Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(45)

"Kyle, it might be a good idea to take a few days and check out the state of your house." Warren's tone was even, but his drawl was gone.

Kyle had his own house, an expensive place up on one of the hills in West Richland, but he'd moved in with Warren when Warren had refused to move in with him. At Warren's words, he stilled.

"I'm hiding someone for a few days," Warren explained. "It's not illegal, but it won't be safe here until he's gone."

Samuel might have turned invisible for all the attention Kyle paid him. "Darling, if you don't want me around, I'm gone. I suppose I'll accept Geordi's invitation for Thanksgiving, shall I?"

"It's just for a couple of days," said Warren, his heart in his eyes.

"This have something to do with what you've been so upset about the past couple of days?"

Warren glanced at Samuel, then nodded once, quickly.

Kyle stared at him for a moment, then nodded back. "All right. A couple of days. I'll leave my stuff here."

"I'll call you."

"You do that."

Kyle left, closing the door behind him gently.

"You need to tell him," I urged. "Tell him the whole thing or you're going to lose him." I liked Kyle, but more than that, a blind person could have seen that Warren really loved him.

Warren gave a pained half laugh. "You think he'd be overjoyed to hear that he was sleeping with a monster? Do you think that would make everything okay?" He shrugged and tried to pretend it didn't matter. "He'll leave me one way or another anyway, Mercy. He graduated from Cornell and I work nights at a gas station. Hardly a match made in Heaven."

"I've never seen that it bothered him," I said. "He bends over backwards to keep you happy. Seems to me that you might give him a little something back."

"It's forbidden," Samuel said, but he sounded sad. "He can't tell him."

"What do you think Kyle'd do," I said indignantly. "Tell everyone that Warren's a werewolf? Not Kyle. He didn't get where he is by shooting off his mouth-and he's not the kind of person to betray anyone. He's a lawyer; he's good at keeping secrets. Besides, he's got too much pride to allow himself to be just another tabloid headline."

"It's all right, Mercy." Warren patted me on my head. "He hasn't left me yet."

"He will if you have to keep lying to him," I said.

The two werewolves just looked at me. Warren loved Kyle, and he was going to lose him because someone had decided you had to be married before you told your spouse what you were-as if that wasn't a recipe for disaster.

I was pretty certain Kyle loved Warren, too. Why else would he live at Warren's when he had a huge, modern, air-conditioned monstrosity with a swimming pool? And Warren was going to throw it all away.

"I'm going for a walk," I announced, having had enough of werewolves for one day. "I'll come back when Zee calls."

I wasn't as civilized as Kyle. I slammed the door behind me and started off down the sidewalk. I was so mad, I almost walked right past Kyle who was just sitting in his Jag, staring straight ahead.

Before I could think better of it, I opened the passenger door and slid in.

"Take us to Howard Amon Park," I said.

Kyle gave me a look, but his lawyer face was on, so I couldn't tell what he thought, though my nose gave me all sorts of information on what he was feeling: angry, hurt, and discouraged.

What I was about to do was dangerous, no question. It wasn't just a werewolf's obligation to obey his Alpha that kept Warren's mouth shut. If Kyle did start telling everyone about werewolves, he would be silenced. And like me or not, if Adam or Bran found out I was the one who told him, they'd silence me, too.

Did I know Kyle well enough to trust him with our lives?

The Jag slid through the sparse Wednesday-after-work traffic like a tiger through the jungle. Neither Kyle's driving, nor his face, gave any sign of the anger that had raised his pulse rate, or the pain that fueled his anger-but I could smell them.

He pulled into Howard Amon near the south end and parked the car in one of the empty spaces. There were a lot of empty parking slots: November is not a time when most people decide to head to a river park.

"It's cold," he said. "We could talk in the car."

"No," I said, and got out. He was right, it was chilly. The wind was mild that day, but the Columbia added moisture to the air. I shivered in my cocoa-stained T-shirt-or maybe with nerves. I was going to do this and hope I wasn't wrong about Kyle.

He opened the trunk of his car and pulled a light jacket out and put it on. He took out a trench coat, too, and handed it to me.

"Put this on before you turn blue," he said.

I wrapped myself in his coat and in the smell of expensive cologne. We were much of a size, so his coat fit me.

"I like it," I told him. "I need to get one of these."

He smiled, but his eyes were tired.

"Let's walk," I said, and tucked my arm in his, leading him past empty playground equipment and onto the path that ran along the river.

Warren was right, I thought. Having Kyle know he was a monster might not help matters between them at all-but I had the feeling that today would be the final straw if someone didn't clue Kyle in.