Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson #2)(76)

Darryl shook his head. "Samuel said he thought it would be a few days. Apparently there was some damage to his throat. I don't know what effect changing had on his prognosis. He won't eat."

"He talked in his sleep," Kyle told me.

He was watching Darryl without bothering to conceal his dislike. Darryl had always had a problem with Warren, even before he'd found out Warren wasn't subservient to him. Dominant wolves were always prickly around each other, unless one of them was the Alpha. It meant that Darryl tended to be nastily autocratic when Warren was around.

"What did he say?" Darryl snapped, his chair rolling abruptly forward.

"Nothing that matters to you," Kyle replied, uncaring of the danger of irritating a werewolf.

I was more interested in the way Warren 's shoulders were tightening.

"You're going to disturb him if you start fighting," I said. "Darryl, have you heard from Bran?"

He nodded, his attention still focused on Kyle. "He's coming up. He's got some business to finish so he won't be able to get here until late tonight."

"Good," I said. "I want you to go up and eat something."

He looked at me, surprised.

I smiled. "A hungry werewolf is a cranky werewolf. Go eat something before you eat somebody."

He stood up and stretched, the stiffness in his movement told me that he'd been in that chair for a very long time.

I waited until he was gone then opened the door of the cell.

"I've spent most of the last few hours with Darryl telling me that wasn't a good idea," commented Kyle.

"Probably isn't," I agreed. "But Warren listened to me this morning."

I sat on the end of the mattress and pulled the blanket down so it covered Warren 's feet better. Then I crawled onto it between the wall and Warren.

His face was just a few inches from mine and I saw his battered nostrils flutter a little and breathed into them so he'd know it was me. The hours since I'd last seen him hadn't improved his appearance any, his bruises had darkened and his nose and lips were more swollen. Darryl was right: he should be healing faster than this.

But Kyle said he had spoken.

"It's all right," I told Warren. "It's just Kyle and me here."

His lashes moved and one eye opened just a slit then closed.

"Adam and Samuel are missing," I told him. "Daniel is dead."

His eye opened a little and he made a soft noise.

"Was he alive when you last saw him?" A shift that might have been a nod. I reached up and touched a place on his cheek that looked unbruised and he relaxed infinitesimally.

Among the wolves, body language can tell me almost as much as words.

"Did you tell Adam and Samuel where to find Littleton?" I asked.

Warren 's heart rate picked up and he shifted on the bed, his eye opened again and a tear of pure frustration spilled over.

I touched his lips. " Shh. Shh. Not you. I see. But someone told them."

He stared at me, tormented.

"Do you know where they went?"

"Samuel got a phone call last night before they left," said Kyle.

Dumbfounded I lifted my head to stare at Kyle who was kneeling on the floor on the other side of Warren 's bed. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Darryl didn't ask," he said. "He assumed I was sleeping the whole time-and wasn't in the mood to listen when I tried to talk to him. I should have told you earlier today-but to be quite honest, I was a little distracted."

I relaxed back on the bed. Damned werewolves. I suppose it never even occurred to Darryl to pay attention to a human. Darryl had a PhD, damn it. You'd think he'd be smart enough to pay attention to a man with the brains to be one of the top attorneys in the state, an attorney moreover with an Ivy League education.

"If you think being a human around them is frustrating, you should try being a coyote," I told him. "So what did Samuel say?" I didn't have much hope of anything useful. If he'd said where they were going, for instance, Kyle wouldn't have let pride keep him from giving Darryl the information.

"Samuel didn't have a chance to say anything to whoever called. They called, said a few sentences, and hung up. Samuel grabbed Adam and said, ' Let's go. "

I gave him a rueful look. "They ignored you, too."

He smiled at me this time, a tired smile. "I'm not used to being ignored."

"Irks me when they do it to me, too." I shifted my gaze back to Warren. "Did you hear what the caller said?"

I didn't expect he had, so his stillness took me by surprise.

His battered mouth tried to shape a word. I listened carefully but it was Kyle, leaning over the bed, who caught it.

"Trap?"

" Warren, I know the werewolves have to stay away from Littleton," I told him. "Did he call them and get them to come to him?"

He moved his head just enough for an affirmative.

"Did you hear where?" He lay unmoving. " Warren, I won't let any of the wolves go near him. Neither Kyle nor I will tell the pack where they are, not until Bran gets here. I'll just tell the vampires-it's their problem in the first place."

He tried but neither Kyle nor I could tell what he said. Finally Kyle said, "Look, it's obviously not a yes or a no. Warren, my dear, did you hear part of it?"