WITH SAM AT HIS HEEL, ADAM CAME INTO THE OFFICE while Sylvia and her family were still in the garage, waiting for Zee to get the Buick out. From Adam's face I could tell he'd heard every word Sylvia and I had said. He put a hand on my shoulder and kissed my forehead.
"Don't be nice to me," I told him. "I screwed up."
"Not your fault that overeager boy out there came in with guns blazing," Adam said. "Someone sold him a whole pack of lies. Tony and he are trying to get in touch with his producer, but she's not answering her phone. I suppose she wanted a big fight on TV. Man versus werewolf."
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe he wasn't my fault. But if it hadn't been Kelly Heart, it could just as easily have been a vampire or a fae. Neither of which would hesitate to kill Gabriel or one of the girls if they thought they were in the way."
The hand on my shoulder slipped down and pulled me into a hug. I leaned into it, knowing I was receiving it under false pretenses - I could tell from the way he was acting that he hadn't realized the full extent of my transgressions yet. Doubtless he'd been too busy to take a good look at Sam - and Sam, miraculously, hadn't done anything to attract anyone's attention. Yet. The day was still young.
I breathed in Adam's scent and took comfort I wasn't entitled to. Sylvia was right. I was feeling far too sorry for myself, and I wasn't entitled to that either.
I pulled away and hopped up to sit on the counter next to the gun before I enlightened him - I couldn't bear it if he were touching me when he decided he didn't want anything more to do with me. As Sylvia just had.
The sticky black stuff left from where someone in the Dark Ages had taped a piece of paper to the edge of the counter was gone, and I ran my finger over the newly clean spot. She'd left the cookies.
"Mercy?"
I'd betrayed him. For all the good reasons in the world, but I was his mate - and I'd chosen Samuel. I suppose I could have hoped he wouldn't notice, but that seemed wrong in light of this morning. What if Heart hadn't come here first? What if he'd run into Adam and shot him? What if he'd gone to Adam's work or had a photo of him . . . Come to think of it, wasn't that odd? Adam was out to the public, and his face photographed very well.
Someone hadn't wanted Heart to know who Adam was.
"Mercy?"
"Sorry," I told him. "I'm trying to distract myself. You need to look at Samuel." I picked at a mucky spot on my overalls because I couldn't meet his eyes.
If Bran wanted Samuel dead, he'd have to go through me to do it, which he could. But I was through lying to Adam, even if only by omission, merely to keep Bran from finding out.
Sam had trotted past both of us and gone to stand in the doorway, looking through the garage. I could hear Maia still crying for her puppy.
"Puppy?" said Adam, sounding amused. Sam turned and looked at him - and Adam froze.
I was well on my way to passing stupid for idiotic. It was only when Adam stilled that I had the sudden thought that it might not have been the best idea to show the Columbia Pack Alpha that he had a problem with Sam in the narrow confines of my office.
It was Sam who growled first. Temper flared in Adam's face. Sam was more dominant, but he wasn't Alpha - and Adam was not going to back down in his territory without violence.
I hopped off the counter in between them.
"Settle down, Sam," I snapped, before I remembered what a bad idea that was.
I kept forgetting - not that Samuel was in trouble; I had no trouble remembering that - but that his wolf was not Samuel. Just because he hadn't turned into the ravening beast that the only werewolves I'd seen who lost control to their wolf became, did not mean he was safe. My head knew that - but I kept acting as if he were just Samuel. Because he acted just like Samuel would have. Mostly.
Sam sneezed and turned his back to us - and I started breathing again.
"I'm sorry," I apologized to both of them. "That was a dumb way of doing things."
I didn't want to look at Adam. I didn't want to see if he was angry or hurt or whatever. I'd had just about enough already that day.
And that was a coward's way out.
So I turned and looked up at him, keeping my gaze on his chin - where I could see his reaction without challenging him by meeting his eyes.
"You are so screwed," he said thoughtfully.
"I'm sorry I let you think . . ."
"What?" he asked. "That you needed some time away from the pack, from me? When you really wanted to keep any of us from seeing Samuel?"
He sounded reasonable, but I could see the white line along his jaw where he was gritting his teeth and the tension in his neck.
"Yes," I told him.
Ben boiled into the room - saw our little tableau, and came to an abrupt halt. Adam glanced over his shoulder at him, and Ben flinched and bowed his head.
"I didn't catch it," he said. "Her. The fae thing. But she was armed, and she dropped her weapon when she bolted." He'd been carrying a jacket, and from under it he pulled a rifle that had very little metal on it. If it had been a little prettier, it might have looked like a toy because it was mostly made of plastic.
"Kel-Tec rifle," said Adam, visibly dragging himself into a businesslike manner. "Built to fire pistol cartridges out of pistol magazines."
Ben handed it over, and Adam pulled the magazine. Jerking his hand back with a hiss, he dropped it on my counter. "Nine millimeter," he said. "Silver ammunition." He looked at me. "I'm pretty sure that was a nine millimeter or a thirty-eight you were holding on Heart."
The topic of my transgression was not dropped, just set aside for business. I wished we could just get it over with.
"Nine millimeter," I agreed. "She could have shot someone, and they'd have blamed it on the bounty hunter. How likely is it that someone would have done a ballistics test and noticed one of the bullets didn't come from the same gun?"
"Someone was supposed to die," said Ben. "That's what I think."
"Agreed," said Zee from the garage doorway. Samuel moved - a little stiff-legged, but he moved - so Zee could come into the office.
"Ballistics wouldn't have mattered," said Zee. "Making one bullet match another is cake if the fae is dealing with silver. Even a few with little magic could handle it. Iron is impossible for most fae to work, lead isn't much better, but silver . . . Silver accepts magic easily and keeps it."
My walking stick had silver on it.
Zee continued speaking. "The bullet would take on the appearance of the others. A little more glamour, and the extra bullet disappears. And whoever that was, they weren't minor fae - they had a fair touch of The Hunt - The Wild Hunt."
"I don't know what that means." But our fae assassin had been out to kill werewolves. To kill Adam. I needed to find out as much as I could.
"In this case, mindless violence," Zee told me. "The kind that leaves a man looking at the bodies and wondering why he decided to pull the trigger when he only intended to make a point. If I hadn't been here to counter it . . ." He shrugged and looked at Adam. "Someone wanted you dead with the blame easily placed, so no one would look too closely."
Adam put the gun down on the counter next to the magazine, grabbed Ben's coat, and tossed it on top of them. "I haven't ticked off the fae recently. Have I?"
Zee shook his head. "If anything, it goes the other way. It must be an individual." He frowned, and said reluctantly, "Someone could have hired her, I suppose."
Ben said, "I've never seen a fae who used modern weaponry." He turned to Adam. "I know she was fae and all - but could she be one of the trophy hunters?"
"Trophy hunters?" Zee asked before I could.
"David has captured two people and killed a third hunting him this year," Adam said. "One was a big-game hunter; one turned out to be a serial killer who'd been preying upon marines from the local base and decided to take on bigger prey. And one was a bounty hunter - though there's no bounty on David's head any more than there is on mine. It looked like he just wanted to try his hand at hunting a werewolf."
"David Christiansen?" I asked. Christiansen was a mercenary whose small troop specialized in rescuing hostages - I'd met him once before he'd become famous. When he retrieved some kids from a terrorist camp in South America, a photographer got a series of really terrific shots that made Christiansen look heroic and sweet. The photos made national news - and the Marrok chose David to be the first werewolf to admit what he was to the public - and thus the most famous werewolf around.
"Yes," Adam said.
" 'The Most Dangerous Game,' " I murmured. See? An education wasn't wasted on me, no matter what my mother says.
"This doesn't feel like that, though," said Adam. "This wasn't personal. Heart wasn't hunting me for thrills, or at least not only for thrills. Someone set him up."
"And not very well either," I added. "He didn't know who you were - and all his producer would have had to do was a simple Internet search for a photo. You'd think someone sending him out after you would make sure he knew who to shoot if you were the target."
Adam tapped his foot. "This feels like a professional job. A lot of planning, a lot of work to kill someone in the most public way possible. And, most telling, when it didn't work according to plan - she withdrew."
"Not 'someone,' " I said. "You. It makes sense. She didn't want Heart killing you; she wanted to do it herself."
"No." It was Ben. "I was wrong to suggest a trophy hunter. This didn't have that feel. It wasn't personal. A woman out for blood - assuming fae females are like the rest of the cu - "
"There's a lady present," growled Adam. "Watch your language."
Ben grinned at me. "Fine. Assuming fae ladies are like other ladies, this one would have been excited, triumphant over the kill. And enraged when I came along and ruined her fun. She didn't even hesitate when she spotted me. Dropped the gun and ran - no fuss, no bother."
"Well trained," said Adam. "Or just a cool thinker." He looked at me. "And while I admit it looks as though I was the target, it could as easily have been Zee or you. Heart had silver bullets - so the assassin used them, too. It doesn't mean she was hunting werewolves, not when we know Heart was."
Tony opened the front door. "You okay, Mercy?"
"Fine," I lied, but I didn't expect anyone here to believe me anyway.
Tony frowned at me, then turned his attention to Adam. "You have any enemies we should know about? Sounds like Heart's producer wanted some more publicity - but we won't know for certain until we run her down. He had the right paperwork, other than the small fact that it isn't legitimate. There was a series of victim photos, too. We'll look into how she got them when we talk to her."
"Internet," said Ben. "There's a website devoted to pictures of dead bodies."
We all looked at him, and he smirked. "Hey. Don't look at me - it's the job." He saw Tony's blank face and continued. "Information technologies, IT - you know, computers. At work, when we get bored, we issue challenges - like the person who can come up with the worst website gets taken out to lunch. I got the free lunch - the dead-bodies guy was the runner-up. When I chatted up the bounty hunter's people, they showed me the photos of the bodies in the file. The dead-bodies website has a section devoted to animal kills. I recognized one of the photos from that."
"You are a sick, sick man," I told him.
"Thank you," Ben replied, looking modest.
"Someone's after you," Tony told Adam.
"See," I said. "Tony thinks you're the target, too."
Adam shrugged. "I'll be careful."
Werewolves are tough, and Adam tougher than most - but I'd seen a lot of them die.
"Yeah, well, you keep me on speed dial and don't kill anyone if you can help it." Tony looked at me again. "Hey, Mercy. Did you talk to Sylvia? She looked pretty upset when she left. Are they all right?" His heart was in his eyes. He was interested in her and had approached her once. She'd told him she didn't date people she worked with - and that had been that, as far as she was concerned.
"She wasn't happy about Heart pointing a gun at Maia," I told him. "But I think she was madder at me than Heart. He didn't bring in a werewolf for her kids to play with."
His face went police-officer blank. "What?"
"Yeah," I said. "I don't think she'll be coming here to get her car fixed anymore. Gabriel's not coming back either."
"You did what?"
"Cut it out," growled Adam. He gestured at Sam. "This wolf would never harm a hair on a child's head, and Mercy knew it."
"Special circumstances today," I reminded Adam harshly - how could he have forgotten that we weren't dealing with Samuel but with his wolf? "She was right to be angry. If I'd remembered Sylvia and the girls were going to be here, I wouldn't have brought him."
"Were they in any danger?" asked Tony.
"No," said Adam, and he meant it.
"Did Mercy know that?"
"Yes," Adam said right over the top of my "no." "She's just feeling guilty because she thinks she should have told Sylvia anyway."
Tony looked at me. "Sylvia's not unreasonable." He paused and gave me a little smile. "Not really. If you explained - "
"They're gone," I told him. "It's for the best. Since I've started running around with the wolves" - and fae and vampires - "this is not a safe place anymore."
"Is it safe for you?" he asked.
Before I had to answer, the door opened one more time and Kelly Heart came in. My office isn't too big - and it was already holding me, Zee, Sam, Adam, Ben, and Tony. Kelly was one and a half persons too many. Sam growled at the bounty hunter, but he'd have to go over Zee, Adam, and me to get to him - or hop over the counter.
"Mr. Heart?" I asked.
"My camera people tell me that someone borked the cameras in the van." He looked at Ben. Who smirked. Sam's growls were getting a little louder.
After a moment, Heart shrugged. "Pretty tough to do. It left us with just the data from Joe's camera, which ends with Ms. Thompson disarming me. The cameras aren't coming out of my salary, anyway." He looked at me. "You moved pretty damned fast."
"Not a werewolf," I told him in bored tones as I shoved my way past Ben so I had my back to the counter. Not much better, because Sam could just jump on top of it, then over me, but maybe I'd slow him down.
"I just came to get the gun." He smiled at me. "My crew is extremely concerned that we might lose the silver bullets."
"Mercy," said Tony. "If you are okay, I don't need to know about any gun I might have to include in my report."
"We're fine," I told him. "Adam's here."
"Yeah," said Tony wryly after a quick glance at Adam. "I think you're safe enough, Mercy. I'll get back to work." He opened the door. "You sure you don't want me to talk to Sylvia?"
"I'm sure," I said. "This is easier. Better."
"All right." He left, and there were still too many people in the room.
"So now that the cops are gone, are you going to tell me what this morning was all about?" Heart asked. "Why someone would get us all the way out here from California to play an elaborate practical joke that could have gotten people killed?"
"No," said Adam.
Heart took two steps forward and stood over Adam. "What did your errand boy go chasing after across the street?"
Before I could mention that threatening a werewolf was a little rash, Adam had the bounty hunter pinned against the door, with a forearm across his throat. Heart was taller, bigger, and more obviously muscled - but he wasn't a werewolf.
"Not your business," said Adam in a low, hungry voice.
"He's not the enemy," I told Adam. "Don't kill him. And, Mr. Heart, if you are going to hunt werewolves, you ought to do your homework. Don't try threatening an Alpha. They don't like it."
Adam increased the pressure against the bounty hunter's throat, but Heart, after an abortive effort to break free, quit struggling.
Adam took a step back, opening and closing his hands several times - maybe to shake off the desire to hit the bounty hunter. When he turned his back on Heart, I think everyone took a relieved breath.
"I'm as upset as you are," Heart told Adam. "Daphne . . . My producer is missing. She's a good person. Someone gave her that file and had her send me after you. She's not in her office, she's not answering her phone, and her housekeeper hasn't seen her for three days. And I don't even know where to look."
Adam sighed and stretched his shoulders to relieve the tension. "I don't know where she is. I don't know who planned this or why - or even if I was the real target. Give me your card. If I find out something that might help, I'll get in touch."
"Is your producer fae?" I asked him. Adam put his hand on my shoulder - a clear signal I should shut up. He didn't want me making Heart curious. I was more worried that he might know something that we needed - something that might tell us if the intended victim was Adam.
"No," Heart said. "Why? Do the fae have something to do with it?"
"Not that we know of," said Adam.
"Then why ask about fae?"
"You sound a little too certain that your producer isn't a fae," observed Ben.
"She's a member of several fae hate groups - which takes guts in Hollywood today - and likes to rant about how the country is succumbing to the wiles of the Wee Folk."
"When did you find out they were sending you here?" I asked.
Heart turned to me, his face thoughtful. "Yesterday morning. Yes, that means that Daphne hadn't been home for two days before that." He smiled at me. "You were supposed to be the Alpha's eye candy."
Adam laughed.
"What?" I asked him. "You don't think I'd be good eye candy?" I looked down at my overalls and grease-stained hands. I'd torn another nail to the quick.
"Honey is eye candy," said Ben apologetically. "You're . . . just you."
"Mine," said Adam, edging between Heart and me. "Mine is what she is."
Heart took out another card and gave it to me. "Call me if you have any more questions. Or if someone knows something that might help me find Daphne. She's good people. I don't see her pulling this as a prank or publicity stunt."
Heart gave Adam a nod and left. Ben followed him out the door - and Sam wiggled through before the door closed.
Zee looked at Adam and me. "I'll just go keep an eye on Samuel, shall I? That way, if he hunts someone down, I can share in the spoils."
"And you can give Heart back his gun," I told him.
Zee grinned cheerfully and produced a hunk of metal that was sort of pretty - steel shot with silver. "I'll be sure he leaves with it." He shut the door to the garage behind him, leaving me alone with Adam.
"Mercy," Adam said. And his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of its case on his belt with an impatient jerk. He glanced at the number, took a deep breath, and answered it.
"Hauptman," he grunted.
"Adam," said the Marrok's easy voice. "I need you to locate Mercy and my son."
"I know where they are," Adam said, meeting my eyes. No such thing as a private phone conversation with me or any of the wolves around. Adam could have chosen to take the phone call outside, where he could have talked to Bran in private.
There was a little pause.
"Ah. Would you be so good as to put one or the other on the phone?"
"I think," Adam said carefully, "that it might be a little precipitous to do that."
Another long pause, and Bran's voice was cooler when he spoke. "I see. Be very careful here, Adam."
"I believe I am," Adam said.
"I can talk to him," I said, knowing Bran would hear me.
Adam was putting himself up as a shield between Samuel and his father. If something happened, Bran would hold him responsible.
I love Bran. He, as much as my foster parents, raised me. But I'm not blind about it. His first directive is to protect the wolves. If that meant killing his son, he would do it - but he would kill Adam faster.
Adam said, "No. My territory, my responsibility."
"Fine," said the Marrok. "If I or mine can help, you will call me."
"Yes," Adam said. "I'll call you by the end of the week with the results."
"Mercy," Bran said. "I hope this is the best path."
"For Samuel," I said. "For me, for you. I think it is. Maybe not so much for Adam."
"Adam has always had . . . heroic tendencies."
I touched Adam's arm. "He's my hero."
There was another pause. In person, Bran doesn't think out his comments as much. The phone is difficult because wolves communicate so much with their bodies.
"That is the most romantic thing I've ever heard you say," Bran said. "Be careful, Adam, or you'll turn her into a real girl."
Adam looked at me. "I like her just the way she is, Bran." And he meant it, greasy overalls, broken fingernails, and all.
Bran laughed, then stopped. "Take care of my son. And don't wait until it is too late to call me." He hung up.
"Thank you," I told Adam.
He put his cell phone away. "I didn't do it for you," he said. "Wolf in charge or not, Samuel obviously isn't as dangerous as most of us would be. There are some advantages to being very old. But the letter of the law is what Bran has to follow. If he knew exactly what was going on, he'd have to carry out the sentence."
"You don't?"
Adam shrugged. "I guess I'm not much for following orders as written. I prefer the spirit to the letter of the law."
I'd never thought of him that way. I should have remembered . . . the line between black and white is the one he draws.
I looked down. "So, I suppose an apology is too little, too late."
"What are you planning on apologizing for? 'Dear Adam, I'm so sorry I tried to keep you from knowing that Samuel lost it'? 'I'm sorry I used the problems between us to drive you away so I could deal with it'? Or, and this one is my favorite, 'I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what was going on, but I couldn't trust you to deal with it the way I wanted it dealt with'?" He'd started out sounding amused, but by the last one his voice was sharp enough to cut leather.
I kept quiet. I do know how to do that. Sometimes. When I'm in the wrong.
He sighed. "I don't think an apology will do, Mercy. Because an apology implies that you wouldn't do it again. And, under the circumstances, you wouldn't do anything differently, would you?"
"No."
"And you shouldn't have to apologize for being right," he said, with a sigh. "Much as I'd like to tell you differently."
I jerked my head up and saw that he was perfectly serious.
"If you had called me to tell me that Samuel had lost it, I'd have come over and killed him. Put him down with a bullet because I don't know that I could take him in a fight. I've seen wolves who've lost it before, and so have you."
I swallowed. Nodded.
"What I know, that you do not, is how the wolf longs to hunt, to feel blood in his teeth. The kill . . ." He glanced away and back. "On his own, my wolf would never have let that bounty hunter leave here alive after he held a gun on me. I doubt that he'd have put up with having babies crawl all over him." Sorrow passed over his face. "Even with Jesse, my own daughter . . . I would not trust him. But Samuel's wolf managed to deal. So we'll give him a chance. A week. And after that week, we'll let you go talk to the Marrok and tell him how his son has kept his cool for a solid week. And maybe you can buy more time for him."
"I am sorry," I said in a low voice. "I played on your guilt to keep you away."
He leaned against the counter and folded his arms. "You didn't lie, though, did you, Mercy? The pack bothers you, and so do I."
"I just need time to get used to it."
He looked at me - and I squirmed just as I'd seen his daughter do under that look.
"Don't lie to me, Mercy. Not to me. No lies between us."
I rubbed my eyes - I was not in tears. I wasn't. It was just the adrenaline letdown after taking on a gunman with a rogue werewolf at my back.
Adam turned his back to me. I thought it was so I wouldn't see the look on his face. Until he grabbed the counter and broke it in half - sending my cash register and a pile of receipts and book-keeping stuff boiling to the floor.
Oddly, my first reaction to the violence was the dismayed recognition that without Gabriel, it would be my job to figure out how all those papers needed to be reorganized to keep the IRS off my back.
Then Adam howled. An unearthly sound to come out of a man's throat - I'd only heard it once before out of a wolf's. My foster father, Bryan, when he held his wife, his mate's body, in his hands.
I took a step toward him - and Sam was standing between us, his head lowered in readiness.
The door between my office and the garage is steel set in steel. After Sam's entrance, it was also bent and broken, dangling from one hinge. I hadn't heard it go; I'd only been able to hear Adam.
Who had made no sound, I realized. His cry had hit me from a different place altogether, where our bond tied me to him and him to me.
Adam didn't turn around. "Don't be afraid of me," he whispered. "Don't leave me."
No lies between us.
I blew out a breath, took a couple steps back, and flopped in one of the battered chairs that lined the wall, trying, with my casual pose, to defuse the situation. "Adam, I don't have the sense to be afraid of Sam in the state he's in now. I don't know why you think I'd be smart enough to be afraid of you." It would be smarter to be more afraid of a werewolf so upset that he took out a counter Zee had built than of a little paperwork and the IRS.
"Ask Samuel to leave us."
"Sam?" I asked. He'd heard Adam.
He growled, and Adam returned the favor. With interest.
"Sam," I said, exasperated. "He's my mate. He's not going to hurt me. Go away."
Sam looked at me, then returned his attention to Adam's back. I could see that back tighten up as if Adam could feel Sam's gaze. Maybe he could.
"Why don't you go see what Zee is up to?" I asked. "You're not helping here."
Sam whined. Took a half step toward Adam.
"Sam, please." I couldn't stand it if they ended up fighting. Someone would die.
The big white werewolf turned reluctantly and walked stiffly, with frequent pauses to see if Adam had moved at all. Finally, he hopped over the wreckage of the door and was gone.
"Adam?" I asked.
But he didn't answer. If he'd been human, I'd have bugged him - just to get it over with. I'd hurt him, and I waited to take my punishment. I'd been taught you make your choices and live with the consequences long before I'd first read Immanuel Kant in college.
But he wasn't human. And just then, if I was any judge, he was fighting his wolf. Being Alpha, being dominant, didn't make that fight any easier, maybe the opposite. Being stubborn helped - and Adam was well qualified on that front.
Getting Sam to leave helped more. The only other thing I could do to help was to sit quietly and wait while Adam stared at the wreckage he'd made of my office.
For Adam, screwed-up bonding thing or not, I'd wait forever.
"Really?" he asked in a tone I'd never heard from him before. Softer. Vulnerable. Adam didn't do vulnerable.
"Really what?" I asked.
"Despite the way our bond scares you, despite the way someone in the pack played you, you'd still have me?"
He'd been listening to my thoughts. This time it didn't bother me.
"Adam," I told him, "I'd walk barefoot over hot coals for you."
"You didn't take advantage of this thing with Samuel as a way of putting distance between us," he said.
I sucked in a breath. I could see how he might have interpreted it that way. "You know that section of the Bible, where Jesus tells Peter he'll deny him three times before morning? Peter says, 'Heck no.' But sure enough when he's asked by some people if he's one of Jesus' followers, he says he's not. And after the third time, he hears the cock crow and realizes what he's done. I feel like Peter right now."
Adam started laughing. He turned around, and I saw bright gold eyes looking through me the way wolves' eyes always seem to do. More than that, he'd actually begun to change a little - his jaw was longer, the angle of his cheekbones slightly different. "You're comparing me to Jesus? Like this?" He used his fingers to motion toward his face. "Don't you think you're being a little sacrilegious?"
His voice was bitter.
"No more than I'm Saint Peter," I told him. "But I had Peter's 'what have I done' moment - only his was instantaneous, and mine took a lot longer. It started when I heard Maia scream while I was working in the garage and continued pretty much up until you talked to Bran and bought Samuel a little more time. Funny how making decisions that seem right at the time . . ."
I shook my head. "Peter probably thought that telling the guy he wasn't one of Jesus' followers was the smartest thing to do. Kept him alive, for one. I thought keeping Samuel alive - as he wasn't raving or killing anyone . . . yet - was a good idea. I thought that telling you I needed a little space was good. Give me some time to wrap my head around having other people rattling around in my mind without hurting you because it scared me silly."
"What?" asked Adam incredulously.
I bowed my head, and said, "Because it scared me - scares me - silly."
He shook his head. "Not that part - the keeping it from hurting me part."
"You don't like being a werewolf," I told him. "Oh, you deal with it - but you hate it. You think that it makes you a freak. I didn't want you to know I had problems with some of the werewolf stuff, too." I swallowed. "Okay, more problems than just that whole 'I must control your life because you belong to me' that most of the werewolves I know have."
He stared at me with his yellow eyes and elongated face. His mouth was open slightly because his upper and lower jaw no longer quite matched up. I could see the edges of teeth that were sharper and more uneven than they usually were.
"I am a freak, Mercy," he said, and I snorted.
"Yeah, such a freak," I agreed. "That's why I've been drooling over you for years even though I'd sworn off werewolves for life after Samuel. I knew that if I told you being a member of the pack and the bonds and all that were bothering me - it would hurt you. And you are already putting up with . . ." I couldn't wrap my mouth around the ugly word "rape," so I softened it as I often did. "With the aftermath of Tim. I thought if I gave myself a little time, figured out how to keep the pack from turning me into your ex-wife, and bought Samuel a little extra time as well . . ."
Adam leaned against the wall just inside the door - the wall my counter used to block - and folded his arms across his chest.
"What I'm trying to say," I told him, "is that I'm sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And, no, I did not engineer this to put some distance between us."
"You were trying to keep me from being hurt," he said, still in that odd voice.
"Yes."
He shook his head slowly - and I noticed that sometime while we'd been talking, he'd lost the wolfish aspect, and his face had returned to normal. Warm brown eyes caught the light from the windows as one side of his mouth quirked up.
"Do you have any idea how much I love you?" he asked.
"Enough to accept my apologies?" I suggested in a small voice.
"Heck no," he said, and pushed off from the wall, stalking forward.
When he reached me, he put his hands up and touched the sides of my neck with the tips of his fingers - as if I were something fragile.
"No apologies from you," he told me, his voice soft enough to melt my knees and most of my other parts. "First of all, as I already pointed out - you would make the same choices again, right? So an apology doesn't work. Secondly, you, being who you are, could have made no other choice. Since I love you, as you are, where you are - it hardly makes sense for me to kick about it when you act like yourself. Right?"
"People don't always see it that way," I said, stepping into him until our hip bones bumped.
He laughed, a quiet sound that made me happy down to my toes. "Yeah, well, I don't promise I'll always be logical about it." He gave a rueful glance to my broken counter and the cash register on its side. "Especially at first." His smile dropped away. "I thought you were trying to leave me."
"I might be dumb," I told him, putting my nose against his silk tie, "but I'm not that dumb. I've gotcha now, and you aren't getting away."
His arms tightened almost painfully around me.
"So why didn't you tell Bran about Samuel?" I asked him. "I was sure you'd have to tell him. Aren't you bound by blood-sworn oaths?"
"If you'd called me last night and told me what was going on, I'd have called Bran - and shot Samuel myself. But . . . based on what happened this morning, he seems to be holding it together okay. He deserves some time." His arms, which had loosened a little, pulled me against him even harder. "If something like that happens to me - you call Bran and you stay as far from me as you can get. My wolf is not like Samuel's." He gave the counter another look. "If I lose it . . . you just stay away until I'm dead."