Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(107)

“Ma’am?” I said. “Would you look at this, please?”

She glanced at Kyle and pursed her lips. Looking back at me she said, “Not my business. Take him to the emergency room.”

I didn’t growl at her, but only because my control is very, very good. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as the wolf inside decided he didn’t like her answer.

“He is,” I said, staring at her. “He is my mate and that makes him your concern.”

Naming Kyle as my mate was a big step—but one my wolf and I were pleased with. I felt Kyle’s attention spike and heard Nadia’s indrawn breath, but kept my eyes on my target. Kyle’s agreement would be needed, but not now, not for this.

“Mate implies procreation,” Elizaveta said in prissy tones. “The two of you cannot have children. He is not your mate.” She couldn’t care less that I was g*y, despite her words. I knew why she was behaving this way. I’d gotten my way with the body, and she wanted to win one of the battles tonight. She’d chosen the wrong one.

“You can discuss that with Adam,” I said softly. The wolf would have torn out her throat happily—though that wouldn’t have gotten Kyle fixed up. “Kyle, do you still have my cell phone?”

“I’d rather go to the emergency room,” he said.

“No,” I told him sharply. “No emergency room.” I couldn’t afford to divide the battle between them. “Elizaveta, do you want me to call Adam?”

Kyle, bless him, stopped arguing.

“I will remember this,” she told me.

“That’s fine.” I worked at keeping my temper. “Remember that I’m only expectin’ you to live up to the letter of the agreement you have with my pack.” I’d won. Time to let her keep her pride if I could. A bit of flattery and a bone. “You know that the emergency doctors could do nothing with this—I can smell the gangrene. This is beyond them. If you don’t take care of it, he’ll die.” I was afraid that was the truth and let her hear it.

“Only for you, cinnamon bun, only for you would I do this,” she said. Then she reached out and pinched my cheek hard—the cheek on my face.

All business, she stepped between Kyle and me and pulled the towel farther out of the way and sniffed.

“Good whiskey,” she said, dropping the thick Russian accent and exchanging it for a hint of Great Britain. “Not as good as Russian vodka, but not the worst thing you could have done. Still, neither could fix this. For this you need me.”

•   •   •

I’d carried the body out to Elizaveta’s car wrapped in a rug. I know it’s a cliché, but a rug works pretty well to disguise a body because people expect it to be awkward and heavy. I used the rug from Kyle’s office and told Elizaveta to keep it—which pleased her because it was an expensive rug. Kyle wouldn’t want it back.

Kyle wasn’t in the reception area where I’d left him. I listened and tracked him to his office. He was looking out his window at the traffic below. We were three stories up—pretty high for the Tri-Cities, which were still able to sprawl instead of climb to deal with the pressure of expansion.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking—but he didn’t turn around when I came into the office, not a good sign.

“Kyle? Do you want me to take you to the emergency room?” The blackness was gone from the wound, but Elizaveta was no healer. I didn’t think it would scar permanently, but it would hurt for a while yet.

“I want to find out who killed that woman,” he said. “Someone killed her to get me—a woman I didn’t even know.”

I heard it in his voice under the anger. No one else would have, but I have very, very good hearing.

I took a chance and stepped in close to him, putting my arms around him and pulling him into me. “Not your fault,” I said. “Not your fault.”

“I know that,” he snapped, but he didn’t pull away. After a moment, he leaned back against me and put his hands on my arms, holding them where they were. “I know that—who better? I see it all the time. ‘But maybe if I were a better cook, he wouldn’t hit me’ or ‘If I could just have bought that car she wanted, she wouldn’t have taken off with my best friend.’ It is not my fault that someone killed her—not your fault, either, if it turns out to be that way.”

I just held him.

“It feels like it, though,” he said in a much different voice, the voice that no one else ever heard from him. He didn’t let himself be vulnerable in front of anyone else.

“I’ll find him,” I told him, and then I leaned down and blew a teasing huff of air into his ear. “Or else Elizaveta will turn me into a toad.”

•   •   •

We went out to eat that night. Kyle likes to cook, but he takes too long and it was way past dinnertime. He didn’t talk much over the food, pausing occasionally to stare into space, as he did when working on a particularly difficult case instead of dealing with getting munched on by a dead woman.

I’d lost him once, when he’d found out what I was. It says something about Kyle that it wasn’t the werewolf part that bothered him, but the lies I’d told to keep the wolf from him. I hadn’t had a choice about the lies—I think that was the only reason he forgave me.