Iron Kissed

"How much of the video did they get?" Adam growled.

"Not enough, apparently. Whoever sent it represented it as an Alpha werewolf attacking a human without provocation. I would like you to take the whole video—I trust it doesn't show our Mercy changing shape?"

"No. But it shows her without clothes."

"Mercy won't care, but perhaps it might be possible to add those black rectangles the news reporters use."

"Yeah. I'm sure Ben can do it." Adam sounded tired. "You want me to go with it, don't you?"

"I'm sending Charles with you. I'm sure that once they have seen the entire video, most of the men on the committee will be ready to cheer you on. The others will keep their mouths shut."

"I don't want that video getting on the Internet," Adam growled. "Not Mercy's—"

"I think we can make sure that doesn't happen. The congressman was very clear about who sent him the tape. I'll see that it is taken care of."

Adam wasn't looking at me. I hopped off the bed and slipped through the still open door.

I didn't want to hear any more. I didn't want to think about people watching a video of last night. I wanted to go home.

Warren was standing at the foot of the stairs talking to Ben, so I dodged into Jesse's room before he looked up.

"Mercy?" Jesse was sitting on her bed with her homework scattered in front of her.

I'd hopped onto the sill of her open window, which was still screenless, but something in her voice made me pause. I jumped onto her bed and nuzzled her neck. She gave me a quick hug before I wriggled free and darted out the window.

I'd forgotten that Tim had mangled my arm—foreleg in coyote form—but it held up just fine when I jumped off a low spot of the roof onto the ground. Nemane had been as good as her word about the other things the goblet could do.

I ran all the way home and stopped on the front porch. I couldn't open the door as I was, but I didn't want to change to human anytime in the next decade.

Before I had time to worry too much, Samuel opened the door for me. He closed the door and followed me to my room, opening that door as well.

I jumped on my bed and curled up with my chin on my pillow. Samuel sat down on the foot, giving me plenty of room.

"I have, entirely illegally, snooped into the medical records of one Timothy Milanovich," he told me. "His doctor is a friend of mine and agreed to leave me in his office for a few minutes. When Milanovich's fiancée left him, he had himself tested and was negative for any disease that you might worry about."

And I didn't have to worry about pregnancy either. As soon as I'd realized that there was a possibility of ending up in either Adam or Samuel's bed, I'd started on the pill. Being illegitimate makes you sensitive about things like that.

I sighed and closed my eyes, and Samuel got off the bed. He closed my door behind him.

It opened again after only a few minutes, but it wasn't Samuel. Warren in his wolf form lurked solemnly behind his Alpha.

"I meant what I said, Mercy," Adam told me. "No ru

The bed sank heavily under Warren's weight as the huge wolf tucked himself beside me. He licked my face with a rough tongue.

I lifted my head and met Adam's gaze.

He knew. He knew it all and he still wanted me. Maybe he'd change his mind, but I'd known him for a long time and he was as changeable as a boulder. You might move him with a bulldozer, but that was about it.

He nodded once, and was gone.

CHAPTER 13

For a whole day I indulged myself. I slept on my bed with whatever wolf had been sent to stay with me. Whenever I started to have a nightmare, someone was always there. Samuel, Warren, Honey, and Darryl's mate, Aurielle. Samuel dragged one of the kitchen chairs into my room and played his guitar for hours.

The next morning I woke up and knew I had to do something or all this pity and guilt was going to make me go stir crazy. If I let them all treat me like I was broken, then how was I going to convince myself I wasn't?

It was Friday. I should be at work…My lungs froze at the thought of going back into my shop. I breathed my way through the panic attack.

So I wouldn't go to work. Not today at least.

What to do…

I lifted my head to the pile of wolves that were threatening to make my twin bed collapse under their weight and considered my minions. Darryl wouldn't work. He wouldn't twitch without Adam's say-so—and Aurielle wouldn't go against her mate. She opened her eyes to look at me. Like me, both of them should have been at work: Aurielle at her high school and Darryl at his high-price think tank. Neither of them would do for the main project, but for now it didn't matter. Today would be reco

It was actually Warren who came with me, shifting to his human form so he could play "walk the coyote" while Darryl and Aurielle stayed at Adam's house to play guardians for Jesse.

"So how far are we going to walk?" Warren asked.

I staggered a few steps, fell on my side, and then dragged myself forward weakly before hopping back up and continuing to walk briskly down the shoulder of the highway.

"If things get that bad, I'll give Kyle a call and tell him he needs to come pick us up," Warren said dryly.

I gave him a canine grin and turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. The Summers' house was a nice two-story house built in the past decade on a two-acre parcel. They had a dog who took one look at me and came at us in a silent rush that stopped dead as soon as Warren growled—or maybe it just smelled the werewolf on him.

I put my nose to the ground and searched for the trail I'd hoped was there. It was summer and just a quarter mile away was the river. Most self-respecting boys would…yes. Here it was.

I'd thought about finding Jacob Summers at home, but it would be hard to explain why I needed to talk to him alone. I wasn't even quite sure what I was going to tell him—or if I was going to say anything at all.

The road continued most of the way to the river, sort of petering out just after it crossed the canal. I found Jacob's favorite place by following his trail. There was a pretty good sized boulder right on the edge of the river.

I hopped on it and stared out at the river, just as Jacob must.

"You aren't thinking of jumping in, are you, Mercy?" Warren asked. "I wasn't much of a swimmer when I was human and matters haven't improved over the years."

I gave him a scornful look, then remembered that Tim had told me to drown myself for love of him.

"Glad to hear it," he said and sat on the rocky shore beside me.

He leaned over and picked up a tangle of fishing line complete with hook and sinker and a couple of old beer cans. He put the hook in the cans. Suddenly he straightened and looked around.

"Do you feel that?" he asked me. "Temperature just dropped about ten degrees. Do you suppose your Fideal friend is about?"

I knew why it was colder. Austin Summers stood beside me and petted me with his cool, dead hand. When I looked up at him, he was just staring at the river, as I had been.

Warren paced back and forth along the shoreline, looking for Fideal, unaware that we'd been joined by someone else.

"Tell my brother." Austin didn't look away from the deep blue water. "Not my parents, they wouldn't understand. They'd rather believe that I committed suicide than hear that I'd succumbed to Tim's magical potion. They get that kind of stuff mixed up with Satanism." He smiled faintly with a hint of contempt in his voice. "But my brother needs to know I didn't abandon him, all right? And you're right. Here is a good place. It's his thinking place."