"At least you made it to the loo this time," Ben said prosaically. And then, just so I could be absolutely sure it was really him and not some kinder, nicer clone, he said, without affection, "Good thing, too. We are almost out of sheets."
"Happy to oblige," I managed before heaving up some more—so hard it came burning out my nose as well as my mouth. By the time I finished, I'd have been crying on the floor if the idea of doing that in front of Ben hadn't been so repugnant.
He waited until it became apparent that getting to the bathroom was as good as I was going to manage before he sighed and heaved me up with more effort than I knew he felt. He was a werewolf; he could probably pick up a piano. My weight wasn't enough to make him sweat.
He tucked me back in the sheets with surprising efficiency. "The fae told us you'd sleep a lot for a while. The vomiting surprised her, though. Probably something to do with your resistance to magic and how much of the stuff you had. Best thing for you is sleep." He paused. "Unless you're hungry."
I turned my head out from the pillow far enough that he could see my face.
He smirked. "Yeah, well, I'm not excited about cleaning up another mess either."
It was still dark out the next time I woke up so it wasn't too much later. I lay unmoving as long as I could. I knew Ben was still in the room and I didn't want to attract his attention. I didn't want anyone to look at me.
Without nausea to distract me, the events of the evening, those that I remembered clearly anyway, rolled through my head like an Ed Wood movie: so horrible that you can't force yourself to stop watching. Worse, I could smell it on me. The fairy liquor, blood…and Tim. The worst was knowing what I had done…and what I hadn't.
In the end, I crawled out of bed and slunk on my hands and knees to the bathroom door. I kept my eyes lowered so Ben would know that I understood what I'd done.
He got to the door before me and held it open. I hesitated. Protocol would have me roll over and give him my throat and underbelly…but I couldn't stand to be that vulnerable again. Not right now. Maybe if it were Adam.
"Poor little bitch," he said softly. "Go get cleaned up. I'll keep the villains at bay for that long."
He shut the door behind me.
I stood on shaky feet and turned the water to hot. I stripped off the clothing and scrubbed and scrubbed, but I couldn't get rid of the smells. Finally I came out and searched through Adam's cabinets. I found three bottles of cologne, but none of them smelled like him.
Finally I splashed his aftershave on instead. It burned on the healing cuts and scrapes I'd picked up off the cement floor of the garage, but it covered up Tim's scent at last.
I couldn't put on the clothes I'd just taken off because they still smelled like…everything. Even though the shirt smelled only of Adam and the underwear was a clean pair of mine and I was pretty sure that someone had scrubbed me up before they put me in them since I remember being covered with blood…
As soon as the thought occurred, I remembered standing in Adam's shower and Honey's voice in my ear. You'll be fine. Let me just get this stuff off you—
I began to hyperventilate so I grabbed a towel and breathed through it until the panicky feeling went away.
So, no clothes, and I couldn't stay in here much longer before someone came in to check.
No one would ask the coyote questions she couldn't answer.
For a frightening moment I wasn't sure I could shift, when shifting had always been second nature.
You need to stay human, Mercy. We're in the hospital and you need to stay with us just a little longer. Samuel's voice.
I didn't care about police and this wasn't the hospital. Fur slid over my skin at last and my fingernails turned to claws. It took longer than it ever had, but in the end I stood on four paws. I whined to myself because I still didn't want to go out.
The door opened before I could figure out any alternative, which was just as well as there were no good hiding places in the bathroom—not even for a coyote.
Ben sniffed. "Aftershave? Good enough. Someone had time to run some sheets through the wash, and I put them on the bed. So the sheets are clean."
I realized I was looking up into his face and dropped my gaze and tucked my tail.
"Like that, eh?" he said. "Mercy…" He sighed. "Never mind. Come on, then. Get back to bed."
I didn't need to sleep, but I curled up in the clean sheets and waited for Ben to leave so I could go…somewhere. I couldn't go home because Samuel was there and he knew.
Everyone knew and Tim was right: I was going to be alone.
I should go swimming…but that wasn't right. My foster father had done that. No, I would never kill myself, never do to someone else what he had done to me.
After a while the door opened and Adam came in. He must not have had time to wash properly, because he still smelled faintly of Tim's blood and the stuff Tim had made me drink. I'd thrown up on him, I remembered with regrettable clarity.
"Zee's being released as soon as they can get the paperwork through," Adam said. He must have been talking to Ben because I was pretending very hard to be asleep. He didn't say anything more for a minute, as if he were waiting for some response. Then he sighed. "I'm going to shower. When I come out, you can take a break."
Ben waited for the shower to start before he began talking. "I don't know how much you remember. That fae, Nemane, was going to take her fairy things and leave before the police got there, but Adam thought that her part of the story was necessary to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gremlin was innocent. And that you had reason to kill Tim. So he showed her the video the security cameras caught and she changed her mind and gave us a couple of things to prove your innocence. She was very impressed that you fought your way free of the goblet's influence."
I pulled my tail tighter over my face. I hadn't fought, not until the very last. I'd let Tim…I'd wanted him. For a moment I felt the pull of his beauty, just as I had then.
"Shh," Ben said with a nervous look at the bathroom. "You have to be quiet. He's on edge right now and we don't want to send him over."
I didn't want to hear any more. Zee was free. Tomorrow I'd be very happy for it. He could take the shop back in lieu of my payment. I'd find somewhere else to go. Mexico, maybe. They had lots of Volkswagens in Mexico. Lots of coyotes, too. Maybe I'd just stay a coyote.
Unaffected by my attitude, Ben continued. "Turns out your Tim killed his best buddy yesterday before you went to his house. At least that's what we think." Even in my current state I realized that his speech was missing its usual heavy dosing of foul language. Maybe he was worried about Adam, who disapproved of swearing in front of women. I lost my curiosity about it, though, when I understood what he was saying. "Austin Summers walked into the river and drowned himself. Some old man saw him do it and said he was smiling. He tried to save him, but Austin just kept swimming and then dove. Never came up. They found his body a few miles downstream. No one knew why until the fae showed them how the cup worked and they watched the video. It was nice of Timmy-boy to confess."
Austin knew too much, I thought. He must have known something about the artifacts, and once Tim learned that I knew about them, and might have told other people, Austin was too much of a liability. It hadn't been all my fault, though.
Tim was jealous of Austin and hated him for being so good at everything. He would have killed Austin sooner or later. It wasn't my fault. Not completely.
Ben pulled the edge of the blanket over me and sat on the edge of the mattress. "We showed the cops the video, too. Don't worry, your change was off camera. No one knows you're a coyote. Adam also picked the camera shots that didn't show any of us werewolves except for him. He's pretty fast with that computer of his." I heard professional approval in his voice: Ben was employed as a hotshot computer geek and he was apparently good at his job.
"Adam was going to go with the police anyway," he continued. "He had to since Nemane put him in charge of the artifacts—but the polic
e were kinda freaked out about the condition of old Tim's body. There was no danger they'd keep him—not with the clear evidence that you killed him. But Adam didn't fuss. Truth to tell, I think that Adam was freaked, too. They, ah" — a sudden, satisfied smile was in his voice—"requested very nicely that he come with them to the police station with the video. Warren went, too, just in case the police decided to give Adam a bad time. All in all, it's a good thing that Tim was already dead when we happened on the scene, or Adam might have been kept more than a few hours."
"Not so," Adam said from the bathroom. He turned off the shower. "I'd rather have gotten there a lot sooner and taken the consequences with the police."
Ben stilled on the bed, but when Adam didn't say any more, he relaxed a little.
I shouldn't have taken Tim to my garage. Surely I could have figured out some other way. I'd been running to Adam for help again, just as if I hadn't brought Fideal to his door yesterday and endangered his home, his pack, and his daughter. If it hadn't been for Peter, Honey's sword-wielding husband, they might not have been able to drive him off. Adam might have been killed.
If Adam had been closer to my shop when I used my birthday on the keypad to call for help, if he'd killed Tim…I hadn't even considered the risks. I'd just known that Adam would come and save me from my own stupidity. Again.
Adam came out of the bathroom dressed in clean jeans and nothing else, rubbing his short-cropped hair with a towel. He dropped it on the floor and knelt beside the bed. Ben slipped off and went to stand by the window.
Adam's face was drawn with worry and weariness.
"I'm sorry," he said tiredly. "I'm so sorry that I forced you. I told you I'd try not to do that and I broke my word."
He reached out to touch me and I couldn't bear it. Couldn't bear that he'd apologize to me when I'd endangered him. When I'd betrayed him.
I slid out from under his hand before he could touch me and cowered on the far side of the bed. His face was very still as he let his hand drop to his side.
"I see," he said. "I'm sorry, Ben, you'll have to stay here a few more minutes. I'll find Warren and send him up."
"Don't be stupid, Adam."
Adam came to his feet and took two long strides to the door. "She's afraid of me. I'll send someone else up."
He shut the door very quietly behind him.
Ben stood in the middle of the room and used all the words he'd left out when he'd been speaking to me earlier. With a jerky motion, he pulled his cell phone out of the front pocket of his jeans and hit a button.
"Warren," he said, his voice tight, "would you tell our lord and master to get his arse back up here? I have a few things to tell him."
He closed his phone without waiting for an answer and began to pace restlessly back and forth muttering swearwords to himself. He'd begun to sweat and it smelled of anxiety and anger.
The door swung open and Adam loomed in the open doorway. He was so angry I came to my feet.
"Come in and shut the door," Ben said harshly, in a voice he really shouldn't have used to his Alpha.
Without glancing in my direction, Adam came in and shut the door with awful precision that was a strong indication of how close he was to losing control—if the way the brass doorknob deformed in his hand hadn't already been a clue.
As Adam walked to the middle of the room, I sank on the bed, not so much lying down as gathering my feet underneath me in preparation for running.
Ben didn't seem to notice how much trouble he was in. Or maybe he didn't care. "How much do you want her?" Unable to meet Adam's hot glare, he turned and stared out the window. "Do you want her enough to put aside your worries and hurt?"
There was something in Ben's voice…Adam heard it, too. He didn't exactly cool down, but he was paying attention. A different Alpha, one less sure of himself, would have already put Ben in his place.
Ben hadn't paused as he continued to talk in a quick, nervous voice. "If you handle this right, tomorrow, next week…she's probably going to be all pissy by then about how you forced her to drink that fairy shit. She'll take off a door from that old car out there—that old car that makes sure you always think about her even when you're cursing at her for spoiling your view." He looked at me and I dropped my ears. Adam's eyes weren't the only ones that had gone wolf. Before I could back away from him, Ben turned his attention to Adam.
As if they were equals, Ben took two steps forward and I saw that he was actually taller than Adam. "An hour and a half ago she was still puking that fairy shit that you and Mr. Wonderful poured down her throat. You heard Nemane. She said it would be a while before the effects wore off completely. And you are still holding her responsible for what she does."
Adam growled, but I could tell he was trying to hold on to his control and listen. After a moment he asked, "What do you mean?" in a fairly civilized voice.
"You're treating her like a rational being and she's still off in Fairyland." Ben was breathing hard and that stink of fear was growing—making it more difficult for Adam to control himself. But that didn't slow Ben down. "Do you love her?"
"Yes." There was no hesitation in his voice. None at all. And yet he'd seen…he must not have seen, must not have realized…
"Then put aside your goddamned self-loathing and look at her."
Golden eyes settled on me, and unable to meet Adam's gaze, I turned my own eyes to the wall as my stomach twisted uneasily.
"She's afraid of me."
"That stupid bitch has never had the brains to be afraid of you, me, or anyone else," Ben snapped with more force than truth. "Forget yourself and take another fucking look. You're supposed to be able to read body posture."
I didn't see it, but I heard Adam quit breathing for a moment.
"Damn," he said in an arrested voice.
"She crawled," Ben said. There were tears in his voice. That was wrong. Ben barely even tolerated me on the best of days. "She crawled to the bathroom to clean herself again. If it weren't for the two subs in the pack, I'd be on the bottom. And she wouldn't stand up in my presence for guilt."
Unable to take the scrutiny anymore, I slunk off the bed entirely and hid between the wall and the mattress.
"No, wait. Leave her alone for a minute and listen to me. She's safe enough there."
"I'm listening." All that anger had been swallowed until the only emotion I could smell in the room was Ben's.
"A rape victim…a rape victim who fights…They've been violated, made helpless and afraid. It breaks their confidence in the safety of their little world. It makes them afraid." Terror and anger and something else pushed Ben until he paced all the way to the bathroom and then back to the bed in quick, frantic steps.
"All right," agreed Adam in a gentle voice, as if he understood something I'd missed. Not surprising. After Ben pointed it out, I realized that I wasn't exactly firing on all four cylinders.
"If—if you don't fight. If the rapist is someone you're supposed to obey so you can't fight or don't think you can fight or they've drugged you so you…" Ben stuttered to a halt and then swore. "I'm making a muddle of this."
"I understand." Adam's voice was a caress.
"Fine then." Ben stopped pacing. "Fine. If you don't fight, it's not quite the same. If they make you help, make you cooperate, then it's not clear to you anymore. Is it rape? You feel dirty, violated, and guilty. Most of all guilty because you should have fought. Especially if you're Mercy and you fight everything." Ben's breathing was rough, his voice pleading. "You've got to see it from her point of view."
I crawled all the way under the bed until, still hidden in a fall of blankets, I could see their faces.
"Tell me."
"Samuel told you…told us that she'd flirted with that one. She hadn't meant to, but you don't always see it until it happens. Right?"
"Right," Adam agreed.
"Samuel said he told her that she better not do that in front of you."
He waited for Adam's nod to continue. "But she ne
eds to help her friend and that means going to this man's house. It's all right, though, because there will be a lot of other people and she won't flirt because she knows that it's a danger. And she doesn't flirt. She behaves just like an interested guest—which is going to piss him off at her."
"How do you know she didn't flirt?" Adam asked, then in response to something I hadn't caught, he moved a hand in a negating manner. "No, I don't doubt you. But how do you know?"
"It's Mercy," Ben said simply. "She wouldn't know how to betray someone she cared about. Once she noticed, she'd stop and not start again."
He kept his gaze on Adam's face, but his head was canted so he was looking up into the Alpha's eyes rather than challenging him. "But she knows that she's skirting the line. She knows that you wouldn't like it that she went to his house…not that she's done anything wrong…but it feels that way." He started pacing again, but he'd calmed down. Now that he was talking about me. "I don't know why she went back again. Maybe he tells her that he knows who killed Zee, or that he knows something about O'Donnell or the stuff that was stolen. He would know, wouldn't he? He lured her to his house because he thought she posed a danger to him—or maybe just because he knew she had that damned walking stick that followed her around and he wanted it. Or maybe he just wanted to get even with her for rejecting him."
"Right."
"Right. So she knows that you won't like it if she goes back. She knows that you'll be all territorial about her going to a man's home even if she's just trying to keep Zee safe. Did you know that until a couple of days ago, she thought that your declaring her your mate was just politics? Just a way to keep her safe from the pack?"
There was a little silence.
"Honey told me that last night. She explained to Mercy that it was a little more. So Mercy learned more than you intended her to."
"Pressure makes her run in the other direction," Adam said dryly. "I thought I'd wait to explain until matters became critical."
"So she knows that it's more than words. She knows that your declaration makes you vulnerable."
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