Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson #10)(33)

He’d handed it back. “Thank you, but not right now.”

She took the bottle and took a long drink before capping it and tucking it away somewhere in the layers of her clothing.

“To break a werewolf’s mating bond,” Elizaveta said, “this is something very difficult—but to block it?” She laughed gently and patted his cheek. “Such a thing is child’s play to such as I. Witches like me and werewolves like you have existed in the same places for centuries. Much werewolf lore has been passed down in my family and others.”

She spoke in Russian, and the wolf quieted as he let himself be comforted by the way it brought back childhood memories of his mother sitting beside him and explaining how the world worked to him in much the same voice.

“I have a book written by my great-grandmother,” she said. “It is all about werewolves. A whole section of it deals with mating bonds and pack bonds—which are different aspects of the same magic. I am sure that many witch families have copies of this book—or one like it. She tells us that a specific kind of circle of warding, one that does not let magic pass in or out, will block the bond. With a day to work, I could put together something that could do it for a few hours. Give me a week and the right ingredients, and I could block it for longer.”

“So the fact that I can feel her now is only a sign that whatever they have been using to block our mating bond has burned out?” he asked.

“A sign that something has changed,” Elizaveta said. She pursed her lips and nodded to herself. “Perhaps we could ask her.”

“I’ve tried,” Adam told her. “I think that our bond is working fine, but we are just too far away. Without the pack for me to draw upon for power, we might have to be in the same city to make real contact.”

Elizaveta snorted. “Adya, you underestimate me. If you have something of Mercy’s, I can use your bond to give you a few minutes to talk.”

In that moment, he’d have given her his heart, dug it out of his chest in order to hear Mercy’s voice. But that would have been dumb, and in the end, all Elizaveta had needed had been Mercy’s necklace.

He wasn’t stupid, so he made her work her magic in the biggest of the rooms in that huge plane so that the vampires and Honey would be there if something went wrong and he lost control.

Elizaveta had come through for him again, as she always had.

So now he knew that Mercy was alive.

Eyes closed, heart pounding, Adam pressed his body back into the leather chair. Mercy had even rescued herself from the monsters. But now she was lost and alone somewhere in Europe. Both he and his wolf found that unacceptable—but much, much better than knowing that she was bleeding and taken by vampires, which was all he’d had before.

The monster inside him didn’t want to fly to Italy and treat with a vampire. It wanted to go to Italy and kill all the vampires. All of them everywhere. Then find Mercy, take her home, and barricade her in their home so that no one else could take her from them. Part of Adam’s trouble in bringing the wolf under control was that he pretty much felt the same way. Only his intellect could see how disastrous that might be. Still, his heart fought on the side of the monster.

Elizaveta—he knew because he could smell the faint whiff of her scent, a blend of tea-tree oil and herbs—kissed his forehead. Then she stood up and said, “I am an old woman, and this has tired me.”

“And hurt you,” he said, opening his eyes to look up at her.

Witchcraft was powered by pain, the witch’s or someone else’s. She had dug a knife into her scarred forearm and cut a slice of skin. When she’d burned it in the incense, she’d had to grit her teeth—as if burning her flesh had done even more damage to her.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“Don’t fret, Adya,” she said. “A little pain, and it is gone. Pain and I are old friends. I am going to go use one of the back rooms and sleep on the couch.”

Mercy was scared of the old witch—as she should be. Elizaveta was dangerous. Her own family was terrified of her. But she reminded Adam of his mother—her accent, the way she smelled, her turns of phrase—and he couldn’t be afraid of her.

“Sweet dreams,” he said, and she smiled at him with her eyes.

No one spoke until she left the room.

“So what did you learn?” Stefan asked.

“Has Bonarata harmed Mercy?” asked Marsilia.

Adam realized that he didn’t know—and that set the wolf off again. He gritted his teeth and fought for control. If Bonarata had done something to Mercy, he would have known it. She was all right. Tired. Sad. But defiant—even toward him—and funny. She was all right.

“Adam?” asked Marsilia.

“Leave him be,” growled Honey. “He needs a moment.”

—

HONEY HAD NOT BEEN HAPPY THAT ADAM HAD CHOSEN her to travel with vampires. She didn’t have much experience with them—and that’s how she’d preferred it.

He’d explained that he needed her because the Lord of Night was addicted to werewolf blood—and preferred females to a degree that was pretty rare in a creature as old as he was. Most predators became quite practical about their food after a few centuries. Adam intended to use Honey, if he could, to distract Bonarata. He trusted her to be able to defend herself from the Lord of Night if everything went sideways.