The next clear thought Adam had was when he sat on top of Mercy’s brother, who was face down in the snow. They were in the backyard.
Gary was pinned but showed no sign of trying to throw Adam off. He was absolutely still. Limp.
I’ve killed Mercy’s brother.
For an instant he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. And then Gary’s whole body shivered and Adam realized he—Gary, not Adam—was breathing in little gasping pants, like a terrified rabbit.
“Dad, don’t hurt him,” Jesse said urgently.
She was, he thought with gratitude for her common sense, all the way across the yard. He didn’t look at her—you never look away from your prey. Your opponent, he corrected himself.
Except it is okay to look away if you have them immobilized—and Mercy couldn’t break this hold, so he assumed Gary couldn’t, either. He glanced over at his daughter.
Jesse was standing in the back doorway. “That’s Mercy’s brother. He’s not an enemy.”
She’d heard him call the man by name. Or maybe she’d recognized him once they’d started fighting. In any case, he hadn’t been about to kill Mercy’s brother. Probably. If the wolf had wanted Gary dead, Gary would be dead.
“He’s okay,” Adam growled to Jesse, and saw her whole body relax in relief. She started forward—but Adam didn’t trust himself that much. “Stay back.”
She nodded and stayed where she was, allowing him to turn his attention to his prisoner. His brother-in-law, he reminded himself.
“Gary,” he said, and he tried to keep the roughness out of his voice with indifferent success. “Gary, what’s wrong with you?”
Instead of answering, the wiry man under Adam tried to get free. But Adam had wrestled in high school, and he had Gary in a highly illegal but effective hold.
“That dog won’t hunt,” Adam told him. “Settle down.” And then, because the smell of fear was still tugging at Adam’s control, he said, “Easy now. You’re safe, you’re safe here.”
If it had been Mercy he was holding down, Adam figured that would have set her into a fit of sarcastic laughter. Gary was trapped, face down, under a werewolf—in human form—on six inches of freshly fallen snow, not something that screamed “safe.” Adam glanced over his shoulder and saw, by the disturbed snow, that they had gone right over the top of the house. Adam didn’t remember going over the roof. It had been years, decades, since he’d let the wolf out far enough that he didn’t remember what the wolf did.
His chest gave a familiar zing of pain, and he hastily took a deep breath to expand his rib cage. Happily, the bone moved just a little as the lupine power that kept his body and face young, when his youngest brother was an old man, healed the broken rib.
“I promise, you are safe,” Adam said. And this time he could hear the truth ringing in his words.
Gary’s body gave one convulsive jerk, went totally limp again, then began shaking like a man kept out in the cold too long. Possibly because he was face down in the snow. The shaking stopped.
Adam released him cautiously, finally getting off him altogether. When Mercy’s brother didn’t move, Adam put a hand to his shoulder and rolled him over.
He was unconscious.
“Is he dead?” asked Jesse tightly.
“No,” Adam said. “Go find a blanket. Let’s get him inside and warm him up.”
Abruptly, Gary clenched into a fetal position. Adam had to check an instinctive urge to land on him again. But Gary didn’t move after that. Adam thought Gary’s ability to curl that tightly probably meant that his spine was okay, but before Adam picked him up, he did a quick exploration anyway.
He hefted Gary carefully, but apparently there was nothing painful enough to make him struggle. Also a good sign. Adam’s wolf hadn’t wanted to hurt Gary any more than Adam did.
Jesse brought the big comforter from her bed out onto the porch, but didn’t approach farther than that. “I have the blanket.”
“Not out here,” Adam said, starting toward the house. “Let’s get him inside.”
Mercy’s brother was a little taller than Adam, but he didn’t feel much heavier than Mercy did, maybe twenty pounds more. The steps were icy—he’d shoveled them a few hours ago, but the snow had been falling ever since—so Adam was careful to keep his weight centered.
“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him,” Jesse said, holding the door wide so Adam could maneuver through without slamming Gary against the frame. “What’s wrong with him? Why did he attack you?”
“I don’t know.”
In the distance, a coyote sang. The coincidence made Adam pause.
Jesse’s eyes widened. “Do you think…?”
“Let’s get him warmed up and maybe he can tell us,” Adam said.
Jesse threw the comforter on one of the big recliners in the living room. Adam set him in it and bundled him in the fluffy thing like a baby. He would have taken off Gary’s boots if he’d been awake. But Adam didn’t want to have his head down around the semiconscious Gary’s feet—the man kicked like a mule, and he’d already demonstrated that he was prone to panic.
Jesse frowned. “He’s soaking wet. I’ll go downstairs and get him some dry clothes.”
They kept clothing on hand, both in the basement and packed in the vehicles. Mostly a mix of unisex sweats and T-shirts. She should be able to find something that would fit.
“I’ll call Mercy,” Adam said.
Interlude
CoyoteCoyote watched in satisfaction as his daughter’s mate carried the limp body inside the house. He’d been worried, for a moment, that he might have to stop the fight.
It had not previously been his habit to save his children. He wasn’t sure when that urge had first come upon him—but it also wasn’t his habit to examine his own motivations too closely.
3
Mercy“Why did I marry Adam?” I asked, a little incredulously.
“Yes,” said Mary Jo.
“Because I love him.”
Mary Jo shook her head and waved a hand, casually (and maybe a little drunkenly still) dismissing the thing that lay at the heart of a couple of years of bitter resentment on her part.
“I get that. But you were already mates and had been taking all sorts of crap from the pack. We are werewolves, not coyotes—you were an interloper trying to take our Alpha from us. And we were pretty convinced you were a weakness that was going to bring us down.”
She paused, her mouth finding a frown. “A coyote. And not a supercoyote, or one brimming with Native American magics. A coyote who is even easier to kill than your human form. Which is as easy to kill as a normal human.”
Yep. That was who I was.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why aren’t you dead?”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Is that a question or a wish?”
She waved a hand at me again. “No. No. I’m done with that. I don’t want you dead anymore.” She shook her head. “As long as we never have to clean up dead water fae glop again. The clothes I wore still smell like rotting fish and I’ve washed them three times.”
I was beginning to enjoy this sloshed version of Mary Jo—though the effect of whatever Uncle Mike had provided for her seemed to be coming and going.
“I suppose I’m not dead for the same reason you aren’t dead,” I told her.
She raised her eyebrows in mute question.
“Because no one has managed to kill me yet.” I’d meant to be funny. But a chill drifted over my skin and I remembered lying in the dirt while Bonarata walked away from Adam and me. I changed the subject. “But you asked me why I married Adam. I married him because I wanted to.”