He sighed and slumped in his seat. "You don't remember him biting. That doesn't mean you were unconscious."
I wasn't expecting it. I hadn't had one since leaving the Tri-Cities. But I managed to pull over, hop out of the van, and make it to the barrow pit at the side of the road before throwing up. It wasn't sickness it was sheer, stark terror. The panic attack to end all panic attacks. My heart hurt, my head hurt, and I couldn't stop crying.
And then it stopped. Warmth ran through me and around me: pack. Adam. So much for not bothering Adam's wolves, who were already unhappy about me, with my troubles. Stefan wiped my face off with a Kleenex and dropped it to the ground before picking me up and carrying me back to the car. He didn't put me in the driver's seat.
"I can drive," I told him, but there was no force in my voice. Pack magic had broken the panic attack, but I could still feel them all waiting and ready.
Ready to rescue me again.
He ignored my feeble protest and put the old van in gear.
"Is there any reason why he'd have simply fed from me and not done a blood exchange?" I asked, more out of a morbid desire to know everything rather than any real hope.
"With a blood exchange, you can call upon him as well," Stefan said reluctantly.
"How many? Just one exchange?"
He shrugged. "It varies from person to person. With your idiosyncratic reaction to vampire magic, it could take a hundred or only one."
"When you say I could call him. Does that mean he'd have to come to me?"
"A vampire's relationship to those he feeds upon is not an equal one, Mercy," he snapped. "No. He could hear you. That is all. If you have blood exchanges with all of your food"he bit out the word"the voices in your head can drive you mad. So we only do it with our own flocks. There are some benefits. The sheep becomes stronger, immune to pain for a brief timeas you know from your own experiences. A vampire gains a servant and eventually a slave who will willingly feed him and take care of his needs during the day."
"I'm sorry," I told him. "I didn't mean to make you angry. I just have to know what I'm up against."
He reached over and patted my knee. "I understand. I'm sorry." The next words came slower. "It is shaming to me, to be what I am. The man I was would never have accepted life at the expense of so many. But I am not he, not any longer."
He passed a semi (we were going uphill). "If he was just feeding from you because you were convenient, then he probably didn't do an exchange except"
"Except what?"
"I don't think that he could have blocked your memory so well if it wasn't a real exchange. A human, yes. But you are strong-willed." He shrugged. "Most Master vampires feed off their getother vampires. Blackwood will tolerate no other vampires in his territory, and I don't know that he has any get himself. Maybe he makes up the difference by exchanging blood whenever he feeds."
I mulled over what he'd told me, then dozed a little. I woke with a start as we took the exit onto Highway 395 at Ritzville. Only a little over seventy miles until we got home.
"He won't be able to coerce you if you find another vampire to tie yourself to," Stefan said.
I looked at him, but he was staring intently at the roadas if we were threading through the mountains of Montana instead of gliding down an empty stretch of mostly flat and straight pavement.
"Are you offering?"
He nodded. "I am perilously short of food. The exchange will feed me better, and I won't have to hunt again for a few nights."
I thought for a minute. Not that I was going to do it, but there was more to his offerwith vampires, I was learning, there usually was. With Stefan that didn't necessarily mean that he was hiding some benefit to him.
"And you'll gain yourself an enemy," I guessed. "James Blackwood holds Spokane, all by himself, against all the supernatural peoples, not just vampires. That means he's obsessively possessiveand tough. He won't be happy with you for keeping me from him."
He shrugged. "He probably can't call you all the way from Spokane when you are in the Tri-Cities. He probably wouldn't even try, if he exchanges blood every time he feeds. But if you are tied to me, that would be certain." He spoke slowly. "We already have had one blood exchange. And I can make sure it won't be horrible."
If Blackwood called me to him, if he took me as one of his sheep, Adam would bring the pack in to rescue me. Mary Jo had almost paid the ultimate price for my problems already. As long as I stayed in the Tri-Cities, he might not even realize that the reason he couldn't call me was Stefan.
"Adam is my mate," I told him. I didn't know if I should tell him that Adam had made me one of the pack. "Can Blackwood get Adam through me?"
Stefan shook his head. "I can't either. It's been tried. Our old Master Marsilia's maker, liked wolves and experimented. The ties of the blood operate on a different level from the werewolf pack. He took an Alpha's mate, she was a werewolf also, to his menagerie hoping to control the Alpha and his whole pack through her, and it failed."
"Marsilia likes werewolf to dine upon," I said. I'd seen it for myself.
"From what I've seen, I'd say that feeding upon them seems to be addictive," he glanced at me. "I've never done it myself. Not until the other night. I don't intend to do it again."
I was either about to make the stupidest decision of my life or the smartest.
"Is it permanent?" I asked. "This bond between the two of us?"
He gave me a sharp look. Started to say something, but stopped before the words left his mouth. Finally, he said, "I've told you things tonight that other vampires don't know. Forbidden things. If I were Marsilia's get truly, or if she had not broken my ties with the seethe, I could not have told you that much."
He tapped the palm of his hands on the steering wheel and a giant RV towing a Honda Accord passed us. "These things drive like anemic school buses," he said. "Odd that it should be so much fun."
I waited. If the answer had been yes, the bond is permanent, he wouldn't be so indecisive. If it wasn't permanent, once Blackwood was eliminated, it could be removed. A temporary bond with Stefan wasn't as scary as, say, the more permanent bond between Adam and me.
"Marsilia can break the bonds between Master and sheep," he said. "She can either take them herself, or simply dissolve them."
"That's not very helpful," I told him. "I have the distinct impression that she'd just as soon kill us both as see us."
"There is that," he said softly. "Yes. But I think, from a few things he's let drop, that Wulfe can do it, too." His voice grew very cold and un-Stefan-like. "And Wulfe owes me in such a way that even if Marsilia has declared me enemy to the seethe, he could not turn down my request." He relaxed and shook his head. "But as soon as the bond between us was ended, you'd be vulnerable to Blackwood again."
I didn't find Wulfe much of a step up from Marsilia. But then, I didn't have a choice, did I? I'd abandoned Amber until I could regroup, but I couldn't leave Amber to die at Blackwood's whim. I wondered if Zee still felt guilty enough, because I got hurt trying to help him, to allow me use of his fae-spelled knife and the amulet I'd used to hunt vampires. Maybe even another magically virtuous stake.
I'd never seriously considered killing Marsilia as a way to save myself. First, I'd been to the seethe.
Second, she had too many minions who would kill me back.
So why did I think I could kill Blackwood?
I knew, I knew, that the James Blackwood I'd met was not the real face of the vampire. But I had met him, and he wasn't too scary. He didn't have minions. And he was using Amber without her knowledge or permission, turning her into his slave: a woman who left her child alone in a house with a ghost and an almost stranger. I couldn't help Amber with her ghost maybe I'd even made it worse. But I could help her with the vampire.
"All right," I said. "I'd rather have to" I nearly choked on the next word"obey you than listen to him."
He watched me for a heartbeat. "All right," he agreed.
HE PULLED OVER AT A REST AREA. THERE WAS A ROW OF semis parked for the night, but the lot for cars was empty. He unbuckled and walked between the front seats to the back. I followed him slowly.
He sat on the bench seat in the back and patted the seat beside him. When I hesitated, he said, "You don't have to do this. I'm not going to force you."
If I didn't have Stefan to interfere, Blackwood probably could make me do whatever he wanted. I'd have no way to help Amber.
Of course, if Marsilia killed me first, I wouldn't have to worry about any of it.
"Am I putting Adam and his pack in more danger?" I asked.
Stefan did me the courtesy of considering it, though I could smell his eagerness: he smelled like a wolf hot on the trail of something tasty. If I ran, I wondered, would he be compelled to chase me the way a werewolf would have?
I stared at him and reminded myself that I'd known him a long time. He'd never made any move he thought would harm me. This was Stefan, not some nameless hunter.
"I don't see how," he told me. "Adam won't like it, I'm sure. Witness his reaction when I called you by accident. But he's a practical man. He knows all about desperate choices."
I sat down beside him, all too conscious of the cool temperature of his body, cooler, I thought than usual. I was glad to know that this would help him, too. I was really, really tired of causing all my friends nothing but grief.
He brushed my hair away from my neck, and I caught his hand.
"What about the wrist?" The last time he'd bitten my wrist.
He shook his head. "It's more painful. Too many nerves near the surface." He looked at me. "Do you trust me?"
"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't."
"Okay. I'm going to restrain you a little because if you jerk while I'm still at your neck, you might make me cut through the wrong thing and you could bleed to death." He didn't pressure me, just sat on the plush bench seat as if he could stay there the rest of my life.
"How?" I said.
"I'll have you fold your arms over your stomach, and I'll hold them there."
I did a panic check, but Tim had never restrained me that way. I tried not to think about how he'd held me down and was only moderately successful.
"Go up to the front of the van," Stefan said. "The keys are in the ignition. You'll have to drive yourself home because I can't stay here. I have to hunt now. I'll"
I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned against him. "Okay, do it."
His arm came slowly around my shoulders and over my right arm. When I stayed put, he put his hand over my arms in such a way that I couldn't free myself.
"All right?" He asked calmly, as if need hadn't turned his eyes jewel-bright, like Christmas lights in the dark van.
"All right," I said.
His teeth must have been razor-sharp because I didn't feel them slice through skin, only the cool dampness of his mouth. Only when he began to draw blood did it start to hurt.
Who feeds at my table?
The roar in my head made me panic as Stefan's bite had not. But I held very still, like a mouse when it first notices the cat. If you don't move, it might not attack.
The steady draw of Stefan's mouth faltered for an instant. Then he resumed feeding, patting my knee with his free hand. It shouldn't have comforted me, but it did. He'd heard the scary monster, too, and he wasn't running.
After a while, the ache deepened into painand the now-wordless roar of anger echoing in my head grew muffled. I started to feel cold, as if it wasn't just blood he was taking, but all the warmth in my body. Then his mouth moved, and he laved the wounds with his tongue.
"If you looked into a mirror," he whispered, "you would not see my marks. He wanted you to see what he'd done."
I shivered helplessly, and he lifted me to his lap. He was warm, hot to my cold skin. He lifted me a little and pulled a folding knife out of his pocket. He used the knife and sliced down his wrist like you're supposed to if you want to do suicide right.
"I thought the wrist was too painful," I managed through my sluggish thoughts and vibrating jaw.
"For you," he said. "Drink, Mercy. And shut up." A faint smile crossed his face, then he leaned his head back so I couldn't see his expression anymore.
Maybe it should have bothered me more. Maybe if this had been a normal night, it would have. But useless squeamishness was beyond me. I've hunted as a coyote for most of my life, and she never stopped to cook her food. The taste of blood was nothing new or horrible to me, not when it was Stefan's bloodand he wasn't dying or in pain or anything.
I put my lips against his wrist and closed my mouth over the cut. Stefan made a noiseit didn't sound like pain. He put his free hand on my head lightly and then lifted it off as if he didn't want to coerce me even that much. This was my choice freely made.
His blood didn't taste like rabbit or mouse. It was more bitterand somehow sweeter at the same time.
Mostly it was hot, sizzling hot, and I was cold. I drank as the cut under my tongue slowly closed. And I remembered this taste. Like eating at McDonald's twice in a day and ordering the same meal. I had a momentary flash of memory, just Blackwood's voice in my ears.
I didn't remember what he'd said or what he'd done, but brief memory of the sound had me curled up on the bench seat, my forehead on Stefan's thigh while I cried. Stefan pulled his wrist away and used his other hand to pet my head lightly.
"Mercy," he said gently. "He won't do that again. Not now. You are mine. He can't fog your mind or force you to do anything."
With my voice muffled by the fabric of his jeans, I said, "Does this mean you can read my mind?"
He laughed a little. "Only while you drink. That isn't my gift. Your secrets are safe." His laugh washed away Blackwood's voice.
I lifted up my head. "I'm glad I don't remember more of what he did," I told Stefan. But I thought that my desire to see Blackwood's body burn like Andre's might have a more personal reason than just what he was doing to Amber.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
I took a breath and evaluated myself. "Awesome. Like I could run from here to the Tri-Cities faster than the van could take us."
He laughed. "I don't think that's true unless we get a flat tire."
He stood up and he looked better than I'd seen him since since before he'd landed on the floor of my living room looking like something that had been buried a hundred years. I got up and had to sit down again.
"Balance," he said. "It's a little like being drunk. That'll fade fast, but I'd better drive us home."
I should have felt terrible. Some small voice was yammering that I should have checked with my Alpha before doing anything this permanent.
But I felt fine, better than fineand it wasn't just the vampire's blood. I felt truly in control of my life for the first time since Tim's assault. Which was pretty funny under the circumstances.
But I'd made the decision to put myself in Stefan's power.
"Stefan?" I watched the reflectors on the side of the road pass by.
"Hmm."
"Did anyone talk to you about the thing someone painted on the door of my shop?" I'd kept forgetting to ask him about itthough subsequent events had made it more obvious that it had been some sort of threat from Marsilia.
"No one said anything to me," he said. "But I saw it myself." Headlights reflected red in his eyes. Like the flash of a camera, only scarier. It made me smile.
"Marsilia had it done?"
"Almost certainly."
I could have left it there. But we had time to kill, and I had Bran's voice in my head saying, Information is important, Mercy. Get all the facts you can.
"What exactly does it mean?"
"It's the mark of a traitor," he said. "It means that one of our own has betrayed us, and she and all who belong to her are fair marks. A declaration of war."
It was no more than I had expected. "There's some sort of magic in it," I told him. "What does it do?"
"Keeps you from painting over it for long," he said. "And if it stays there long, you'll start attracting nasties who have no affiliation to the vampire."
"Terrific."
"You could always replace the door."
"Yeah," I told him glumly. Maybe the insurance company would replace it when I explained that the bones couldn't be painted over, but I didn't get my hopes up.
We drove for a while in silence, and I worried through the past few days, trying to see if there was something I'd missed or something I should have done differently.
"Hey, Stefan? How come I couldn't smell Blackwood after he bit me? Tonight I was a little distracted, but yesterday, with the first bite, I checked."
"He would have known what you are after he tasted you." Stefan stretched, and the van swayed a little with his movement. "I don't know whether he was trying to fool you into thinking him human, or if he always cleans up after himself in that way. There were things in the Old Country that hunted us by scentnot just werewolvesor by things that were left behind, hair, saliva, or blood. Many of the older vampires always remove any trace of themselves from their lairs and from their hunting grounds."
I'd almost forgotten they could do that.
The change in the sound of the car's engine as he slowed for city traffic woke me up.
"Do you want to go to your home or Adam's?" he asked.
Good question. Even though I was pretty sure Adam would understand what I'd done, I wasn't exactly looking forward to discussing matters with him. And I was too tired to work my way through exactly what I wanted to leave outand how I was going to kill Blackwood. I really wanted to talk to Zee before I talked to Adam, and I wanted to get a good long sleep before I did either.
"Mine."
I'd gone back to dozing when the van slowed abruptly. I looked up and saw why: there was someone standing in the middle of the road, looking down as if she'd lost something. She wasn't paying any attention at all to us.
"Do you know her?" We were on my road, just a few properties from our house, so Stefan's question was reasonable.
"No."
He stopped about a dozen yards away, and she finally looked up. The purr of the van's engine subsided, and Stefan glanced behind him, then opened the door and got out.
Trouble.
I stripped off my clothes, popped open my door, and shifted as I hopped out. A coyote may not be big, but it has fangs and surprisingly effective claws. I slipped under the van's side and out under the front bumper, where Stefan was leaning, his arms crossed casually across his chest.
The girl was no longer alone. Three vampires stood beside her. The first two I'd seen before, though I didn't know their names. The third was Estelle.
In Marsilia's seethe there had once been five vampires who had reached some sort of power plateau so that they did not depend upon the Mistress of the seethe for survival: Stefan; Andre, whom I'd killed; Wulfe, the bercreepy wizard in a boy's body; Bernard, who reminded me of a merchant out of a Dickens novel; and Estelle, the Mary Poppins of the undead. I'd never seen her when she wasn't dressed like an Edwardian governess, and tonight was no exception.
As if he'd been waiting for me to appear at his side, Stefan glanced down at me, then said, "Estelle, how nice to see you."
"I'd heard she hadn't destroyed you," Estelle said in her prim English voice. "She tortured you, starved you, banished youthen sent you to kill your little coyote bitch."
Stefan spread his hands out as if to showcase his own living undead flesh. "It is as you heard it." There was a musical cadence to his voice, and he sounded more Italian than usual.
"Yet here you are, you and the bitch both."
I growled at her, and I heard Stefan's smile in his reply. "I don't think she likes being called a bitch."
"Marsilia is mad. She's been mad since she awoke twelve years ago, and she hasn't gotten better with time." Estelle's voice softened, and she stepped forward. "If she weren't mad, she would never have tortured youher favorite."
She obviously waited for Stefan's reply, which didn't come. "I have a proposition for you," she told him.
"Join with me, and we will put Marsilia out of her miseryyou know that she'd have urged you to do just that if she were aware of what she's become. She will see us all destroyed in her obsession with returning to Italy. This is our homeour seethe bows to no other. Italy holds nothing for us."
"No," Stefan said. "I will not move against the Mistress."
"She is your Mistress no more," Estelle hissed. She strode forward until I was pressed against Stefan's leg. "She tortured youI saw what she did. You, who love hershe starved you and flayed the skin from you. How can you support her now?"
Stefan didn't reply.
And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I was right to trust him to protect me and not turn me into his mindless slave. Stefan didn't turn on those he loved. No matter what.
Estelle threw up her hands. "Idiot. Fool. She will go down, either by my hand or by Bernard's. And you know that the seethe will do better in my hands than in that fool Bernard's. I have contacts. I can make us grow and thrive until not even the courts of Italy will rival what we build."
Stefan quit leaning against the van. He spat on the ground with deliberate slowness.
She tensed, furious at the insult, and he smiled grimly. "Do it," he saidand, with a flick of his wrist and the magic of a Highlander episode, he held a sword in one hand. It was efficient-looking rather than beautiful: deadly.
"Soldier, you'll regret this," Estelle said.
"I regret many things," he replied, his voice sharpening with a cold, roiling anger. "Letting you walk off tonight might be another one. Maybe I shouldn't do it."
"Soldier," she said. "Remember who it was who betrayed you. You know how to reach medon't wait until it is too late."
The vampires left with preternatural speed, their human bait running after them. Stefan waited, sword in hand, while a car purred to life and one of the seethe's black Mercedes lit up. It roared past us and disappeared into the night.
He looked around, then asked me, "Do you smell anything, Mercy?"
I tested the air, but, except for Stefan, the vampires were gone or upwind. I shook my head and trotted back to the van. Stefan, gentleman that he had once been, stayed outside until I was dressed.
"That was interesting," I said, as he got in and put the van in gear.
"She's a fool."
"Marsilia?"
Stefan shook his head. "Estelle. She's no match for Marsilia. Bernard he's tougher and stronger even if he's younger. Together, they might manage something, but it'll be without me."
"It didn't sound like they were working together," I said.
"They'll work together until they've achieved their goals, then fight it out. But they are fools if they think they'll even get that far. They've forgotten, or have never known, what Marsilia can be."
HE PULLED UP IN THE DRIVEWAY AND WE BOTH GOT OUT of the van.
"If you need me, if you hear Blackwood call you againjust think of my name as you wish me at your side, and I'll come." He looked grim. I hoped it was the encounter with Estelle and not worry for me.
"Thank you."
He brushed a thumb over my cheek. "Wait for a while before you thank me. You might change your mind."
I patted his arm. "Decision's made."
He gave me a shallow bow and disappeared.
"That is just so cool," I told the empty air, and, suddenly so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open, I went inside and tucked myself into bed.
CHAPTER 8
ADAM WAS SITTING ON THE FOOT OF MY BED WHEN I woke up the next afternoon. He was leaning against the wall reading a well-worn copy of The Book of Five Rings. It was resting on Medea's back, and she was purring, wiggling her stub tailwhich she uses more like a dog than a cat.
"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" I asked.
He turned a page, and said in an absent voice, "My boss is flexible."
"Doesn't dock your pay for shirking," I mused. "How can I get a boss like yours?"
He grinned. "Mercy, even when Zee was your boss, he wasn't. I have no idea how you would ever find anyone you'd listen to unless you wanted to." He marked his place and set the book beside him. "I'm sorry your foray into exorcism didn't go well."
I considered it. "It depends upon your outlook, I suppose. I learned a few things like did you know that Stefan knew sign language? Why do you suppose a vampire would need to learn to sign? That ghosts aren't always harmless. I always thought the only way a ghost could kill was if it scared someone to death."
He waited, curling his fingers over the lump my toes made in the covers. His other hand was rubbing Medea's head, just behind her ears. Adam knows how to listen better than most people. So I told him what I hadn't told him before.
"I think it might have been my fault."
"What do you mean?"
"Until I came, it wasn't doing much just standard poltergeist stuff. Moving things around. Frightening, all right, but not dangerous. Then I show up, and things change. Chad almost gets killed. Ghosts just don't do thateven Stefan said so. I think I did something to make it worse."
He tightened his hold on my toes. "Has that ever happened to you before?"
I shook my head.
"Then maybe you're claiming too much credit. Maybe it would have happened anyway, and if you hadn't been there with Stefan, the boy would have died."
I wasn't sure he was right, but confessing my fear made me feel better, anyway.
"How is Mary Jo?" I asked.
He sighed. "She's still a little off, but Samuel's sure now that she'll be fine in a few more days." He relaxed and smiled at me a little. "She's ready to go out and take on the whole seethe all by herself. She also told Ben that if he'd keep his mouth shut, she'd love to get naked with him. We've decided we'll know that she's back to herself when she quits flirting with him."
I couldn't help but laugh. Mary Jo was as liberated as a woman could getbeing a werewolf had not altered that a bit. Ben was a misogynist of the highest (or lowest, depending upon your viewpoint) order with the added bonus of a foul mouth. The two of them were like flame and dynamite.
"No more troubles with the vampires?" I asked.
"None."
"But negotiations didn't accomplish much," I said.
He nodded comfortably. "Don't worry so, Mercy. We can take care of ourselves."
Maybe it was the way he said it
"So what did you do?"
"We have a couple of guests staying with us now. Neither of them seems to have Stefan's ability to disappear at will."
"And you'll keep them until"
"Until we have an apology for the events at Uncle Mike's and reparations paid to Mary Jo. And an agreement not to try something like that again."
"Do you think you'll get it?"
"Bran called her to deliver our request. I'm certain we'll get it."
Some tightness eased in my chest. The one thing that Marsilia did care about was the seethe. If Bran got involved in a battle, Marsilia's seethe was dead. The vampires in the Tri-Cities simply didn't have the numbers that the Marrok could bring into playand Marsilia knew it.
"So she'll have to concentrate on me," I said.
He smiled. "The agreement is that she will not attack the pack unless one of us newly and directly attacks her."
"She doesn't know I'm pack," I said.
"After we get that apology and promise from her in writing, I'll take great pleasure in informing her of that."
I sat up and rolled forward until I was up on all fours and my face was an inch from his. I kissed him lightly. He kept his hands on the cat.
"I like the way you operate, mister," I said. "Can I interest you in the pancakes I'm going to make after I shower?"
He tilted his head and gave me a deeper kiss, though he left his hands where they'd been. When he moved away, neither of us was breathing steadily.
"Now you can tell me why you smell like Stefan," he saidalmost gently.
I raised my arm and sniffed. I did smell like Stefan, more than riding home in a van would have accounted for.
"Weird."
"Why do you smell like the vampire, Mercy?"
"Because we exchanged blood," I told himand then explained what Stefan had told me about vampire bites on the way from Spokane. I couldn't remember which part was supposed to be secret and which parts weren'tbut it didn't matter. I wasn't going to keep anything from Adam, not when he'd made me part of his pack.