River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(70)

The third man in native dress wore leather leggings, but his loose shirt was made of patterned red gingham and tied with a hemp belt that ended in a fringe to which tiny brass bells were tied. His hair was cut straight around his jawline.

The fourth had a red cloth wrapped around his head, almost like a turban, from which maybe a dozen brownish red feathers stuck straight up. He wore a beaded breechclout that reached his knees in front and back. His shirt was a striped cotton that looked to have been loomed by hand rather than machine from the slight irregularity of the weave.

I got a really good look at his shirt because he walked right up to the altar and grabbed the hawk nearest me, one hand confining the wicked talons. He pulled the bird hard against his body, trapping the wings with his arm, and the sharp beak with his hand.

"So," he said, his voice heavily accented. "She tries to steal my hawk's will."

"As I told you, Hawk," said Coyote. "Can you fix it?"

The man holding the bird gave Coyote a cold stare with eyes as sharp as those of the animal who took his name. The hawk left behind made a soft noise, like a baby bird in the nest.

"I do not approve of you, Coyote. You have always been more concerned with the two-legged people than the people in fur."

"I was asked to help. Would you have refused the request of the Great Spirit?"

Hawk snorted. "You were doing it before that. And look what has happened." He let go of the hawk's talons to make a sweeping gesture. It didn't matter because Hank was limp in his grasp. "There are cars and roads, bridges and houses until the earth cannot breathe. It would have been better had the Great Spirit stopped with the first people."

Coyote sneered, just a little. "As I'm sure you would tell him."

"I'm telling you," said Hawk.

He reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt and small gravel. He tossed it into the air, and the wind caught it, held it. He held the bird up over his head, and the wind blew the handful of earth through the hawk, who cried out when it hit him.

He threw the bird up in the air, gave Coyote another cold look, and disappeared. The bird dropped, and Hank landed in a naked human heap on the ground. Naked meant that it was easy to see that the mark was gone.

Beside me, Fred, also in human skin, scrambled off the altar and over to his brother. Jim, now seated on the rug and looking exhausted but fascinated, motioned to his apprentice, and Calvin took off at a run, presumably for clothes, but I wasn't certain.

"Hawk is impetuous," said the man in the suit. "And I don't like agreeing with him." His casual gaze traveled around Stonehenge in mild curiosity. It passed over Adam and me, then returned. Pale blue eyes that looked wrong and somehow utterly right in that oh-so-Native- American face focused on Adam.

"Ah," he said, striding over in the same no- nonsense ground-covering way that Adam used to cross a crowded room. "This is the werewolf."

Adam got slowly to his feet and shook himself lightly. As he stood on top of the altar, his head was level with the collarbone of the suited man-- who could only be Wolf.

"I had heard of your kind," Wolf said.

I glanced at the other men there, but they seemed to be happy to let Wolf take center stage as Hawk had done a moment ago.

"Werewolf." Wolf frowned. "I had thought it an abomination when I heard it first. Wolf trapped in the same skin as a human--always in opposition with each other. And in some ways it is abominable. But look at you. You are beautiful."

I thought so, too.

"How is that different from our walkers?" asked Coyote in an interested tone. "They carry both spirits, too."

"No," said Wolf absently, still lost in his examination of Adam. "In our descendants, there is only one spirit that expresses itself as either human or animal. This is different. The wolf is mine, and the man not at all. And yet it works."

He touched Adam, and I felt it through our bond, felt Adam's wolf come forward to meet Wolf. Adam was wary but not alarmed, neither dominant nor dominated.

Wolf's hands traveled all over Adam's head and neck, like a judge at a dog show. Adam showed no sign that it bothered him though it bothered me. Adam was mine.

"The perfect predator," Wolf purred, leaning forward and rubbing his cheek possessively against Adam's cheek.

I may have let out a disgruntled yip.

Wolf glanced over at me with cool blue eyes, and his mouth curled up in the beginnings of a snarl.

"That one is mine," said Coyote. His tone was casual, but there was steel behind it that turned the simple comment into a warning.

Wolf looked at Coyote and reached out to swat me with the back of his hand--and Adam caught that hand in his teeth. Wolf spun back with a hiss, and Adam released his hand--but there was blood. Adam flattened his ears, stepping between me and Wolf. He wasn't quite snarling, but he'd made his position clear.

"Do you see this," Wolf said. "Abomination. Wolves do not run with coyotes."

"It's a romance as old as time," soothed Coyote. "Rules are set up for the good of society. But as soon as you make a rule, someone feels the need to break it. If it helps, most werewolves mate with humans. Even worse, I would think, than one of my coyotes."

Wolf took a step toward Adam. "She is your mate?"

I couldn't tell if that made it better or worse, and I don't think Wolf knew, either. His hand had quit bleeding already. Adam hadn't done much more than break through the skin. It had been a warning and not a real attempt to hurt Wolf. I'd like to think that Adam was too smart to take on something like Wolf--but I was afraid that wasn't true, not if he thought Wolf would hurt me. I regretted that yip of possession even though I was pretty sure that I'd do it again in the same circumstances. I didn't like anyone except me having their hands all over him. There had been possession in Wolf's touch, and Adam belonged to me.