Adam caught me as I fell and pulled me against him, in the shadow of the old car. He was so warm, and I was so cold. He put his nose against my neck. I couldn't see him, lack of air left me with black dots impairing my vision.
I heard the growl shake Adam's chest, and his mouth closed on mine—and I sucked a deep breath though my nose. I could breathe again, and the weight on my stomach lifted, and I was left shaking, with blood… no, snot running down my face.
Embarrassed beyond anything, I jerked free of Adam's hold—knowing with humiliating certainty that he let me go. I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt. And settled in the shelter of the Rabbit, my cheek against the cooling metal.
Weak. Broken. God damn it. God damn me. I felt the wave of it hovering, ready to descend upon me again. Despair and helpless anger… They were all dead. All dead, and it was my fault.
But no one was dead. Not yet.
All dead. All of my children, my loves, and it was my fault. I put them at risk and failed. They died because of my failure.
I smelled Stefan.
Adam's golden eyes met mine, the color proving the wolf ascendant. He kissed me again, pressed something against my lips, forcing it between my teeth with a forefinger and thumb without removing his mouth from mine.
It was such a small scrap of bloody meat to burn down my throat as it had. It meant something.
"Mine," he told me. "You aren't Stefan's."
The dry grass crackled under my head, and the coarse dirt made a noise like sandpaper that echoed behind my eyes. I licked my lips and tasted blood. Adam's blood.
The Alpha's blood and flesh… pack.
"From this day forward," said Adam, his voice pulling me out of wherever I had been. "Mine to me and mine. Pack and only lover." There was blood on his face, too, and on the hands he touched my face with.
"Yours to you, mine to me," I answered, though it was a dry croaking voice that made the noise. I didn't know why I answered, other than the old "shave and a hair cut" involuntary response. I'd heard this ceremony so many times, even if he'd added the "only lover" part.
By the time I remembered why I shouldn't do it, what it meant, it was already too late.
Magic burned through me, following the path of that bit of flesh—and I cried out as it tried to make me other than I was, less or more. Pack.
I felt them all through Adam's touch and Adam's blood. His to protect to govern. All of them were mine now, too—and I theirs.
Panting, I licked my lips and stared at Adam. He let me go, coming to his feet and taking two steps away from me where I lay against the side of the old car. He'd bitten his forearm savagely.
"He can't have you," he told me, his gold eyes telling me the wolf was still speaking. "Not now. Not ever. I don't owe him that."
Belatedly, I realized what had happened. I wiped my mouth with my wrist to give myself time to think.
My wrist was pink with Adam's blood.
Stefan was awake… and somehow he'd invaded my mind. It had been his panic attack I'd felt.
All dead…I had a sick, sick feeling that I knew who he meant. I'd met some of the people, human people who fed Stefan. Had learned how horribly vulnerable they were if something happened to the vampire who fed off them and protected them.
I glanced at the setting sun. "It's a little early for a vampire to be up, isn't it?" I asked.
Time for everyone to calm down. Me, included.
My sense of the pack was fading, but it would never completely go away. Not now that Adam had made me pack. It was more usual to do it in a full pack meeting, but the pack wasn't required. Just a bit of the
Alpha's flesh and blood and an exchange of vows.
I hadn't thought it possible to induct someone who wasn't a werewolf. I certainly hadn't thought that he could make me pack. Magic works oddly on me sometimes, and at others I'm pretty much immune to it.
But from the results I could feel, it had worked just fine this time.
Adam had turned and stood with his back to me, his shoulders hunched, his hands fisted at his side. He didn't answer my question, but said stiffly, "I'm sorry for that. I panicked."
I put my forehead down on my knees. "There's been a lot of that going around recently."
I heard the dry grass crunch as he walked back to me. "Are you laughing?" he sounded incredulous.
I looked up at him. The last rays of the sun silhouetted him in golden rays and obscured the expression on his face. But I could see shame in the set of his shoulders. He'd made me pack without asking me—without asking the pack either, though that wasn't strictly necessary, just traditional. He was waiting for me to yell at him as he felt he deserved.
Adam was used to paying for the consequences of his choices—and sometimes the choices were hard ones. He'd been making a lot of hard choices for me lately.
Stefan had been so far in my head that I had smelled like him. And Adam had made me pack to save me.
He was prepared to pay the price—and I was pretty sure there would be a price extracted. But not by me.
"Thank you, Adam," I told him. "Thank you for tearing Tim into small Tim bits. Thank you for forcing me to drink one last cup of fairy bug-juice so I could have use of both of my arms. Thank you for being there, for putting up with me." By that point I wasn't laughing anymore. "Thank you for keeping me from being another of Stefan's sheep—I'll take pack over that any day. Thank you for making the tough calls, for giving me time." I stood up and walked to him, leaning against him and pressing my face against his shoulder. "Thank you for loving me."
His arms closed around me, pressing flesh painfully hard against bone. Love hurts like that sometimes.
CHAPTER 4
I'D HAVE LOVED TO STAY THERE FOREVER, BUT AFTER A few minutes, I felt the cold sweat break out on my forehead and my throat started to close down. I stepped back before I had to do something more forceful in reaction to the aversion to touch that Tim had left me with.
Only when I was no longer pressed against Adam did I notice we were surrounded by pack.
Okay, four wolves doesn't a pack make. But I hadn't heard them come, and, believe me, when there are five werewolves (including Adam) about, you feel surrounded and overmatched.
Ben was there, a cheerful expression that looked just wrong on his fine-featured face, which was more often angry or bitter than happy. Warren, Adam's third, looked like a cat in the cream. Aurielle, Darryl's mate, appeared neutral, but there was something in her stance that told me she was pretty shaken up.
The fourth wolf was Paul, whom I didn't know very well—but I didn't like what I did know.
Paul, the leader of the "I hate Warren because he's gay" faction of Adam's pack, looked like he'd been sucker punched. I thought I'd just given him a new most-hated person in the pack.
Behind me, Adam laid his hands on my shoulders. "My children," he said formally, "I give you Mercedes Athena Thompson, our newest member."
Much awkwardness ensued.
IF I HADN'T FELT HIM EARLIER, I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT Stefan was still unconscious or dead or whatever from the sun. He lay stiffly on the bed in the cage, like a corpse on a bier.
I turned the light on so I could see him better. Feeding had healed most of the visible damage, though there were still red marks on his cheeks. He looked fifty pounds lighter than he'd been the last time I'd seen him—too much like a concentration camp victim for my peace of mind. He'd been given new clothes to replace his filthy, torn, and stained ones, the ubiquitous replacement clothing every wolf den had lying around—sweats. The ones he wore were gray and hung off his bones.
Adam was conducting what was rapidly developing into a full pack meeting in his living room upstairs.