“A while?” said Samuel. “Did Stefan tell you he could let you go after a little while? Maybe when Blackwood loses interest? A vampire never loses its sheep except to death.”
He was scared for me. I could see that. It didn’t stop me from snapping at him anyway. “Look. I was out of options.” I didn’t tell them that Wulfe could sever the bond between Stefan and me. It had been told to me in confidence, and I really did try not to blurt out everything anyone told me in secret. Except, maybe, to Adam.
He closed his eyes and looked sick. “Yes. I know.” “A vampire can’t take an Alpha wolf as a sheep,” said Adam. “Maybe we can work from that to free Mercy when it seems useful. What we don’t want to do is go off half-cocked and get rid of Stefan so the”—he gave me an ironic lift of his eyebrow—“Boogeyman of Spokane takes over again. I’m with Mercy. If you have to listen to a vampire, Stefan’s not the worst choice.”
“Why can’t a vampire take over an Alpha?” I asked.
It was Samuel who answered me. “I’d almost forgotten that. It’s the way the pack works, Mercy. If a vampire isn’t strong enough to take every wolf in the pack, all at once, he can’t take the Alpha. It doesn’t mean it can’t happen—there are a couple of vampires in the Old Country… no, most of them are gone, I think. Anyway there are none here who could do it.”
“What about Blackwood?” I asked.
Samuel shrugged unhappily. “I’ve never met Blackwood, and I’m not sure Da has either. I’ll ask.”
“Do that,” said Adam. “In the meantime, that makes Stefan an even better choice. He’s not going to be taking over. I think I’m mostly bothered by the close ties between Blackwood and your friend Amber.”
I’d lost my appetite. After scraping my plate clean, I put it in the dishwasher. Me, too. Killing Blackwood was the only solution to it I could see. I started to put my glass in the dishwasher but changed my mind and refilled it with cranberry juice. Its bite suited my mood.
“Mercy?” Adam had obviously asked me something I hadn’t heard.
I looked at him, and he asked me again. “Blackwood has a relationship with both Amber and her husband?”
“That’s right,” I told him. “Her husband is his lawyer, and Blackwood is feeding on Amber and...” It seemed like something that I should hide. But I’d smelled the sex on her. “Anyway I don’t think that she knows anything. She thought she’d been out shopping.” Her husband? I didn’t want him to be part of it. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know his client is preying on Amber. But I don’t know how much else he knows.”
“When did the hauntings start?” Samuel looked grim. “How long have they been having trouble with a ghost?”
I had to think about it. “Not long. A few months.”
“About the time that demon-ridden vampire showed up,” said Adam.
“So?” I said. That one had never made the papers.
Adam turned to Samuel, his movement such that anyone watching would know that he was a predator. “What do you know about Blackwood?”
Adam’s voice and posture were just a little too aggressive for an Alpha standing in Samuel’s kitchen. Another day, another time, Samuel would have let it go. But he’d had a bad day… and I thought that the vampires hadn’t helped. He snarled and snapped a hand out to shove Adam back.
Adam caught it and knocked it away as he came to his feet.
Bad, I thought, carefully not moving. This was very bad. Power, rank with musk and pack, vibrated through the house, making the air thick.
Both of them were on edge. They were dominants—tyrants if I’d have allowed it. But their strongest, most urgent need was to protect.
And I’d been recently harmed while under their protection. Once with Tim and a second time with Blackwood—and to a lesser extent with Stefan. It left them both dangerously aggressive.
Being a werewolf wasn’t like being a human with a hot temper—it was a balance: a human soul against a predator’s instinctive drives. Push it too hard, and it was the animal in control—and the wolf didn’t care who it hurt.
Samuel was the more dominant, but he wasn’t an Alpha. If it came to a fight, neither of them would fare well. In a few breaths, the pause before battle would stretch too long, and someone would die.
I grabbed my full glass of juice and tossed it on them, putting out a forest fire with a thimbleful of cranberry juice. They were standing almost nose to nose, so I got them both. The rage in their eyes as they turned to me would have caused a lesser person to run. I knew better.
I ate a bite of pancake from Adam’s plate that attached itself like glue to the back of my throat. I reached across the table and took Samuel’s coffee cup and rinsed the sticky knot down my throat.
You can’t pretend not to be scared by werewolves. They know. But you can meet their eyes, if you’re tough enough. And if they let you.
Adam’s eyes closed, and he took a couple of steps until his back rested against the wall. Samuel nodded at me—but I saw more than he’d have wanted me to. He was better than he’d been, but he wasn’t the happy wolf I’d grown up knowing. Maybe he hadn’t been as easygoing as I’d once thought—but he’d been better than this.
“Sorry,” he told Adam. “Bad day at the office.”
Adam nodded, but didn’t open his eyes. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”
Samuel took a towel out of a drawer and wet it down in the sink. He cleaned cranberry juice off his face and rubbed his hair with it—which made it stick straight up in the air. If you couldn’t see his eyes, you might have thought he was just a kid.
He grabbed a second towel and soaked it, too. Then said, “Heads up,” and threw it at Adam. Who caught it in one hand without looking. It might have been more impressive if one wet end hadn’t slapped him in the face.
“Thanks,” he said… dryly, while water slid down his face after the cranberry juice. I ate another piece of pancake.
By the time Adam cleaned up, his eyes were clear and dark and I’d finished all of his pancakes and used Samuel’s towel to mop up the mess on the floor. I thought Samuel would have done it—but not in front of Adam. Besides, I’d made the mess.
“So,” he said to Samuel without looking directly at him. “Do you know anything about Blackwood other than that he’s a nasty piece of work and to stay out of Spokane?”
“No,” Samuel said. “I don’t think my father does either.” He waved a hand. “Oh, I’ll ask. He’ll have data—how much he’s worth, what his business interests are. Where he stays and the names of all the people he’s been bribing to keep everyone from suspecting what he is. But he doesn’t know Blackwood. I’d say it is safe to say that he’s big and bad—otherwise, he wouldn’t have held Spokane for the past sixty years.”