Iron Kissed

Honey laughed and turned on him. "Why? All it shows is that Mercy was drunk. She drank more every time he asked her to. She might have said no, but he never appeared to force her to drink. From the video, a prosecutor could argue that her judgement was impaired by alcohol—but that's not enough to get her freed from a murder charge. She had him incapacitated and she deliberately got up and took a crowbar and hit him with it."

"Then that is what may be," Nemane said. "It is too dangerous for humans to know we have these things."

"Not everything," said Honey. "Just the cup."

"By itself it would answer most of the police's questions," said Samuel. "Though you might have to explain how a human managed to rip a man's head off."

"He had bracelets," I told him. "Called them bracers of giant strength—but they weren't bracers. They'll be around someplace, too."

"Ben," said Adam, sounding cool and controlled as he came back into the garage bay. "Go get my laptop." He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved gray shirt. His hair was damp. "Nemane, I will make you a deal. If you watch what happened tonight, I will let you take your toys and run away—if that's what you still want to do."

"I am the Carrion Crow," Nemane said. "I've seen more death and rape than you can imagine."

Shame slipped through the warm peace Adam had given to me. I didn't want anyone to watch. "She's blind," I said. "She can't see anything."

"She can use my eyes," Samuel said.

I saw Nemane stiffen.

"My father is a Welsh bard as well as the Marrok," Samuel told her. "He knows things. You can use my eyes, if Adam thinks it's important to see this."

Ben brought Adam's laptop and handed it to him. Adam set it up on the counter.

I buried my head against Warren and tried to ignore the sounds coming from Adam's laptop. The speakers weren't very good so I pretended I couldn't hear the helpless noises I made or the wet sounds…

He let it play until the moment Nemane walked in and turned it off.

"She should be dead," Nemane said flatly when he was finished. "If I'd seen it first, I'd never have given her another drink so soon."

"Will she be all right?" Warren asked sharply.

"If she hasn't gone into convulsions and died yet, I don't suppose she's going to." Nemane stroked the cloak she held on her arm, sounding troubled. "I don't know how she managed to kill him while he was wearing this. It should have kept her from touching him."

"It only protected him from his enemies," I told Warren's shirt. "I wasn't his enemy because he told me not to be."

A storm of police sirens was brewing up outside.

"All right," Nemane said. "You may have the bracelets to explain how a human killed O'Do

"Samuel," said Warren, and I realized I was starting to shiver helplessly.

"She needs to sleep," Nemane told them.

Adam knelt beside us and looked me in the eye. "Mercedes, go to sleep."

I was too tired to fight the compulsion, even if I had wanted to.

CHAPTER 12

I woke up with the smell of Adam in my nose and my stomach cramping. I didn't have time to wonder about my surroundings. I dove off the bed and made it to the bathroom just in time to throw up in the toilet.

Fairy brew tastes a lot worse the second time around.

Gentle hands pulled my hair out of the way—though it was too late for that—and wiped my face with a damp washcloth. Someone had put a pair of underwear and one of Adam's T-shirts on me.

"At least you made it to the loo this time," Ben said prosaically. And then, just so I could be absolutely sure it was really him and not some kinder, nicer clone, he said, without affection, "Good thing, too. We are almost out of sheets."

"Happy to oblige," I managed before heaving up some more—so hard it came burning out my nose as well as my mouth. By the time I finished, I'd have been crying on the floor if the idea of doing that in front of Ben hadn't been so repugnant.

He waited until it became apparent that getting to the bathroom was as good as I was going to manage before he sighed and heaved me up with more effort than I knew he felt. He was a werewolf; he could probably pick up a piano. My weight wasn't enough to make him sweat.

He tucked me back in the sheets with surprising efficiency. "The fae told us you'd sleep a lot for a while. The vomiting surprised her, though. Probably something to do with your resistance to magic and how much of the stuff you had. Best thing for you is sleep." He paused. "Unless you're hungry."

I turned my head out from the pillow far enough that he could see my face.

He smirked. "Yeah, well, I'm not excited about cleaning up another mess either."

It was still dark out the next time I woke up so it wasn't too much later. I lay unmoving as long as I could. I knew Ben was still in the room and I didn't want to attract his attention. I didn't want anyone to look at me.

Without nausea to distract me, the events of the evening, those that I remembered clearly anyway, rolled through my head like an Ed Wood movie: so horrible that you can't force yourself to stop watching. Worse, I could smell it on me. The fairy liquor, blood…and Tim. The worst was knowing what I had done…and what I hadn't.

In the end, I crawled out of bed and slunk on my hands and knees to the bathroom door. I kept my eyes lowered so Ben would know that I understood what I'd done.

He got to the door before me and held it open. I hesitated. Protocol would have me roll over and give him my throat and underbelly…but I couldn't stand to be that vulnerable again. Not right now. Maybe if it were Adam.

"Poor little bitch," he said softly. "Go get cleaned up. I'll keep the villains at bay for that long."

He shut the door behind me.

I stood on shaky feet and turned the water to hot. I stripped off the clothing and scrubbed and scrubbed, but I couldn't get rid of the smells. Finally I came out and searched through Adam's cabinets. I found three bottles of cologne, but none of them smelled like him.

Finally I splashed his aftershave on instead. It burned on the healing cuts and scrapes I'd picked up off the cement floor of the garage, but it covered up Tim's scent at last.

I couldn't put on the clothes I'd just taken off because they still smelled like…everything. Even though the shirt smelled only of Adam and the underwear was a clean pair of mine and I was pretty sure that someone had scrubbed me up before they put me in them since I remember being covered with blood…

As soon as the thought occurred, I remembered standing in Adam's shower and Honey's voice in my ear. You'll be fine. Let me just get this stuff off you—

I began to hyperventilate so I grabbed a towel and breathed through it until the panicky feeling went away.

So, no clothes, and I couldn't stay in here much longer before someone came in to check.

No one would ask the coyote questions she couldn't answer.

For a frightening moment I wasn't sure I could shift, when shifting had always been second nature.

You need to stay human, Mercy. We're in the hospital and you need to stay with us just a little longer. Samuel's voice.

I didn't care about police and this wasn't the hospital. Fur slid over my skin at last and my fingernails turned to claws. It took longer than it ever had, but in the end I stood on four paws. I whined to myself because I still didn't want to go out.

The door opened before I could figure out any alternative, which was just as well as there were no good hiding places in the bathroom—not even for a coyote.