Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(31)

I took a sip of cocoa and waited for Bran to talk.

He sighed heavily and leaned back in the chair, balancing it on two legs, his own legs dangling in the air.

"People don't do that," I told him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Do what?"

"Balance like that-not unless they're teenage boys showing off for their girlfriends."

He brought all four legs back on the flour abruptly. "Thank you." Bran liked to appear as human as possible, but his gratitude was a little sharp. I took a hasty sip of cocoa so he wouldn't see my amusement.

He put his elbows on the table and folded his hands. "What are your intentions now, Mercy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Adam's safe and healing. We'll find out how your young friend was killed. What are you planning to do?"

Bran is scary. He's a little psychic-at least that's what he says if you ask. What that means is that he can talk to any werewolf he knows, mind to mind. That's why Charles was able to be his spokesperson out in the woods. Bran uses that ability, among others, to control the North American packs. He claims it is all one way, that he can make people hear him but not the other way around.

The pack whisperers say he has other abilities, too, but no one knows exactly what they are. The most common rumor is that he really can read minds. Certainly he always knew who was responsible for what mischief around the town.

My foster mother always laughed and said it was his reputation for knowing everything that allowed him to appear infallible: all he had to do was walk through the room and see who looked guiltiest when they saw him. Maybe she was right, but I tried looking innocent the next time, and it didn't work.

"I'm leaving in the morning." Early, I thought. To get away without talking to Samuel again-but also to get started looking for Jesse.

Bran shook his head and frowned. "Afternoon."

I felt my eyebrows rise. "Well," I said gently, "if you knew what I was going to be doing, why didn't you just tell me instead of asking?"

He gave me a small smile. "If you wait until afternoon, Adam will be ready to travel, and Samuel should know something about how your young man... Alan MacKenzie Frazier died. He's staying up tonight to perform the autopsy and run tests in the lab."

He leaned forward. "It's not your fault, Mercy."

I spilled the cocoa all down the front of my T-shirt. "Sh-" I bit off the word. Bran didn't approve of swearing. "You can read minds."

"I know the way your mind works," Bran said, with a little smile that managed to be not quite smug. But he was quick enough retrieving a roll of paper towels stored under the sink and handed them to me as I held my shirt away from my body. The cocoa was still hot, though not scalding.

As I mopped myself up at the sink, he continued, "Unless you've changed more than I can believe, if something happens, if someone gets hurt, it must be your fault. I had the story from Adam, as far as he knows it, and it had nothing to do with you."

"Hah-you can read minds. He's in wolf form, and can't talk," I said. I'd done the best I could with the shirt, but I wished I had an extra change of clothing.

Bran smiled. "He's not now. Sometimes the change helps us heal faster. Usually we change from human to wolf, but the other way works as well. He was not happy with Samuel." Bran's smile deepened. "He spent his first words chewing him out. Told him that second-guessing the man in the field was an amateur's mistake. He said he'd rather not have someone who didn't know what they were doing 'mucking about' with his wounds. He also said that you had more guts than sense sometimes." Bran tipped his styrofoam cup in my direction. "As it happens I agree-which is why I asked Adam to keep an eye on you for me when you moved into his territory."

Ah, I thought and tried not to look as devastated as I felt. So Adam had been ordered to look after me? I had rather thought that the odd relationship we had was based on something else. Knowing that Bran had told him to watch me changed the shading of every conversation we'd ever had, lessened it.

"I don't like lies," said Bran, and I knew I'd failed to keep the pain of his revelation from my face. "Not even lies of omission. Hard truths can be dealt with, triumphed over, but lies will destroy your soul." He looked as though he had personal knowledge of it. "That distaste leads me to meddle where perhaps I should step back."

He paused, as if to let me speak, but I had no idea where he was going with this.

He sat down and took another sip of cocoa. "There were those who thought the truth of Bryan's death should be kept from you." Bryan had been my foster father.

I remembered waking up shortly after Christmas to Bran's low-key voice in the kitchen. When I came out of my room, Bran told me that the police had found Bryan's body in the Kootenai River.

Suicide is difficult for werewolves. Even silver bullets don't always defeat the wolf's ability to heal itself. Decapitation is effective, but rather difficult to achieve in a suicidal situation. Drowning works very well. Werewolves are very densely muscled; they tend to have a difficult time swimming even if they want to, because, like chimpanzees, they have too much muscle and not enough fat to float.

"Some of the pack would have told you that Bryan had an accident." Bran's voice was contemplative. "They told me that fourteen was too young to deal with a suicide, especially on top of the death of Bryan's mate."