Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(22)
Stefan had been so far in my head that I had smelled like him. And Adam had made me pack to save me.
He was prepared to pay the price - and I was pretty sure there would be a price extracted. But not by me.
"Thank you, Adam," I told him. "Thank you for tearing Tim into small Tim bits. Thank you for forcing me to drink one last cup of fairy bug-juice so I could have use of both of my arms. Thank you for being there, for putting up with me." By that point I wasn't laughing anymore. "Thank you for keeping me from being another of Stefan's sheep - I'll take pack over that any day. Thank you for making the tough calls, for giving me time." I stood up and walked to him, leaning against him and pressing my face against his shoulder. "Thank you for loving me."
His arms closed around me, pressing flesh painfully hard against bone. Love hurts like that sometimes.
Chapter 4
I'D HAVE LOVED TO STAY THERE FOREVER, BUT AFTER A few minutes, I felt the cold sweat break out on my forehead and my throat started to close down. I stepped back before I had to do something more forceful in reaction to the aversion to touch that Tim had left me with.
Only when I was no longer pressed against Adam did I notice we were surrounded by pack.
Okay, four wolves doesn't a pack make. But I hadn't heard them come, and, believe me, when there are five werewolves (including Adam) about, you feel surrounded and overmatched.
Ben was there, a cheerful expression that looked just wrong on his fine-featured face, which was more often angry or bitter than happy. Warren, Adam's third, looked like a cat in the cream. Aurielle, Darryl's mate, appeared neutral, but there was something in her stance that told me she was pretty shaken up.
The fourth wolf was Paul, whom I didn't know very well - but I didn't like what I did know.
Paul, the leader of the "I hate Warren because he's g*y" faction of Adam's pack, looked like he'd been sucker punched. I thought I'd just given him a new most-hated person in the pack.
Behind me, Adam laid his hands on my shoulders. "My children," he said formally, "I give you Mercedes Athena Thompson, our newest member."
Much awkwardness ensued.
IF I HADN'T FELT HIM EARLIER, I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT Stefan was still unconscious or dead or whatever from the sun. He lay stiffly on the bed in the cage, like a corpse on a bier.
I turned the light on so I could see him better. Feeding had healed most of the visible damage, though there were still red marks on his cheeks. He looked fifty pounds lighter than he'd been the last time I'd seen him - too much like a concentration camp victim for my peace of mind. He'd been given new clothes to replace his filthy, torn, and stained ones, the ubiquitous replacement clothing every wolf den had lying around - sweats. The ones he wore were gray and hung off his bones.
Adam was conducting what was rapidly developing into a full pack meeting in his living room upstairs.
He'd looked relieved when I'd excused myself to see Stefan - I thought he was worried someone would say something that might hurt my feelings. In that he underestimated the thickness of my hide. People I cared about could hurt my feelings, but almost complete strangers? I could care less about what they thought.
Wolf packs were dictatorships, but when you're dealing with a bunch of Americans brought up on the Bill of Rights, you still had to step a little carefully. New members were generally announced as prospective rather than as faits accomplis. A little care would have been especially appropriate when he was doing something as outrageous as bringing a nonwerewolf into the pack.
I'd never heard of anyone doing that. Nonwerewolf mates weren't part of the pack, not really. They had status, as the mates of wolves, but they weren't pack. Couldn't be made into pack with fifty flesh-and-blood ceremonies - the magic just wouldn't let a human in. Apparently my coyoteness was close enough to wolf that the pack magic was willing to let me in.
Probably Adam should have discussed bringing me in with the Marrok, too.
Cars were pulling up in front of the house, more of the pack. I could feel the weight of them, their unease and confusion. Anger.
I rubbed my arms nervously.
"What's wrong?" asked Stefan in a quiet, sane voice that would have reassured me more if he'd moved or opened his eyes.
"Besides Marsilia?" I asked him.
He looked at me then, his lips curving faintly. "That's enough, I suppose. But Marsilia isn't the reason this house is filling with werewolves."
I sat on the thickly carpeted basement floor and leaned my head against the bars of the cage. The door was shut and locked, the key that sometimes hung on the wall across the hallway gone. Adam would have it. It didn't matter though. I was pretty sure Stefan could leave anytime he chose - the same way he'd appeared in my living room.
"Right." I sighed. "Well that's your fault, too, I expect."
He sat up and leaned forward. "What happened?"
"When you jumped inside my head," I told him, "Adam took offense." I didn't tell him exactly how everything had played out. Prudence suggested Adam wouldn't be pleased with me if I shared pack business with a vampire. "What he did - and you'll have to ask him, I think - brought the pack down on his head."
He frowned in obvious puzzlement, then slow comprehension dawned. "I am sorry, Mercy. You weren't meant to... I didn't mean to." He turned his head away. "I'm not used to being so alone. I was dreaming, and there you were, the only one left with a tie of blood to me. I thought I dreamed that, too."