When I put mine in it, he closed his eyes and… I felt a trickle of life, warmth, and health dribbling from his hand to mine. It felt like a hug on a summer's day, laughter, and sweet honey.
I spread out into it through him, sliding into something I just knew were warm depths that would surround me with—
But the pack didn't want me. And the minute the thought crossed my mind, the trickle dried up—and Adam jerked his hand back with a hiss of pain that brought me up to my knees. I reached out to touch him, then pulled my hand back so I didn't hurt him again.
"Adam?"
"Stubborn," he said with an appraising look. "I got bits and pieces from you, though. We don't love you, so you won't take anything from us?" The question in his voice was self-addressed, as if he weren't quite sure of his analysis.
I sat back down on my heels, caught by the accuracy of his reading.
"Instincts drive the wolf… coyote, too, I imagine," he told me after a moment. He looked relaxed, one knee up and the other stretched out just to the side of me. "Truth is without flourishes or manners and runs with a logic all its own. You can't let the pack give without giving in return, and if we don't want your gift…"
I didn't say anything. I didn't understand how the pack worked, but the last part was right. After a bit, he said, "It's inconvenient sometimes to be a part of the pack. When the pack magic is in full swing—like now with the moon close to her zenith—there's no hiding everything from each other all the time like we do as humans. Some things, yes, but we can't chose which ones stay safely secret. Paul knows I'm still angry with him over his attack on Warren, and it makes him cringe—which just makes me angrier because it's not remorse for trying to attack Warren when he was hurt but fear of my anger."
I stared at him.
"It's not all bad," he told me. "It's knowing who they are, what's important to them, what makes them different. What strengths they each contribute to the pack."
He hesitated. "I'm not sure how much you'll get. If I want to, at full moon in wolf form, I can read everyone almost always—that's part of being Alpha. It allows me to use the individuals to build a pack. Most of the pack get bits and pieces, mostly things that concern them or big things." He gave me a little smile. "I didn't know that bringing you into the pack would work at all, you know. I couldn't have done it with a human mate, but you are always an unknown." He looked at me intently. "You knew Mary Jo had been hurt."
I shook my head. "No. I knew someone had been hurt—but I didn't know it was Mary Jo until I saw her."
"Okay," he said, encouraged by my answer. "It shouldn't be bad for you then. Unless you need them, or they need you, the pack will just be… a shield at your back, warmth in the storm. Our mate bond—when it settles down—will probably add a little oddity to it."
"What do you mean 'when it settles down'?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "Hard to explain." He gave me an amused look. "When I was learning how to be a wolf, I asked my teacher what mating felt like. He told me it was different for different couples—and being Alpha adds a twist to it as well."
"So you don't know?" Because that wasn't an answer—and Adam didn't evade questions. He answered or told you he wasn't going to.
"I do now," he said. "Our bond" — he made a gesture with his hand indicating something in the small space in the bathroom that lay between us—"feels to me like a bridge, like the suspension bridge over the Columbia. It has foundations and the cables and all that it needs to be a bridge, but it doesn't span the river yet." He looked at my face and grinned. "I know it sounds stupid, but you asked. Anyway, if all you felt when Mary Jo was dying was that someone was hurt, that you caught the few who don't welcome you as part of our pack is my fault. You felt them through me. On your own, you won't even be aware of it unless certain conditions are met. Things like proximity, how open you are to the pack, and if the moon is full." He grinned. "Or how grumpy you are with them."
"So if I don't feel it, it shouldn't matter if they don't want me?"
He gave me a neutral look. "Of course it matters—but it won't be shoved down your throat every minute of the day. Mostly, I expect you'll know the ones who don't want a coyote in the pack. As Warren knows the wolves who hate what he is more than what he does." Briefly, sorrow lit his eyes for Warren's trials, but he kept speaking. "Just as Darryl knows the wolves who resent being given orders by a black man made uppity by a good education." He smiled, just a little. "You aren't alone, most people are prejudiced about something. But you know, after a while the edges wear down. You know who hated Darryl the most when he joined us, way back when we were still in New Mexico?"
I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.
"Aurielle. She thought he was an arrogant, self-important snob."
"Which he is," I observed. "But he's also smart, quick, and given to small kindnesses when no one is watching."
"So," he nodded. "We are none of us perfect, and as pack, we learn to take these imperfections and make them only a small part of who we are. Let us bring you truly into our shelter, Mercedes. And the wolves who resent you will deal with it as you will deal with the ones you don't like, for whatever reason.
I think, with the healing you have already done on your own, the pack can help stop your panic attacks."
"Ben's rude," I said, considering it.
"See, you already know most of us," Adam said. "And Ben adores you. He doesn't quite know how to deal with it yet. He's not used to liking anyone… and liking a woman…"
"Ish," I said, deadpan.
"Let's try again," he suggested, and put out his hand.
This time when I touched him, all I felt was skin and calluses, no warmth, no magic.
He tilted his head and evaluated me sternly. "It's hard to argue with instinct, even with reason and logic, isn't it? May I knock?"
"What?"
"May I see if I can touch you first? Maybe that'll allow you to open to the pack."
It sounded harmless enough. Warily, I nodded… and I felt him, felt his spirit or something, touch me. It wasn't like when I'd called Stefan. That had been as intimate as talking was—not very much. Adam's touch reminded me more of the presence I felt sometimes in church—but this was unmistakably Adam and not God.
And because it was Adam, I let him in, accepting him into my secret heart. Something settled into place with a rightness that rang in my soul. Then the floodgates opened.
THE NEXT TIME I WAS CONSCIOUS OF ANYTHING REAL, I was back in Adam's lap but on his bedroom floor instead of in the bathroom. A number of the pack surrounded us and stood with their hands linked. My head hurt like the one and only time I'd gotten truly drunk, only much worse.
"We're going to have to work on your filtering skills, Mercy," said Adam, his voice sounding a little rough.
As if that was a signal, the pack broke apart and became individuals again—though I hadn't been aware they were anything else until it was gone. Something stopped, and my head didn't hurt so much.
Uncomfortable at being on the floor when everyone else was on their feet, I rolled forward and tried to use my hands to get leverage so I could stand.
"Not so fast," Samuel murmured. He hadn't been one of the circle, I'd have noticed him, but he pushed his way through to the front of the line. He gave me a hand and pulled until I was on my feet.
"I'm sorry," I told Adam, knowing something bad had happened, but I couldn't quite focus on what it had been.
"Nothing to be sorry for, Mercy," Samuel assured me with a little edge to his voice. "Adam is old enough to know better than to draw his mate into the pack at the same time as he seals your mate bond. Sort of like someone teaching a baby to swim in the ocean. During a tsunami."
Adam hadn't gotten up when I did, and when I looked at him, his face was grayish underneath his tan. He had his eyes closed, and he was sitting as if moving would be very painful. "Not your fault, Mercy. I asked you to open up to me."
"What happened?" I asked him.
Adam
opened his eyes, and they were as yellow as I'd ever seen them. "Full-throttle overload," he said.
"Someone probably should call Darryl and Warren and make sure they're all right. They stepped in without notice and helped tuck you back into your own skin."
"I don't remember," I said warily.
"Good," said Samuel. "Fortunately for us all, the mind has a way of protecting itself."
"You went from fully closed to fully open," Adam said. "And when you opened yourself up to me, the mate bond settled in, too. Before I realized what happened you…" He waved his hands. "Sort of spread out through the pack bonds."
"Like Napoleon trying to take over Russia," said Samuel "There just wasn't enough of you to go around."
I remembered a bit then. I'd been swimming, drowning in memories and thoughts that weren't mine. They'd flowed over me, around me, and through me like a river of ice—stripping me raw as the shards passed by. It had been cold and dark; I couldn't breathe. I'd heard Adam calling my name…
"Aurielle answered," reported Ben from the hallway. "She says Darryl is fine. Warren's not picking up, so I called his boy toy's cell. Boy will check up and call me back."
"I bet you didn't call him a boy toy to his face," I said.
"You can effing believe I did," answered Ben with injured dignity. "You should have heard what he called me."
Kyle, Warren's human boyfriend, who in his day job was a barracuda divorce lawyer, had a tongue that could be as razor-sharp as his mind. I'd bet money on the outcome of any verbal skirmish between Kyle and Ben, and it wouldn't be on Ben.
"Is Dad all right?" asked Jesse. The wolves moved aside almost sheepishly to let her through—and I realized they must have kept her away while the matter was still in doubt. Judging by Adam's eyes, he held on to control by a gnat's hair—so keeping his vulnerable human daughter away had been a good idea. But I knew Jesse—I wouldn't have wanted to have been the one keeping her back.
Adam got hastily to his feet and almost didn't lean on Mary Jo—who'd put her hand out when he swayed.
"I'm just fine," he told his daughter, and gave her a quick hug.
"Jesse's the one who called Samuel," Mary Jo told him. "We didn't even think of it. He told us what to do."
"Jesse's the bomb," I said with conviction. She gave me a shaky grin.
"The trick," Samuel said to me, "is to join with the pack and with Adam—without losing yourself in them. It's instinctive for the werewolves, but I expect you're going to have to work on it."
IN THE END, I WENT HOME FOR DINNER, SLIPPING OUT ALMOST unnoticed in the gathering that followed our close call. I needed some time alone. Adam saw me leave, but made no move to stop me—he knew I'd be back.
There was a bowl of tuna fish, pickles, and mayo in the fridge, so I made a sandwich and fed what was left to the cat. As she ate with delicate haste, I called Kyle's cell phone.
"Uhmm?"
The sound was so relaxed, I pulled the phone away from my ears to make sure it was Kyle's phone I'd gotten. But there it was on the little screen-KYLE's CELL.
"Kyle? I was calling to see how Warren was."
"Sorry, Mercy," Kyle laughed, and I heard water splash. "We're in the hot tub. He's fine. How are you? Ben said you were all right."
"Fine. Warren?"
"Was passed out in the hallway, where he'd evidently been headed to the kitchen with an empty glass."
"Wasn't empty when I was carrying it," Warren's warm Southern-touched voice sounded amused.
"Ah," said Kyle, "I didn't notice much besides Warren. But he woke up in a few minutes—"
"Cold water in your face does that," observed Warren, amused.
"But he was stiff and sore—thus the hot tub."
"Tell him I'm sorry," I told Kyle.
"Nothin' to be sorry for," said Warren. "Pack magic can be tricky sometimes. That's what Adam, Darryl, and I are for, sweetheart. I don't feel you in the pack anymore. Problems?"
"Probably not," I told him. "Samuel says I just burned out the circuit for a while. It should come back on line soon."
"Apparently it wasn't necessary that I pass anything on," said Kyle dryly.
A car pulled into the driveway—a Mercedes, I thought. But I didn't recognize the individual car. "Give Warren a hug from me, instead," I said. "And enjoy the hot tub."
I hung up before Kyle could say something outrageous in response and went to the door to see who was there.
Corban, Amber's husband was just coming up the steps. He looked disconcerted when I opened the door before he knocked. He also looked upset, his tie askew, his cheeks unshaven.
"Corban?" I said. I couldn't imagine why he was here when a phone was so much easier. "What's wrong?"
He recovered from his momentary hesitation and all but hopped up the last step. He put out a hand, and I noticed he was wearing leather driving gloves—and holding something odd-looking. That's all I had time to notice before he hit me with the Taser.
Tasers are becoming commonplace among police departments, though I'd never actually seen one in the flesh before. Somewhere on YouTube there is a cameraphone video showing what happened to a student who broke some rule or other in a university library. He was Tasered, then Tasered again because he wouldn't get up when they told him to.
It hurt. It hurt like… I didn't know what. I dropped to the ground and lay there frozen while Corban frisked me. He went through my pockets, dropping my cell phone to the porch. He grabbed my shoulders and knees and tried to jerk lift me.
I'm a lot heavier than I look—muscle will do that—and he was no werewolf, just a desperate man whispering, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
I'd make sure he was sorry, I thought through the haze of pain. "I don't get mad I get even" was more of a credo than a cliché to me.
The people I'd seen Tasered were only knocked out of commission for a few seconds. Even the kid in the library had been able to make noise. I was absolutely helpless, and I didn't know why.
I tried touching the pack or Adam for help. I found where the connection should have been, but the Taser had nothing on the pain when I tried to force contact. My head hurt so badly it felt like my ears should be bleeding.
It was still daylight, so calling Stefan wasn't going to be much help.
The second time, he got me up and took me to his car. His trunk popped with a beep, and he dumped me in it. My head bounced off the floor a couple of times. When I got out of this, Amber was going to be a widow.
Scrabbling fingers pulled my hands together behind my back, and I recognized the signature sound of a zip tie. He used another on my ankles. Prying my mouth open, he stuffed it with a sock that tasted of fabric softener and smelled faintly of Amber, then he wrapped what felt like an Ace bandage around that.
"It's Chad," he told me, eyes wild. "He has Chad."
I caught a glimpse of the fresh bite mark in his neck just before he shut the trunk.
CHAPTER 11
IT MUST HAVE BEEN AT LEAST FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE the effects wore off, and I began to function again. The first conclusion I came to was that whatever he'd hit me with had been no normal Taser. No way in Hell. Ill and shaking, I huddled in the vibrating trunk and tried to come up with a plan.
I couldn't shift yet, but before we reached Spokane I'd be able to. And the zip ties weren't tight enough to hold the coyote. The car was newer, and I could see the tab that would release the trunk. So I wasn't trapped.
The realization did a lot to stop my panic. No matter what, I wouldn't have to face Blackwood. I relaxed into the floor of the trunk and tried to figure out why the vampire wanted me badly enough to ruin his lawyer to get me. It might be that he didn't value Corban—but I'd gotten the feeling that their association was of long standing. Was he trying to take over the Tri-Cities as well as Spokane? Take me down and hold me hostage to force the wolves to act against Marsilia?
It had seemed like a possibility… had it been just yesterday? But with the warfare between wolf and vampire at an en
d in the Tri-Cities, kidnapping me to influence Adam seemed like a stupid move to make just now. And a vampire who was stupid didn't successfully hold a city against all comers. There was a chance, just barely, that he hadn't heard what happened. It was that chance that meant I couldn't dismiss the theory outright. And Marsilia was down three of her most powerful vampires. If he wanted to move against her, now was the time to strike at her. Kidnapping me wasn't a strike—it was, at best, an end run. Especially now that
Marsilia had declared a truce with the wolves. Kidnapping me, I judged, would do nothing except send Adam to Marsilia with an offer of alliance.
See? It was stupid to take me—if his purpose was to take over Marsilia's territory.
Since Blackwood couldn't be that dumb, and I found myself indisputably lying in Corban's trunk, I was inclined to think we had been wrong about Blackwood's intentions.
So what did he want with me?
It could be as simple as pride. He'd claimed me as food—maybe as he claimed anyone who came to Amber's house. Then Stefan came along and took me from him.
The theory had the benefit of conforming to the KISS principle—Keep It Simple, Stupid. It meant that Blackwood didn't have anything to do with Chad's ghost. It supposed that it was sheer dumb bad luck that I had gone blithely into his hunting ground when I went to Amber's to look for a ghost.
Vampires are arrogant and territorial. It was not only possible but probable that having fed from me, he would believe I belonged to him. If he was possessive enough—and his holding the city for himself presupposed that Blackwood was very possessive—it was entirely reasonable that he would send a minion to fetch me.
It was a neat, simple solution, and it didn't depend upon my being anything special. Ego, Bran liked to say, got in the way of truth more often than anything else.
Trouble was, it still didn't quite fit.
Being alone in the trunk with nothing better to do gave me time to analyze the whole thing. From the beginning, Amber's first approach had bothered me. Upon reflection, it struck me as even more wrong.
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