Losing her had been bad; losing his daughter was much, much worse. Jesse trailed noise and cheer everywhere she wentand her absence was . . . difficult. His wolf was restless. A creature of the moment, his wolf. There was no way to comfort it with the knowledge that hed have Jesse back for the summer. Not that he derived much comfort from that either. So he tried to lose himself in work.
Someone knocked on the back door.
He pushed back the chair and had to pause. The wolf was angry that someone had breached his sanctuary. Not even his pack had been brave enough these past few days to approach him in his home.
By the time he stalked into the kitchen, he had it mostly under control. He jerked open the back door and expected to see one of his wolves. But it was Mercy.
She didnt look cheerfulbut then, she seldom did when she had to come over and talk to him. She was tough and independent and not at all happy to have him interfere in any way with that independence. It had been a long time since someone had bossed him around the way she didand he liked it. More than a wolf whod been Alpha for twenty years ought to like it.
She smelled of burnt car oil, jasmine from the shampoo shed been using that month, and chocolate. Or maybe that last was the cookies on the plate she handed him.
Here, she said stiffly. And he realized it was shyness that pinched in the corner of her mouth. Chocolate usually helps me regain my balance when life kicks me in the teeth.
She didnt wait for him to say anything, just turned around and walked back to her house.
He took the cookies back to the office with him. After a few minutes, he ate one. Chocolate, thick and dark, spread across his tongue, its bitterness alleviated by a sinful amount of brown sugar and vanilla. Hed forgotten to eat and hadnt realized it.
But it wasnt the chocolate or the food that made him feel better. It was Mercys kindness to someone she viewed as her enemy. And right at that moment, he realized something. She would never love him for what he could do for her.
He ate another cookie before getting up to make himself dinner.
* * *
ADAM SHUT DOWN THE BOND BETWEEN US UNTIL IT was nothing more than a gossamer thread.
Im sorry, he murmured against my ear. So sorry. F He swallowed the obscenity before it left his lips. He pulled me closer, and I realized we were both sitting in the gravel driveway, huddled next to the truck. And the gravel was really cold on my bare skin.
Are you all right? he said.
Do you know what you showed me? I asked. My voice was hoarse.
I thought it was a flashback, he answered. Hed seen me have them before.
Not one of mine, I told him. One of yours.
He stilled. Was it bad?
Hed been in Vietnam; hed been a werewolf since before I was bornhed probably seen a lot of bad stuff.
It seemed like a private moment that I had no business seeing, I told him truthfully. But it wasnt bad.
Id seen him the moment that Id become something more than an assignment from the Marrok.
I remembered feeling stupid standing on his back porch with a plate of cookies for a man whose life had just gone down in the flames of a nasty divorce. He hadnt said anything when he answered the doorso Id assumed that hed thought it stupid, too. Id gone back home as fast as I could without running.
I had had no idea that it had helped. Nor that he saw me as tough and capable. Funny, Id always thought I looked weak to the werewolves.
So what if I still flinched if he forgot and put a hand on my shoulder? Time would fix that. I was already a lot better: daily flashbacks to the rape were a thing of the past. Wed work through it. Adam was willing to make allowances for me.
And our bond did its rubber-band thing, which it did sometimes, and snapped back into place, giving him access to my thoughts as if my head were clear as glass.
Whatever you need, he said, his body suddenly still as the evening air. Whatever I can do.
I relaxed my shoulders, burying my nose against his collarbone, and after a second, the relaxation was genuine. I love you, I told him. And we need to talk about me paying you for that truck.
Im not
I cut off his words. I meant to put a finger against his lips or something tender like that. But Id jerked my head up in reaction to his apology and slammed my forehead into his chin. Shutting him up much more effectively than Id meant to as he bit his tongue.
He laughed as he bled down his shirt, and I babbled apologies. He let his head fall back against the truck door with a thump.
Leave off, Mercy. Itll close up quick enough on its own.
I backed up until I was sitting beside himhalf-laughing myself, because although it probably hurt quite a bit, he was right that his injury would heal in a few minutes. It was minor, and he was a werewolf.
Youll quit trying to pay for the SUV, he told me.
The SUV was my fault, I informed him.
You didnt throw a wall on it, he said. I might have let you pay for the dent
Dont even try to lie to me, I huffed indignantly, and he laughed again.
Fine. I wouldnt have. But its a moot point anyway, because after the wall fell on it, fixing the dent was out of the question. And the ice elfs lack of control was completely the vampires fault
I could have kept arguing with himI usually like arguing with Adam. But there were things I liked better.
I leaned forward and kissed him.
He tasted of blood and Adamand he didnt seem to have any trouble following the switch from mild bickering to passion. After a whileI dont know how longAdam looked down at his bloodstained shirt and started laughing again. I suppose we might as well go bowling after all, he said, pulling me to my feet.
Chapter 2
WE STOPPED AT A STEAK HOUSE FOR DINNER FIRST.
Hed left the bloodstained coat and formal shirt in the car and snagged a dark blue T-shirt from a bag of miscellaneous clothes in the backseat. Hed asked me if he looked odd wearing a T-shirt with tuxedo pants. He couldnt see the way the shirt clung to the muscles of his shoulders and back. I reassured him, truthfullyand with a straight facethat no one would care.
It was Friday night, and business was brisk. Happily, the service was fast.
After the waitress took our orders, Adam said, a little too casually, So what did you see in your vision?
Nothing embarrassing, I told him. Just one time when I brought cookies over to you.
His eyes brightened. I see, he said, and his shoulders relaxed a bit, even if his cheeks reddened. I was thinking about that.
We okay? I asked him. Im sorry I intruded.
He shook his head. No apologies necessary. Youre welcome to whatever you pick up.
So, I said casually, your first time was under the bleachers, huh?
He jerked his head up.
Gotcha. Warren told me.
He smiled. Cold and wet and miserable.
The waitress plunked our food down in front of us and hurried on her way. Adam fed me bites of his rare filet mignon, and I fed him some of my salmon. Food was good, company better, and if I had been a cat, Id have purred.
You look happy. He took a sip of his coffee and stretched out a leg so his foot was against mine.
You make me happy, I told him.
You could be happy all the time, he said, eating the last bite of baked potato, and move in with me.
To wake up next to him every morning . . . but . . . Nope. Ive caused you enough trouble, I told him. The pack and I need to come to . . . détente before Im moving in. Your home is the den, the heart of the pack. They need a place where they feel safe.
They can adjust.
Theyre adjusting as fast as they can, I told him. First there was Warrendid you hear that after you let him in, several other packs have allowed gay wolves to join, too? And now theres me. A coyote in a werewolf packyou have to admit thats quite a lot of change for one pack to take.
Next thing you know, he said, women will have the vote or a black man will become president. He looked serious, but there was humor in his voice.
See? I pointed my fork at him. Theyre all stuck in the eighteen hundreds, and youre expecting them to change. Samuel likes to say that most werewolves have all the change they can deal with the first time they become wolf. Other kinds of change are tough to force on them.
Peter and Warren are the only ones whove been around since the eighteen hundreds, Adam told me. Most of them are younger than I am.
The waitress came and blinked a little as Adam ordered three dessertswerewolves take a lot of food to keep themselves fueled up. I shook my head when she looked my way.
When she left, I took up the conversation from where Id left off. It wont hurt us to wait a few months until things settle down.
If he hadnt basically agreed with me, Id have been sleeping in his house already instead of making do with dates. He understood as well as I did that pulling me into his pack had caused a lot of resentment. Maybe if it had been a healthy, well-adjusted pack beforehand, things wouldnt have gotten so tense.
A few years ago, some of his pack had started harassing mea coyote living next door. Werewolves, like their natural brethren, are territorial, and they dont share their hunting ground easily with other predators. So to put a stop to it, Adam declared me his mate. I hadnt known at the time why the harassment abruptly stoppedand Adam hadnt been in a hurry to tell me. But pack magic demanded that the declaration be answered, and Adam bore the cost when it wasnt. It left him weaker, crabbier, and less able to help his pack stay calm, cool, and collected. By bringing me in as a member of his pack at virtually the same time our mating bond connected, Adam hadnt given his people a chance to get their feet underneath them before throwing them back onto uncertain ground.
One more month, he said finally. And then theyand Samuel, toowill just have to get used to it. His eyes, the color of bitter dark chocolate, were serious as he leaned forward. And you will marry me.
I smiled, showing my teeth. Dont you mean, Will you marry me?
I meant it to be funny, but his eyes brightened until little gold flecks were swimming in the darkness. You had your chance to run, coyote. Its too late now. He smiled. Your mother is happy that shell be able to use some of the stuff from your sisters wedding that wasnt.
Panic swelled my heart. You didnt talk to her about this, did you? I had visions of a church filled with people and white satin everywhere. And doves. My mother had had doves at her wedding. My sister had eloped to get away from her. My mother is a steamroller, and she doesnt listen very well . . . to anyone.
The wolf left his eyes, and he grinned. Youre okay with marrying a werewolf who has a teenage daughter and a pack thats falling apartand your mother panics you?
Youve met my mother, I said. She ought to panic you, too.
He laughed.
You just werent around her long enough. It was only fair that I warn him.
* * *
WE WERE LUCKY AND GOT OUR SCORING TABLE TO ourselves, as the women who had the lane to our left were packing up when we got back from choosing our bowling balls from the available stack. Mine was bright green with gold swirls. Adams was black.
You have no imagination, I told him smugly. It wouldnt hurt if you found a pink ball to bowl with.
All the pink balls have kid-sized holes in them, he told me. The black balls are the heaviest.
I opened my mouth, but he shut me up with a kiss. Not here, he said. Look next to us.
We were being observed by a boy of about five and a toddler in a frilly pink dress.
I raised my nose in the air. As if I were going to joke about your ball. How juvenile.
He grinned at me. I thought youd feel that way.
I sat down and messed with player names on the interface on the scoring table until I was satisfied.
Found On Road Dead, he said dryly, looking over my shoulder.
I thought Id use our cars as names. You drive a Ford now. F-O-R-D.
Very Woo-hoo?
Not a lot of cool words start with a W,I admitted.
He leaned over my shoulder and changed it to Vintage Wabbit, then into my ear, he said, Very wicked. Mine.
I can live with that. His warm breath on my ear felt very wicked, all right.
Until Adam, Id always felt like his black bowling ballboring but useful. Im nothing special in the looks department, once you get past the slightly exotic coloring my Blackfoot father gave me. And Adam . . . Heads turn when Adam walks by. Even in the bowling alley, he was attracting attention.
Go throw your boring black ball, I told him sternly. Flirting with the scorekeeper wont help you because the computers keep score now.
As if I needed help, he smirked, walking backward a few steps before he turned around to pay attention to the poor, helpless bowling pins.
He bowled with the deadly earnestness and decisive style with which he did everything else. Controlled power, that was Adam.
But I started noticing something other than admiration in the gazes of the people who were beginning to look at us. At Adam. He wasnt really a celebrity; he tried to stay out of the news. But Adam was one of the wolves who was out to the publica sober, successful businessman whose security company protected American nuclear technology from foreign hands: a good guy who happened to be a werewolf. All fine and dandy when they read about it in the newspapers, I guess. But it was different to see a werewolf at their bowling alley.
They are afraid of him.
The thought was so strong it felt as if someone were whispering into my ear, bringing with it worry.
Look at them. I saw the men bristling over their women, the mothers hastily gathering their children to them. In a moment, there would be a mass exodusand that was assuming that some of the young men I saw coming to their feet about four lanes down didnt do something stupid.
He hasnt noticed yet.
Adam gave me a sly, pleased grin at his strike as he walked backa strike more remarkable because there were no shattered pins, no broken equipment. Too much power can be as great a disadvantage as not enough.
Look beside you.
I took up my green ball and glanced at the people next to us. Like Adam, they were too involved in their game to notice the growing murmuring. The young boy was crawling under the chairs, and his parents were bickering over something on the score-board. Their too-cute toddlerwith her pink dress and little pink lions in the two-inch ponytails that stuck out from the back of her headhad climbed up on the bowling platform and was playing with the ball return blowers designed to dry sweaty palms. She wiggled her little hands over the cool air and laughed.
Adam will feel bad when he notices that people are leaving because hes here.
Sweat gathered on my forehead, which was ridiculous because it was cool inside. I paused halfway to the throw line (or whatever it was called) and, imitating Adam, I brought the ball up and held it in the middle of my chest.
Perhaps theres a way to show everyone that hes not a monster, hes a hero.
I glanced over my shoulder and watched the toddler bang on the air vent. Her brother had wandered back through the seating area and was playing with the balls on the racks. His mother had just noticed hed gotten away from her and had gotten up to go get him.
I turned my attention back to the pins.
Are you watching? I asked Adam. The urge to do something for Adam was so strong it made my hands clench.
My eyes are peeled, he said. Are you going to do something amazing?
I swung the ball awkwardly, as if Id never bowled before, missed the release, and sent it zipping backward toward the little girl playing with the air.
As soon as it left my fingers, I couldnt believe what Id done. Sweating, shaking, and horrified, I turned. But as quick as I was, Id missed the action.
Adam had caught the ball a good two feet short of the toddler.
She looked up at Adam, whose noisy fall to the ground had disturbed her play. When she saw that there was a strange man so close, her eyes got big, and her bottom lip stuck out.
Adam is mostly uninterested in children (other than his own) until they are teenagers or older and, as he told me once, capable of interesting conversation.
Hey, he said, looking very uncomfortable.
She considered him a moment. But she was female and Adam was . . . well, Adam. So she put her hands in front of her mouth and giggled.
It was adorable. Darling cute. He was a goner, and everyone who was watching could see it.
The miniature conqueror squealed as her father grabbed her up and her mother, little boy in tow behind her, babbled out thanks.
And you are the villain of the piece. Poor Mercy.
Of course I was the bad guy; Id nearly smooshed a toddler. What had I been thinking? If shed taken a step back, or if Adam hadnt been fast enough, she could have been killed.
She wasnt in any danger. You didnt throw it at her, just rolled it past her. It wouldnt have hit her. You saved him, and he didnt even notice.
He frowned at me after we moved over a lane (for the safety of everyone, though the anxious manager didnt actually come out and say that). We restarted the game, and he let me bowl first.
I carefully rolled the first ball down the gutter, where it wouldnt be likely to hit anyone. I dont know if I did it for my own sake or to reassure anyone watching me.
All you were trying to do was keep Adam happy. And this is the thanks you get.
Almost squishing babies wasnt exactly an act I expected thanks for. I rubbed my forehead as if it would help clear my thoughts.
It wouldnt have hit her. You made sure of it. Even if Adam had missed, it would have rolled harmlessly past.
Adam watched me thoughtfully, but he didnt say anything to me as I engineered my loss by a hundred bazillion points. I could hardly bowl well after my spectacular failure, or someone would figure out Id done it on purpose.
I had done it on purpose, hadnt I?
I couldnt believe Id done something like that. What was wrong with me? If Adam had looked more approachable, I might have talked to him about it.
He doesnt want to hear what you have to say. Best just keep quiet. Hed never understand anyway.
I didnt mind, didnt object anyhow, to the way Adam made sure to stand where he could field my ball if I lost control again. After all, his rescue of the baby looked better if he seemed to think I was an idiot, right?
Four turns in, Adam stepped in front of me, and said in a low voice that wouldnt carry beyond us, You did it on purpose, didnt you? What in the hell were you thinking?
And for some reason, even though I agreed with him, his question made me mad. Or maybe that was the voice in my head.
He should have understood sooner. He should understand his mate better than anyone. You shouldnt have to defend yourself to him. Best not to say anything at all.
I raised an eyebrow and stalked past him to pick up my ball. Hurt fed anger. I was so mad I forgot myself enough to get a strike. I made sure it was the last point I made in the gameand I didnt say a word to him.
Adam won with a score over two hundred. When he finished bowling the last frame, he took both our balls back to the rack while I changed my shoes.
The teenage boys (by then five lanes away) stopped him and had him sign an autograph for them. I took my shoes back to the desk and turned them inand paid for the game, too.
Is he really the Alpha? asked the teenage girl behind the counter.
Yep, I said through clenched lips.
Wow.
Yep.
I left the bowling alley and waited for him by the side of his shiny new truck, which was locked. The temperature had dropped by twenty degrees as soon as the sun went down, and it was cold enough to make me, in my heels and dress, uncomfortable. Or it would have been if my temper hadnt kept me nice and warm.
I stood by the passenger door, and he didnt see me at first. I saw him lift his head and sniff the air. I leaned my hip against the side of the truck, and the movement caught his attention. He kept his eyes on me as he walked from the building to the truck.
Hed thought youd deliberately endanger a child to make him look good. He doesnt understand that youd never do such a thing. She wouldnt have gotten hurt; the ball would have rolled past her harmlessly. He owes you an apology.
I didnt say anything to him. I could hardly tell him that the little voices made me do it, could I?
His eyes narrowed, but he kept his mouth shut, too. He popped the locks and let me get myself in the truck. I paid attention to the buckle, then settled back in the seat and closed my eyes. My hands clenched in my lap, then loosened as a familiar shape inserted itself and my hands closed on the old wood and silver of the fae-made walking stick.
Id gotten so used to its showing up unexpectedly, I wasnt even surprised, though this was the first time Id actually felt it appear where it hadnt been. I was more preoccupied with the disaster of our date.
With the walking stick in my hands, it felt as if my head cleared at last. Abruptly I wasnt angry anymore. I was just tired and I wanted to go home.
Mercy.
Adam was angry enough for the both of us: I could hear the grinding of his teeth. He thought I would throw a bowling ball at a little girl.
I couldnt blame him for his anger. I moved the walking stick until the base was on the floor, then rubbed my thumb on the silver head. There was nothing I could say to defend myselfI didnt want to defend myself. Id been recklessly stupid. What if Adam had been slower? I felt sick.
I dont understand women, he bit out, starting the car up and gunning the gas a little harder than necessary.
I gripped the fairy stick with all my might and kept my eyes closed all the way home. My stomach hurt. He was right to be angry, right to be upset.
I had the desperate feeling something was wrong, wrong, wrong. I couldnt talk to him because I was afraid Id make everything worse. I needed to understand why Id done what Id done before I could make him understand.
We pulled into my driveway in silence. Samuels car was gone, so he must have headed into work earlier than he meant to. I needed to talk to him because I had a very nasty suspicion about tonight. I couldnt talk to Adambecause it would sound like I was trying to find excuses for myself. I needed Samuel, and he wasnt here.
I released my seat belt and unlocked my doorAdams arm shot in front of me and held the door closed.
We need to talk, he said, and this time he didnt sound angry.
But he was too close. I couldnt breathe with him this close. And right then, when I could least afford it, I had another panic attack.
With a desperate sound I couldnt help, I jerked my feet to the seat and propelled myself up and over the front seat and into the back. The back door was locked, too, but even as I started to struggle with the latch, Adam popped the lock, and I was free.
I stumbled back away from the truck, shaking and sweating in the night air, the fae stick in one hand like a cudgel or a sword that could protect me from . . . being stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Damn Tim and all that hed done for leaving me stupidly shaking while I stood perfectly safely in the middle of my own stupid driveway.
I wanted to be myself again instead of this stranger who was afraid of being touchedand who had little voices in her head that made her throw bowling balls at children.
Mercy, Adam said. Hed gotten out of the truck and come around the back of it. His voice was gentle, and the sound of it . . . Abruptly I could feel his sorrow and bewildermentsomething had happened, and he didnt know what it was. He just knew hed screwed up somehow. He had no idea how it had gone so badly wrong.
I didnt want to know what he was feeling because it only made me stupiderand more vulnerable.
I have to go in, I told the stick in my hand because I couldnt look up at Adams face just then. If Id looked at him, I think I would have run, and hed have chased me. Some other day, that might have been fun. Tonight, it would be disastrous. So I moved slowly.
He didnt follow me as I walked to my door but said from where he stood, Ill send someone over to stand guard.
Because I was the Alphas mate. Because he worried about me. Because of Tim. Because of guilt.
No, he said, taking a step closer to me, telling me the bond was stronger on his side at that moment. Because I love you.
I shut the door gently between us and leaned my forehead against it.
My stomach hurt; my throat was tight. I wanted to scream or punch someone, but instead I clenched the walking stick until my fingers hurt and listened to Adam get in his truck and back out of my driveway.
I looked down at the walking stick. Oncemaybe stillit made all the sheep its bearer owned have twins. But it had been fashioned a long time ago, and old magic sometimes grew and developed in strange ways. It had become more than just a walking stick with agricultural applications. Exactly what that meant, no one really knewother than it followed me around.
Maybe it was a coincidence that the first time Id felt like myself since walking into the bowling alley was when Id grabbed it in Adams truck. And maybe it wasnt.
Ive had a lot of fights with Adam over the years. Probably inevitable given who we werethe literal as well as figurative Alpha male and . . . me, who was raised among lots of dominant-type males and had chosen not to let them control me (no matter how benign that control might have been). Id never felt like this after a fight, though. Usually, I feel energized and cheerful, not sick and scared out of my skin.
Of course, usually the fight is my idea and not someone using the pack bonds to play with my head.
I could be wrong, I thought. Maybe it had been some new kind of nifty reaction to my run-in with the not-so-dearly-departed Timas if panic attacks and flashbacks werent enough.
But, now that it was over, the voices tasted like the pack to me. Id never heard of pack being able to influence someone through the bonds, but there was a lot I didnt understand about pack magic.
I needed to shed my skin, free myself for a little while of the pack and mate bonds that left too many people with access to my head. I could do that: maybe I couldnt get rid of everything, but I could shed my human skin and run alone, clear my head for just a little bit.
I needed to figure out for certain what had happened tonight. Distance didnt always provide me with solitude, but it usually worked to weaken the bonds between Adam and meand also between the pack and me. I needed to leave before whoever he decided to send over to guard me arrived, because they certainly wouldnt let me run off on my own.
Without bothering to go to my bedroom, I stripped. Setting down the walking stick took more effort, which told me that Id already convinced myself that it had served to block whoever had been influencing me.
I waited, ready to pick up the walking stick again, but there were no more voices in my head. Either they had lost interest because Adam was gone and theyd succeeded in their efforts. Or else distance was as much of a factor as I believed. Either way, I would leave the stick behind because a coyote carrying such a thing would draw too much attention.
So I slid into my coyote-self with a sigh of relief. I felt instantly safer, more centered, in my four-pawed form. Stupid, because Id never noticed that changing shape interfered with either my mate bond or pack bond in the least. But I was willing to grab onto anything that made me feel better at this point.
I hopped through the dog door Samuel had installed in my back door and out into the night.
Outside smelled different, better, clearer to me. In my coyote skin, I took in more information than the human me. I could scent the marmot in her nearby den and the bats who nested in the rafters of my garage. The month was half-gone, and the moon was a wide slice that was orangeeven to my coyote color-impaired eyes. The dust of the last of harvest was in the air.
And a werewolf in lupine form was approaching.
It was Ben, I thought, which was good. Darryl would have sensed my coyote, but Ben had been raised in London and had lived there until a year and a half ago. He would be easier to fool.