Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(21)

Maybe I needed to leave, money or not.

My stomach was back in knots, and if I didn't bottle everything up, I was going to have that stupid panic attack, and not safely behind the sound of water and the closed bathroom door. Right here where anyone could see. Next to the poor beat-up Rabbit, with Adam's phone number painted on the roof. For a good time call...

He stopped. "Mercy? What are you so angry about?"

He would know. Even I could smell it: anger and fear and... I had it all, and I had nothing.

It was too much. I closed my eyes and felt my body shake helplessly and my throat close, refusing to let air through...

Adam caught me as I fell and pulled me against him, in the shadow of the old car. He was so warm, and I was so cold. He put his nose against my neck. I couldn't see him, lack of air left me with black dots impairing my vision.

I heard the growl shake Adam's chest, and his mouth closed on mine - and I sucked a deep breath though my nose. I could breathe again, and the weight on my stomach lifted, and I was left shaking, with blood... no, snot running down my face.

Embarrassed beyond anything, I jerked free of Adam's hold - knowing with humiliating certainty that he let me go. I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt. And settled in the shelter of the Rabbit, my cheek against the cooling metal.

Weak. Broken. God damn it. God damn me. I felt the wave of it hovering, ready to descend upon me again. Despair and helpless anger... They were all dead. All dead, and it was my fault.

But no one was dead. Not yet.

All dead. All of my children, my loves, and it was my fault. I put them at risk and failed. They died because of my failure.

I smelled Stefan.

Adam's golden eyes met mine, the color proving the wolf ascendant. He kissed me again, pressed something against my lips, forcing it between my teeth with a forefinger and thumb without removing his mouth from mine.

It was such a small scrap of bloody meat to burn down my throat as it had. It meant something.

"Mine," he told me. "You aren't Stefan's."

The dry grass crackled under my head, and the coarse dirt made a noise like sandpaper that echoed behind my eyes. I licked my lips and tasted blood. Adam's blood.

The Alpha's blood and flesh... pack.

"From this day forward," said Adam, his voice pulling me out of wherever I had been. "Mine to me and mine. Pack and only lover." There was blood on his face, too, and on the hands he touched my face with.

"Yours to you, mine to me," I answered, though it was a dry croaking voice that made the noise. I didn't know why I answered, other than the old "shave and a hair cut" involuntary response. I'd heard this ceremony so many times, even if he'd added the "only lover" part.

By the time I remembered why I shouldn't do it, what it meant, it was already too late.

Magic burned through me, following the path of that bit of flesh - and I cried out as it tried to make me other than I was, less or more. Pack.

I felt them all through Adam's touch and Adam's blood. His to protect to govern. All of them were mine now, too - and I theirs.

Panting, I licked my lips and stared at Adam. He let me go, coming to his feet and taking two steps away from me where I lay against the side of the old car. He'd bitten his forearm savagely.

"He can't have you," he told me, his gold eyes telling me the wolf was still speaking. "Not now. Not ever. I don't owe him that."

Belatedly, I realized what had happened. I wiped my mouth with my wrist to give myself time to think.

My wrist was pink with Adam's blood.

Stefan was awake... and somehow he'd invaded my mind. It had been his panic attack I'd felt.

All dead...I had a sick, sick feeling that I knew who he meant. I'd met some of the people, human people who fed Stefan. Had learned how horribly vulnerable they were if something happened to the vampire who fed off them and protected them.

I glanced at the setting sun. "It's a little early for a vampire to be up, isn't it?" I asked.

Time for everyone to calm down. Me, included.

My sense of the pack was fading, but it would never completely go away. Not now that Adam had made me pack. It was more usual to do it in a full pack meeting, but the pack wasn't required. Just a bit of the

Alpha's flesh and blood and an exchange of vows.

I hadn't thought it possible to induct someone who wasn't a werewolf. I certainly hadn't thought that he could make me pack. Magic works oddly on me sometimes, and at others I'm pretty much immune to it.

But from the results I could feel, it had worked just fine this time.

Adam had turned and stood with his back to me, his shoulders hunched, his hands fisted at his side. He didn't answer my question, but said stiffly, "I'm sorry for that. I panicked."

I put my forehead down on my knees. "There's been a lot of that going around recently."

I heard the dry grass crunch as he walked back to me. "Are you laughing?" he sounded incredulous.

I looked up at him. The last rays of the sun silhouetted him in golden rays and obscured the expression on his face. But I could see shame in the set of his shoulders. He'd made me pack without asking me - without asking the pack either, though that wasn't strictly necessary, just traditional. He was waiting for me to yell at him as he felt he deserved.

Adam was used to paying for the consequences of his choices - and sometimes the choices were hard ones. He'd been making a lot of hard choices for me lately.