Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson #9)(21)

Warren helped Joel, now modestly covered in Kennewick Police Department sweats, to his feet. Without ever quite looking at the boy, Warren kept himself between Aiden and Joel. That told me that Warren still viewed the boy as a threat.

Joel shivered as if he were cold. Warren started to put an arm around him, then stopped.

Warren was the only gay werewolf in our pack, in any pack that I knew of. The older werewolves were largely male and largely intolerant of homosexual leanings. Gay werewolves didn’t last very long unless they were extraordinarily tough or lucky. Warren was tough. He was also careful not to push any of the pack members unless he intended to bother them. It wasn’t fear, it was courtesy. He glanced at Darryl.

Darryl looked at me, then Aiden, deciding how much of a threat he still was. Then he walked over and wrapped a big arm over the much smaller Joel. “You have this, Mercy?” he asked me. “I’ll get him home.”

I nodded. “Joel? Are you okay?”

“It doesn’t burn inside,” he said, his voice husky and a little helpless. “It’s gone.”

“It’ll be back,” the boy said dispassionately. “I robbed the spirit of its heat, but it is still there.”

“Are you okay, Joel?” I asked again.

This time he nodded. “I think so.” He took a deep breath. “I would have killed you.”

I shook my head. “We’re pack, Joel, even the tibicena knows it. He was just ticked because he got a chance to get out and strut his stuff, and we were cutting short his playtime.”

Joel huffed a shaky laugh. “Maybe. But it didn’t feel like that from the inside.”

Ben and his minions rounded a semi. Zack, still in wolf form, limped heavily on his own four feet. He looked pretty battered, but he’d be all right. Just like Adam, who was fully awake and hiding it from the pack. I didn’t do anything to give him away.

None of the wolves looked at Adam. It would be disrespectful to observe their Alpha in a weak position or to express concern that might be interpreted to mean that they thought Adam was too weak to heal. But that left me on my own to deal with the harmless-looking, if hostile, boy who had single-handedly taken down a servant of a volcano god.

“Who are you? What are you? Why do the fae want you?” I asked, because information was always good and because it would give me time to think.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “None of your business.”

“You’ve made it her business,” said Darryl.

The boy didn’t think much of me, but his expression told me that Darryl had made an impression.

“Darryl,” I said, “please arrange for Zack and Joel to make it back home with a couple of guards and someone who can patch them up.” I didn’t say “and then get back here,” but I knew he heard it.

Darryl bowed his head in a move that made him look like he was a thousand years old—though I knew that Darryl was only ten years or so older than he looked. He picked Joel up in his arms and without another word managed to harness Ben, Zack, and a couple of other wolves in his gaze as he strode away toward the police lines at the end of the bridge.

I returned my attention to Aiden.

“I’m a human,” he told me sullenly. “I was lost in Underhill until she opened her doors again. The fae want to keep me until they understand how Underhill changed me so that I can do this.” He waved a hand at Joel. “I’m tired of being a prisoner, and I need somewhere to stay for a day to put my options together.”

“Lost in Underhill,” I said slowly, “for how long?”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

There was a lot he wasn’t telling me.

“It’s not a difficult decision,” he said. “Tell me to rabbit, and I will. Tell me you’ll have my back, and I’ll stay.” He smiled, and it wasn’t a pretty smile. “Don’t you wolves always worry about status?” For someone who’d been trapped in Underhill, he knew an awful lot about werewolves. “Wouldn’t defying the fae give you the upper hand?”


“Unless we’re all dead,” murmured Warren helpfully. “Then we don’t care about what the fae think of us.” He paused. “Come to think on it, we really don’t care what the fae think of us anyway.” He gave the boy a cold look that seemed strange on my Warren, reminding me that though he was my friend, he’d also survived against the odds more than once, and it wasn’t because he was too nice to kill someone.

The boy, unaware of his danger, sneered.

I looked at Zee because it didn’t appear as though the boy was going to tell me anything. I knew I should just let him run. I could tell after five minutes that he was going to cause trouble.

But if Zee thought it was a horrible idea for the pack to protect him, he’d have pushed the boy at me as if he were a helpless mite that Zee was determined to help—and I’d have known to steer clear.

Aiden had saved Joel. Despite what I’d told Joel, I’d seen my death in the tibicena’s eyes. If Joel had killed me, he wouldn’t have survived that figuratively or literally. Joel would have been devastated, and Adam would have killed him. Not just in revenge, but because Joel would have proved himself a danger to the pack. Werewolves had learned to be ruthless to survive.

There was this also: Tad and Zee saw something in the boy to admire.