“You don’t think they can help,” I said. I could read this Zee.
He shook his head. “No. But they are safer options.”
Adam looked at my brother, who was dividing his attention between us and his food, tension never really leaving his body. “Would you invite the Jötunn to our house for us?”
Zee assessed my mate, and for just an instant I could see that unfamiliar something look out of his eyes. He glanced at me and as quickly as that, he was my friend again.
Phone in hand, Zee peered out the window with a grimace. Then he opened the back door and walked into the storm. The strength of the wind meant that there was no chance we could overhear him. I don’t know why he needed to keep his conversation from us, but I trusted Zee to know what was best.
Tad brought the pan, cutting board, and assorted cutlery they’d used for Gary’s omelet and set it in the sink. He glanced out the window at his father, then over at Adam.
“You should probably go before Ymir gets here,” he advised. “Ymir is…”
“Dangerous?” asked Adam dryly.
“Yes,” Tad agreed. “But that’s not what I meant. ‘Malicious’ is too strong of a word.” He hesitated. “Bored. Ymir is bored. I think that all of the werewolves around are going to be too much for his self-control. It would be best if you all were gone.”
He looked at me. “I don’t think Ymir can do dogs. Which means you should be safe, Mercy.”
“Not a dog,” I told him.
“Dog is as far from a wolf as a wolf is from a coyote,” he answered.
“And a werewolf is from a wolf,” I argued back.
“Ymir can call werewolves,” Honey said, but her voice was very quiet, and I don’t think anyone else heard her because Adam spoke at the same time.
“So I should leave you, Jesse, Mercy, and Gary to meet with Ymir while I run away?” Adam’s voice was too mild.
Tad flushed but persisted. “Dad will be here, too. No one is touching Mercy if Dad is here.”
Something came and went on Adam’s face. A flicker that my instincts told me was important. But Adam covered up whatever it was.
“Ymir is not my enemy,” Adam said. “And he doesn’t want to be my enemy.”
“Adam.” Honey’s voice was careful. “He is not wrong about Ymir. Ymir can call werewolves.” She paused, then said, “I’ve been in his power.”
Adam’s body stiffened and he took a step toward her.
“Centuries ago,” she said, her voice calm even for her. “He needed backup, but perhaps more than that, he needed us to impress his enemies. He came to our pack house and called us. The whole Kraków pack numbered around sixty, but there were only seventeen of us at our Alpha’s house when Ymir called. None of us, not even Kazuch, our Alpha, hesitated when Ymir asked us to come.” She made a humming sound, as if considering what to say.
“It felt so wonderful to serve him,” she said. “All of my doubts, all of my desires and wants, just vanished, subsumed in his presence. You’ve seen those dogs who focus on their owner with all their being, right? Just vibrating with the need to follow the next command. I know exactly how that feels.”
Honey’s voice and demeanor were matter-of-fact. But Gary’s eating slowed and his head canted toward Honey. Behind her, her dead mate’s shade wrapped his arms around her, his face twisted in sorrow. I hadn’t noticed him when she first came in.
“When he was finished with us, Ymir took us back to our pack house and left us—all seven of us. Ten of us died in his service, including our Alpha and our first. We just…the pack dissolved. Today is the first day that I feel angry about what Ymir did to us. Kazuch was a good man, a good Alpha, and I didn’t mourn him. None of the wolves Ymir took mourned him.”
She looked at Adam and said seriously, “We should leave before Ymir gets here.”
Adam might have agreed then, but Zee came into the kitchen, closed the door behind him, and said, “Ymir is coming. You who are wolves should go. I will keep Mercy and her brother safe. That will be easier if I do not have to contend with you.”
Twenty minutes later Adam and Zee were still arguing about it in short savage sentences that sounded as if a physical clash were only moments away. The testosterone in the air made the kitchen feel a lot smaller. It was a big kitchen, but if the two of them actually started engaging with fang and axe (with Zee in this mood, nothing else was going to do), a football stadium would have felt too small.
Tad stood next to the stove, just a little in front of Jesse, who looked a lot less worried than she had when they’d started in on each other. I’d caught Tad nudging her attention toward my face. I couldn’t help but grin when Zee resorted to German—a wonderful language to swear at someone in—and Adam answered in Russian. I understand a lot of German, but Russian is beyond me. Adam’s speech was not as consonant heavy, but the rich vowels made it sound like Adam was purring epithets in preparation for biting Zee’s head off.
If I’d been Jesse, I’d have been worried, too. But I could feel Adam’s pleasure—relief, even—at being able to just let fly at an opponent who was capable of meeting him full force. He’d been eating a lot of frustration for the past year, and Zee wasn’t someone who was going to misunderstand an argument for a war.
But time was passing.
I slid off the counter I’d retreated to when it had seemed the verbal combat needed more room.
“Okay, Adam,” I said. “If you keep this up, you’re going to still be arguing when Ymir gets here.”
Adam’s white teeth flashed in a grin, and he dropped the aggression. “Too true.”
He wasn’t stupid; he’d heard what Honey had said. Zee had ruffled his fur, though. The fight hadn’t been playacting, exactly. But it hadn’t been serious, either.
Zee scowled at me and then at Adam. “You,” he said in an aggrieved tone, “have as much sense as earwax.”
“Thank you,” Adam said serenely. “Okay, Honey, we need to head to Tad’s.”
Zee looked at his son. “It would be helpful if you go with the wolves. It would give them some protection if they do encounter Ymir. And I would prefer that he does not notice you unless he makes it necessary.”
Father and son stared at each other for a moment. I couldn’t read either of their faces.
“Come on, Jesse,” Tad said, turning away from Zee. “We’ll take the werewolves to my house and have cookies.”
“You made cookies?” Jesse asked him.
“Nope,” he said. “Izzy’s mother did.”
“Yum.”
Adam took his ducklings—and Honey—off to Tad’s house to eat cookies.
It had taken some finesse to pry my brother off Honey. He was more on edge without her, his grip on my wrist near bruising. Zee had dragged the kitchen table away again so Gary and I weren’t trapped behind it.
My timing had been a little too close for comfort. Adam and the others barely had time to get beyond the fence in the backyard when I heard a car coming down our road about a quarter of a mile out.
There was something weird about it.
I frowned as it purred to a halt in the driveway, and Zee looked at me expectantly.
“That’s a rotary engine,” I said. “Renesis. I haven’t heard one of those in years.”
“He drives a 2004 Mazda RX-8,” said Zee in satisfied tones. “I keep it running for him myself.” He looked at me. “I don’t want him going to the garage. Too many werewolves hang out there. And although he hasn’t eaten a person in years, I don’t want him to start with you.”