“Hey,” I said. And when he didn’t stop, I poked him in the side—I knew some of his ticklish spots, too. “Stop that. I didn’t hit you that hard.” He’d been taking lessons from Samuel.
He opened one eye. “How would you know?”
“You have a hard head,” I informed him. “If I didn’t damage my elbow, I didn’t hurt your head.”
“Come here,” he said opening his arms wide, eyes glittering with laughter ... and heat.
I crawled over on top of him. We both closed our eyes for a bit while I made myself comfortable. He ran his hands over my back.
“I love this,” he told me, a little breathless and yellow-eyed.
“Love what?” I turned my head and put my ear on his chest so I could hear the pounding of his heart.
“Touching you ...” He deliberately ran a hand over my bare butt. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”
He dug in with his fingers. Tension from the night before had left me tight, and it felt good. I went limp, and if I could have purred, I would have.
“Someone looking at us might think we’re asleep,” I told him.
“You think so? Only if they don’t notice my pulse rate ... or yours.”
He hit just the right spot, and I moaned.
“Just like Medea,” he murmured. “All I have to do is put my hands on you. You can be spitting mad ... and then you lean against me and go all soft and still.” He put his mouth against my ear. “That’s how I know you want me as much as I want you.” His arms were tight around me, and I knew that I wasn’t the only one with wounds.
“I don’t purr as well as Medea,” I told him.
“Are you sure about that?”
And he proceeded to show me what he meant. If I didn’t ever reach Medea’s volume, I came close. By the time he got down to business, there was no room in the inferno he’d made of me for fear or memory.
There was only Adam.
THE NEXT TIME I WOKE UP I WAS SMILING I WAS ALONE in the bed, but that didn’t matter because I could hear Adam downstairs—he was talking to Jesse. Either they were making lunch—I checked the window shades—dinner, or someone was getting chopped into small bits.
Soon I’d start worrying. But for now ... the vampires weren’t going to kill everyone I knew. They weren’t even going to kill me. The sun was up. And matters between Adam and me were right and tight.
Mostly. We had a lot of things to talk about. For instance, did he want me to move in? For a night, it was wonderful. But his house wasn’t exactly private; any of his pack could be here on any given day.
I liked my home, scruffy as it was. I liked having my own territory. And ... what about Samuel? I frowned. He was still ... not whole, and for some reason bunking at my house was helping. With me he could have a pack, but not be Alpha and responsible for everyone. I wasn’t sure it would work out so well for him if I moved in with Adam—and I knew it wouldn’t work out if he moved over here, too.
See, worrying already.
I took a deep breath and let it go. Tomorrow I would worry about Samuel, about Stefan, and about Amber, whose ghost was the least of her problems. I was just going to enjoy today. For the whole day I was going to be happy and carefree.
I slid out of bed and realized I was stark naked. Which was only to be expected. But there was no sign of underwear on the floor or in the bedding. I was head and shoulders under the bed when Adam said, from the doorway, “I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter A.”
“I’ll spy your little eye and squish it,” I threatened, but, since the bed hid me, there was a grin on my face. I’m not body shy—not growing up among werewolves. I can fake it so people don’t get the wrong idea ... but with Adam it would be the right one. I wiggled the something in question, and he patted it. “I’ve been smelling whatever you’ve been cooking”—something with lemon and chicken—“it’s making me hungry. But I can’t find my underwear.”
“You could go without,” he suggested, sitting on the bed just to the right of me.
“Hah,” I said. “Not on your life, buster. Jesse and who knows who else are down there. I’m not running around without underwear.”
“Who would know?” he asked. “I would know,” I told him, pulling my head out from under the bed only to see that he had my bright blue panties dangling from a finger.
“They were under the pillow,” he said with an innocent smile.
I snatched them and put them on. Then I hopped up and went to the bathroom, where the rest of my clothes were. I dressed, took a step toward the bathroom, and had a flashback.
I’d been here, unworthy, soiled ... stained. I couldn’t face them, couldn’t look into their faces because they all knew...
“Shh, shh,” Adam crooned in my ear. “That’s over. It’s over and done with.”
He held me, sitting on the bathroom floor with me on his lap, while I shook and the flashback faded.
When I could breathe normally again, I sat up with an attempt at dignity. “Sorry,” I said.
I’d thought that last night would have taken care of the flashbacks, the panic attacks—I was cured, right?
I reached up and grabbed a hand towel and wiped my wet face—and found that it just kept getting wet. I’d been so sure everything would be back to normal now.
“It takes longer than a week to get over something like that,” Adam told me, as if he could read my mind. “But I can help, if you’ll let me.”
I looked at him, and he ran a thumb under my eyes. “You’ll have to open up, though, and let the pack in.”
He smiled, a sad smile. “You’ve been blocking pretty ferociously since sometime on the trip back from Spokane. If I were to guess, I expect it was when you let Stefan bite you.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, and I guessed it showed.
“Not on purpose?” he said.
Somehow, I’d slid off his lap and was leaning against the opposite wall. “Not that I know.”
“You had a panic attack on the way home,” he told me.
I nodded and remembered the warmth of the pack that had pulled me out of it. Remarkable, awesome—and buried under the rest of the events of the past two nights.
His lids lowered. “That’s better ... a bit better.” He looked up from the floor and focused on me, yellow highlights dancing in his irises. He reached out and touched me just under my ear.
It was a light touch, just barely skin to skin. It should have been casual.
He laughed a little, sounding just a bit giddy. “Just like Medea, Mercy,” he said, dropping his hand and drawing a breath that sounded just a little ragged. “Let me try this again.” He held out his hand.
When I put mine in it, he closed his eyes and ... I felt a trickle of life, warmth, and health dribbling from his hand to mine. It felt like a hug on a summer’s day, laughter, and sweet honey.
I spread out into it through him, sliding into something I just knew were warm depths that would surround me with—
But the pack didn’t want me. And the minute the thought crossed my mind, the trickle dried up—and Adam jerked his hand back with a hiss of pain that brought me up to my knees. I reached out to touch him, then pulled my hand back so I didn’t hurt him again.
“Adam?”
“Stubborn,” he said with an appraising look. “I got bits and pieces from you, though. We don’t love you, so you won’t take anything from us?” The question in his voice was self-addressed, as if he weren’t quite sure of his analysis.
I sat back down on my heels, caught by the accuracy of his reading.
“Instincts drive the wolf ... coyote, too, I imagine,” he told me after a moment. He looked relaxed, one knee up and the other stretched out just to the side of me. “Truth is without flourishes or manners and runs with a logic all its own. You can’t let the pack give without giving in return, and if we don’t want your gift ...”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t understand how the pack
worked, but the last part was right. After a bit, he said, “It’s inconvenient sometimes to be a part of the pack. When the pack magic is in full swing—like now with the moon close to her zenith—there’s no hiding everything from each other all the time like we do as humans. Some things, yes, but we can’t chose which ones stay safely secret. Paul knows I’m still angry with him over his attack on Warren, and it makes him cringe—which just makes me angrier because it’s not remorse for trying to attack Warren when he was hurt but fear of my anger.”
I stared at him.
“It’s not all bad,” he told me. “It’s knowing who they are, what’s important to them, what makes them different. What strengths they each contribute to the pack.”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure how much you’ll get. If I want to, at full moon in wolf form, I can read everyone almost always—that’s part of being Alpha. It allows me to use the individuals to build a pack. Most of the pack get bits and pieces, mostly things that concern them or big things.” He gave me a little smile. “I didn’t know that bringing you into the pack would work at all, you know. I couldn’t have done it with a human mate, but you are always an unknown.” He looked at me intently. “You knew Mary Jo had been hurt.”
I shook my head. “No. I knew someone had been hurt—but I didn’t know it was Mary Jo until I saw her.”
“Okay,” he said, encouraged by my answer. “It shouldn’t be bad for you then. Unless you need them, or they need you, the pack will just be ... a shield at your back, warmth in the storm. Our mate bond—when it settles down—will probably add a little oddity to it.”
“What do you mean ‘when it settles down’?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Hard to explain.” He gave me an amused look. “When I was learning how to be a wolf, I asked my teacher what mating felt like. He told me it was different for different couples—and being Alpha adds a twist to it as well.”
“So you don’t know?” Because that wasn’t an answer—and Adam didn’t evade questions. He answered or told you he wasn’t going to.
“I do now,” he said. “Our bond”—he made a gesture with his hand indicating something in the small space in the bathroom that lay between us—“feels to me like a bridge, like the suspension bridge over the Columbia. It has foundations and the cables and all that it needs to be a bridge, but it doesn’t span the river yet.” He looked at my face and grinned. “I know it sounds stupid, but you asked. Anyway, if all you felt when Mary Jo was dying was that someone was hurt, that you caught the few who don’t welcome you as part of our pack is my fault. You felt them through me. On your own, you won’t even be aware of it unless certain conditions are met. Things like proximity, how open you are to the pack, and if the moon is full.” He grinned. “Or how grumpy you are with them.”
“So if I don’t feel it, it shouldn’t matter if they don’t want me?”
He gave me a neutral look. “Of course it matters—but it won’t be shoved down your throat every minute of the day. Mostly, I expect you’ll know the ones who don’t want a coyote in the pack. As Warren knows the wolves who hate what he is more than what he does.” Briefly, sorrow lit his eyes for Warren’s trials, but he kept speaking. “Just as Darryl knows the wolves who resent being given orders by a black man made uppity by a good education.” He smiled, just a little. “You aren’t alone, most people are prejudiced about something. But you know, after a while the edges wear down. You know who hated Darryl the most when he joined us, way back when we were still in New Mexico?”
I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.
“Aurielle. She thought he was an arrogant, self-important snob.”
“Which he is,” I observed. “But he’s also smart, quick, and given to small kindnesses when no one is watching.”
“So,” he nodded. “We are none of us perfect, and as pack, we learn to take these imperfections and make them only a small part of who we are. Let us bring you truly into our shelter, Mercedes. And the wolves who resent you will deal with it as you will deal with the ones you don’t like, for whatever reason. I think, with the healing you have already done on your own, the pack can help stop your panic attacks.”
“Ben’s rude,” I said, considering it.
“See, you already know most of us,” Adam said. “And Ben adores you. He doesn’t quite know how to deal with it yet. He’s not used to liking anyone ... and liking a woman ...”
“Ish,” I said, deadpan.
“Let’s try again,” he suggested, and put out his hand.
This time when I touched him, all I felt was skin and calluses, no warmth, no magic.
He tilted his head and evaluated me sternly. “It’s hard to argue with instinct, even with reason and logic, isn’t it? May I knock?”
“What?”
“May I see if I can touch you first? Maybe that’ll allow you to open to the pack.”
It sounded harmless enough. Warily, I nodded ... and I felt him, felt his spirit or something, touch me. It wasn’t like when I’d called Stefan. That had been as intimate as talking was—not very much. Adam’s touch reminded me more of the presence I felt sometimes in church—but this was unmistakably Adam and not God.
And because it was Adam, I let him in, accepting him into my secret heart. Something settled into place with a rightness that rang in my soul. Then the floodgates opened.
THE NEXT TIME I WAS CONSCIOUS OF ANYTHING REAL, I was back in Adam’s lap but on his bedroom floor instead of in the bathroom. A number of the pack surrounded us and stood with their hands linked. My head hurt like the one and only time I’d gotten truly drunk, only much worse.
“We’re going to have to work on your filtering skills, Mercy,” said Adam, his voice sounding a little rough.
As if that was a signal, the pack broke apart and became individuals again—though I hadn’t been aware they were anything else until it was gone. Something stopped, and my head didn’t hurt so much. Uncomfortable at being on the floor when everyone else was on their feet, I rolled forward and tried to use my hands to get leverage so I could stand.
“Not so fast,” Samuel murmured. He hadn’t been one of the circle, I’d have noticed him, but he pushed his way through to the front of the line. He gave me a hand and pulled until I was on my feet.
“I’m sorry,” I told Adam, knowing something bad had happened, but I couldn’t quite focus on what it had been.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Mercy,” Samuel assured me with a little edge to his voice. “Adam is old enough to know better than to draw his mate into the pack at the same time as he seals your mate bond. Sort of like someone teaching a baby to swim in the ocean. During a tsunami.”
Adam hadn’t gotten up when I did, and when I looked at him, his face was grayish underneath his tan. He had his eyes closed, and he was sitting as if moving would be very painful. “Not your fault, Mercy. I asked you to open up to me.”
“What happened?” I asked him.
Adam opened his eyes, and they were as yellow as I’d ever seen them. “Full-throttle overload,” he said. “Someone probably should call Darryl and Warren and make sure they’re all right. They stepped in without notice and helped tuck you back into your own skin.”
“I don’t remember,” I said warily.
“Good,” said Samuel. “Fortunately for us all, the mind has a way of protecting itself.”
“You went from fully closed to fully open,” Adam said. “And when you opened yourself up to me, the mate bond settled in, too. Before I realized what happened you ...” He waved his hands. “Sort of spread out through the pack bonds.”
“Like Napoleon trying to take over Russia,” said Samuel “There just wasn’t enough of you to go around.”
I remembered a bit then. I’d been swimming, drowning in memories and thoughts that weren’t mine. They’d flowed over me, around me, and through me like a river of ice—stripping me raw as the shards passed by. It had been cold and dark; I couldn’t breathe. I’d heard Adam calling my name ...
“Aurielle answered,” reported Ben from the hallway. “She says Darryl is fine. Warren’s not picking up, so I called his boy toy’s cell. Boy will check up and call me back.”
“I bet you didn’t call him a boy toy to his face,” I said.
“You can effing believe I did,” answered Ben with injured dignity. “You should have heard what he called me.”
Kyle, Warren’s human boyfriend, who in his day job was a barracuda divorce lawyer, had a tongue that could be as razor-sharp as his mind. I’d bet money on the outcome of any verbal skirmish between Kyle and Ben, and it wouldn’t be on Ben.
“Is Dad all right?” asked Jesse. The wolves moved aside almost sheepishly to let her through—and I realized they must have kept her away while the matter was still in doubt. Judging by Adam’s eyes, he held on to control by a gnat’s hair—so keeping his vulnerable human daughter away had been a good idea. But I knew Jesse—I wouldn’t have wanted to have been the one keeping her back.
Adam got hastily to his feet and almost didn’t lean on Mary Jo—who’d put her hand out when he swayed.
“I’m just fine,” he told his daughter, and gave her a quick hug.
“Jesse’s the one who called Samuel,” Mary Jo told him. “We didn’t even think of it. He told us what to do.”
“Jesse’s the bomb,” I said with conviction. She gave me a shaky grin.
“The trick,” Samuel said to me, “is to join with the pack and with Adam—without losing yourself in them. It’s instinctive for the werewolves, but I expect you’re going to have to work on it.”
IN THE END, I WENT HOME FOR DINNER, SLIPPING OUT ALMOST unnoticed in the gathering that followed our close call. I needed some time alone. Adam saw me leave, but made no move to stop me—he knew I’d be back.
There was a bowl of tuna fish, pickles, and mayo in the fridge, so I made a sandwich and fed what was left to the cat. As she ate with delicate haste, I called Kyle’s cell phone.
“Uhmm?”
The sound was so relaxed, I pulled the phone away from my ears to make sure it was Kyle’s phone I’d gotten. But there it was on the little screen-KYLE’s CELL.