Hard arms pulled me tightly against him as he said in a quiet voice, "It's only fair to warn you that you sealed your fate tonight. When you knew you were in trouble, you came to me. That makes twice, Mercy, and twice is almost as good as a declaration. You are mine now."
His hands, which had been moving in circles in my fur, stopped and took a good hold. "Ben says you might run. If you do, I will find you and bring you back. Every time you run, Mercy. I won't force you, but…I won't leave or let you leave either. If you can fight that cursed fairy drink, you can certainly overcome any advantage being an Alpha gives me if you really want to. No more excuses, Mercy. You are mine, and I am keeping you."
My independent nature, which would doubtless reassert itself soon, would be outraged by this possessive, arrogant, and medieval concept. But…
Tim's wish that I would always be alone had hit me particularly hard…because it was something I already knew. Nothing like being a coyote raised among werewolves to make you understand that different means not belonging. I didn't belong with my human family either, though I loved them and they loved me.
Under the weight of the unvarnished, possessive intent that began in Adam's words and carried through to his body, my whole world shook on its axis.
He slept eventually, curled up around me as if he were in wolf form, but the lines of strain stayed behind, making him look older—as if he were thirty, say. With Adam surrounding me, I watched as the sky lightened and the new day began.
Somewhere in the house a phone rang.
Adam heard it, too. Jesse's door opened and she ran down the stairs and picked up the phone.
I couldn't quite hear what she said as she was downstairs in the kitchen, but the tone of her voice went from polite to carefully respectful.
Adam stood with me in his arms, then set me on the bed. "You stay there."
"Dad? It's Bran on the phone."
He opened the door. "Thanks, Jesse."
She handed him the phone and peered around the door to look at me. Her eyes were puffy. Had she been crying?
"You go get ready for school," Adam told her. "Mercy's going to be fine."
Today was Thursday morning. The thought galvanized me—I had to get to work…Then I settled back into the bed. I wasn't going back to my garage, not with stray bits of Tim scattered here and there. I should call Gabriel and tell him not to show up after school. I should…
"…someone sent them the video of you tearing Mercy's rapist apart. While I appreciate the sentiment, and doubtless would have done the same thing, it leaves us in an awkward position. That bill cannot pass." Bran's voice wafted over me like a cool breeze of calm that had nothing to do with what he was saying, and everything to do with his being Bran.
"How much of the video did they get?" Adam growled.
"Not enough, apparently. Whoever sent it represented it as an Alpha werewolf attacking a human without provocation. I would like you to take the whole video—I trust it doesn't show our Mercy changing shape?"
"No. But it shows her without clothes."
"Mercy won't care, but perhaps it might be possible to add those black rectangles the news reporters use."
"Yeah. I'm sure Ben can do it." Adam sounded tired. "You want me to go with it, don't you?"
"I'm sending Charles with you. I'm sure that once they have seen the entire video, most of the men on the committee will be ready to cheer you on. The others will keep their mouths shut."
"I don't want that video getting on the Internet," Adam growled. "Not Mercy's—"
"I think we can make sure that doesn't happen. The congressman was very clear about who sent him the tape. I'll see that it is taken care of."
Adam wasn't looking at me. I hopped off the bed and slipped through the still open door.
I didn't want to hear any more. I didn't want to think about people watching a video of last night. I wanted to go home.
Warren was standing at the foot of the stairs talking to Ben, so I dodged into Jesse's room before he looked up.
"Mercy?" Jesse was sitting on her bed with her homework scattered in front of her.
I'd hopped onto the sill of her open window, which was still screenless, but something in her voice made me pause. I jumped onto her bed and nuzzled her neck. She gave me a quick hug before I wriggled free and darted out the window.
I'd forgotten that Tim had mangled my arm—foreleg in coyote form—but it held up just fine when I jumped off a low spot of the roof onto the ground. Nemane had been as good as her word about the other things the goblet could do.
I ran all the way home and stopped on the front porch. I couldn't open the door as I was, but I didn't want to change to human anytime in the next decade.
Before I had time to worry too much, Samuel opened the door for me. He closed the door and followed me to my room, opening that door as well.
I jumped on my bed and curled up with my chin on my pillow. Samuel sat down on the foot, giving me plenty of room.
"I have, entirely illegally, snooped into the medical records of one Timothy Milanovich," he told me. "His doctor is a friend of mine and agreed to leave me in his office for a few minutes. When Milanovich's fiancée left him, he had himself tested and was negative for any disease that you might worry about."
And I didn't have to worry about pregnancy either. As soon as I'd realized that there was a possibility of ending up in either Adam or Samuel's bed, I'd started on the pill. Being illegitimate makes you sensitive about things like that.
I sighed and closed my eyes, and Samuel got off the bed. He closed my door behind him.
It opened again after only a few minutes, but it wasn't Samuel. Warren in his wolf form lurked solemnly behind his Alpha.
"I meant what I said, Mercy," Adam told me. "No running. I have to go to Washington and you'd better be here when I get back. Until then, one of my pack will stay with you."
The bed sank heavily under Warren's weight as the huge wolf tucked himself beside me. He licked my face with a rough tongue.
I lifted my head and met Adam's gaze.
He knew. He knew it all and he still wanted me. Maybe he'd change his mind, but I'd known him for a long time and he was as changeable as a boulder. You might move him with a bulldozer, but that was about it.
He nodded once, and was gone.
CHAPTER 13
For a whole day I indulged myself. I slept on my bed with whatever wolf had been sent to stay with me. Whenever I started to have a nightmare, someone was always there. Samuel, Warren, Honey, and Darryl's mate, Aurielle. Samuel dragged one of the kitchen chairs into my room and played his guitar for hours.
The next morning I woke up and knew I had to do something or all this pity and guilt was going to make me go stir crazy. If I let them all treat me like I was broken, then how was I going to convince myself I wasn't?
It was Friday. I should be at work…My lungs froze at the thought of going back into my shop. I breathed my way through the panic attack.
So I wouldn't go to work. Not today at least.
What to do…
I lifted my head to the pile of wolves that were threatening to make my twin bed collapse under their weight and considered my minions. Darryl wouldn't work. He wouldn't twitch without Adam's say-so—and Aurielle wouldn't go against her mate. She opened her eyes to look at me. Like me, both of them should have been at work: Aurielle at her high school and Darryl at his high-price think tank. Neither of them would do for the main project, but for now it didn't matter. Today would be reconnaissance.
It was actually Warren who came with me, shifting to his human form so he could play "walk the coyote" while Darryl and Aurielle stayed at Adam's house to play guardians for Jesse.
"So how far are we going to walk?" Warren asked.