Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)

Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4) Page 3

WORD HAD GOTTEN OUT THAT I WAS BACK IN THE SHOP and my regular customers started stopping in to express their sympathy and support. The graffiti only made things worse. By nine I was hiding in the garage, with the big overhead doors shut, even though that meant that the garage was hot and stuffy, and my electric bill was going to suffer.

I left Zee to handle the customers, poor customers. Zee is not a people person. Years ago, when I first came to work here, his nine-year-old son was in charge of the front desk and everyone was properly grateful.

I spent most of the morning trying to figure out the troubles of a twenty-year-old Jetta. Nothing more fun than sorting through intermittent electrical problems, as long as you have a year or two to waste. The owner got off her job at three in the morning and twice had gone to start her car and found the battery drained though the lights were off.

There was nothing wrong with the battery. Or the alternator. I was upside-down in the driver's seat, with my head up the Jetta's dash, when a sudden thought came to me. I rolled over and looked at the shiny new CD player in the ancient car, which had held only a cassette player when it had last visited here. When Zee came in, I was using Power Words to describe service techs who didn't know how to tie their own shoes but felt free and easy meddling in one of my cars. I'd been taking care of this Jetta for as long as I'd been working on cars, and felt a special affection for it.

Zee blinked at me a couple of times to hide his amusement. "We could give your bill to the place that put her stereo in."

"Would they pay for it?" I asked.

Zee smiled. "They would if I took it in." Zee took a personal interest in our customers' cars, too.

We locked up for lunch and went to our favorite taco wagon for authentic Mexican tacos. That meant no cheese or iceberg lettuce, but cilantro, lime, and radishes instead - a more-than-fair trade in my view.

The wagon was parked in a lot next to a Mexican bakery just across the cable bridge over the Columbia River, putting it in Pasco, but just barely. Some wagons are step vans, but this one was a small trailer laden with whiteboards that listed the menu with prices.

The sweet-faced woman who worked there spoke barely enough English to take orders - which probably didn't matter because there were very few English-only speakers among her patrons. She said something and patted my hand when I paid - and when I checked the bag to make sure the little plastic cups of salsa were there, I saw she'd added a couple of extra of my favorite tacos in our bag. Which proved that everyone, even people who couldn't read the newspaper, knew about me.

Zee drove us to the park on the Kennewick side of the river, where there were waterfront picnic tables for us to eat at. I sighed as we walked along the river's edge between the parking lot and the tables. "I wish it hadn't made the papers. How long before everyone forgets, and I don't get any more pitying looks?"

Zee grinned wolfishly at me. "I've told you before; you need to learn Spanish. She congratulated you on killing him. And she knows a few other men who could benefit from your efforts." He picked a table and sat down.

I sat down across from him and set the bag between us. "She did not." I don't speak Spanish, but everyone who lives in the Tri-Cities for long picks up a few words - besides she hadn't said very much, even in Spanish.

"Maybe not the last part of it," agreed Zee, pulling out a chicken taco and squeezing one of the lime segments over it. "Though I saw it in her face. But she did say, 'Bien hecho. "

I knew the first word, but he made me ask for the last, waiting until curiosity forced the words out of my mouth. "Which means? Good - "

"Good job." His white teeth sank into the tortilla.

Stupid. It was stupid to let other people's opinions matter, but having someone else who didn't view me as a victim cheered me up immensely. After pouring green hot sauce over my goat taco, I ate with a renewed appetite.

"I think," I told Zee, "that I'll go to the dojo tonight after I get done with work." I'd already missed Saturday's early-morning session.

"It should be interesting to watch," Zee said, which was as close as he could come to lying. He had no desire to watch a bunch of people working themselves up into a noxious puddle of sweat and fatigue (his words). He must have been elected to be my bodyguard for a little longer than just the workday.

SOMEONE HAD TALKED TO THEM ALL. I COULD SEE IT IN the casual way they greeted me as I walked into the dojo. Muscles in Sensei Johanson's jaw twitched when he first saw me, but he led us through the opening exercises and stretches with his usual sadistic thoroughness. By the time we started sparring, the muscles in my lower back, which had been tense for the last week, were loose and moving well. After the first two bouts, I was relaxed and settled into my usual love-hate relationship with my third opponent, the devastatingly powerful brown belt who was the bully of the dojo.

He was careful, oh so careful that Sensei never saw him do it, but he liked to hurt people... women. In addition to the full-contact part of Sensei's chosen form, Lee Holland was the other reason I was the only woman in the advanced class. Lee wasn't married, for which I was glad. No woman deserved to have to live with him.

I actually liked to spar with him because I never felt guilty about leaving bruises behind. I also enjoyed the frustrated look in his eyes as his skilled moves (his brown belt justly outranked my own purple) constantly failed to connect as well as they should.

Today there was something else in his eyes when he looked at the stitches on my chin, a hot edge of desire that seriously creeped me out. He was turned on that I had been raped. Either that or that I'd killed someone. I preferred the latter but, knowing Lee, it was probably the former.

"You are weak," he told me, whispering so no one else could hear.

I'd been right about what had excited his interest.

"I killed the last person who thought that," I said, and front kicked him hard in the chest. Usually, I tempered my speed to something more humanly possible. But his eyes made me quit playing human. I'm not supernaturally strong, but in the martial arts, speed counts, too.

I was moving at full tilt when I stepped around him while he was still off balance. Tournament martial arts have two opponents facing each other, but our style encourages us to strike from the back or the side - keeping the enemies' weapons facing the wrong way. I stepped hard on the back of his knee, forcing him to drop to the floor. Before he could respond, I hopped back three feet to give him a chance to get up, this being only sparring and not a death match.

Our dojo did some grappling, but not much. Shi Sei Kai Kan is all about putting your opponent down fast and moving on to the next guy. It was developed for warfare, when a soldier might be facing multiple opponents. Grappling left you vulnerable to attack from another opponent. And I had no desire to get up close and personal with Lee.

He roared with humiliation-charged rage and came for me. Block and block, twist and dodge, I kept him from contacting me.

Someone called out sharply, "Sensei! Check out Lee's fight."

"Enough, Lee," Sensei called from the far side of the dojo, where he'd been working with someone.

"That's enough."

Lee didn't appear to hear him. If I hadn't been so much faster than him, I'd have been hurt already. As it was, I made sure he couldn't connect any of his hits. For a while, at least, until I got cocky and overconfident.

I fell for a sham move with his right hand, while he slammed me in the diaphragm and laid me out on the floor with his left. Ignoring my lack of breath as much as I could, I rolled and stumbled to my feet. And as I rolled, I saw that Adam was standing in the doorway in a business suit. He had his arms folded on his chest as he waited for me to deal with Lee.

So I did. I thought it was Adam's presence that gave me the idea. I'd spent some time at his dojo - in his garage - practicing a jumping, spinning roundhouse kick. It was developed as a way to knock an opponent off his horse, a sacrificial move that the foot soldier would not expect to survive. Mounted warriors had more value as a weapon than foot soldiers, so the sacrifice would be worth it. In modern days, the kick is mostly for demos, used in combat with another skilled person on the ground it is generally too slow, too flashy, to be useful. Too slow unless you happened to be a part-time coyote and supernaturally fast.

Lee would never expect me to try it.

My heel hit Lee's jaw, and he collapsed on the floor almost before I'd decided to use the move. I collapsed right next to him, still fighting for breath from his hit to my diaphragm.

Sensei was beside Lee, checking him out almost before I landed. Adam put his hand on my abdomen and pulled my legs straight to facilitate breathing.

"Pretty," he said. "Too bad you pulled it; if anyone deserved to lose his head..." He didn't mean it as a joke. If he'd said it with a hair more heat, I'd have been worried.

"Is he all right?" I tried to ask - and he must have understood.

"Knocked out cold, but he'll be fine. Not even a sore neck for his trouble."

"I think you're right," Sensei said. "She pulled it, and angled her foot perfectly for a tournament hit." He held Lee still as the big man moaned and started to stir.

Sensei looked at me and frowned. "You were stupid, Mercy. What is the first rule of combat?"

By this time I could talk. "The best defense is fast tennis shoes," I said.

He nodded. "Right. When you noticed he was out of control - which I'm sure was about two full minutes at least before I did, because I was helping Gibbs with his axe kick - you should have called for help, then gotten away from him. There was no point in letting this continue until someone got hurt."

From the sidelines, Gibbs, the other brown belt, said, "She's sorry, Sensei. She just got her directions confused. She kept running the wrong way."

There was a general laugh as tension dispersed.

Sensei guided Lee though a general check to make sure nothing was permanently damaged. "Sit out for the rest of the lesson," he told Lee. "Then we'll have a little talk."

When Lee got up, he didn't look at me or anyone else, just took up a low-horse stance with a wall at his back.

Sensei stood up, and I followed suit. He looked at Adam.

Who bowed, fist to hand and eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses he hadn't been wearing when I'd first glimpsed him in the doorway. Most of the werewolves I know carry dark glasses or wear hats that can shadow their eyes.

"Adam Hauptman," he said. "A friend of Mercy's. Just here to observe unless you object."

Sensei was an accountant in real life. His day job was working for an insurance firm, but here he was king. His eyes were cool and confident as he looked at Adam.

"The werewolf," he said. Adam was one of five or six of his pack who had chosen to come out to the public.

"Hai,"agreed Adam.

"So why didn't you help Mercy?"

"It is your dojo, Sensei Johanson." Sensei raised an eyebrow, and Adam's sudden smile blazed out.

"Besides, I've seen her fight. She's tough, and she's smart. If she had thought she was in trouble, she'd have asked for help."

I glanced around as I rolled over and stood up, as good as new except for the pretty bruises I was going to have on my belly. Zee was gone. He wouldn't have lingered, with Adam to take over guard duty. His nose had wrinkled at the smell of sweaty bodies when we'd come in - he'd been lucky it was relatively cool this fall. In full summer, the dojo smelled from a block away, at least it did to my nose. To me the scent was strong but not unpleasant, but I knew from the comments of my fellow karate students that most humans disliked it almost as much as Zee did.

Drama over, Adam went back to the sidelines, loosening his tie and pulling his suit jacket off as a concession to the heat. Sensei had us do three hundred side kicks (Lee was called from his position of disgrace to participate) first to the left, then to the right. We all counted them off in Japanese - though I suspected if a native speaker had dropped in, they might've had difficulty understanding what we were saying.

The first hundred were easy, muscles warm and limber from earlier calisthenics; the second... not so much. Somewhere about 220, I lost myself in the burning ache until it was almost a shock when we stopped and switched sides. Wandering through the ranks of students (there were twelve of us tonight) Sensei adjusted people's form as he saw necessary.

You could tell those of us who were more serious because our two hundredth kicks looked just like our first. Students less diligent lost height and form as exhaustion took its toll. There were still some students in good form on the three hundredth kick - but not me.

AFTER CLASS, PEOPLE WERE TOO BUSY TRYING NOT TO stare at the werewolf - all the while getting in a good look - to pay any attention to me. I changed in the bathroom and took my time, out of courtesy, so that they would all have time to change in the anteroom in front of the dojo before I came out.

Sensei was waiting for me when I emerged.

"Good job, Mercy," he told me with an emphasis that told me he wasn't talking about Lee. It was odd that the words he had for me were the same ones, in a different language, that the woman in the taco wagon had used, meant the same way.

"If it hadn't been for this"  -  I tilted my head to indicate the dojo - "I would have died that night instead of my attacker." I gave him a formal bow, two fists down. "Thank you for your teaching, Sensei."

He returned my bow, and we both ignored the suspicious watering of eyes.

Adam was waiting near the front door carefully examining his fingernails. He had chosen to be amused by all the people staring at him, which was a good thing. He had a temper. Sweat darkened his Egyptian-cotton shirt, so it clung to the round lines of his shoulders and arms, announcing to anyone that he was a hard body.

I took a deep breath to cool my jets and introduced him around. Only Lee met his eyes for longer than a moment, and at first I thought Adam was going to lose it. He gave Lee a scary smile. I was afraid of what he - either he - was going to say, so I grabbed Adam's arm and tugged him out the door.

If he'd wanted to, Adam could have shaken me off, but he went along with it. I hadn't brought my car because the dojo was just a short hike across cheatgrass and down the railroad tracks from my shop. Adam's SUV wasn't there either.

"Did you drive a different car?" I asked in the parking lot.

"No, I had Carlos drop me off after work so I could walk back with you to your shop." Carlos was one of his wolves, one of three or four who worked for him at his security business, but not one I knew well.

"I remember you told me you liked to cool down on the walk back."

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 home. 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.

"Mine," he told me. "You aren't Stefan's."

The dry grass crackled under my head, and the coarse dirt made a noise like sandpaper that echoed behind my eyes. I licked my lips and tasted blood. Adam's blood.

The Alpha's blood and flesh... pack.

"From this day forward," said Adam, his voice pulling me out of wherever I had been. "Mine to me and mine. Pack and only lover." There was blood on his face, too, and on the hands he touched my face with.

"Yours to you, mine to me," I answered, though it was a dry croaking voice that made the noise. I didn't know why I answered, other than the old "shave and a hair cut" involuntary response. I'd heard this ceremony so many times, even if he'd added the "only lover" part.

By the time I remembered why I shouldn't do it, what it meant, it was already too late.

Magic burned through me, following the path of that bit of flesh - and I cried out as it tried to make me other than I was, less or more. Pack.

I felt them all through Adam's touch and Adam's blood. His to protect to govern. All of them were mine now, too - and I theirs.

Panting, I licked my lips and stared at Adam. He let me go, coming to his feet and taking two steps away from me where I lay against the side of the old car. He'd bitten his forearm savagely.

"He can't have you," he told me, his gold eyes telling me the wolf was still speaking. "Not now. Not ever. I don't owe him that."

Belatedly, I realized what had happened. I wiped my mouth with my wrist to give myself time to think.

My wrist was pink with Adam's blood.

Stefan was awake... and somehow he'd invaded my mind. It had been his panic attack I'd felt.

All dead...I had a sick, sick feeling that I knew who he meant. I'd met some of the people, human people who fed Stefan. Had learned how horribly vulnerable they were if something happened to the vampire who fed off them and protected them.

I glanced at the setting sun. "It's a little early for a vampire to be up, isn't it?" I asked.

Time for everyone to calm down. Me, included.

My sense of the pack was fading, but it would never completely go away. Not now that Adam had made me pack. It was more usual to do it in a full pack meeting, but the pack wasn't required. Just a bit of the

Alpha's flesh and blood and an exchange of vows.

I hadn't thought it possible to induct someone who wasn't a werewolf. I certainly hadn't thought that he could make me pack. Magic works oddly on me sometimes, and at others I'm pretty much immune to it.

But from the results I could feel, it had worked just fine this time.

Adam had turned and stood with his back to me, his shoulders hunched, his hands fisted at his side. He didn't answer my question, but said stiffly, "I'm sorry for that. I panicked."

I put my forehead down on my knees. "There's been a lot of that going around recently."

I heard the dry grass crunch as he walked back to me. "Are you laughing?" he sounded incredulous.

I looked up at him. The last rays of the sun silhouetted him in golden rays and obscured the expression on his face. But I could see shame in the set of his shoulders. He'd made me pack without asking me - without asking the pack either, though that wasn't strictly necessary, just traditional. He was waiting for me to yell at him as he felt he deserved.

Adam was used to paying for the consequences of his choices - and sometimes the choices were hard ones. He'd been making a lot of hard choices for me lately.

Stefan had been so far in my head that I had smelled like him. And Adam had made me pack to save me.

He was prepared to pay the price - and I was pretty sure there would be a price extracted. But not by me.

"Thank you, Adam," I told him. "Thank you for tearing Tim into small Tim bits. Thank you for forcing me to drink one last cup of fairy bug-juice so I could have use of both of my arms. Thank you for being there, for putting up with me." By that point I wasn't laughing anymore. "Thank you for keeping me from being another of Stefan's sheep - I'll take pack over that any day. Thank you for making the tough calls, for giving me time." I stood up and walked to him, leaning against him and pressing my face against his shoulder. "Thank you for loving me."

His arms closed around me, pressing flesh painfully hard against bone. Love hurts like that sometimes.