Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(70)

From this perspective I was struck by how perfect they both were. Her body was tall and strong with beautiful pale skin that looked very like the pearl I’d held in my hands. Her hair was long and dark. She looked like some artist’s rendition of an idealized female. And Adam . . . was Adam.

I’d seen this scene before but not from this observation point. Standing with the mists playing about their feet, they looked like something out of a Russian fairy tale—as if they belonged together.

Do not, warned the wolf harshly. Such thoughts have power here. We cannot afford to feed her magic with your foolish insecurities.

Right. I cleared my mind and tried to pay attention without judgment. There was something here that I needed to know.

The first time I’d seen this, I’d been in a position to watch Adam’s face. This time I could see Elizaveta’s as she stepped into his space, leaning her tall, naked body against his. She tilted her head and bent forward to kiss him.

Her lips touched his—and even though I knew what had happened and why, fierce possessiveness swept through me.

He was mine. She had no right to touch him.

Yes, said the wolf. We were yours.

Are mine, I thought fiercely. Are.

I didn’t say the words aloud, and I couldn’t tell if he’d heard me.

One of Adam’s arms wrapped around her waist, holding her to him, his hand flat against the small of her back.

He liked to hold me like that, protective and possessive.

His other hand cupped her face, then threaded through her long silky hair on its fatal journey to the back of her head.

As his fingers tightened, her eyes, which had been closed to savor his kiss, flashed open and comprehension slid across her face. In that second, when she knew she was going to die, magic slid from her mouth and into his.

Her magic carried her voice, her words, into him. You are the monster you think yourself to be.

He broke her neck, stepping away from her, allowing her body to fall away. But he put distance between them too late. Her death-gift sank into him, disappearing beneath his skin as he looked up and fell into parade rest.

Waiting, I remembered, for my judgment. I reached out for him and the scene faded away. My fingers brushed the stage and it altered under my touch, becoming the stump of a tree that some giant saw had cut more or less flat. The wood bit my finger and a drop of blood welled and landed on the stump.

This was my otherness, formed of things I knew. My stomach tight, I looked at the wolf and asked, “Was that something I saw, but didn’t—” That night had been one horror after another, I’d been so tired by that point. “—didn’t pay attention to?”

It is what was, the wolf said, seeming a little less substantial than he had before.

He said, He was lost in that moment, for he believed the truth of her words before she gave them to him. His voice faded, growing softer. Twice born those words, his and then hers. So they took hold in his belief and made it true.

I walked around the tree stump and knelt beside him. He was smaller now, the size of a German shepherd maybe.

“What’s happening to you?” I asked.

He is becoming, answered the wolf tiredly. I am unmaking.

I pulled another gemstone out of my mouth. This one was an amethyst about the size of a marble, uncut and rough-sided. I took it and spoke to it, too. When I was finished, I held it out to the wolf, who eyed it.

What do you have for me? he asked.

“It won’t work if I tell you,” I said, following my instincts. “Eat it.”

He opened his mouth and consumed the purple stone. I waited, but there seemed to be no effect for good or ill. Maybe it would take time—real time, not otherness time.

He was no bigger. He didn’t move his body, had not moved anything but his head the whole time we’d been here.

But his voice was steady when he asked, What did you do to the bond?

I looked at the bond then. The tie that bound me to Adam was now the same color and texture as the scabby red skin that covered Adam’s monstrous form. I touched it and the skin-like surface was rough under my fingertips. My wounded finger left a thin trail of blood behind that melted into the bond, which did not change again. Blood is one of those things, like words, that have unexpected power. The bond was ugly, but it did not look fragile.

“Well,” I told him, “I didn’t blow it up.” I’d intended the pearl to blow it up until that last second before it touched the bond. I didn’t want to lose Adam, and I wasn’t willing to risk breaking our bond—and the pearl had looked so hopeful.

“But maybe,” I said, “I instilled a little common sense and logic into the situation.”

What words did the pearl hold? he asked.

I took a breath and the otherworld faded to nothing. I was back in the auto bay with Adam and a gun that was moving quickly toward his head.

“You are mine,” I told him, using the same words I’d given the pearl. “I can’t stop you from using that gun. But you know what?”

I was so angry at him. As if the whole time I’d been in that otherness, anger had been filling the real me from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head and it was spilling out my mouth—as that pearl had done.

“It doesn’t matter if you live or die—you are still mine,” I bit out. “Alpha werewolf, nightmare creature—I don’t care. But don’t you forget who I am. You gave yourself to me, and now you can’t get away.” I took a step closer to him and jutted out my chin. “You die, and I will drag your butt back from the afterlife kicking and screaming. But let me tell you, mister. If you are dead, you’ll just have to watch us get hurt—without being able to do a damn thing about it. Because you will be dead and helpless and I won’t let you go. And. Every.” I pointed my finger at him, stabbing him with it figuratively the way I was tempted to do it literally. “Single. Day. I will say, ‘I told you that you would regret pulling that trigger, you bastard. I told you so.’”