Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(72)

"I'll spy your little eye and squish it," I threatened, but, since the bed hid me, there was a grin on my face. I'm not body shy - not growing up among werewolves. I can fake it so people don't get the wrong idea... but with Adam it would be the right one. I wiggled the something in question, and he patted it. "I've been smelling whatever you've been cooking"  -  something with lemon and chicken - "it's making me hungry. But I can't find my underwear."

"You could go without," he suggested, sitting on the bed just to the right of me.

"Hah," I said. "Not on your life, buster. Jesse and who knows who else are down there. I'm not running around without underwear."

"Who would know?" he asked. "I would know," I told him, pulling my head out from under the bed only to see that he had my bright blue panties dangling from a finger.

"They were under the pillow," he said with an innocent smile.

I snatched them and put them on. Then I hopped up and went to the bathroom, where the rest of my clothes were. I dressed, took a step toward the bathroom, and had a flashback.

I'd been here, unworthy, soiled... stained. I couldn't face them, couldn't look into their faces because they all knew...

"Shh, shh," Adam crooned in my ear. "That's over. It's over and done with."

He held me, sitting on the bathroom floor with me on his lap, while I shook and the flashback faded. When I could breathe normally again, I sat up with an attempt at dignity. "Sorry," I said.

I'd thought that last night would have taken care of the flashbacks, the panic attacks - I was cured, right? I reached up and grabbed a hand towel and wiped my wet face - and found that it just kept getting wet.

I'd been so sure everything would be back to normal now.

"It takes longer than a week to get over something like that," Adam told me, as if he could read my mind.

"But I can help, if you'll let me."

I looked at him, and he ran a thumb under my eyes. "You'll have to open up, though, and let the pack in."

He smiled, a sad smile. "You've been blocking pretty ferociously since sometime on the trip back from Spokane. If I were to guess, I expect it was when you let Stefan bite you."

I had no idea what he was talking about, and I guessed it showed.

"Not on purpose?" he said.

Somehow, I'd slid off his lap and was leaning against the opposite wall. "Not that I know."

"You had a panic attack on the way home," he told me.

I nodded and remembered the warmth of the pack that had pulled me out of it. Remarkable, awesome - and buried under the rest of the events of the past two nights.

His lids lowered. "That's better... a bit better." He looked up from the floor and focused on me, yellow highlights dancing in his irises. He reached out and touched me just under my ear.

It was a light touch, just barely skin to skin. It should have been casual.

He laughed a little, sounding just a bit giddy. "Just like Medea, Mercy," he said, dropping his hand and drawing a breath that sounded just a little ragged. "Let me try this again." He held out his hand.

When I put mine in it, he closed his eyes and... I felt a trickle of life, warmth, and health dribbling from his hand to mine. It felt like a hug on a summer's day, laughter, and sweet honey.

I spread out into it through him, sliding into something I just knew were warm depths that would surround me with -

But the pack didn't want me. And the minute the thought crossed my mind, the trickle dried up - and Adam jerked his hand back with a hiss of pain that brought me up to my knees. I reached out to touch him, then pulled my hand back so I didn't hurt him again.

"Adam?"

"Stubborn," he said with an appraising look. "I got bits and pieces from you, though. We don't love you, so you won't take anything from us?" The question in his voice was self-addressed, as if he weren't quite sure of his analysis.

I sat back down on my heels, caught by the accuracy of his reading.

"Instincts drive the wolf... coyote, too, I imagine," he told me after a moment. He looked relaxed, one knee up and the other stretched out just to the side of me. "Truth is without flourishes or manners and runs with a logic all its own. You can't let the pack give without giving in return, and if we don't want your gift..."

I didn't say anything. I didn't understand how the pack worked, but the last part was right. After a bit, he said, "It's inconvenient sometimes to be a part of the pack. When the pack magic is in full swing - like now with the moon close to her zenith - there's no hiding everything from each other all the time like we do as humans. Some things, yes, but we can't chose which ones stay safely secret. Paul knows I'm still angry with him over his attack on Warren, and it makes him cringe - which just makes me angrier because it's not remorse for trying to attack Warren when he was hurt but fear of my anger."

I stared at him.

"It's not all bad," he told me. "It's knowing who they are, what's important to them, what makes them different. What strengths they each contribute to the pack."

He hesitated. "I'm not sure how much you'll get. If I want to, at full moon in wolf form, I can read everyone almost always - that's part of being Alpha. It allows me to use the individuals to build a pack. Most of the pack get bits and pieces, mostly things that concern them or big things." He gave me a little smile. "I didn't know that bringing you into the pack would work at all, you know. I couldn't have done it with a human mate, but you are always an unknown." He looked at me intently. "You knew Mary Jo had been hurt."