Blood Bound

"All right," I said. "I have a few errands to run first. Can I meet you in an hour or so?"

"I'll be here," he said, and hung up.

Honey opened the door of Adam's house before I got to the porch.

"They're upstairs," she said u

No, I don't speak Chinese, but some things don't require translation.

I ran up the stairs with Honey on my heels.

"I talked Darryl into coming downstairs after Kyle called you," Honey said. "But just a few minutes ago Warren tried to get out of bed and Kyle yelled at him. So Darryl went back up."

I'd have asked for more details-like why Warren and Darryl were arguing in the first place, assuming it wasn't Kyle and Darryl-but there wasn't time.

The guest room door was open. I stopped just outside and took a deep breath. When you walk into a room with two angry werewolves (and I could hear two growls), it is a good idea to be calm. Anger just exacerbates the situation-and fear can make both of them attack you.

I shoved the last thought to the back of my mind, tried to think serene thoughts, and walked in.

Warren had shifted into his wolf form-and he looked no better than he had last night. Splatters of his blood crusted the sheets, the walls and the floor.

Darryl was still in human form and was struggling with Warren. It looked like he was trying to hold him in the bed.

"Lie down," he roared.

In the pack, Darryl outranked Warren, he was Adam's second and Warren, Adam's third. That meant Warren had to do what Darryl told him to.

But Warren, hurt and confused, his human half submerged under the wolf, had forgotten that he was supposed to submit to Darryl's authority. It should have been an instinctive thing. That Warren wasn't listening to Darryl meant one thing-Darryl wasn't really more dominant, Warren had been faking it all along.

Under these circumstances it was a very, very bad thing. A wounded werewolf is dangerous, the wolf nature superceding the human control-and a werewolf is a very nasty creature. Much, much nastier than his natural counterpart.

The only reason Warren hadn't killed everyone in the house was because he was half dead and Darryl was very, very strong.

Kyle was standing against a wall, as far as he could get from the bed. His purple silk dress shirt was ripped and the skin under it torn and dripping blood. The expression on his face was worried, but he didn't smell of fear or anger.

"You're the highest ranking wolf," Honey whispered. "I told Kyle to call you when Darryl just seemed to irritate Warren. He was all right with Kyle until a few minutes ago."

Hadn't I just told Bran that I outranked Darryl? But Honey, like the rest of Adam's wolves, knew I wasn't really Adam's mate-and even if I was, my authority would be law-not real. Not as real as it would take to help Warren control his wolf. But Honey watched me with faith in her eyes, so I had to try.

" Warren," I said firmly. "Lie down."

If I was the most surprised person in the room when Warren subsided immediately, Darryl was a close second. I've always thought it was stupid, the way female pack members take their rank from their mate. I thought it was one of those dumb things that the wolves' human halves tacked onto nature to make life difficult, something the human part of the werewolves paid attention to, not the wolf.

Darryl slowly let go of Warren and sat on the end of the bed. Warren lay limply where he'd been, his splendid brown coat ragged and coated with blood, some old, some fresh.

"Well," I said, to cover up my confusion. "It's a good sign that he can shift-and he'll heal faster in this form." I looked at Kyle. "Did he say anything about why Samuel and Adam left?"

"No," Kyle frowned at me. "What did you do?"

I shrugged. "Werewolf politics," I told him.

"How did you do this when I could not?" Darryl asked.

I looked over and saw that his dark eyes had lightened to yellow-and he was staring at me.

"Not my fault," I told him. "Adam didn't even ask me before he claimed me as mate before the pack-I certainly didn't think it was anything more than a way to keep me from getting eaten. As far as dominance goes, you and Warren will have to sort things out when Adam gets back." I looked back at Kyle and asked him again, "How badly are you hurt?"

Kyle shook his head. "Just a scratch." He raised his face to me. "Am I going to howl at the moon, too?"

I shook my head. "It's not that easy to become a werewolf. He'd have had to nearly kill you. A scratch wouldn't do it."

Kyle was a lawyer-nothing showed on his face. I couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed. Maybe he didn't know either.

"We're going to have to move him down to the safe room," I told Darryl.

The safe room was a room in the basement that was reinforced to withstand a full grown werewolf. If Darryl wasn't dominant enough to make sure Warren stayed quiet, the cell was the only alternative.

"We can leave him on the mattress," suggested Honey. "Darryl and I can carry him down the stairs."

Which is what we did. Kyle and I followed, and I explained what we were doing as quickly as I could.

Warren didn't object to being imprisoned, but we had trouble keeping Kyle from following him.

"He didn't hurt me on purpose," he said, standing just inside the cell door. "I was trying to help Darryl keep him down."

"It'll get worse before it gets better," I told him.

"He didn't hurt me before."

Which let everyone in the room, except Kyle, know just how much Warren cared about him. Even a crazed werewolf won't harm his mate.

"I don't want to have to explain to Warren why we let him eat you," I said. "Look, you can sit in this couch right here and stay all day."

There was a little sitting room outside the cell, with a couch, matching easy chair, and big-screen TV.

"It'll only be for the day," Darryl said, his voice still a little growly, making me glad we weren't closer to a full moon. "He'll be well enough to be on his own tonight."

Warren and his wolf might have accepted me as Adam's mate, but I doubted Darryl did-and finding out that Warren was dominant to him was going to make him touchy for a while. A long while.

We left Warren in the cell, with Kyle leaning against the silver-coated bars. It wasn't the smartest place for him to wait, but at least he wasn't inside.

"I have to go," I told Darryl, once we were upstairs. "I'm still trying to locate Adam and Samuel. Can you handle it from here?"

He didn't answer me, just stared down toward the cell.

"We'll be all right," said Honey, softly. She stroked Darryl's arm to comfort him.

"They won't accept him as second," Darryl said.

He was probably right. That Warren had survived being a homosexual werewolf as long as he had was a tribute to his strength and intelligence.

"You can sort it out with Adam when he gets back," I said. I glanced at my watch. I had just enough time to call Elizaveta before I left for the police station.

I didn't leave a third message on her answering machine. It might have a

When I got off the phone, Darryl said, " Elizaveta left town after Adam found Warren. She said it was too dangerous for her to be here. If the demon got too close to her, it might be able to jump from Littleton to her, which, she told us, would be a disaster. She gathered her family and took a trip to California."

I knew that Elizaveta wasn't a Wiccan witch. Her powers were inherited and had nothing to do with religion. That she was so afraid of a demon told me that she had already had some dealings with the powers of darkness-otherwise the demon wouldn't have been able to take her over without an invitation.

"Damn it," I said. "I don't suppose you have any ideas on how to kill Littleton."