Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1)(84)

"He's not dead?" she asked.

"No. I can hear him breathing." It was faint and shallow, but steady.

I stowed the Smith & Wesson on the top layer in my pack and put the SIG back in its holster. Thanks to Christiansen we weren't going to have a pack of wolves converging on us-but that might change at any time.

Adam hadn't moved, but his breathing grew deeper. I started to tell Jesse that it was all right, when Adam abruptly rolled on his side and jerked into a fetal position with a low groan.

Chapter 15

"Now is he shifting?" asked Jesse.

"That would be bad," said Shawn. "We don't want him changing until he's kicked off the effects of the drugs. I talked to some of the men who were in your house when he broke free. He was tranqued up then, too."

"Stop scaring her," I snapped. "He'll be all right. Besides, I don't think he's changing." Actually, that were-wolfy feeling of power had died to nothing. I had no idea what he was doing.

The dress shirt Adam wore, dirty, torn, and stained with drops of blood, looked more gray than white. A lot more gray. He'd broken out into a sweat, and the fabric began to cling to him, outlining the taut muscles of his shoulders and back. I could even see the bumps of his spine. The shirt shimmered a little under the cold fluorescent lights as he shivered miserably. I couldn't tell if he was conscious or not.

I holstered the revolver and walked slowly toward him.

"Adam," I said, because he had his back to me. It is never a good thing to startle a werewolf. "Are you all right?"

Unsurprisingly, he didn't answer.

I crouched and touched the wet fabric, and he grabbed my wrist-his movement so fast that he was just suddenly there, on his back. I don't remember seeing him roll over. His eyes were yellow and cold, but his grip was light.

"You're safe," I told him, trying to stay calm. "Jesse's here, and she's safe, too. We're going to get you on your feet in fighting shape, then we're getting out of here."

"It's the silver," said Shawn, awed. "That's why the shirt is turning gray. Fu-I mean, damn. Damn. He's sweating silver. Damn."

Adam didn't look away from me, though he flinched subtly at the sound of Shawn's voice. His blazing gold eyes held mine, somehow hot and icy at the same time. I should have looked away-but it didn't seem like a dominance contest. It felt like he was using my eyes to pull himself up from wherever the drugs had forced him. I tried not to blink and break the spell.

"Mercy?" His voice was a hoarse whisper.

" C'est moi, c'est moi, 'tis I," I told him. It seemed appropriately melodramatic, though I didn't know if he'd catch the reference. I shouldn't have worried.

Unexpectedly, he laughed. "Trust you to quote Lancelot rather than Guinevere."

"Both of them were stupid," I told him. "Arthur should have let them marry each other as punishment and gone off to live happily on his own. I only like Camelot for the music." I hummed a bit.

The mundane talk was working. His pulse was less frantic, and he was taking deep, even breaths. When his eyes went back to normal we'd be out of trouble. Except, of course, for the small matter of a warehouse full of enemies. One trouble at a time, I always say.

He closed his yellow eyes, and momentarily I felt cut adrift and abandoned until I realized he was still holding my wrist as if he were afraid I'd leave if he let go.

"I have the mother of all headaches," he said, "and I feel like I've been flattened by a steamroller. Jesse's safe?"

"I'm fine, Dad," she said, though she obeyed the urgent signal I made with my free hand and stayed where she was. He might have sounded calm, but his scent and the compulsive way he was holding on to my wrist contradicted his apparent control.

"Bruised and scared," I said. "But otherwise unhurt." I realized that I actually didn't know that and gave Jesse a worried glance.

She smiled, a wan imitation of her usual expression. "Fine," she said again, this time to me.

His sigh held relief. "Tell me what's been going on."

I gave him a short version-it still took a while to tell. Except for when I told him about David Christiansen's invasion of my home, he kept his eyes shut as if it hurt him to open them. Before I finished he was twisting uncomfortably.

"My skin is crawling," he said.

"It's the silver that's bothering you." I should have thought of that earlier. Touching his shirt with my free hand, I showed him the gray metal on my index finger. "I've heard of sweating bullets before, but never silver." I started to help him remove his shirt when I realized he couldn't run around naked with Jesse here. "I don't suppose you have any extra clothes, Shawn? If that silver stays against his skin it'll burn him."

"He can have my shirt," he said. "But I can't leave to get clothes; I'm on guard duty."

I sighed. "He can have my sweatpants." The T-shirt I was wearing hit me halfway down my thighs.

Shawn and I stripped Adam as quickly as we could, using the shirt to wipe most of the silver off his skin before covering him in my sweats and Shawn's green T-shirt. Adam was shivering when we finished.

The thermos cup had dumped its sticky contents all over the floor when I dropped it, but both it and the thermos had survived. I had Jesse pour hot coffee down her father as fast as he'd drink it, and, with something to focus on, she steadied. When the coffee was done, she fed him the raw roast from the Ziploc bags without turning a hair.