Iron Kissed

He rubbed his shoulder ruefully and said, "I will." I gave him a dirty look. I hadn't hurt him—even if he'd been human, I wouldn't have done any real hurt.

He stopped faking and gri

"And you couldn't resist sneaking up on me."

He shook his head. "I wasn't sneaking. You need to be more alert. What was up?"

"No demon-possessed vampires this time," I told him. "Just a little sleuthing." And a trip to the seashore.

A second-floor window opened, and Kyle stuck his head and shoulders out so he could look down at us. "If you two are finished playing Cowboy and Indian out there, some of us would like to get their beauty sleep."

I looked at Warren. "You heard 'um, Kemo Sabe. Me go to my little wigwam and get 'um shut-eye."

"How come you always get to play the Indian?" whined Warren, deadpan.

"'Cause she's the Indian, white boy," said Kyle. He pushed the window up all the way and set a hip on the casement. He was wearing little more than most of the men in the movie we'd been watching, and it looked better on him.

Warren snorted and ruffled my hair. "She's only half—and I've known more Indians than she has."

Kyle gri

"Stop right there." I made a play at plugging my ears. "Lalalala. Wait until I hop in my faithful Rabbit and ride off into the sunrise." I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Warren somewhere in the region of his chin.

"It is pretty late," Warren said. "Do you still want to meet us at Tumbleweed tomorrow?"

Tumbleweed was the yearly folk music festival held on Labor Day weekend. The Tri-Cities were close enough to the coast that the cream of the Seattle and Portland music scene usually showed up in force: blues singers, jazz, Celtic, and everything in between. Cheap, good entertainment.

"I wouldn't miss it. Samuel still hasn't managed to wiggle out of performing and I have to be there to heckle him."

"Ten A.M. by the River Stage, then," Warren said.

"I'll be there."

CHAPTER 3

Tumbleweed was held in Howard Amon Park, right off the Columbia River in Richland. The stages were scattered as far apart as could be managed to minimize interference between performances. The River Stage, where Samuel was to perform, was about as far from available parking as it was possible to get. Normally that wouldn't have bothered me, but karate practice this morning hadn't gone so well. Grumbling to myself, I limped slowly across the grass.

The park was still mostly empty of anyone except musicians toting various instrument cases as they trudged across the vast green fields on their way to whatever stage they were performing on. Okay, the park isn't really that huge, but when your leg hurts—or when you're hauling a string bass from one end to the other—it's big enough.

The bassist in question and I exchanged weary nods of mutual misery as we passed each other.

Warren and Kyle were already seated on the grass in front of the stage and Samuel was arranging his instruments on various stands, when I finally made it.

"Something wrong?" Kyle asked with a frown as I sat down next to him. "You weren't limping last night."

I wiggled on the lumpy, dew-dampened grass until I was comfortable. "Nothing important. Someone caught me a good one on my thigh at karate practice this morning. It'll settle down in a bit. I see the button men found you already."

Tumbleweed was nominally free, but you could show your support by purchasing a button for two dollars…and the button men were relentless.

"We got one for you, too." Warren reached across Kyle and handed a button to me.

I pi

He laughed. "Do I look like a newbie? Four before lunch is too easy."

More people gathered in front of Samuel's stage than I'd expected, given that his was one of the first performances.

I recognized some of the emergency room perso

Then there were the werewolves.

Unlike the medical perso

A cool breeze came off the Columbia River, just a hop, skip, and a jump over a narrow footpath away—which was why the stage was the River Stage. The morning was warm, as early fall mornings in the Tri-Cities often are, so the slight edge to the wind was more welcome than not.

One of the festival volunteers, wearing a painter's apron covered with Tumbleweed buttons from this and previous years, welcomed us to this year's festival and thanked us all for coming. He spent a few minutes talking about sponsors and raffles while the audience shifted restlessly before he introduced Samuel as the Tri-Cities' own folksinging physician.

We clapped and whistled as the a

He was wearing a cobalt blue dress shirt that set off his eyes, tipping the balance from gray to blue. He'd tucked the shirt into new black jeans that were tight enough to show off the muscle in his legs.

I had seen him just this morning as he drank his coffee and I ran out the door. There was no reason that he should still affect me like this.

Most werewolves are attractive; it goes with the permanently young-and-muscled look. Samuel had more, though. And it wasn't only that extra zap that the more dominant wolves have.

Samuel looked like a person you could trust—something about the hint of humor that lurked in the back of his deep-set eyes and the corner of his mouth. It was part of what made him such a good doctor. When he told his patients they were going to be fine, they believed him.

His eyes locked on mine for a moment and the quirk of his mouth powered up to a smile.

It warmed me to my toes, that smile: reminded me of a time when Samuel was my whole world, a time when I believed in a knight in shining armor who could make me happy and safe.

Samuel knew it, too, because the smile changed to a grin—until he looked behind me. The pleasure cooled in his eyes, but he kept the grin, turning it on the rest of his audience. That's how I knew for certain that the man who'd sat behind me was Adam.

Not that I'd been in much doubt. The wind was coming from the wrong direction to give me a good scent, but dominant wolves exude power, and Adam—all apart from him being the Alpha—was nearly as dominant as they come. It was like having a car battery sitting behind me and being hooked up with a pair of wires.

I kept my eyes forward, knowing that as long as my attention was on him, Samuel wouldn't get too upset. I wished Adam had chosen to sit somewhere else. But if he'd been that kind of a person, he wouldn't be an Alpha—the most dominant wolf in his pack. Almost as dominant as Samuel.

The reason Samuel wasn't the pack Alpha was complicated. First, Adam had been Alpha here as long as there had been a pack in the Tri-Cities (which was before my time). Even if a wolf is more dominant, it is not an easy matter to oust an Alpha—and in North America, that never happens without the consent of the Marrok, the wolf who rules here. Since the Marrok was Samuel's father, presumably he could have gained permission—except that Samuel had no desire to be Alpha. He said that being a doctor gave him more than enough people to take care of. So he was officially a lone wolf, a wolf outside of pack protection. He lived in my trailer, not a hundred yards from Adam's house. I don't know why he chose to live there, but I know why I let him: because otherwise he'd still be sleeping on my front porch.