"Sorry," I managed. "Sucks, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"You had this great plan. You'd weasel your way into my house and carefully seduce me. But you don't want to seduce me all that much. What you really want to do is cuddle, play, and tease." I grinned at him, and he must have been able to smell the relief pouring off me. "I'm not the love of your life; I'm your pack—and it's really ticking you off."
He said something really crude as he started the car—a nice Old English word.
I giggled and he swore again.
That he didn't really consider me his mate answered a lot of questions. And it told me that Bran, who was both the Marrok and Samuel's father, didn't know everything, even if he and everyone else thought he did. Bran was the one who told me Samuel's wolf had decided I was his mate. He'd been wrong: I was going to rub his nose in it next time I saw him.
Now I knew why Samuel been able to restrain himself and not attack Adam all these months. I'd been crediting Samuel's control with a dash of the magic that comes from being more dominant than most other wolves on the planet. The real answer was that I wasn't Samuel's mate. And since he was more dominant than Adam, if he didn't want to fight, it would make it much easier for Adam to hold off.
Samuel didn't want me any more than I wanted him—not that way. Oh, the physical stuff was there, plenty of spark and fizzle. Which was puzzling.
"Hey, Sam," I asked. "Why is it, if you don't want me as a mate, that when you kiss me, I go up in flames?" Why was it that after the first rush of relief was over—I was starting to feel miffed that he didn't actually want me as a mate?
"If I were human, the heat between us would be enough," he told me. "Damned wolf feels sorry for you and decided to step down."
Now that made no sense at all. "Excuse me?"
He looked at me and I realized he was still angry, his eyes glittering with icy fury. Samuel's wolf has snow-white eyes that are freaking scary in a human face.
"Why are you still angry?"
He pulled over on the shoulder of the highway and stared at the lights of Home Depot. "Look, I know my father spends a lot of time trying to convince the new wolves that the human and wolf are two halves of a whole—but that's not really true. It is just easier to live with and most of the time it's so close to being the truth that it doesn't matter. But we're different, the wolf and the human. We think differently."
"Okay," I said. I could kind of understand that. There were plenty of times when my coyote instincts fought against what I needed to do.
He closed his eyes. "When you were about fourteen and I realized what a gift had been dropped in my lap, I showed you to the wolf and he approved. All I had to do was convince you—and myself." He turned to look me squarely in the eyes and he reached out and touched my face. "For a true mating, it isn't necessary for the human half to even like your mate. Look at my father. He despises his mate, but his wolf decided that he had been alone long enough." He shrugged. "Maybe it was right, because when Charles's mother died, I thought my father would die right along with her."
Everyone knew how much Bran had loved his Indian mate. I think that was part of what made Leah, Bran's current mate, a little crazy.
"So it is the wolf who mates," I said. "Carrying the man along for the ride whether he wants to or not?"
He smiled. "Not quite that bad—except maybe in my father's case, though he's never said anything against Leah. He never would, nor permit anyone else to say anything against her in his hearing either. But we weren't talking about him."
"So you set your wolf on me," I said, "when I was fourteen."
"Before anyone else could claim you. I was not the only old wolf in my father's pack. And fourteen was not an uncommon age for marriage in older days. I couldn't chance a prior claim." He rolled down the window to let the cooler night air flush the stuffy car. The noise of the traffic zipping past us increased dramatically. "I waited," he whispered. "I knew you were too young but…" He shook his head. "When you left, it was a just punishment. We both knew it, the wolf and I. But one moon I found myself outside of Portland where the wolf had taken us. The need…we went all the way to Texas to make sure there was no chance of an accidental meeting. Without distance…I don't know that I could have let you leave."
So, Bran had been right about Samuel after all. I couldn't bear the closed-off look on his face and I put my hand over his.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"You shouldn't be. It wasn't your fault." His smile changed to a lopsided grin as his hand gripped mine almost painfully tight. "Usually things work out better. The wolf is patient and adaptable. Mostly he waits until your human half finds someone to love and then he claims her, too. Sometimes years after they marry. I did it backward on purpose and got caught in the backlash. Not your fault. I knew better."
There's something really disturbing about finding out how little you really know about something you felt like you were an expert on. I grew up with the wolves—and this was all news to me.
"But your wolf doesn't want me now?" That came out pretty pathetic sounding. I didn't need his laugh to tell me so.
"Jerk," I said, poking him.
"Here I thought you were above all that girl stuff," he said. "You don't want me as your mate, Mercy, so why are you miffed that my wolf finally admitted defeat?"
If he'd known how much that last statement told me about how hurt he was that I'd rejected him, I think he'd have bitten off his tongue. Was it better to talk about it—or just let it pass by?
Hey, I may be a mechanic and I may not use makeup very often, but I'm still a girl: it was time to talk it out.
I nudged him. "I love you."
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned sideways so he could see me without twisting his neck. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. And you're hot—and a terrific kisser. And if your father hadn't interfered, I'd have run away with you all those years ago."
The smile slid off his face, and I couldn't tell what he was feeling at all. Not with my eyes or my nose—which is usually a better indicator. Maybe he was feeling as confused as I was.
"But I'm different now, Samuel. I've been taking care of myself too long to be happy letting anyone else do it. The girl you knew was sure that you would make a place for her to belong—and you would have." I had to say this right. "Instead I made a place for myself and the process changed me into who I am now. I'm not the kind of person you'd be happy with, Samuel."
"I'm happy with you," he said stubbornly.
"As a roommate," I told him. "As a packmate. As a mate mate you'd be unhappy."
He laughed then. "A mate mate?"
I waved an airy hand. "You know what I mean."
"And you're in love with Adam," he said quietly, then a little humor crept into his voice. "You'd better not flirt with that geek in front of Adam."
I raised my chin; I was not going to feel guilty. Nor did I understand my feelings for Adam well enough to discuss them tonight.
"And you're not in love with me." I realized something more and it made me grin at Samuel. "Wolf or not, you aren't in love with me—otherwise you wouldn't have been getting such a charge out of teasing Adam all this time."
"I was not teasing Adam," he said, offended. "I was courting you."
"Nope," I said, settling back in my chair. "You were tormenting Adam."
"I was not." He started the car and pulled out aggressively into the traffic.
"You're speeding," I told him smugly.
He turned his head to say something to put me in my place, but just then the cop behind us lit up.
We were almost home when he decided to quit being offended.
"All right," he said, relaxing his hands on the steering wheel. "All right."
"I don't know what you were so mad about," I said. "You didn't even get a ticket. Twenty miles an hour over the speed limit and all you got was a warning. Must be nice being a doctor."
Once the cop had recognized him, she'd been all kinds o
f nice. He'd apparently treated her brother after a car wreck.
"There are a couple of cops whose cars I take care of," I murmured. "Maybe if I flirted with them, they'd—"
"I was not flirting with her," he ground out.
He wasn't usually so easy. I settled in for some real fun.
"She was certainly flirting with you, Dr. Cornick," I said, even though she hadn't been. Still…
"She was not flirting with me either."
"You're speeding again."
He growled.
I patted his leg. "See, you didn't want to be stuck with me for a mate."
He slowed as the highway dumped us in Kennewick and we had to travel on city streets for a while.
"You are horrible," he said.
I smirked. "You accused me of flirting with Tim."
He snorted. "You were flirting. Just because I didn't take him apart doesn't mean you aren't fishing in dangerous waters, Mercy. If it had been Adam with you tonight, that boy would be feeding the fishes—or the wolves. And I am not kidding."
I patted his leg again and took a deep breath. "I didn't mean to let it be a flirtation, I just got caught up in the conversation. I should have been more careful with a vulnerable boy like him."
"He isn't a boy. If he's five years younger than you, I'd be surprised."
"Some people are boys longer than others," I told him. "And that boy and his friend were both in O'Donnell's house not too long before he was killed."
I told Samuel the whole story, from the time Zee picked me up until I'd taken the paper from Tim. If I left anything out, it was because I didn't think it was important. Except, I didn't tell him that Austin Summers was probably the brother of one of the boys who beat up on Jesse. Samuel's temper might be easier than Adam's—but he'd kill both boys without a shred of remorse. In his world, you didn't beat up girls. I'd come up with a suitable punishment, but I didn't think anyone needed to die over it. Not as long as they quit bothering Jesse.
That was the only thing I left out. Both Zee and Uncle Mike had left me to my own devices in this investigation. Okay, they'd told me not to investigate, which amounted to the same thing. Proceeding without any help from the fae made investigating riskier than it would have otherwise been, and Zee was already mad at me for sharing what I had. More wouldn't make him any madder. The time for keeping their secrets strictly to myself was over.
If there was one thing I'd learned over the past few interesting (in the sense of the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times") months, it was that when things started to get dangerous, it was important to have people who knew as much as you did. That way, when I stupidly got myself killed—someone would have a starting place to look for my murderer.
By the time I was finished telling him everything, we were sitting in the living room drinking hot chocolate.
The first thing Samuel said was, "You have a real gift for getting into trouble, don't you? That was one thing I forgot when you left the pack."
"How is any of this my fault?" I asked hotly.
He sighed. "I don't know. Does it matter whose fault it is once you're sitting in the middle of the frying pan?" He gave me a despairing look. "And as my father used to point out, you find your way into that frying pan way too often for it to be purely accidental."
I put aside the urge to defend myself. For over a decade I'd managed to keep to myself, living as a human on the fringe of werewolf society (and that only because, at the Marrok's request, Adam decided to interfere with my life even before he built a house behind mine). It was Adam's trouble that had started everything. Then I'd owed the vampires for helping me with Adam's problems. Clearing that up had left me indebted to the fae.
But I was tired, I had to get up and work tomorrow—and if I started explaining myself, it would be hours before we got back to a useful discussion.
"So, finding myself in the frying pan once again, I came to you for advice," I prodded him. "Like maybe you can tell me why neither Uncle Mike nor Zee wanted to talk about the sea man or how there happened to be a forest and an ocean—a whole ocean—tucked neatly into a backyard and a bathroom. And if any of that could have something to do with O'Donnell's death."
He looked at me.
"Oh, come on," I said. "I saw your face when I told you about the funny things that happened in the rez. You're Welsh, for heaven's sake. You know about the fae."
"You're Indian," he said in a falsetto that I think was supposed to be an imitation of me. "You know how to track animals and build fires with nothing but sticks and twigs."
I gave him a haughty stare. "Actually, I do. Charles—another Indian—taught me."
He waved his hand at me; I recognized the gesture as one of mine. Then he laughed. "All right. All right. But I'm not an expert on the fae just because I'm Welsh."
"So explain that 'ah-ha' expression on your face when I told you about the forest."
"If you went Underhill, you just confirmed one of Da's theories about what the fae are doing with their reservations."
"What do you mean?"
"When the fae first proposed that the government put them on reservations, my father told me he thought that they might be trying to set up territories like they once had in Great Britain and parts of Europe, before the Christians came and started ruining their places of power by building chapels and cathedrals. The fae didn't value their anchors in this world because their magic works so much better Underhill. They didn't defend their places until it was too late. Da believes the last gate to Underhill disappeared in the middle of the sixteenth century, cutting them off from a great deal of their power."
"So they've made new anchors," I said.
"And found Underhill again." He shrugged. "As for not talking about the sea fae…well, if he were dangerous and powerful…you're not supposed to speak about things like that, or name them—it may attract their attention."
I thought about it a moment. "I can see why they'd want to keep it quiet if they've found some way to regain some of their power. So does it have anything to do with figuring out who killed O'Donnell? Did he find out about it? Or was he stealing? And if so, what did he steal?"
He gave me a considering look. "You're still trying to find the killer, even though Zee is being a bastard?"
"What would you do if, in order to defend you from some trumped-up charge, I told a lawyer that you were the Marrok's son?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Surely telling her that there were killings in the reservation doesn't compare?"
I shrugged unhappily. "I don't know. I should have checked with him, or with Uncle Mike, before I told anyone anything."
He frowned at me, but didn't argue anymore.
"Hey," I said with a sigh, "since we're friends and pack now, instead of potential mates, do you suppose you could loan me enough to pay Zee what I owe him for the garage?" Zee didn't make threats. If he told his lawyer to tell me that he expected repayment, he was serious. "I can pay you back on the same schedule I was paying him. That will get you paid off, with interest, in about ten years."
"I'm sure we can arrange something," Samuel said kindly, as if he understood that my change of subject was because I couldn't stand to talk about Zee and my stupidity anymore. "You've got a pretty solid line of credit with me—and Da, for that matter, whose pockets are a lot deeper. You look beat. Why don't you go to sleep?"
"All right," I said. Sleep sounded good. I stood up and groaned as the thigh muscle I'd abused at karate practice yesterday made its protest.
"I'm going out for a minute or two," he said a little too casually—and I stopped walking toward my bedroom.
"Oh, no, you're not."
His eyebrows met his hairline. "What?"
"You are not going to tell Adam that I'm his for the taking."
"Mercy." He stood up, strode over to me, and kissed me on the forehead. "You can't do a damned thing about what I do or don't do. It's between me and Adam."
He left, closing the door gently behin
d him. Leaving me with the sudden, frightening knowledge that I'd just lost my best defense against Adam.
CHAPTER 8
My bedroom was dark, but I didn't bother to turn on the light. I had worse things to worry about than the dark.
I headed for the bathroom and took a hot shower. By the time the water had cooled and I got out, I knew a couple of things. First, I was going to have just a little time before I had to face Adam. Otherwise he'd already have been waiting for me and my bedroom was empty. Second, I couldn't do anything about Adam or Zee until tomorrow, so I might as well go to sleep.
I combed out my hair and blow-dried it until it was only damp. Then I braided it so I could comb it out in the morning.
I pulled back my covers, knocking the stick that had been resting on top of them to the ground. Before Samuel moved in, I used to sleep without covers in the summer. But he kept the air-conditioning turned down until there was a real chill in the air, especially at night.
I climbed into bed, pulled the covers up under my chin, and closed my eyes.
Why was there a stick on my bed?
I sat up and looked at the walking stick lying on the floor. Even in the dark I knew it was the same stick I'd found at O'Donnell's. Careful not to step on it, I got out of bed and turned on the light.
The gray twisty wood lay innocuously on the floor on top of a gray sock and a dirty T-shirt. I crouched down and touched it gingerly. The wood lay hard and cool under my fingertips, without the wash of magic it had held in O'Donnell's house. For a moment it felt like any other stick, then a faint trace of magic pulsed and disappeared.
I searched out my cell phone and called the number Uncle Mike had been calling me from. It rang a long time before someone picked it up.
"Uncle Mike's," a not so cheerful stranger's voice answered, barely understandable amid a cacophony of heavy metal music, voices, and a sudden loud crash, as if someone had dropped a stack of dishes. "Merde. Clean that up. What do you want?"
I assumed that only the last sentence was directed at me.
"Is Uncle Mike there?" I asked. "Tell him it's Mercy and that I have something he might be interested in."
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