Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(60)

And I wondered why Fiona had asked me about the fae. There were vampires here—and other things that defied classification. Had she known about the bite?



* * *



? ? ?

They set my nose at the hospital. As soon as the medical professionals left me to my own devices, I decamped and went looking for Makaya. I found Auriele and Kelly waiting in one of the other emergency bays and wandered in.

“Nice shirt,” said Auriele.

Mine had made me look like an extra from a horror movie because broken noses bleed. So I’d been issued a hospital top. The hospital issue was a pale beige color that made my Native-toned skin look greenish. Solemnly I turned around so she could get a good look at the open back.

“I don’t think I’ll be setting any fashion trends soon,” I told her. “Makaya in X-ray?”

“Yes,” Auriele nodded. “Hannah went with her. She’ll let them stitch her up in another room as soon as Makaya is taken care of. Makaya is pretty traumatized and wanted her mother.”

“How bad is Hannah’s cut?” I asked.

“Long,” she said. “But not deep. It will need stitches at the top, but the bottom is okay. He cut her with that knife he pulled on you.”

I knelt to talk to Kelly. “How are you doing?”

His muzzle wrinkled up and he let out a low, angry growl.

“He walked in here on his own,” Auriele said. “But it wasn’t easy for him. I checked him over pretty thoroughly. I don’t think any of his bones were misaligned.”

She meant none of them would have to be rebroken.

Kelly was still growling.

“I know,” I said. “Me, too. Those people are not becoming members of our pack. But you have to stop growling now, before you scare someone.”

“They don’t intend to join us, remember,” said Auriele dryly. “They will let Adam take three of his people and you. Who are you going to pick?” She knew Adam and me well enough to know that wandering off and leaving the pack to someone else was not going to happen.

I snorted with more dismissal than I actually felt. “They have no chance now. If they wanted to take the pack from us, they shouldn’t have gone for Kelly’s home. No one will follow a wolf who allows children to be attacked.”

I stood up abruptly. “Adam is here.” I didn’t smell him. My bond was currently telling me nothing. But I heard his voice. At least my ears were working.

I stepped out of the alcove and looked around, finding him talking to a nurse. I’d called him as soon as the truck carrying Fiona and the Palsics had left and told him what had happened.

Adam had been about an hour’s drive away, out in the Hanford Area, nearly six hundred square miles of government access-restricted land surrounding the numerous nuclear reactors and reprocessing facilities being slowly deactivated and cleaned up. He’d known Kelly was hurt—had tried calling him. Then he’d called Darryl and Warren. Apparently, no one except Auriele and me had been alerted by the pack bonds—we had been the closest to the trouble. I was, once I’d had a chance to think about it, a little uncomfortable with what that said about the pack bonds—implying an intelligence at work that did not belong to anyone in the pack.

Darryl and Warren had arrived at Kelly’s not long after I got off the phone with Adam. They bundled up the other three kids—Sean and Patrick having been recalled—and took them to our house, where they should be safe. Safer, anyway.

Adam had said he would meet us at the hospital—and here he was, as promised.

I gave a soft whistle, and Adam looked up. He said something more to the nurse and then strode over.

He stopped in front of me and took my head in his hands. He looked gutted. Whatever weirdness was going on—it could not be what was between us. Because that face said that he cared what happened to me. He was being a stubborn bastard, trying to keep his troubles to himself. Maybe I’d wait until the rest of this—the stray wolves and the smoke weaver—were dealt with. But I wasn’t going to let him continue carrying whatever was bothering him alone.

“No worries,” I told the stubborn bastard. “I broke my nose on the steering wheel. Probably I’ll have two black eyes to go with it. But the good news is that my ribs aren’t broken or cracked, just bruised.”

“I’ll spend the next week telling the press I didn’t hit you,” he said, but he looked like he could breathe again.

“Good for you,” I said encouragingly.

He smiled wryly and kissed my forehead. “Do you think that your next car could have airbags?”

Retrofitting airbags was a fool’s game—and dangerous. It was a matter of pride for me as a mechanic that I drove an old car.

“I just need to quit hitting people with my cars and we’ll be good,” I told him.

“If only,” he murmured, “you don’t run into any more who need to be hit.” Proving he knew me. “I suppose I should be grateful that you aren’t under arrest.”

“Might have been,” I told him. “Except that Kelly’s neighbor came running out of his house. He’d caught most everything on his cell phone. Just wait until you see the part with Auriele making the grab for Makaya as I rammed Lincoln with the Jetta. It looks like a scene from Cirque du Soleil. The police decided I was justified and warned me not to do it again. I pointed out that I couldn’t do it again because the car is totaled—and was, at that moment, getting towed to my garage, where I can mine it for parts.”