothing. If we are okay here, I’m going to go get Kyle and head home. He’s got a meeting with a new client tomorrow. Couple who’ve been married twenty-five years. Their youngest child just graduated from high school. I guess they were waiting for that.”

“Sad,” I said.

He looked at me with wise eyes. “Take happiness where you can,” he said. “It seldom lasts—’course, neither does sorrow, right?”