River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(3)

One side of his mouth turned up. "Warren is a werewolf. He doesn't need a prod to get cows moving." His voice sounded rough and unused. He glanced down at Ford.

"He's not going to hurt anyone soon," I told the vampire. "But I can drive most people to violence given enough time, so you should get moving."

Abruptly, there was a popping noise, and Stefan was gone. I knew he could teleport though he seldom did it in front of me. Both of his people jerked reflexively, so I guessed they hadn't seen him do it much, either. I dusted off my hands and turned to Rachel.

"Where is Naomi?" I asked. I couldn't see her letting things get into this state.

"She died," Rachel told me. "Marsilia broke her, and we couldn't put her back together. I think that was the final straw for Stefan." She glanced up the stairway. "How did you do that?"

"He doesn't want me to get the cattle prod," I told her.

Her arms were wrapped around herself, her mutilated hand clearly visible. She was bruised, bitten, battered--and she said, "We've been so worried about him. He won't talk to any of us, not since Naomi died."

Poor Stefan had tried to curl up and die because Marsilia had sold him out--and he'd done his best to take the remnants of his menagerie with him. And Rachel was worried about him.

About him.

"How many of you are left?" I asked. Naomi had been a tough lady. If she was gone, she wouldn't have been the only one.

"Four."

No wonder they looked bad. Four people couldn't feed a vampire all by themselves.

"He's been going out hunting?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I don't think he's been out of the house since we buried Naomi."

"You should have called me," I said.

"Yes," said Ford from the ground, his voice deep enough to echo. His eyes were closed. "We should have."

Now that he wasn't attacking me, I could see that he was thin, too. That couldn't be good in a man transitioning from human to vampire. Hungry vampire fledglings have a tendency to go out and find their own food.

Stefan should have fixed this before it got so bad.

If I'd had a cattle prod, I might have been tempted to use it, at least until the stairs creaked and I looked up to see Stefan coming down. I have a dusty degree in history for which I'd sat through a number of films of the Third Reich, and there were men who'd died in the concentration camps who were less emaciated than Stefan in the bright green Scooby-Doo T-shirt he'd filled out just fine when I'd seen him wear it a few months ago. Now it hung from his bones. Cleaned up, he looked worse than he had at first.

Rachel said that Marsilia had broken Naomi. Looking at Stefan, I thought that she'd come very close to breaking him, too. Someday, someday I would be in the same room with Marsilia with a wooden stake in my hand, and, by Heaven, I would use it. If, of course, Marsilia were unconscious, and all of her vampires were unconscious, too. Otherwise, I'd just be dead because Marsilia was a lot more dangerous than I was. Still, the thought of sinking a sharp piece of wood into her chest through her heart gave me great joy. To Stefan, I said, "You need a donor before we go out? So no one pulls us over and makes me take you to the hospital or the morgue?"

He paused and looked down at Rachel and Ford. He frowned, then looked puzzled and a little lost. "No. They are too weak. There aren't enough of them left."

"I wasn't talking about them, Shaggy," I told him gently. "I've donated before, and I'm willing to do it again."

Ruby eyes gazed hungrily at me before he blinked twice, and they were replaced with eyes like root beer in a glass with the sun shining behind it.

"Stefan?"

He blinked. It was an interesting effect: ruby, root beer, ruby, root beer. "Adam won't like it." Ruby, ruby, ruby.

"Adam would donate himself if he were here," I told him truthfully, and rolled up my sleeve.

He was feeding on the inside of my elbow when my cell phone rang. Rachel helped me dig my phone out of my pocket and opened it. I don't think Stefan even noticed.

"Mercy, where the hell are you?"

Darryl, Adam's second in command, had decided it was his job to keep me in line when Adam was gone.

"Hey, Darryl," I said, trying not to sound like I was feeding a vampire.

My eyes fell on Ford, who had never risen from the floor but was staring at me with eyes that looked like polished yellow gems--citrine, maybe, or amber. I didn't remember what color his eyes had been a few minutes ago, but I think I would have remembered the funky eyes if they'd been there then. He was getting very close to becoming vampire, I thought. Before I could get too scared, Darryl's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"You left for Kyle's house an hour ago, and Warren tells me you aren't there yet."

"That's right," I said, sounding astonished. "Look at that. I'm not at Warren's yet."

"Smart-ass," he growled.

Darryl and I had this love-hate thing going. I start to think he hates me, and he does something nice, like save my life or give me a cool pep talk. I decide he likes me, and he rips me a new one. Probably I just confuse the heck out of him, and that's okay, because the feeling is mutual.

Darryl, of all of Adam's wolves, hates vampires the most. If I told him what I was doing, he'd be over here with reinforcements, and there would be bodies on the floor. Werewolves make everything more complicated than necessary.