Zack’s speech had been a little blurry. The troll had crushed his jaw, too. But his eyes were happy. Very happy.
I leaned forward in my seat so I could get a better look at his face. He looked like a man who knew something no one else did. He’d been closeted with Adam in medical.
I frowned at him, but he didn’t see it.
“So Mercy’s fae friend can save us from her other fae friend,” said Alec bitterly. There were subpacks in the pack, groups of people who just liked one another and hung out together. Alec was one of Mary Jo’s cadre.
He didn’t get up because Ben had the floor. But Zack’s contributions, made while he was sitting down, had opened the way for audience participation.
Adam stared at him until Alec dropped his eyes. It didn’t take very long.
“Indeed,” said Adam, very softly. “Zee has shown himself to be a friend.”
Alec, his head bowed very low, tried not to squirm. Ben didn’t react at all, just waited for the drama to be done.
I tried, but couldn’t recall any time Zee did anything to help the pack. Okay, he had helped Adam find me when a fairy queen wouldn’t let me go—but that didn’t really count because he was helping Adam find me, helping me, not helping the pack.
“Are you finished, Ben?” asked Adam.
Ben glanced at Joel, who didn’t do anything I could see, but Ben nodded and sat down. Joel stood up.
Adam said, “How are you?”
Joel smiled. “Better than I’ve been in a long time,” he said, sounding it. “The boy told me he hadn’t killed the tibicena, and he’s right. I can feel it. But so far, I’ve been able to stay me for the past four hours.”
“The boy—Aiden—helped you,” said Adam.
Joel glanced at me. “I haven’t been able to stay human for longer than an hour or two since Guayota gave me to the tibicena,” he said. “Since Aiden drew out the fire, I’m in charge. I don’t know how long it will last, but absolutely he helped me.” He waited to see if Adam had more questions. When Adam didn’t say anything else, Joel sat down.
George stood up. George was pretty far up in the pack hierarchy. A good man and steady. I liked him.
Adam invited him to speak with a tilt of his head.
“We are werewolves,” George said heavily. “Mercy is not, so maybe she doesn’t understand how this works. We are pack, and we look out for ourselves. We cannot afford to take on the world and lose focus, forget what’s important. We take care of pack.”
“And that’s why you became a police officer, is it, George?” I couldn’t help myself, though I knew I should hold my peace. “Not to protect and serve all the citizens of Pasco, but to take care of the pack.”
He flushed angrily. “That’s got nothing to do with it.”
I met his gaze and held it. “Okay,” I said mildly.
“I do my job,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed. He did.
George worked for the Pasco Police Department. From what I’d overheard during the barbecue, he’d been in among the police on the Pasco side of the bridge today. Pasco had lost two police officers and had another three in the hospital in various states of non-life-threatening injuries, one of whom he’d dragged off the bridge—right out from under the nose of the troll. Which was why I thought he was being pretty hypocritical.
“Mercy, quit playing games with the grumpy werewolf,” murmured Warren. When I glanced at him, he was staring at George. “You might start a fight. Remember, werewolves look out for pack.” He bit off the last word.
George sat down and stared away from me—away from Warren, too.
“He’s right,” Paul said earnestly, standing up but not waiting for an invitation from Adam to talk. “George, I mean, not Warren. We cannot be responsible for everyone in the Tri-Cities, like Mercy said. Like she tried to make us be.” Paul had been on the bridge for my grand declaration. Paul was not one of my staunchest supporters. “Some of you think this meeting is to discuss the boy she brought home. But she did more than that. Mercy offered sanctuary to anyone who came to the pack for help.”
“Point of fact.” I stood up, though there wasn’t supposed to be more than one person standing (other than Adam). I wasn’t going to talk to Paul from a position of weakness. “I reserved the right of the pack to offer sanctuary to anyone we chose to help. A small but important distinction.” I sat down again.
“You challenged the Gray Lords,” Paul said. His short reddish beard tended to hide anything but strong emotions, but there was a tone of entreaty in his voice. “We can’t take on the Gray Lords, Mercy.”
He had a point. But he was looking at what I had done from the wrong point of view. I stood up again. And then hesitated, waiting for Adam to ask me to sit down until it was my turn to speak. Adam was a stickler for order and proper procedure in the pack meetings. But he simply watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. So I decided to go ahead and answer Paul’s statement.
“I grew up in the Marrok’s pack,” I said.
“Good for you,” said Mary Jo.
I pulled out as much patience as I could manage and ignored her. Getting in a snark fest with Mary Jo would not be useful. Instead, I looked around the room at everyone else. “Can any of you imagine the fae sending a troll into the Marrok’s territory? Into Aspen Creek—or, say, Missoula?” I let them think about it. “Can you imagine what the Marrok would do if they did?”
I saw a few appreciative grins. No. Bran would not allow a rampaging troll in his territory.
“What’s your point?” asked Auriele, Darryl’s mate. She wasn’t one of Mary Jo’s crowd, and recently, we’d been cautiously cordial.
“The fae in Walla Walla either do not respect us, or they did not think that we would come to the aid of the human inhabitants in this city,” I told her, told them. “Maybe both. As a result, people died, and wolves got hurt. If they know that we will defend our territory against them, maybe they’ll think twice before sending in another troll. Or something worse. My point is that right now we cannot afford not to take on the Gray Lords.”
“But the Marrok isn’t here,” Paul, still standing, said.
Paul wasn’t the smartest person in most rooms, but he was just saying what I saw in other people’s faces.
“No,” I agreed. “Do you think Bran would go kill the troll himself? He has more critical work to do.” Facing the troll himself would give it too much importance, would acknowledge that it was a real threat.
“He’d send Charles,” said Paul. “Or Colin Taggart, or the Moor.” He grinned suddenly. “I’d like to see a fight between the Moor and a troll.”
“Or he’d send Leah,” someone muttered. Bran’s mate could take care of business—I didn’t have to like her to acknowledge that.
“And then he’d go after whoever sent it and make sure they didn’t make that mistake again,” said Alec.
“Right,” I agreed soberly. “The point is that the fae would never send a troll into Bran’s territory because they’d go through exactly the same thought process that we just did.”
“This is not the Marrok’s pack,” said Paul. “We don’t have Tag or Charles.”
“No,” I agreed. “We have Adam, Darryl, Warren, and Honey. We have you, Paul. We have Auriele, George, and Mary Jo. And we did take down that troll, with only a fraction of our pack: Adam, Darryl, Zack, and Joel. We had no casualties.”
“They didn’t do it alone,” said Mary Jo. “They needed Tad.”
I held my hands palm up. “We have friends and allies,” I said. “Good. Those are assets, too. Right now, we are in a position of power. We’ve killed their troll and drawn a line in the sand. It’s up to them to cross that line—and maybe they won’t.”
“Maybe they will,” said George. “And before this, we weren’t an enemy of the fae.”
“Weren’t we?
” I asked. “Weren’t we? Then why did they feel free to send that troll into our town?”
“It’s not our town,” said Alec. “We’re werewolves. We’re a pack. We don’t own the town.”
I looked around at the stubborn faces. I’d been waiting for Adam—or Warren or Darryl or someone—to throw in with me. Without support from someone the pack respected, they’d never listen to me.
I threw up my hands, both figuratively and literally.
“Fine,” I said, and sat down. I couldn’t help but send an apologetic look Adam’s way because I was pretty sure I’d made everything worse. But he wasn’t looking at me. He had folded both of his arms and closed his eyes. There was a white mark growing on his cheekbone that told me he was gritting his teeth.
If he was mad at me, I thought, then we’d have it out in private. But, sitting next to Warren, I’d had some time to review my actions today. Other than feeling a little squirmy about the drama level, I was okay with everything I’d done on that bridge. I prepared arguments to defend myself. If I felt hurt that Adam hadn’t understood, I tucked that hurt down and away. I didn’t want anyone here knowing that I was hurt.
Warren’s long-fingered hand closed over my knee. He squeezed, then patted it, his face serene. Warren, at least, understood what I’d been saying.
Honey stood up and looked around. “I am ashamed,” she said.
She let that statement hang in the air for a moment. Then she continued, “I am so ashamed of all of you. I look around, and all I see are stupid people.”
“It’s not stupid to be afraid of the fae,” said Mary Jo hotly.
“No?” Honey disagreed. “But that’s not what makes you stupid, Mary Jo. You aren’t arguing with Mercy because she’s wrong, you’re arguing with her because you don’t know who she is. You still think she’s some dumb bimbo who seduced our Alpha and stumbled into a stupid magic trick that allowed her to become part of the pack. That she is a mistake. That she is a weakness.”
She looked around the room. “Idiots. Every one of you. We drove a volcano god out of our territory, and you are afraid of the fae?” She made a noise. “Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t us—it was Mercy, wasn’t it? She put herself between Guayota and us. She nearly died to protect us—and you are all still wondering if she should be a member of our pack.”
“She is a weakness,” said Darryl reluctantly. “Guayota saw it, too. She was the first of us he went after.”
“And she defeated him,” Honey said. “She drove him out of her garage.”
“Tad and Adam defeated him,” Mary Jo said.
“That’s a theme here, isn’t it?” said Honey. “Mercy stands up for what is right—and her friends back her up.” She paused. “Why do you think that is?”
Her lip curled when no one said anything. “Because they know she’ll have their back in return. Pack is about not standing alone. About having people you trust to have your back. There is not another person in this room that I would rather have at my back than Mercy.”
“What about Adam?” asked Mary Jo instantly.
“Not excepting Adam,” Honey told her stoutly. “Your pardon, Adam, if you find that offensive. But because you are our Alpha, you have other considerations, other responsibilities. Mercy, once she has your back, she has your back.”
Adam didn’t open his eyes. He just waved her apology away.
“Offering sanctuary to the fae boy was the right thing to do,” Honey said. “He’d given aid to our fellow pack member. It is right and proper that he ask for something in return.”
“And Joel wouldn’t be a member of the pack who needed help if it weren’t for Mercy,” said Mary Jo fiercely.
Honey opened her mouth, but Adam spoke first.
“Enough,” he said, and his voice was silky-soft. “Sit down, Honey.”
She sat, but her mouth was screwed up in anger.
Adam opened his eyes and surveyed the room with bright gold irises. “Y’all are mistaken about the reason for this meeting.” His Southern accent was unusually thick. It should have made his anger sound softer, but it didn’t.
Beside me, Warren’s mouth quirked up.
“We are not here to discuss Aiden and the sanctuary he was promised. We are not here to discuss the fae in any way, shape, or form. We are here to discuss Mercy. And your attitude toward my wife. My mate.”
He rocked to his feet and began pacing slowly back and forth. “Mercy is a tough, smart woman. She can defend herself—I do not have to protect her. She is not weak or dependent or needy. She doesn’t need the pack. She doesn’t need me.”
I shot to my feet. “That’s not true,” I said hotly.
He tilted his head a little, his eyes meeting mine. His eyes softened. “I misspoke,” he said in a steady voice. “She doesn’t need me to make sure she has enough food or a place to live—that is my privilege, but she doesn’t need me to do that. She doesn’t need me to keep her safe or to make her a whole person. She doesn’t need me to do anything except love her. Which I do.”
Well now, I thought, abruptly breathless. I nodded at him and plunked down in my seat before my weakened knees gave out.
After I sat down, Adam started that slow pace back and forth again. It was a hunter’s gait. When he spoke, it was even more quietly than he had before. “When she agreed to be my mate and when she agreed to be part of the pack, I understood that she would not welcome my standing between her and you. She’s defended herself all of her life, and she is capable of defending herself from you when she cares enough to do so.” He stopped and looked around, an eyebrow raised in challenge.
Warren coughed the words “blue dye” into his hand.
Adam’s smile flickered into being, then disappeared. “She has rightfully earned the reputation, that goes back to her days in the Marrok’s pack, of being someone people respected. No one in Bran’s pack wanted to get on her bad side because Mercy always comes out on top. And she has acquitted herself very well in my pack, defending herself from whatever you’ve thrown at her. But today on the bridge, I discovered something.”
He let the pause linger.
“I’m done with it.” All hint of softness was gone from his voice. “I am done with listening to you attack my mate while she is trying to save you. Again. I called this meeting to give notice. If I hear or hear about any of you saying anything to my mate that is in the least bit disrespectful, I will end you. No warnings, no second chances. I will end you.”
And he walked through the aisle left between the chairs and out of the room without looking me in the eyes.
Darryl stood up in the silence and addressed the room. “Adam has authorized both Warren and me to help anyone who wishes to leave this pack in light of this announcement. Do not go to Adam. I assure you that he is quite serious.”
I sat where I was, dumbstruck. On the one hand—that was pretty sexy. On the other—holy cow. He couldn’t do that. I’d just started making real inroads into the general prejudice of the pack. He’d silenced them. My life was going to be hellish, full of people who hated me but couldn’t say anything out in the open so we could hash it out. It would just fester.
“For what it’s worth,” Warren said to me, “if he hadn’t done that, I think Honey would have. And that would have been a disaster.” He looked at my face. “It’ll be okay, kid.”
I opened my mouth. “He can’t do that.”
Ben grinned at me. “Of course he can. This isn’t a democracy, Mercy. That was brilliant.”
I shook my head. “That was a disaster.”
“How so?” asked Mary Jo, who had gotten up and was standing in the queue to get out of the room. “And I mean that respectfully, Mercy.”
She didn’t sound sarcastic, but it lurked in her eyes.
“He can’t dictate how people feel,” I said.
“Some people need to shut the
ir mouths in order to use their brains,” said George. He sounded . . . thoughtful.
I stared at him.
“And I’m beginning to think that I’m one of them,” he said. “I think . . . I think that you’re right. The Tri-Cities is our territory. If we don’t police our territory, then who could blame the fae for thinking we wouldn’t do anything when they sent a troll through downtown? It never occurred to me that the pack wouldn’t help. I saw Darryl up there, and thought, ‘Good, they’ve made it.’ And if I know that—maybe we should make sure that the rest of the world knows it, too. It might stave off incidents like the one we had today.”
He crouched so his head and mine were at an equal height, ignoring the way that meant he blocked the path out of the room.
“Honey was right,” he said. “If it had been Darryl up there on the bridge, promising the sun, moon, and stars, we’d all have backed him. And you not only outrank Darryl, you’ve proven that you deserve that rank to anyone who isn’t an outright idiot. We should have backed you. And now we will.”
“This isn’t a third-world dictatorship,” I said.
“Yes,” said Mary Jo slowly. “Yes, it is, Mercy.” Her voice softened. “It has to be. We are too dangerous. Controlling our wolves is much, much easier when we are a pack, following a leader. This needed to happen a long time ago.”
Warren stayed by me as the room cleared of strangely happy werewolves. When Honey made it to us, she slid into the row of chairs in front. She pulled out one chair and stacked it on its neighbor, then took another and turned it around until she faced us. She sat on this one, crossed her legs at the knee, and waited, bland-faced, for the room to clear. Under her gaze, it cleared a little faster than it had been. Darryl gave her an ironic salute as he passed, which she returned.
When we were the only three left, she said, “Okay. Any ideas on how this petitioning for sanctuary is going to work? Word of it is going to spread, and I expect that this Aiden character isn’t going to be the last. There are a lot of people in hiding from the powerful groups—the fae, the witches, the vampires—who will look upon this as an invitation. Do we take them all? What if the bad guys demand sanctuary?”