Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8)(27)

I hadn’t told him Honey’s name. No one knew I’d brought her with me. Her coloring was honey-toned, though. Maybe it had just been an unexpectedly accurate guess. Honey wasn’t exactly an unusual endearment.

I sneezed, and Gary’s eyes focused on me. He gave me a small smile, his eyes warm.

“So, little sister,” he said to me. “What can I do for you?”

“Why the change in attitude?” I asked suspiciously.

“Word came only that coyote walker needs to talk to me,” he said with a shrug. “Usually my brother and sister walkers are con artists, thieves, and gamblers.” He tilted his head toward Honey. “Not too concerned with saving anyone’s hide except their own.”

Honey wiggled in her seat in an un-Honey-like fidget.

“What?” I said.

“Mercy cares,” Honey said in that same funny voice she’d used before. She tapped a finger on the table. “She always cares.” This time it sounded more normal.

“I saw it,” Laughingdog said. “And that’s why I am suddenly a lot more interested in being helpful than I was ten minutes ago. What do you need, child?”

“Child?” I curled my lip, because letting a wolf get away with patronizing me would have been dangerous. A coyote was likely to be more annoying than dangerous, but in either case, it was better to stop it before it became a habit. Not that I expected to spend a lot of time with Gary Laughingdog; however, “better safe than sorry” was my phrase of the day.

He raised a hand in surrender. “I’m a lot older than I look, older by a damn sight than you and your bodyguard, too. Something I can tell because of this thrice-dammed useless foresight gift He left me with when I was about your age.” He nodded at Honey. “Said He’d come by and take it back, but He hasn’t.”

Beside me, Honey went still. Peter had been pretty old for a werewolf, at least two centuries. I didn’t know how old Honey was—and for the moment I didn’t care.

Werewolves don’t age physically. I’d always assumed that, like my human mother, I’d have a normal life span, and Adam could live to be as old as … well, as Bran Cornick, the Marrok, who ruled the North American werewolves and sometimes talked casually about things that happened in the Middle Ages. Through Hank and his brother, I had met a few other walkers, and they seemed to come in all varieties of young and old. I had known couples, growing up, where the werewolf looked to be in his twenties, and his wife was dying of old age. I didn’t want to do that to my mate. I worried about Adam because he didn’t talk about it at all, and Adam was all about discussing problems he thought had solutions.

I raised my chin. “How old will I get?”

He opened his mouth, then shook his head. “It’s not that kind of foresight. I don’t get dates, just possibilities. And if I did know, I don’t hate you enough to tell you.”

“She doesn’t know any other coyote walkers,” said Honey. “She is married to a man who will be young a hundred years from now. She wants to know that she is not going to leave him tied to a woman who will slowly die on him.”

Laughingdog looked at me. “I don’t know. Most walkers age like humans—most are mostly human anyway these days. Coyote doesn’t walk this ground much anymore.” He smiled a little, but it wasn’t aimed at me. “Most of Coyote’s children don’t have to worry about a long life, anyway. A fool and his life are soon parted, you know.”

“I’m only half-human,” I told him, mouth dry. I’d never said it before, even to myself. But Laughingdog needed to know it all so he could give me an accurate answer. “Coyote is my father. Sort of my father. He was wearing the skin of a rodeo cowboy who didn’t know that he was Coyote at the time.”

Gary Laughingdog tilted his face toward me. “Really?” He grinned. “Exactly half sister in truth, then.” He let out a huff of air and shrugged. “You are the only real sibling I’ve met—but those of us closer to the magic in our heritage tend to live longer.”

I sat back in my chair, feeling light-headed.

“Death could find you tomorrow, though,” Laughingdog said. “So don’t get overconfident. Knew a boy who was Raven’s child, and he died from measles when he was six years old.” He watched me, glanced at Honey, and his eyes gleamed gold from a stray glint of light off the overhead fluorescent tubes. “But you didn’t come here to ask me that.”

“I need to talk to Coyote,” I told him.

He scooted his chair back from the table abruptly, as if to get away from my words. Both guards came to alert, and Luke had his hand on his weapon.

“No one needs that kind of trouble,” the man who apparently was sort of my half brother said.

Startled by his extreme reaction I said, slowly, “I’ve talked to him before without the world being destroyed.”

“Has he tried to kill you yet?” he asked.

I started to say “no” before realizing it wasn’t true. “Not deliberately,” I said instead. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t deliberate.” I paused. “Either time.”

Honey stared at me.

Laughingdog sucked in a breath. “Ye gods, woman. Why would you want to invite Him into your life?”

“Because I gave him a fae artifact, and if I don’t get it back, the fae who came to visit me in the middle of the night might turn the Tri-Cities into a barren graveyard.”