Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(81)

When he had finished, he kissed my wrist, then rubbed it with his thumbs until the small wounds disappeared. He looked up. “I don’t know whether to thank you or to curse you.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “As long as you hang on.”

Much as an actor in an artsy one-act play might have done, he lay down on the ground and faded into the darkness that now surrounded me.

I ran my finger over the same mark on the floor that Stefan had touched, feeling the roughness against my skin. I looked around and like the spotlight that lit where I sat, the bed was illuminated. I could see my mate lying asleep, his face turned away from me. Faintly, I could see the hulking monster curled around him like a lover.

I got up and walked through the darkness to the bed. When I finally reached it, I climbed in and wrapped my body around Adam as if I could protect him from himself.

“Hope,” I said out loud, because I didn’t have another pearl for him. “Hope, my love.” And then I closed my eyes and slept.



* * *



? ? ?

Adam was still asleep beside me when I woke up the next morning. He didn’t stir when I got up and hastily pulled on clothes as quietly as I could—I didn’t see my bathrobe anywhere.

I had made it all the way to the door when Adam said, with lazy satisfaction, “You should shower, Mercy. You smell like sex.”

“I was trying to let you sleep,” I told him, coming back to the bed.

He smiled without opening his eyes. “Go shower. I’ll sleep until you get out.” And as I walked to the bathroom he said, “Thank you.”

“No, sir,” I said. “Thank you.”



* * *



? ? ?

I took breakfast—eggs and bacon and French toast—down to Ben, who was still in wolf form.

Luke, back on guard duty, shook his head as I walked by him. “He hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday morning.”

I frowned and approached the cage. I started to tell Ben that he needed to keep up his strength—and remembered Stefan, and what he’d said. I remembered how the last time I’d come down here, Ben had ignored me. But the time before that—when I knew it had been our Ben speaking—that time he hadn’t wanted me anywhere near him.

Ben would be telling me to leave.

Instead of addressing Ben, I said, conversationally, “It takes a long time to starve a werewolf to death. As they grow more desperate for food, their wolf takes over from the man. I wonder if you can hold the wild beast you will be letting loose.” I slid the plate through the long, narrow opening designed for that purpose and left Ben’s breakfast in front of him. “If you can, it will take a lot of magic. You couldn’t even hold me.”

Ben’s wolf gave me a baleful glare—but he got up and ate the food. He ate the second plate I brought down, too. And then he curled up with his back to the room and I couldn’t help but remember how Adam’s wolf had taken the same position when I fed him the amethyst. I hadn’t seen the wolf since.

“Hope,” I told Ben. I said it to myself, too.

I did some laundry—the sheets and bedding had gotten oil-stained. I didn’t flinch at the knowing looks that were sent my way by everyone from Kelly to Medea. The cat might have been my imagination, but she purred from her perch on top of the warm, clean bedding. She didn’t stop even when I lifted her off so I could fold them.

Adam worked from his office most of the morning, but he came up to the laundry room as I folded the last of the sheets.

“Have you been getting the looks, too?” I complained.

He laughed and took the folded sheets from me. “If you hadn’t issued your invitation so that the whole household overheard, you might have avoided some of this.”

I was pretty sure if I hadn’t issued the invitation in front of the whole house, he wouldn’t have taken me up on it. I grabbed the comforter, rolled it together until it made a manageable bundle, and said, “Sure I would have.”

He laughed again and followed me as I took the comforter back to our bedroom. “How about I take you away from all of this for an hour or so. Want to go out to lunch?”

Get out of the house filled with werewolves with sharp ears and noses—and one werewolf trapped in a cage. I liked the hustle and bustle and organized chaos. But getting away from the pleased and knowing looks?

“That would be amazing,” I told him.





12





The food at the restaurant we’d decided upon was good, but it was the river view that brought people here. We took an outside table on the deck, which hung out over the water, and we weren’t the only ones who chose to brave possible bugs for the sunshine and river-freshened air.

The temperature had subsided as it sometimes did late in the summer. A few days ago, it had been in the triple digits, but this afternoon it was in the mideighties with a light breeze off the water. I saw a couple of people in light jackets and sweaters—ridiculous on the face of it. But the sudden drop in temperatures affected some people more than others.

Neither Adam nor I were wearing sweaters—I was a little chilled, but werewolves don’t feel the cold as much. I’d seen them run around naked in the middle of a Montana winter without so much as a shiver. Hot weather bothered them, but not cold.