Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson #5)(88)
"Go ahead," said Bran. "He would give anything for you to touch it again."
"Mine," I said. "Mine."
But I still didn't touch it.
With that superior humor he occasionally used, which made me want to hit him every time, Bran said, "I'm sure he can find someone else who wants it."
I grabbed it with both hands - and not because I was worried there would be someone else, no matter what Bran thought. But because we belonged together, Adam bound to me, me to him. I loved it when he let me make him laugh - he was a serious man by nature and weighed down by the responsibility he held. I knew he would never leave me, never let me down - because the man had never abandoned anything in his long life. If I hadn't taken the gold rope of our bond, I knew Adam would have sat on me and hog-tied me with it. I liked that. A lot.
"Mercy!" This voice wasn't Bran's. This voice was demanding and half-crazed. A short pause, then much more controlled, Adam said, "About damned time. Found you. Mercy, we're coming to get you. Just sit tight."
I wrapped his voice around me and held on tighter to the rope between us until it settled into my bones, and I didn't have to hold on anymore. "Adam," I said, happily. And then added, because he'd know I was teasing, "Took you long enough. You were waiting for me to get myself out?"
I looked around my field of snow, by then littered with cheery garland and glowing rocks. I closed my eyes and wrapped the feel of pack around me like a warm cloak. I felt the fairy queen's magic touch the golden rope I shared with Adam - and this time it was the queen's magic that shattered.
* * *
MY GAZE WAS LOCKED WITH THAT OF THE TRAPPED forest lord. He blinked, and I jerked my eyes down - and saw that my arm was still dripping blood. From the amount I'd lost, I hadn't been out of it for more than a few seconds.
"There," said the fairy queen. "Now you are mine."
I blinked at her and tried to mold my features into the stupid expression I'd seen on the other thralls as she cut the ropes that held me to the chair.
"Go to the kitchens and get something to wipe the blood off the floor," she told me.
I stood up and started walking. She quit paying attention to me, because I wasn't interesting anymore. I started walking a little faster because I saw my gun on the floor by one of the benches, where someone must have kicked it. I suppose that made sense. There weren't many fae who could have picked it up without hurting themselves. None of the thralls would dream of using it - but I could see that the fae might hesitate to have a thrall dispose of it.
I picked it up and turned around. Slowly, so as not to attract the attention of the fae in the room - who were all looking at the fairy queen and not at her new thrall. The queen was leaning over the arm of her throne, talking to her witch. I shot the queen three times in the heart. The witch was watching me and smiled as I pulled the trigger.
"Huh," said a voice right next to me. I turned my head and had to look down at a human-seeming child who appeared to be no more than eight or nine years old.
She smiled at me. "And they were afraid something would happen to you if we waited until everyone could come to the party. Just like a coyote to spoil the fun for everyone."
The last time I'd seen this fae, she'd been playing with a yo-yo in the front yard of a murder scene she was guarding. I didn't know her name, just that she was plenty powerful, people were scared of her, and she was a lot older than she looked.
For an instant I almost saw something completely different standing beside me, then she smiled at me, and said, "Not my glamour you don't, Mercedes."
The other fae in the room didn't move, frozen in the moment of the fairy queen's death.
Yo-yo Girl walked forward to the dead queen, and I followed her. The witch had grabbed the body and was taking handfuls of the queen's blood and painting it over the silver thrall necklace around her neck.
"I don't think so," said Yo-yo Girl. She bent and touched the remains, and said something that might have been a word. The queen's body turned to dust.
Yo-yo Girl started to back away - and then saw the forest lord in his chains beyond the throne. Somehow I don't think that she'd seen him before reducing the queen to so many ashes.
The silver ring popped off the witch's neck - only to be replaced by small fingers. I heard only the echo of a whisper, then the witch was dust, too. Yo-yo Girl took a handful of the resultant gray mass, lifted it to her mouth, and licked it like an ice-cream cone.
"Yum," she said to me. Her hands, her clothes, and her mouth were covered with ashes. "I love witches."
"I'll take chocolate, if it is all the same to you," I told her.
"Mercy!" roared Adam from somewhere beyond the hall.
"Uh-oh," said Yo-yo Girl. "Someone missed out on all the killing."
"Here!" I called. "We're okay."
And then it was true. Because Adam was there and he had his arms around me and that made everything all right.
* * *
I KICKED THE SNOW AND STUBBED MY TOE ON THE kitchen sink. It was the night of the big rescue, and everyone was partying over at Adam's house. I'd been hugged and fussed over until I decided that it was a good time to go check out the remains of my home.
The snow hid a lot, and the pack had cleaned it up. They'd had the whole month that I'd been missing to do it. I suppose I was lucky it hadn't been a year or a century.