Iron Kissed

He danced like that, too. Leading instead of pulling. It had to have been deliberate, something he worked at, because he was as dominant as they came—Alphas are. But Adam was more than just dominant: he was smart, too. And he didn't play fair.

Which is how he ended up against the wall with me plastered all over him when someone…Darryl, quietly cleared his throat.

I jerked free and hopped back to the middle of the hallway. "I'll just get Jesse's clothes now," I told the carpet on the floor and then took my red face into Jesse's room and shut the door. I didn't mind getting caught kissing, but that had been a lot more carnal than a kiss.

Sometimes good hearing isn't a blessing.

"Sorry," Darryl said, though his voice carried more amusement than apology.

"I bet," growled Adam. "Damn it. This has got to stop."

Darryl gave a full-throated laugh that lasted quite a while. I'd never heard him laugh like that. Darryl was pretty uptight usually.

"Sorry," he said again, sounding more apologetic this time. "Looked to me like you'd rather it not stop."

"Yeah." Adam sounded suddenly tired. "I should have gone after her a long time ago. But after Christy got through with me, I wasn't sure I wanted another woman ever. And Mercy is more gun-shy than I ever was." Christy was his ex-wife.

"Then Samuel came to compete for the prize," Darryl said.

"I am not a prize," I muttered.

I knew they both heard me, but all he said was, "Samuel has always been the competition. I prefer him here, so at least I'm competing with a flesh-and-blood man, and not a memory."

"If you're going to talk about me behind my back," I told Adam, "at least do it where I can't hear you."

They must have followed my request because I didn't hear any more of their conversation. The shower was still going, so I sat down in the middle of Jesse's room—pulled a bottle of nail polish out from under one hip—and then took the opportunity to pull myself together. Adam was right; this had gone on too long.

Samuel had been behaving himself like an angel, for the most part—and Adam had been likewise. But it seemed to me that Adam had been more restless than usual and his temper more uncertain.

That was troubling news because Adam had a hot temper, worse even than most werewolves. Otherwise, Samuel had told me, the Marrok would have used Adam more heavily as one of the spokesmen for the werewolves. He had the looks and the speaking abilities for it. Adam had attracted some attention from the press anyway because he was doing some consulting and negotiating in Washington, D.C. His control was very, very good, but when he lost it, he went berserk and the Marrok wouldn't risk it.

I was pretty sure that Adam would have exploded over Jesse's bruises anyway—but maybe he'd have regained his control better if he hadn't already been on edge.

Jesse's door opened and Honey came in, shutting the door behind her. Honey was one of those people who can make me feel grubby, even when I'm wearing a perfectly presentable T-shirt. She could have been a recruitment poster model for the trophy wife. She intimidated me in an entirely different way than the werewolves usually did, and it had taken me a long time to get over it.

She stepped gingerly over the usual teenager mess that Jesse had scattered on her floor—Jesse's room looked even worse than mine usually did, which made it pretty bad.

"You've got to do something, Mercedes," she told me softly. As long as the rest of the pack was downstairs, they wouldn't hear us. "The whole pack is restless and short-tempered—and Adam almost lost it today. Pick someone, Adam or Samuel, it doesn't matter. But you have to do it soon." She hesitated. "When Adam declared you his mate—"

For my safety, he said, and he was probably right. Timber wolves will kill a coyote in their territory—and werewolves are every bit as territorial as their smaller brethren.

"He didn't ask me," I interrupted her, with heat. "I wasn't there and I didn't find out about it until it was done. It wasn't my fault."

She shook her mane of honey-colored hair and crouched down beside me. If she could have seen the floor, I think she'd have been sitting like I was, because she was technically lower in the pack (thanks to Adam declaring me his mate), but she was too fastidious to sit on a pile of dirty clothes.

"I'm not saying it is anyone's fault," she said. "Fault doesn't change what is. We can all feel it, the weakness in the pack. It is allowed for you to refuse him absolutely, and then things will return to normal. Or accept him, and things will change another way, a better way. But until then…" She shrugged.

It was easy, even for someone like me who was around them all the time, to forget that there was more to the magic of the werewolves than their change. I think it's because the change was so spectacular—and the rest of the magic is the pack's business and affects no one else. I didn't consider myself pack—and until Adam had made his claim, no one else had either.

My foster father told me once that he was always aware on some level of all the other pack members. They knew when one of their own was in distress; they knew when one died. When my foster father committed suicide, it took a while for them to find the body, but they'd all known when to go looking. I'd seen Adam call his pack to him with more than the sound of his voice and had seen them heal him of silver damage that should have killed him.

I hadn't realized that there might be more to Adam declaring me his mate than the simple act until I'd been able to help Warren control his wolf when he was too hurt to do it himself. I'd been grateful, but I hadn't looked at it any closer.

I was getting a headache; dread sometimes does that to me. "Tell me that again and be clear, please."

"When he declared you his mate, he offered you an invitation to join us. He opened a place for you that you have not filled. That opening is a weakness. Adam mostly keeps it from us, but he only does it by absorbing all of the effects himself. His wolf knows there is a weakness, a place where harm might come to us, and it leaves him on alert, on edge, all the time. We can feel that, and respond to it." She gave me a tight smile. "That's why I was so unpleasant to you when he sent me to play bodyguard against the vampires. I thought you were playing games and leaving us to pay the price."

No. No game playing. Just a lot of panicking. Whomever I chose in the end, Adam or Samuel, I'd lose the other one—and that was more than I could bear.

"All of us depend upon our Alpha to help us live among the humans," Honey said. "Some of Adam's wolves have human women as mates. It is his willpower that allows us to control ourselves, particularly as the moon nears her zenith."

I put my aching head on my knees. "What was he thinking? Damn it."

She patted me on the shoulder, an awkward touch that managed to convey both comfort and sympathy. "I don't think he was thinking of anything except to place his claim on you before another wolf killed or claimed you."

I gave her a look of disbelief. "What is going on? Is everyone losing their minds? I haven't had so much as a date for ten years and now there's Adam and Samuel and—" I'd have bitten off my tongue before I continued and mentioned Stefan. I hadn't seen the vampire since he and the Wizard had killed two i

"I know why Samuel wants me," I told her.

"He thinks that the two of you could have children—and you can't forgive him for wanting you for practical reasons." There was something in Honey's voice that told me that she liked Samuel—and maybe it hadn't been just my perceived "game playing" with Adam and her pack that she'd resented. But the expression on her face told me more. She understood Samuel's point from experience; she wanted children, too.