Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(37)

For my safety, he said, and he was probably right. Timber wolves will kill a coyote in their territory - and werewolves are every bit as territorial as their smaller brethren.

"He didn't ask me," I interrupted her, with heat. "I wasn't there and I didn't find out about it until it was done. It wasn't my fault."

She shook her mane of honey-colored hair and crouched down beside me. If she could have seen the floor, I think she'd have been sitting like I was, because she was technically lower in the pack (thanks to Adam declaring me his mate), but she was too fastidious to sit on a pile of dirty clothes.

"I'm not saying it is anyone's fault," she said. "Fault doesn't change what is. We can all feel it, the weakness in the pack. It is allowed for you to refuse him absolutely, and then things will return to normal. Or accept him, and things will change another way, a better way. But until then..." She shrugged.

It was easy, even for someone like me who was around them all the time, to forget that there was more to the magic of the werewolves than their change. I think it's because the change was so spectacular - and the rest of the magic is the pack's business and affects no one else. I didn't consider myself pack - and until Adam had made his claim, no one else had either.

My foster father told me once that he was always aware on some level of all the other pack members. They knew when one of their own was in distress; they knew when one died. When my foster father committed suicide, it took a while for them to find the body, but they'd all known when to go looking. I'd seen Adam call his pack to him with more than the sound of his voice and had seen them heal him of silver damage that should have killed him.

I hadn't realized that there might be more to Adam declaring me his mate than the simple act until I'd been able to help Warren control his wolf when he was too hurt to do it himself. I'd been grateful, but I hadn't looked at it any closer.

I was getting a headache; dread sometimes does that to me. "Tell me that again and be clear, please."

"When he declared you his mate, he offered you an invitation to join us. He opened a place for you that you have not filled. That opening is a weakness. Adam mostly keeps it from us, but he only does it by absorbing all of the effects himself. His wolf knows there is a weakness, a place where harm might come to us, and it leaves him on alert, on edge, all the time. We can feel that, and respond to it." She gave me a tight smile. "That's why I was so unpleasant to you when he sent me to play bodyguard against the vampires. I thought you were playing games and leaving us to pay the price."

No. No game playing. Just a lot of panicking. Whomever I chose in the end, Adam or Samuel, I'd lose the other one - and that was more than I could bear.

"All of us depend upon our Alpha to help us live among the humans," Honey said. "Some of Adam's wolves have human women as mates. It is his willpower that allows us to control ourselves, particularly as the moon nears her zenith."

I put my aching head on my knees. "What was he thinking? Damn it."

She patted me on the shoulder, an awkward touch that managed to convey both comfort and sympathy. "I don't think he was thinking of anything except to place his claim on you before another wolf killed or claimed you."

I gave her a look of disbelief. "What is going on? Is everyone losing their minds? I haven't had so much as a date for ten years and now there's Adam and Samuel and - " I'd have bitten off my tongue before I continued and mentioned Stefan. I hadn't seen the vampire since he and the Wizard had killed two innocents to take the blame for killing Andre so Marsilia didn't kill me. It was just as well as he wasn't my favorite person.

"I know why Samuel wants me," I told her.

"He thinks that the two of you could have children - and you can't forgive him for wanting you for practical reasons." There was something in Honey's voice that told me that she liked Samuel - and maybe it hadn't been just my perceived "game playing" with Adam and her pack that she'd resented. But the expression on her face told me more. She understood Samuel's point from experience; she wanted children, too.

I don't know why I started talking to Honey. I didn't know her that well - and had spent most of that time disliking her. Maybe it was because there was no one else I knew who was in a position to understand.

"I don't blame Samuel for realizing that a shapeshifter who changed into a coyote and was not bound by the moon might be a good mate," I told her, speaking very quietly. "But he let me love him without telling me exactly why he was so interested. If the Marrok hadn't interfered, I'd probably have been his mate when I was sixteen."

"Sixteen?" she said.

I nodded.

"Peter is a lot older than me," she said, speaking of her husband. "That was hard. But I wasn't sixteen and..." She paused, thinking. Finally she shook her head. "I don't recall ever hearing how old Samuel is, but he's older than Charles, and Charles dates back to Lewis and Clark."

The outrage that filtered into her voice, still pitched not to carry to the other werewolves, was like a balm. It gave me the courage to tell her a bit more.

"I am happy with who I am," I told her. "The incident with Samuel let me break with the pack and join the human world. I'm independent and good at my job. It's not glamorous, but I like fixing things."