Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson #5)(61)
"Paul," began Mary Jo. Then she stopped. Closed her eyes and shook her head. "Not Paul." She gave Adam a wry smile. "Paul is tough, and he's not stupid - but he's not a planner. He'd never have figured out how to force you to accept a challenge before you were ready. She's right. It's Henry. What can I do?"
"Not a darn thing," he said. "Just be smarter next time."
"When's the fight?" I asked, trying to be cool, trying to be a good coyote who lets her mate go out and fight a duel to the death when it hurts him to walk. I had to do it, because sobbing and fussing wouldn't change anything except make his job harder. If he refused the challenge, Paul would be Alpha - and if I knew Paul, his first act would be to kill Adam. Henry was hoping so, anyway.
And the reason it was Paul who challenged and not Henry was because as soon as the Marrok heard about this - Paul was a dead man. And that would leave Darryl in charge of the pack with Warren as his second. The pack would not tolerate having a g*y man in the second position because if something happened to Darryl, Warren would run the pack. So Warren would be killed or be moved by Bran - leaving Henry as the second in the pack.
Of course, Adam would have to lose to Paul for that to happen. I felt sick.
Adam looked at Jesse's clock, which read 9:15. "Fifteen minutes from now in the dojo," he said. "Would you go down and let Darryl and Warren know they'll be wanted for witnesses? I think I'll go lie down for another ten minutes." He was in the hallway when he said, "If I survive, Mary Jo, we'll have to come up with a suitable reparation for the bowling alley. You ruined a very promising evening, and I won't forget about it."
* * *
"YOUR FOOD IS COLD," GROWLED DARRYL, AS I ENTERED the kitchen. "I hope your business was important."
Jesse was still there, drying, while Auriele washed. There was no saving this, not if Paul specified the fight be here - no chance of talking Jesse into waiting this one out somewhere safe; she was too much her father's daughter.
"Paul's challenged Adam," I told them. "Fifteen minutes from now in the dojo in the garage."
Darryl whirled around with a growl, and Auriele stepped between him and Jesse, though I don't think Jesse realized it because she was staring at me.
"How did he get to Adam?" said Auriele. "Who was supposed to be watching him?"
"Me," I said after a stunned moment. "I guess that would be me."
"No," said Auriele. "That would have been Samuel. Ben said he left Adam with Samuel and you."
"Samuel's not pack," growled Darryl, eyes light gold in the darkness of his face.
Sam wasn't Samuel, I thought. In the normal course of things Samuel would have kept that challenge from happening. I wondered if Paul or Henry had realized that. Probably not.
"My fault," I said.
"No." I'd left Mary Jo in Jesse's room, but she must have followed me down. "Not your fault," Mary Jo said. "Maybe Warren or Darryl could have stopped Paul, but Henry was very careful to make sure they weren't there." She gave me an inscrutable look that would have done credit to Darryl, inscrutable but not overtly hostile. "They wouldn't have thought Samuel would interfere. They think of him as a lone wolf, not as Adam's friend."
The look, I realized, was to let me know that she wouldn't tell them about Samuel unless I did.
"Henry?" Darryl was shocked into dropping his anger. "Henry?"
Mary Jo lifted her chin. "He planned it." She looked at me, then away. "He wants Adam dead and is using Paul . . . used me, too, in order to accomplish it."
"Is that what they told you?" Henry himself came into the kitchen. He was a compact man, a little taller than me, with a quick smile and hazel eyes that could look either gray or gold rather than the more usual brown and green. He wore his hair in a conservative cut and almost certainly shaved with a regular razor rather than an electric because an electric never produces quite the same well-groomed look. "Mary Jo - "
"Inconvenient," I murmured. "Not being able to lie to another werewolf."
If Mary Jo hadn't stepped in front of me, he'd have hit me. She took the hit for me and it knocked her into the center island. The granite top broke loose under the impact and slid - Jesse caught the granite slab before it overbalanced and fell on the floor, shoving it back on its base. If he'd hit me that hard, I wouldn't have gotten up the way Mary Jo did - and she was holding her ribs.
Auriele stepped in front of Henry when he would have gone to her. Her lips peeled back. "¡Hijo de perra!" she said, her voice alive with anger.
Henry flushed, so the insult hit home. Calling someone a son of a dog is a good insult among werewolves.
"Hijo de Chihuahua," said Mary Jo.
Auriele shook her head. "Darryl kept saying that it couldn't be Paul behind the unrest we've been having for the last couple of years. No one would listen to Paul. We knew he was right, but no one else fit. I would have suspected Peter before I suspected you."
Peter was the lone submissive wolf in the pack. It was inconceivable that a submissive wolf would play power games. If Auriele was right, this had started long before the disastrous bowling-alley incident.
"How long have you known that Mary Jo would have dropped you like a hot potato for Adam?" I asked.