Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  I’d told him that several years earlier. He’d been waiting for me at my shop with a warning ... I looked down at the asphalt and turned my head so he wouldn’t see my smile.

  It had been after I first hauled the old parts car out of my pole barn and stuck it in the middle of the field so Adam couldn’t help but see it out of his window. He’d been dispensing orders left and right and, knowing werewolves as I had, I hadn’t dared to defy him outright. Instead, knowing how organized and neat Adam was, I’d tortured him with the battered old Rabbit.

  He’d stopped by the garage and found my car but not me. He’d never said, but I thought he must have trailed me to the dojo—and instead of complaining about the junkmobile, he’d dressed me down about wandering around the Tri-Cities by myself at night. Exasperated, I’d snarled right back at him. I’d told him I used the not-very-long walk back to my shop as an after-workout cool off. It had been after his divorce, but not by much. Years ago.

  He’d remembered all this time.

  “What are you so smug about?” he asked me.

  He’d remembered what I’d told him, as if I’d been important to him even then ... but I could have described the exact shade of the tie that he had worn that day, the tone that worry had given his voice.

  I hadn’t wanted to admit I was attracted to him. Not when he’d been married, and not when he’d been single. I’d been raised by werewolves, had left them, and didn’t want to find myself back in that claustrophobic, violent environment. I especially had no desire to date an Alpha werewolf.

  And yet here I was, walking with Adam, who was as Alpha as could be.

  “Why didn’t you jump into the fight with Lee?” I asked, changing the subject. He’d wanted to—that’s why the glasses had come on, so that everyone wouldn’t see that his eyes had lightened to the wolf’s gold.

  He didn’t answer right away. The man-made bank up to the railroad track, which was the shortest route to my shop, was steep, and the small gravel made it a bit treacherous. I was sore, so I ran up it. My quads, tired from three hundred kicks, protested the additional effort I was asking of them, but running meant the climb was over faster.

  Adam ran easily up the slope behind me, even in slick dress shoes. Something about the way he was following me made me feel nervous, like I was a deer being stalked. So I stopped at the top and stretched out my tired legs. I’d be damned if I would run from Adam.

  “You had him,” Adam said, watching me. “He’s better than you in form, but he has never fought for his life. I wouldn’t want you tied up and alone with him for very long, but he never had a chance in the dojo.” Then his voice deepened with a slightly rougher tone. “If you hadn’t been stupid, you wouldn’t have even gotten hit. Don’t do that again.”

  “Nossir,” I told him.

  I’d been trying not to think about Adam all day—since the crossed bones on my door made it clear that Marsilia wasn’t finished with me. I knew, even though Zee would check out other things, I knew that it had been the vampires marking my business. And, like Tony had said, it felt like a death threat. I was a dead woman, it was only a matter of time. All I could do was figure out a way to keep other people from dying with me.

  Adam would die for his mate. He wouldn’t let me just leave, either. Christy, his first wife, hadn’t been his mate or they’d still be married. I had to figure out some way to undo what I had done last night.

  But it was hard to believe in death with him here beside me, the rich autumn sunlight glinting in his dark hair and lightening his eyes, making him squint and highlighting faint laugh lines.

  He took my hand in a casual move I had no way of evading without making a big deal of it. Especially when I didn’t want to evade him. He tilted his head as if trying to figure me out—had he caught what I was thinking? His hand was broad-palmed and warm. The calluses on it made it no softer than my own work-roughened skin.

  I turned away from him, but kept his hand as I started down the track to my shop. It was awkward for about four steps, then he made an adjustment to his gait, and suddenly the rhythm of our bodies synced.

  I closed my eyes, trusting my balance and Adam to keep me headed in the right direction. If I cried, he’d ask me why, and you can’t lie to a werewolf. I needed to distract him.

  “You’re wearing a new cologne,” I told him, and my voice was husky. “I like it.”

  He laughed, a warm rumbly sound that settled in my stomach like a warm piece of apple pie. “Shampoo most likely—” Then he laughed again and tugged me off balance until I bumped against him. He let go of my hand and took a light grip on my far shoulder, his arm warm across my back. “No. You’re right, I’d forgotten. Jesse sprayed something at me as I left the house tonight.”

  “Jesse has excellent taste,” I told him. “You smell good enough to eat.”

  The arm across my shoulders stiffened. I thought back over what I’d said and felt my cheeks warm right up. Part of it was embarrassment ... but part of it wasn’t. But it hadn’t been the Freudian slip that had caught his attention.

  Adam stopped. Since he was holding me, I stopped, too. I looked at him, then followed his gaze to my shop.

  Whoops. Oh well, I’d been looking for a way to distract him so he wouldn’t wonder why I was upset. This wasn’t the ideal way to do it.

  “I guess Zee didn’t tell you?”

  “Who did it?” There was a growl in his voice. “The vampires?”

  How to answer that without telling a lie, which he would smell, or starting a war?

  If I had known that Marsilia knew I’d killed Andre, I never would have told Adam I was willing to be his mate. Another wolf might understand that a war with the vampires wasn’t going to save me, just get more people killed. A war with the vampires here in the Tri-Cities might spread like the plague throughout all the Marrok’s dominion.

  But Adam wouldn’t let it go. And Samuel would be at his side. I would never be the great love of Samuel’s life, nor he of mine. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love me, just as I loved him. And Samuel would bring his father, the Marrok, into it.

  Don’t panic, keep it casual, I told myself. “The vamps added some decoration to my door, but most of it was Tim’s cousin and a friend. You can watch it on the video if you want. Gabriel’s mother and siblings are coming out Saturday to help paint it. The police are taking care of it, Adam.” The last was because he was still stiff. “Tony thinks it’s Christmasy. Maybe I’ll leave it for a few months.”

  He turned his hot gaze on me.

  “She still believes in her cousin, Adam. She thinks I made it all up to get out of a murder charge.” I let him hear the sympathy for Courtney’s plight in my voice, knowing Adam wouldn’t approve. About wrong and right, Adam was pretty black-and-white. He’d be irritated with my attitude, and it would distract him. Keep the focus on Courtney and off the vampires.

  Adam didn’t relax, but he did start walking again.

  USUALLY I SHOWER AT THE SHOP AFTER PRACTICE, BUT I didn’t want Adam to get a good look at the crossed bones on the door. I wanted to keep him thinking about things other than the vampires until I knew what my options were. So we jumped in my Vanagon (my poor Rabbit was still in repairs from the damage a fae had done to it last week).

  Maybe I’d move. If I traveled to another vampire’s territory, it might slow Marsilia down, especially if it was a vampire who didn’t like her. Running away would chafe, but if I stayed, she’d kill me—and Adam wouldn’t take it well and a lot of people would probably die besides me.

  I could try to take out Marsilia.

  I actually gave that serious consideration, which was a sign of just how desperate I was. Sure, I’d killed two vampires. The first one I’d killed with a lot of help and a boatload of luck. The second one I’d taken while he slept.

  I had about as much chance of taking out Marsilia as my cat Medea did of taking on a mountain lion. Maybe less.

  While I thought, I chattered to Adam all the way home. My hom
e. Gas was expensive, and he wouldn’t mind walking the short distance back to his.

  If he wanted to wait while I showered, I figured I could walk with him. I glanced at the sky and decided I had time to take a shower without risking Adam’s being the first one to talk to Stefan.

  I needed to find out what the artwork on my door meant—and to make sure that running would work. Stefan might know, but neither question was something I wanted to ask in public. I’d figure out how I was going to get him alone when the time came.

  “Mercy,” Adam said, breaking into my monologue about Karmann Ghias and air-cooled versus water-cooled engines as I turned into my drive. He sounded both amused and resigned. It was a tone I heard from him a lot.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why did the vampires paint a pair of bones on your door?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him in a deliberately relaxed voice. “I don’t even know that it was the vampires. The camera didn’t catch who it was exactly. Zee and I just figured it was the vampires because of Stefan. He’s going to check with Uncle Mike to be sure it wasn’t a fae, though.”

  “I won’t let Marsilia hurt you,” he told me in the quiet tones he used when making a vow of honor.

  The wolves do that, some of the older ones, anyhow. I wouldn’t have thought Adam was one of them. He was a 1950s model, stuck forever looking like he was in his midtwenties. When I say older wolves, I mean a lot older than 1950, a couple of hundred years at least.

  It’s not that modern men don’t have honor, just most of them don’t think of it that way. It gives them a flexibility that the previous generations didn’t have. Some of the old lobos take their vows very, very seriously.

  What I wouldn’t have given to be stupid enough to believe that Adam could promise that Marsilia wouldn’t kill me-and even more to believe that he wouldn’t kill himself trying to keep his word.

  I wasn’t resigned to my fate or anything like it, but if I had learned one thing being raised by werewolves, it was to keep a clear eye on probable outcomes and how to mitigate damage. And if Marsilia wanted me dead ... well that was just the most probable outcome. Really probable. Enough so that I could feel another stupid panic attack hovering. My first today, if I didn’t count a little shortness of breath once or twice.

  “She’s not dumb enough to attack me,” I told him, opening my door. “Especially once she hears I’ve officially accepted you as my mate. That puts me under your pack’s protection. She won’t be able to do much to me.” It should have been true ... but I didn’t think it would be that easy. “Stefan’s the one in trouble.”

  He got out and waited for me to round the front of the van, then he asked, “Would you go out with me tomorrow ... to someplace nice? Dinner and a little dancing.”

  It hadn’t been what I expected him to say, not when he was watching me with those cool, assessing eyes. It took me a moment to change subjects, my impending death at Marsilia’s hands being a little preoccupying.

  Adam wanted to take me on a date.

  He touched my face—he liked to do that and had been doing it more and more lately. I could feel the warmth of his fingers all the way to my toes. Suddenly, my approaching demise wasn’t so engrossing.

  “All right. That would be good.” I put my hand on my stomach to settle the butterflies, unsure as to whether it was the notion of going on another date with Adam or the knowledge that I was going to have to break it off with him before I brought death to him and his pack. Maybe I’d have to go on the run tonight-would it hurt him more that I’d agreed to a date? Should I find a reason that tomorrow wouldn’t work?

  A sudden thought came to me. If I hurt him enough, drove him from me in anger ... would he care when Marsilia killed me, or would he let it go? A newly familiar breathlessness started to shiver up from my stomach—that panic attack that had been hovering.

  “I need to take a shower,” I told him, my voice very steady. “But then I’d like to talk to Stefan.”

  “No problem,” he said agreeably, going up my front steps ahead of me. He opened the door and held it for me. “I’ll wait while you shower—Samuel’s not home.”

  There was no reason to feel like Adam’s prey, I told myself firmly as I walked past him into my own house. No reason to feel Adam’s intent eyes on my back. He couldn’t read my mind to know that I was planning on running. But I didn’t turn back as I said, “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right out.” And I closed my bedroom door on him and leaned against it.

  I SCRUBBED MY HANDS FIRST, USING A STIFF-BRISTLED brush and Fast Orange to get the last of the day’s grime off. It never managed to get it all, but if it bothered Adam to run around with someone who had dirt ingrained in the skin of her hands, he’d never said anything. When they were as good as they were going to get, I stepped into the shower.

  Could I change my mind about being Adam’s mate?

  I’m not as sensitive to pack magic as the werewolves are. They don’t talk much about it. Secretive bunch, those werewolves. I’ve been finding out that there’s a lot more to it than I’d believed. I knew it was possible for a mated pair to dissolve their union, though I’d never met any who had.

  Had my agreement been just words, or had it started some process in the pack magic? Consent, I knew, was necessary for a lot of magic to take place. I am immune to some magic. Maybe mating would turn out to be one of those things. I also knew pack magic worked subtly differently for the Alpha than it did for the rest of the pack. Adam had bound himself to me by declaring me his mate before his pack—and it had had an effect on the pack’s magic, and on Adam. I was pretty sure it didn’t work quite that way for most wolves, that both had to agree, and that their mating was a more private matter.

  I frowned. There was a ceremony. I was almost certain of it. Something happened to make a couple into a mated pair—and then there was some sort of werewolf-only ceremony. Maybe Adam had done it backward? Maybe mating an Alpha was no different than mating with any other wolf.

  Maybe I was going to drive myself crazy. I needed real information, and I had no idea who to ask.

  It couldn’t be any of Adam’s pack—it would undermine his authority. Besides, they’d just go tell him I was asking. Samuel didn’t seem like a good choice either, not after we’d only just agreed not to try it as a couple. Or Bran, for the same reason. I knew he had sent Samuel to the Tri-Cities in a misguided attempt at matchmaking. I wasn’t sure Samuel had told him it hadn’t worked. I wished, not for the first time, that my foster father, Bryan, was still around. But he’d killed himself a good long time ago.

  I turned my face in to the hot spray of my shower. Okay. So assume the mating thing wasn’t permanent. How would I make Adam hate me?

  Well, I certainly wasn’t sleeping with Samuel. Or hurting Jesse.

  Water hit the healing wound on my chin, and I tipped my head down. Making him leave me had seemed logical, but Adam wasn’t the kind of person to leave when things got rough. And even if I managed it, wouldn’t he still care if Marsilia killed me? Maybe if I had a few months or a year to work on it, I might manage.

  Could I run? With my bank balance, I might make it as far as Seattle.

  The threatening panic attack faded as relief swamped me. First time being broke had ever made me happy.

  I might be a dead woman, but I was going to get to keep Adam for however long I had left.

  THOUGH ADAM’S HAND WAS COURTEOUSLY UNDER MY arm as we walked across my field to the barbed-wire fence between our properties, there was a proprietary feeling to the charged air that always seemed to accompany him. Mine, it said.

  If it weren’t for Marsilia, doubtless I’d have been grumpy about the possessiveness stuff. As it was, I was unhappy because I couldn’t just relax into the safety he represented ... not without risking his getting hurt because of me.

  Maybe I needed to leave, money or not.

  My stomach was back in knots, and if I didn’t bottle everything up, I was going to have that stupid panic attack
, and not safely behind the sound of water and the closed bathroom door. Right here where anyone could see. Next to the poor beat-up Rabbit, with Adam’s phone number painted on the roof. For a good time call ...

  He stopped. “Mercy? What are you so angry about?”

  He would know. Even I could smell it: anger and fear and ... I had it all, and I had nothing.

  It was too much. I closed my eyes and felt my body shake helplessly and my throat close, refusing to let air through ...

  Adam caught me as I fell and pulled me against him, in the shadow of the old car. He was so warm, and I was so cold. He put his nose against my neck. I couldn’t see him, lack of air left me with black dots impairing my vision.

  I heard the growl shake Adam’s chest, and his mouth closed on mine—and I sucked a deep breath though my nose. I could breathe again, and the weight on my stomach lifted, and I was left shaking, with blood ... no, snot running down my face.

  Embarrassed beyond anything, I jerked free of Adam’s hold—knowing with humiliating certainty that he let me go. I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt. And settled in the shelter of the Rabbit, my cheek against the cooling metal.

  Weak. Broken. God damn it. God damn me. I felt the wave of it hovering, ready to descend upon me again. Despair and helpless anger ... They were all dead. All dead, and it was my fault.

  But no one was dead. Not yet.

  All dead. All of my children, my loves, and it was my fault. I put them at risk and failed. They died because of my failure.

  I smelled Stefan.

  Adam’s golden eyes met mine, the color proving the wolf ascendant. He kissed me again, pressed something against my lips, forcing it between my teeth with a forefinger and thumb without removing his mouth from mine.

  It was such a small scrap of bloody meat to burn down my throat as it had. It meant something.