Kyle held up a hand. “Hold on. It’s a little soon for you to have Warren and me dead, don’t you think?”
I took a deep breath. “I hope so. You have to believe me on this—they take their secrecy very seriously. How do you think they’ve remained undetected for so long?”
“Mercy.” He caught my hand—his own felt cold, but that might have been from the wind. “A werewolf?”
He didn’t really believe me—that might be more dangerous. “Twenty years ago no one believed in the fae, either. Look, I can prove it to you.”
I looked at a thicket of leafless bushes. They weren’t really thick enough for me to strip and shift in, but there weren’t any boats out on the water, and as long as we didn’t get another biker at the wrong moment. . . . I could just shift in my clothes—I get smaller, not bigger—but I’d rather be given a ticket for indecent exposure. A coyote in human clothes looks ridiculous.
“Wait here.” I gave him the trench coat so it wouldn’t get dirty, then hopped off the swing and waded through the old grass into the bushes. I took off my clothes as fast as I could and shifted as soon as I dropped the last piece of clothing.
I stopped on the path and sat down, trying to look harmless.
“Mercy?” Kyle had his lawyer face on, which told me how shocked he was. He really hadn’t believed me.
I wagged my tail and made a crooning noise. He got out of the swing like an old, old man and approached me.
“A coyote?” he asked.
When I went down to get my clothes, he followed me. I shifted right in front of him—then scrambled back into my clothes as I heard another bicycle coming along.
“I’m not a werewolf,” I told him, running my fingers through my hair. “But I’m as close as you’re going to get until you talk Warren into changing for you.”
Kyle made an impatient sound and pulled my hands away, rearranging my hair himself.
“Werewolves are bigger,” I said, feeling as though I ought to warn him. “A lot bigger. They don’t look like wolves. They look like really, really big wolves who might eat you.”
“Okay,” he said, stepping back. I thought he was talking about my hair, until he continued. “Warren’s a werewolf.”
I looked at his lawyer face and sighed. “He couldn’t tell you. If I tell you, and you don’t do anything stupid—you and he are both safe. But if he told you, no matter how you reacted, he would have disobeyed a direct order. The penalty for that is brutal.”
He still wasn’t giving anything away. He was so closed off, I couldn’t sense what he was feeling. Most humans don’t have that kind of control over themselves.
“Won’t his pack—” He stumbled over that word a little. “Won’t they think he told me?”
“A lot of werewolves can smell a lie,” I said. “They’ll know how you found out.”
He went back to the swing, picked up the trench coat, and held it out to me. “Tell me about werewolves.”
I was in the middle of trying to explain just how dangerous a werewolf could be and why it wasn’t a good idea for him to flirt with Samuel—or Darryl—when my cell phone rang.
It was Zee.
“Business?” Kyle asked when I hung up.
“Yes.” I bit my lip.
He smiled. “It’s all right. I think I’ve heard enough secrets for one day. I take it you need to go back to Warren’s?”
“Don’t talk to him yet,” I said. “Wait for it to sink in. If you have other questions, you can call me.”
“Thanks, Mercy.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “But I think I need to talk the rest out with Warren—after his business is finished.”
Chapter 9
Samuel and Warren were seated on opposite sides of the living room when I walked in, and the air smelled thick with anger. I couldn’t tell, just by looking at them, whether they were angry with each other or something else. But then, werewolves are always ready to be angry about something. I’d forgotten what it was like.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one with a nose. Warren, sitting closest to the door, took a deep breath.
“She’s been with Kyle,” he said, his voice flat. “She smells like the cologne I gave him. You told him.” He swore at me, but there was more pain than anger in it. I felt a sharp twinge of guilt.
“You weren’t going to tell him,” I said. I was not apologizing. “And he deserved to know that all the crap he has to put up with is not all your doing.”
Warren shook his head and gave me a despairing glance. “Do you have a death wish? Adam could have you and Kyle executed for it. I’ve seen it done.”
“Just me, not Kyle,” I said.
“Yes, damn it, Kyle, too.”
“Only if your lover decides to take it to the news or police.” Samuel’s voice was mild, but Warren glared at him anyway.
“You risked too much, Mercy,” said Warren, turning back to me. “How do you think I’d feel if I lost both of you?” All the anger left him suddenly, leaving only misery behind. “Maybe you were right. It was still my job. My risk. If he was going to know, it should have been me telling him.”
“No. You are pack and sworn to obedience.” Adam swayed at the top of the stairs, leaning a little on his cane. He was wearing a white shirt and jeans that fit. “If you’d told him, I’d have had to enforce the law or risk a rebellion in the pack.”
He sat down on the top stair more abruptly than he meant to, I think, and grinned at me. “Samuel and I both can witness that Warren didn’t tell Kyle anything, you did. Despite Warren’s objections, I might add. And, as you keep insisting, you are not pack.” He looked over at Warren. “I’d have given you permission a long time ago, but I have to obey orders, too.”
I stared at him a moment. “You knew I was going to tell Kyle.”
He smiled. “Let’s just say that I thought I was going to have to come down and order you not to tell him so you would storm out the door before Kyle drove off.”
“You manipulative bastard,” I said, with a tinge of awe. That was it, three tires were going to come off that old Rabbit.
“Thank you.” He gave me a modest smile.
And when we got Jesse back, she could help me with the graffiti.
“How did he take it?” asked Warren. He’d gotten off the couch and stood staring out his window. His hands hung loose and relaxed by his side, giving nothing of his feelings away.
“He’s not gone running to the police,” I told Adam and Samuel. I searched for something more hopeful to tell Warren, but I didn’t want to raise his expectations in case I was wrong about Kyle.
“He said he’d talk it over with you,” I told him at last. “After this business is finished.”
He raised his hands to his face abruptly, in a gesture very like the one Kyle had used. “At least it’s not over, yet.”
He wasn’t talking to any of us, but I couldn’t stand the bleakness of his voice. I touched his shoulder, and said, “Don’t screw it up anymore and I think he’ll be okay with it.”
Samuel and I headed out to meet with Zee and his informant, and I was still trying to figure out if I should have been mad at Adam for manipulating me like that. Except that he actually hadn’t done any manipulation, had he? All he’d done was claim credit for my actions afterward.
The light turned red, and I had to stop behind a minivan a little closer than I usually did. Samuel’s hand braced itself on my dash and he sucked in his breath. I made a face at the kid in the backseat of the van who had twisted around in his seat belt to look at us. He pulled his lower eyelids down and stuck out his tongue.