Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson #13)(6)
By the time Adam and I arrived, most of the pack was already in the private room that we’d reserved even though we’d left them the mess at the corn maze to clean up.
They greeted our lateness with unrestrained hilarity—since some of them had overheard my earlier proposition to Adam of a shower with benefits. Their humor was tempered by an undercurrent of cheer that bubbled through the pack. Knowing that Adam and I had a strong bond made the wolves feel safer. Sometimes the pack’s keen interest in my . . . no, let’s be honest, in Adam’s sex life made me uncomfortable.
But I understood. Werewolves have one place of safety, and the Alpha is the center of it. Adam’s strength and stability were the core around which our pack thrived. Adam had had a rough few months, and anything that made him happy was good for the pack. Our lovemaking was not and could not always be private when it was so important to the pack’s survival.
The night was filled with moment-by-moment retellings of the fun and disasters of the evening, with Sherwood the star of the show. He had not given anyone easy victories, making Zack’s triumph especially sweet. We’d missed it, but apparently Zack’s team had hoisted him over their heads in the parking lot and carried him into Uncle Mike’s in triumph.
Our lone submissive wolf often shied away from attention, but Zack looked relaxed and happy tonight. I noticed various pack members walking by his table so they could high-five him, pat him on the shoulder, or even just casually ruffle his hair. Like happy Alpha wolves, submissives made the pack safer, too. Zack’s quiet contentment spread over the room like a blanket in winter. With the exception of Warren, I noticed, with faint worry.
Warren was usually as imperturbable as any dominant werewolf I’d ever known. But he was visibly more tense than he’d been at the corn maze. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. A little space had opened around him where he sat in his usual place, right next to Zack.
Zack lived with Warren and his human mate, Kyle. I mean lived with like a roommate, not like a roommate. It had started out as a temporary arrangement, but none of them were making any effort to change matters. It made me feel better that our most vulnerable pack member (besides me) was living under Warren’s protection.
Like Warren, and despite a lovely interlude-with-shower, I was more than usually out of sorts. After we’d dressed, Adam had told me the real reason he’d decided on an after-the-corn-maze party. I had not been happy to learn he’d been keeping a few things from me.
I nursed my limeade and kept my seat while Adam wandered around the room, doing his part to keep the cheery atmosphere going. Which was smart of him, because I might love him, but right this moment I was pretty unhappy, and by holding back information, Adam had made himself a convenient target of my ire.
Like Warren, I’d been gaining a few surreptitious glances. But it was Zack’s fellow victorious teammate, Joel, who breached the leave-me-alone I was projecting as hard as I could.
Joel pulled out Adam’s chair and sat in it. He examined my face without speaking. He was the one who’d decided to join me; he could start the conversation.
After a few minutes, he said, “You’re angry about something.”
“Very,” I lied.
I wouldn’t have tried to lie to one of the werewolves. But Joel was the other pack member who wasn’t a werewolf (besides me). His senses were a little different, and he was new at the whole supernatural business.
I’d known Joel (pronounced the Spanish way, though he didn’t get upset when people said it wrong) on a casual basis longer than I’d known anyone in this room, though he was nearly the newest member of the pack. My day job was as a VW mechanic, and he’d been fixing up old wrecks since long before I’d run the shop.
He’d found himself, by an accident of ancestry, the target of an ancient god, and the incident had left him possessed by or in possession of the spirit of a tibicena—a volcano canid (“dog” wasn’t quite the right word for it). For months he’d been unable to regain his human shape for long enough to resume a normal life. Luckily for everyone, he had been able to keep the sizzling tibicena at bay most of the time, leaving him wearing the body of a black-brindled presa Canario, a beast nearly as intimidating as most werewolves.
He’d been doing better lately, though. Last week, he and his wife had moved from pack headquarters (Adam’s and my house) back into their newly renovated home—taking with them our rescued-from-Underhill boy, Aiden, to keep everyone safe. Aiden was gifted with fire, and he could help if Joel lost control.
“You are not angry,” said Joel, frowning at me like I was a recalcitrant engine mount—a puzzle to be solved. “That was a lie.”
So much for it being easier to lie to Joel than to one of the werewolves.
“I am a little angry,” I said.
He examined me closely. “All right,” he said slowly. “That wasn’t a lie. Who are you angry with?”
I didn’t answer because there wasn’t a truthful answer that didn’t sound like I was thirteen. Only adolescents can say things like “fate” or “the world” and not feel like cringing afterward. By the time a person was my age, they should know that life isn’t fair and quit pretending that it ought to be. If I wanted to be truthful, I’d lost my anger at Adam, to which I’d been clinging, after about ten minutes of watching him tend our pack.