Smoke Bitten

5

“Is there a reason we’re happy about this, boss?” asked Warren warily.

I happened to be watching Sherwood and saw him grin in sudden comprehension. He knew what Adam was doing.

Adam nodded in answer to Warren’s question. “I think so. I’m going to conscript them, if I can. We need more bodies. They need a place to be safe. It might take some negotiation.”

Auriele looked at Adam, and there was just a hint of a sneer on her mouth when she said, “Try to take them before they take the pack from you?”

Beside her, Darryl stiffened.

The smile melted from Adam’s face and his eyes grew cold. “Make no mistake, Auriele. They cannot take this pack from me.” He stared at her a moment, until she dropped her eyes. It was not voluntary, that averting of Auriele’s eyes. I could see it in the stiffness of her shoulders.

“What the hell, ’Riele?” said Darryl in a voice that I don’t think he intended to carry.

She shot him a venomous look.

“Auriele,” said Adam in a soft, dangerous voice. “Do you want to challenge me for the pack?”

She shot to her feet. “Darryl—”

“Darryl is welcome to make his own decisions,” Adam told her, without looking at Darryl, who was shaking his head vehemently.

“No,” said Darryl. “Absolutely not.” Obviously he didn’t want Adam—or maybe Auriele, who was also not looking at her mate—to be under any misapprehension of his intentions.

“Auriele,” said Adam. “Go to my office and wait for me there.”

I was pretty unhappy with Auriele at that point. But that didn’t stop the hackles rising on the back of my neck at his tone of voice. Auriele was a strong member of the pack, and I didn’t like her being talked to like she was a misbehaving twelve-year-old. It brought up shadows in my memory of just such pronouncements from the Marrok.

But I was not a werewolf, and not caught up in the need for pack and order that the werewolves were. I knew that the argument she wanted was something that Adam could not tolerate here with the whole pack in attendance. If he didn’t stop her right now, she might force him to do something that he didn’t want to do.

The wolves were all of them dangerous—to other members of the pack, to the community, and to themselves. A wolf without boundaries killed people that their human halves would not want killed. Auriele knew how far she could push the rules of the pack—and she was pushing beyond them. That wasn’t safe for her or the people around her.

Still, it struck me that Auriele and Adam were both acting a little out of character. I looked around the room and felt the tension in the air—but there had been something hovering in the meeting room since I’d first come in—before the Renny incident even. And I wondered, if Adam was locking down the bond between the two of us because he didn’t want to damage/pollute/scare me (or whatever excuse he was using), what had been happening with the pack bonds? He couldn’t shut those down—so what was he doing? And how was it affecting the pack?

Auriele hesitated for a heartbeat, then wrapped herself in righteous fury that I was not wholly unsympathetic with given Adam’s tone of voice, before she headed out the door. I wondered how much of her over-the-top behavior had been pushed on her by the pack bonds she shared with Adam. I’d had a few members of the pack make me act stupidly before. They had been doing it on purpose—but I knew that it could happen. For that matter, I wondered if Adam’s patronizing tone came from the same source that had made him act weird yesterday.

Adam watched her leave, then looked at Darryl.

“I would like to bring you into that conversation, too,” he told Darryl.

“My mate is passionate in defense of those she loves,” Darryl growled defensively.

Yes, but she wasn’t stupid, I thought, sitting back. Yesterday and today she had been acting entirely out of character. Something else besides Christy was going on. Something maybe like Adam’s struggles and the pack bonds.

“Her loyalty is one of her best qualities,” Adam told Darryl sincerely—though he was quite aware that the rest of the pack were listening. “And so is her intelligence. So when I’m done here, we are going to sit down with her and figure out what is interfering with her usual good sense. It isn’t that she suddenly decided she needs to take over the pack. If Auriele wanted this pack, I’d figure that out a few months after I’d agreed to take a twenty-year sabbatical in the Yucatán Peninsula and left y’all in her tender and competent care.”

The stress level in the room resolved into a wry wave of amused agreement. Darryl . . . Darryl kept a game face on. I couldn’t tell if he knew what was bothering Auriele or not. Adam, I thought, would know about what the pack bonds could do better than I did. He’d do his best to keep the pack safe and stable. But for how long?

Adam swept his gaze over the room again. And I saw how tired he looked, saw the weight on his shoulders—and I was the only one in the room who knew that there was a reason that had nothing to do with no sleep, Auriele’s dramatic moment, mind-bending escapees from Underhill, or invading werewolves. That meant that I was going to have to be the one who helped him out.

“So,” said Adam. “We have an invasion commencing and something of mostly unknown capabilities out creating havoc. Be careful out there. Watch your backs. Tell your families what’s going on and tell them to keep an eye out. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you think something is wrong. If you want to bring your families here to stay until matters clear up—we can do that. That they hit Mary Jo’s boyfriend—”

“Of two weeks,” said Mary Jo.

“Of two weeks,” agreed Adam, “implies that they are watching us. They have spent some time studying how we function.”

“What do you plan to do?” asked Elliot.

Adam smiled. “At its heart, taking over a pack is simple: kill the Alpha in a challenge. I plan on not dying. Go home.” He waved his hand.

There was a rumble of laughter as the mass exodus took place. Darryl wasn’t laughing. He stayed in his chair and stretched out his legs, his arms folded across his chest.

Adam caught my eye and nodded for me to stay where I was. Warren gathered Jesse and Aiden and exited with the rest. When everyone was gone, I shut the door.

Darryl glanced around to make sure the door was closed, then looked at Adam. “I don’t know what it is, either. She’s been upset—you know, the kind of upset that when I ask about it I get the ‘nothing is wrong’ answer.” He grimaced at Adam. “Which is highly irritating when she knows that I can tell she’s lying, but telling her that—something she already knows—will only give her an excuse to blow up at me. And she is looking for excuses to blow up.”

At least, I thought, Adam isn’t giving me that “nothing is wrong” answer anymore. I wasn’t entirely sure that it was an improvement. If he’d been lying to me, I could be mad at him. That might feel better than this lump in my throat.

“Let’s go see what we can do for her,” Adam said.

“Why am I here?” I asked him. “You don’t need me for this. She doesn’t even like me.”

“Sure she does,” said Darryl unexpectedly. “Why do you think she’s so mad at you about Christy?”

“That makes sense how?” I asked, flummoxed.

“As much sense as lying to your mate who is a werewolf,” Darryl answered. “She is smart, passionate, and loyal. In situations that draw on all three of those, logic flies out the window.”

“Agreed,” I said. “But that doesn’t tell me why you need me to come.”

“I don’t know about him,” Darryl said. “But I’m hoping she’ll be so focused on you that she’ll forget to be mad at me. I want to be able to sleep tonight without having to keep one eye open.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Happy to help.”

Adam’s office was not large enough for four people to fit comfortably. That was even more evident when three of them were dominant werewolves.

Adam sat in the chair behind his desk. Auriele occupied the other chair, a leather and maple work of art that Christy had given Adam for their anniversary one year. That left Darryl holding up a wall and me sitting on Adam’s desk.

Auriele was sitting as though she were modeling for a portrait, she was that still. She held her body like a dancer just before the music starts, back upright and body tense. Her legs were tucked back, ready to push her to her feet at any time.

She had barely acknowledged any of us.

Adam pursed his lips. “So how do you think Harolford—always assuming he is the one in charge—will work his attack? Slow and steady? Or blitzkrieg with all barrels firing?”

Auriele finally looked up. “Are you asking me?” Her tone was incredulous.

Adam looked at Darryl, who was keeping his face neutral, and then me before looking at Auriele. His face was slightly amused. “Yes.”

She glared at him. He raised an eyebrow.

“I thought we were going to talk about my behavior,” she said, her voice a growl.

Adam tilted his head. “Why? You know what you did today was stupid. We know that there is something behind it that’s a lot more traumatic than my ex-wife’s disappointment about Jesse’s choice of schools. I’m not going to ask you about it. Just inform you that”—his voice dropped low and softened dangerously as his eyes turned yellow—“you need to stop letting it affect you to the point where you are useless to the pack.”

She met his eyes for a long moment before water gathered on her lower lids. I twisted around and opened a drawer in Adam’s desk to grab a tissue. When I turned around, Darryl was kneeling beside her, one of his big arms wrapped around her. To accommodate his hold, she had slid to the very edge of the chair.

I handed her the tissue. She grabbed it and wiped her eyes.

“Damn it,” she muttered. “I’m sorry, Mercy. I should have talked to you before I acted. I know that Christy isn’t logical about you.”

I made a humming noise. “It’s probably the blue hair dye that I may or may not have put in the shampoo container she left in my shower,” I told her. “I wouldn’t like me, either, if I were her.”

Her lips turned up and she gave a half laugh. “Yes, Mercy. I’m sure that the blue dye is the real reason that Christy doesn’t like you.”

She looked at Adam. “I’m sorry. I had some family news a few days ago.” She drew in a breath, and when she spoke again, she was talking to Darryl. “My youngest sister is pregnant with twins.”

The silence that followed was full of sharp edges.

Auriele and Darryl had no children. Male werewolves could father children—but female werewolves could not carry them. The moon’s call ensured that all werewolves had to change. The change from human to wolf is violent, too violent for a fetus to survive the first trimester.

Auriele’s youngest sister was not a werewolf.

“Surrogate,” said Darryl, his voice decisive.

“Who would be a surrogate for a werewolf?” Auriele shot back. The speed of her response told me that this was an old argument.

“Someone who wanted to become a werewolf anyway,” answered Adam. “Let me speak to Bran.”

They both blinked at Adam as if it had not occurred to them.

“I don’t know that there is such a woman,” he continued. “And even if we can locate one, it might be hard to find a reproductive specialist willing to work with our situation.”

“And if you find someone like that,” said Auriele, “there will be a long line of werewolves who want children. And our pack is not affiliated with the Marrok anymore.”

Adam shrugged. “You have time. As long as you don’t force me to kill you or Darryl in the meantime.”

“So don’t start that fight, mi vida,” said Darryl.

She laughed, though it sounded shaky. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She rubbed her hands together, rolling the damp tissue into a ball. She leaned a little harder into Darryl and said. “Blitzkrieg. There is no other way for them to succeed. This is our territory and we have resources here. They need to make you look weak, make the pack feel unprotected. So they have to hit us hard and heavy. Mary Jo’s beau won’t be the only family member hit.”

“He wasn’t hurt,” I said.

“First salvo,” said Darryl. “They are telling our pack, ‘Look at us, we can take yours and return him unharmed because we are just that powerful.’”

“I agree,” said Adam. “None of our vulnerable is safe.”

“Should we call them into the pack house?” I asked.

Auriele shook her head. “No. Not yet. We have to trust our people. Adam’s been instilling fighting skills in all of us, willing or not, way before Darryl or I joined the pack. We can protect our own. If someone needs support, then they can call for help.”

“How about assigning some of the single wolves to help keep watch over the families?” I suggested.

“I’ll get that done,” said Darryl.

“Okay,” said Adam, checking his watch. “If you leave now, Auriele won’t be late for work.”

They left and shut the door behind them. I turned around on the desk until I was facing Adam. I took a moment and just looked at him, seeing the stress of whatever was bothering him, the cost of the sleepless nights, and the toll that came with being the Alpha of the pack. I’d been toying with an idea that might help him, and looking at his careworn face gave me the hit of courage I needed.

I slid off the desk on Adam’s side and grabbed his hand. He grabbed my hand in return—just a little tighter than he normally would have. I leaned back and hauled him out of his chair—he didn’t resist, so I didn’t have to pull too hard.

“Come on,” I said grimly.

“Come where?” he asked.

“I have something you need to see.” I kept his hand in mine as I went back upstairs, ignoring the sounds of lingering pack members from the kitchen and living room.

“What is it?” Adam asked me.

I shook my head. “Wait.”

I took him into our bedroom and closed the door, letting go of his hand as I did so. I leaned an ear against the door.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He moved farther into the room, rubbing his neck tiredly.

“Making sure that there isn’t anyone to overhear,” I whispered.

He gave me a frown. “There isn’t anyone upstairs, Mercy. You and I can both tell that. What is this all about?”

I turned back to him. “For what I’m going to reveal to you,” I said seriously, “I want to be absolutely sure that we are alone.”

He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. He’d been stressed and exhausted before all hell had broken loose yesterday. Something needed to give before the invading werewolf pack was the least of our worries.

I pulled down the roller shades over the windows, explaining, “I don’t want my stalker to see or hear anything, either.”

“It’s daytime,” he said.

“I don’t trust daytime to stop Wulfe,” I said, half-seriously. “And I don’t want him to see this.”

He made a growling noise. “Mercy—”

I pulled my shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor. Unhooking my bra, I shrugged it off, too.

Adam went silent.

“I told you I had something to show you,” I murmured in what I hoped was a sexy purr.

I was not sexually brave—had not been even before my assault a while back. Without Adam, it was not unimaginable that I would never have opened up enough after that to even take a lover, let alone a mate. But resisting Adam was never in my cards—this morning, I hoped he felt the same way.

He didn’t say anything, nor could I read the expression on his face. Maybe he was suppressing what he felt—or maybe with the shades drawn to darken the room and his head bent to put his eyes even deeper into the shadows, I just couldn’t see him well enough to interpret his expression.

My heart was in my mouth and I was too . . . “frightened” was not quite the right word, but it was fear that kept my breathing shallow. Fear of rejection. Fear that whatever had him all but strangling our mating bond would stop him from taking up my invitation—and what that would mean about our relationship going forward from this moment. So maybe “frightened” was exactly the right word.

Without a reaction from him, I had two choices.

First, I could grab my clothes and tell him I had to go to work—and it wouldn’t be a lie even though I had texted Tad during the meeting that I would not be in today until after lunch (along with a warning to watch his back because there were some interesting things happening).

My business didn’t need me to go into work this morning, but I would need a place to lick my wounds and the garage would do. If I lost my nerve here, I had a place to run.

My second choice was to keep braving on—and trust Adam not to leave me hanging out on a limb.

My fingers numb with terror, I unzipped my jeans. I didn’t say anything, because I was afraid that my voice would tell him that it wasn’t desire I was feeling—though while hauling him up the stairs my skin had been hot with anticipation.

I was risking my marriage.

Men couldn’t fake desire the way a woman could. Not that I could, and certainly no woman with a werewolf for a lover could fake it for long. But a man’s desire was obvious and unmistakable.

There were a dozen reasons floating around in my head, in my heart, for why Adam might not be interested. There were werewolves invading our territory. There was whatever had him putting up barriers between us. There was the fact that he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in however long. It was daytime and he should be getting ready for work.

And if he rejected me—however gently he did it—I would never find the courage to open up like this to him again.

There were tears gathering in my eyes at the thought of losing us, losing what we were. But I felt that it would say something equally bad about our relationship if I didn’t take this risk. So I tipped my head down and blinked hard as I slid my jeans and—the hell with it—switched my grip so my panties slid off my hips at the same time.

I couldn’t look at him as the cloth puddled on the carpet. I could barely breathe. I knew it was a balmy sixty-eight degrees in the room, but I felt like I was in an ice cave. Naked, I stepped away from my clothes and then stopped, forcing my hands to remain at my sides and not move to protect my bareness from his sight.

Adam had seen me naked before—but I don’t think I’d ever felt more vulnerable. Because this wasn’t about being naked in flesh—it was about risking myself to help him. Help us.

Possible disastrous story lines ran in my head as I stood there. I imagined him expressing his sadness that I had put him on the spot. I heard him tell me that this wasn’t the time for such a thing—that he’d made it clear that sex was off the table until he’d figured out whatever knotty problem his head was all tangled up in. Rapidly I conjured up failure, and imagining that was nearly as traumatic as the real thing might be.

I was seriously considering throwing up, when warm hands closed over my shoulders and Adam’s face pressed against my neck.

“Fucking hell,” Adam said about the same time I realized that my neck was damp with his tears. “I don’t deserve you, my love. I don’t deserve this, Mercy—but by God I will take it. I love you, too.”

And on his last word, our bond blazed open between us, but, in this moment, it conveyed only emotions, not thoughts. I didn’t know if opening the bond was intentional on his part, or if it was a product of his control slipping. Carried by that tie, the deluge of his emotions crashed through me, a complex mix of incredulousness (I had, by golly, surprised the heck out of him), exhaustion, and love before it was all consumed in a blaze of desire.

Sheer relief let my own tears, now quite out-of-date, fall down my face. Oh thank God, it had worked. There would be a tomorrow for us. I hadn’t screwed everything up even more than it already had been.

“Why are you cryin’, darlin’?” he asked me in a murmur—then stiffened a little, as if remembering the place he’d brought us to over the past few weeks.

“Fear,” I answered him honestly. “If you hadn’t touched me when you did, I was making a beeline to the bathroom so I could throw up.”

He laughed, as I meant him to. I didn’t ask why he’d been crying. Maybe he would think I hadn’t noticed. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. But today was to give him a safe space to be, work off some stress, then rest. He wasn’t in a place, I didn’t think, where honesty about what he was feeling outside this moment was going to do any of those things for him.

His strong hands were so very warm on my chilled skin. His arms, restrictively tight around my ribs, nonetheless let me breathe. I took a moment to take in his scent. The force of relief rushing through me temporarily short-circuited the arousal I would normally have felt naked and in my husband’s arms.

That was okay, though, because the touch of Adam’s fingers that ran with hot, slow possession from my shoulders, down my back, and around my butt would have been enough to spark passion from an icicle. His hard body, both familiar and more necessary for the time we had not touched, softened my stress-tensioned muscles.

“Shhh,” he whispered in my ear. “We’re good. We’re good.”

That hand on my butt lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he took us toward the bed—before diverting to a side table, where he set me down.

With the thin light streaming through the edges of the blinds, Adam slid to his knees without ever losing contact with my body and loved me with his mouth and hands until I forgot my grand scheme to get Adam to loosen up and give him some peace, no matter how temporary. I forgot everything except his touch. Adam was usually a generous lover, and today was no exception.

I lost track of time a bit, drowning in the heat he brought with him. The next thing I knew he was pushing inside me, the zipper of his jeans rough on my skin. He was hot and hard and mine.

I bit him on the neck, and he laughed, a husky, aroused sound that I hadn’t heard from him in far too long.

“You make this fun,” he said in a rough voice that contrasted with the smooth movement of his hips.

“Back atcha,” I managed, tight and full and wishing I could stay in this space for the rest of my life.

He moved again and I quit talking—but then so did he.

If his first acquiescence to my seduction was driven, as I thought it might have been, by his understanding of how hard it was for me to strip for him when I wasn’t sure how it would be received, there was no question of his need. When we both came, I was surprised in retrospect that the side table—sturdy as it was—had survived its encounter with us.

Adam picked me up again and took me to our bed. He looked at me sprawled languorously where he had put me and began stripping off his own clothes. Where I had jerked mine off in nervous rawness, he pulled his off slowly as his eyes—and other parts of his body—told me that he liked me naked on the bed. That was only fair because watching Adam remove his clothes was a treat I would never tire of.

He didn’t put any striptease in it, just a slow, predatory intent that made my heart, my eyes, and the rest of my insides pretty happy about it.

Werewolves, all of them, are hard-muscled because the wolf is a restless creature. Adam, though, considered staying in shape a thing of paramount importance—part of the need to protect those around him that made him an Alpha. His body was a weapon, like his guns, his knives, and his swords—and it would not fail him.

As a purely unintentional side effect, watching him pull off his shirt was very much like watching someone pull a sheet off a great work of art. Muscles bunched and slid as he dropped the shirt and took off his jeans and underwear.

“Mmm,” I said.

He smiled—and the tiredness around his eyes melted away. “Mmm back,” he said, putting a knee on the bed.

And after a while, with me lying on him like a sweaty limp noodle, he fell asleep. I lay very still to let him rest—and soon fell asleep, too.

Something was moving me around, sliding me across the sheets—but I was tired and buried my face in a pillow with an indignant and not-awake grunt. Warm hands on my rump hesitated. A big warm body—naked male body—pressed into my back.

“No?” he said.

I wiggled my hips in invitation, still mostly asleep.

His head moved next to mine. His mouth tickled my ear as he said, “Nudge.” And it wasn’t a question because he picked up my hips and slid inside.

I laughed, not because I was amused at anything—or at least not just because he amused me. I laughed because he made me happy. He gripped my hips and I joined the dance.

I woke up sore, rested, and frantic because one of the blinds was up and I could tell that it was well past noon. There was a note on the pillow next to me. Written on it in thick black Sharpie and pretty decent calligraphy was:

AND SO IS THE FATE OF ALL THOSE WHO AWAKEN THE NUDGE.

On the other side of the paper, in regular pen and Adam’s angular all-cap printing, was:

THANK YOU, SLEEPING BEAUTY. HEADING TO THE OFFICE. WAS AFRAID IF I WOKE YOU UP I WOULD NEVER GET OUT OF THE ROOM.

The effect of this morning’s exercise, a few hours of needed rest, and the note was that I smiled all the way through my shower. The hot water eased the edge of soreness nicely, and by the time I got out I was ready to go to work.

It had been a lovely cease-fire, but I knew that the morning had not solved anything except, maybe, given Adam some happiness and rest in the middle of an unknown battlefield. I would know when Adam had worked out whatever was bothering him because he would tell me—and he would open up our mating bond, which was once again shut as tightly as a drum.

I dressed and pulled out the phone to text Tad that I was on my way—and found I’d missed a phone call from Stefan last night. He hadn’t left me a message. There was also a text from Jesse: Out with friends—took Aiden with. My friends think he is cute—if they only knew :P Back for dinner. Dad was cheerful when he came down! Go you!

I felt my cheeks heat up. But I knew that seducing Adam in the middle of the day was not going to be a secret.

I texted Tad and started out—pausing at the spare bedroom where Renny had been installed. But the room was empty and the bed was made. I texted Mary Jo to see if everything was okay, though I expected that it was. Had there been more trouble, or had Renny not recovered as well as expected, I wouldn’t have been allowed to sleep in this late.

Mary Jo texted back: Renny’s fine. Headache. Sorry to have missed his own kidnapping. He doesn’t remember anything at all. Poor Renny.

There was no one home downstairs, either.

I found a note from Lucia on the table:

Took Joel out to check on the progress Adam’s contractor is making on our house.

Their house had been trashed when Joel had been cursed with the volcano spirit that kept him in dog form a large percentage of the time. It had taken him and Lucia a while to decide what to do about it.

Once the insurance policy kicked in, they finally hired Adam’s go-to contractor to fix their house. Until Joel had better control of his fiery half, they would have to stay with us at pack central because Aiden was able to stop it when Joel’s spirit decided to lose its cool. But they had options. They could rent the house out, sell it and buy another later, or just keep maintaining it empty and let it wait for Joel to recover.

Medea yowled at me and stropped my leg, broadcasting the information that no one had fed her. Cats lie, and I was pretty sure she was lying. But feeding her made me happy and made her happy.

Tad called as I was putting away her kibble.

“Nice to hear that you got some” was the first thing that he said.

I disconnected. My cheeks might be bright red, but I had a grin on my face. I had indeed. But that didn’t mean that I’d accept teasing without fighting back.

He called again and the first thing he said was “Jesse said her dad looked like the cat who ate the canary.” A pause.

I decided he was waiting for me to hang up again, so I didn’t.

“If you ask me if I’m a canary, you’d better sleep with your lights on,” I warned him.

He laughed. “Okay. So if you are coming to the shop anyway—the parts we’ve been waiting on are in, but they dropped them off at another garage over in Pasco by mistake. They can redeliver but it will take them two days. The other shop offered to drop them by tonight when they close down.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’ll pick them up.” I wrote down the address of the other shop. It would take me out of the way, but someone had to pick them up. And I was pretty hungry; I could stop at a fast-food place on the trip. “Do you want me to bring some food?”

“Mercy, it’s three in the afternoon,” he responded with stentorian disapproval.

I had been trying not to pay attention to the time.

“Okay,” I said. I would not apologize for being late, I thought, all but squirming in fresh embarrassment. I own the shop. If I don’t come in, no one will fire me. Which was sometimes hard to remember, since I’d worked for Zee for years before I bought the garage from him—and both he and Tad (more rarely) gave me orders instead of the other way around.

I locked the house and headed out to my car.

“Sorry,” I said despite myself.

Tad laughed. “Dad dropped by with an early lunch and stayed. If you get the parts here by four, we should be able to knock out those two cars that are waiting for them and we’ll be all caught up until the next disaster strikes.”

“Super,” I said. I paused by the door of my car and turned in a slow circle, inhaling slowly to give myself time to process the scents around me. No strange wolves. No jackrabbits. The scent of Wulfe lingered a bit, but it was an old scent. It was coming from the hood of my car. He’d spent some time sitting on it last night.

I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have done anything to it.

“Mercy?”

“Sorry, got distracted.”

“Are you all right?” he asked. “I got your warning—thank you, by the way, for being vague. I always appreciate vague warnings.” More seriously he said, “Jesse also said that something went down last night, but I’d have to ask you about it because she wasn’t sure what was top secret hush-hush and what wasn’t.”

“You talked to Jesse a lot today,” I said, suddenly struck.

“She stopped by with some friends—including that poor girl who can’t do anything but look at me, blush, and giggle. Unless Jesse just wanted to pass on her version of vague warnings, I don’t actually know why they stopped. I am very much afraid it was so the silly girl could giggle at me.”

He sounded exasperated. Yes, I thought, Jesse’s friend’s crush was doomed.

“I’ll fill you in when I get to the garage,” I said.

He growled at me.

“I have to go,” I told him. “The most advanced technology my car has is a tape deck and it doesn’t work. So I can’t talk and drive.”

“Mercy,” said Tad. “I have been really patient.”

I took another deep breath—still no strange werewolves, no jackrabbits, no fresh vampire scent. Yes, it was still daytime. Yes, vampires do not go out in the daytime. But as I’d told Adam, I wouldn’t trust the light of day to stop Wulfe. The wind was breezy—if there had been something around, I’d have smelled it. I popped open the car door and stuck my head in. No scents that shouldn’t be there.

So I told Tad, succinctly, about the werewolves and the possible escapee from Underhill. I left out Wulfe because it was as embarrassing as it was terrifying—and because I couldn’t see how it would impact Tad’s or Zee’s safety.

“Underhill put a gate to the Fair Lands in your backyard?” said Tad, sounding nonplussed. Behind him, I heard Zee say something in German about Underhill. I didn’t catch it all but it didn’t sound complimentary.

“Has to stay for a year and a day,” I told them—because Zee could hear what I was saying. His ears were nearly as good as mine, maybe better. “I don’t know how she managed it—or why she agreed to take it down at all.”

“Aiden is a member of your household,” said Tad.

“Yes?” I inquired. Aiden would never have allowed a door to Underhill so close to him if he could have prevented it. I believed that the same way I believed the sun would rise in the sky tomorrow.

“Oh, I don’t think he did anything on purpose,” Tad said. “She just used him to gain permission somehow. A polite ‘I wish I could see you more often’ might have done it. I’m a little surprised it didn’t happen sooner—but Aiden survived her reign for a long time. It probably took her a while to elicit exactly the right response.”

I thought about Aiden’s guilt. No doubt Tad was right.

“Well,” I said, “we knew he was dangerous when we invited him to stay.”

Zee said something. I could hear it quite clearly, but it was in German and I wasn’t up to translating anything that complex.

“Dad says he doesn’t remember a creature that fits your description or that was called a smoke demon or smoke beast—other than a Japanese spirit. And he can’t see what a Japanese demon—as in a being from a different plane of existence, not a Christian demon . . .” He paused and asked, “Sag mal Dad, hatte die alte katholische Kirche eigentlich Recht mit dem, was sie über Dämonen sagte?”

“Ja,” answered Zee. “Mehr oder weniger. Aber nicht auf die Weise, wie sie glaubten.”

“Huh,” said Tad. “That’s interesting.”

“Did he just confirm the existence of demons as espoused by the medieval Catholic church?” I asked.

They had it right, Zee had said. More or less. But not in the way they believed.

Those demons weren’t only the property of the medieval church—there were churches now that believed in them. Demon stories had appeared in the Bible and various apocrypha, too. But it had been the medieval church that had built castes and characters based upon the biblical references, cataloging and defining demons. And using the existence of demons to cement the church’s power.

I’d run into a demon once, but it hadn’t . . . I didn’t think it had been one of those.

“That’s off topic,” Tad said before I could ask for clarification. “Dad doesn’t know of anything that quite fits your jackrabbit. But it could be something that lived only in Underhill—and he didn’t go there much.”

A spate of German interrupted him.

“Though he says it could be that you just don’t know enough about it yet. Or it could be that he’s forgotten and it will take a while for him to remember. He’ll also ask around. If it is something that was imprisoned in Underhill—and it would be useful to know for certain—maybe Uncle Mike or some of the other fae will remember.”

“It would be useful,” I said. Thanking Zee was safe enough, I was sure, but it worried him that I might forget and thank some other fae. So I tried not to do it.

There was a hesitation and then Tad said, “Did Jesse talk to you about Gabriel’s note?”

“No. Did she talk to you?” I asked.

“She let me read it.” He swallowed. “Look, I think it helped Jesse, but now I’m worried about Gabriel.”

“When did he leave the letter?” I asked.

“He didn’t date it,” he told me. “But some of the things he said made it clear that he put it there the day he moved all of his stuff out.”

“He has a new girlfriend,” I told him. “As of two weeks after he left that letter.” Close to that by my reckoning.

Tad swore softly. “Bastard didn’t waste any time mending his heart.” I guess he wasn’t worried about Gabriel anymore.

“Heartbreak can be like that, boy,” said Zee heavily. “Healthy pain invites healing. Gabriel is a good boy; he’ll be a good man. Not all relationships that end are failures.”

Then his voice became brisk as if he’d embarrassed himself by being too sentimental. “Mercy, you will have to hurry to get the parts here in time for us to fix those cars. Otherwise they will have to wait until morning.”

“I have to hang up before I can get going,” I told them both. “Talk to you soon.”

I disconnected, got in my car, and drove.