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“Yes, what?” I asked.
“Yes, Christy picked out those flowers. The pot, however, was my mother’s. Feel free to fill it with something else. If you leave it empty, it collects dust and dead spiders.” His voice was so full of patience that I knew he found me fu
Normally, our bond fluctuated on how much information I got from it, swinging pretty widely during the length of a day. But even within a few minutes there was some variation, like a swing moving up and down. One second, I was getting grumpy because he was laughing at me, and the next, I was flooded with this mix of tenderness, love, and amusement all mixed together in a potent bundle that meant happy.
Hard to get grumpy over that.
His smile grew, and the dimple appeared and … and I kissed him. I rested my body against him, at an angle so I didn’t squish the cat, and thought, Here is my happiness. Here is my reason to survive. Here is my home.
“I never forget,” I murmured to him when I could.
“Forget?”
“Forget who you are to me,” I said, petting him with my fingertips because I could, because he was mine. “I’ll be fretting about Christy, worrying about the pack, hoping Christy trips and spills her cardaywatsafanday stew–”
“Carbo
“–all over the floor, then I look at you.”
“Mmmm?”
“Yep,” I said, putting my nose against him and breathing him in. “Mmmm.”
I was just considering the empty bedroom upstairs and weighing it against the possibility that Guayota would choose that moment to attack when someone knocked at the door.
We broke apart.
“You have the cat,” I said. “I don’t want to spend another hour looking for her. I’ll get the door.”
“Be careful,” was all Adam said.
I checked through the peephole, carefully, because there had been that one movie on bad‑movie night where someone had been killed because he’d put his eye to the peephole, and the bad guy had stuck a fencing sword through the hole and into the victim’s eye. We’d stopped the film to argue whether or not it was possible to do–and I remained forever scarred by the scene.
It was Rachel, one of Stefan’s menagerie, one of his sheep. Stefan was gentler on the people he fed from than other vampires I’d come into contact with. He found broken people or people who needed something from him so that the exchange–their blood and the course of their lives for whatever a vampire might provide them–was, if not even, a little more balanced. Most members of a vampire’s menagerie died slowly, but Stefan’s people, mostly, thrived under his care. Or they had until Marsilia had happened to them.
I opened the door.
Rachel, like Stefan himself, had gained a little weight back. She didn’t look like a crack addict anymore, but she didn’t look really healthy, either. Her skin was pale, and there were shadows in her eyes. She didn’t look young anymore–and she was around Jesse’s age. But she was back in her goth costume–black lacy top, black jeans, and long black gloves that disguised the two fingers Marsilia–or Wulfe–had cut off her right hand.
“Hey, Mercy,” she said. “I’ve been chasing all over looking for you–I assume you know that someone tried to blow up your garage? I gave up about noon, did the shopping and a few errands, and decided to try again before I drove home. This is for you.” She handed me an envelope with my name in elegant script.
I opened it and found a lined note card with an address: 21980 Harbor Landing Road, Pasco. And, underneath the address, in the same flowery script: Sorry.
“Hel‑lo, handsome,” purred Rachel. “Man with cat is one of my fantasies.”
I didn’t look up. “He’s taken, Rachel, sorry. She’s underage, Adam, and–you’re taken. Rachel, this is my husband, Adam. Adam this is Stefan’s–” His what? “Sheep” wasn’t any word I’d ever use to describe someone I liked, no matter how accurate it was. “Stefan’s.”
“‘Sheep’ is the word you’re looking for,” said Rachel. “I’d better get going before the ice cream melts. ’Bye, Mercy. ’Bye, Mercy’s husband.”
She turned and trotted out to her car, a nondescript little Ford I hadn’t seen before. She waved and took off in a peel of rubber and gravel that made me wince a little as the splatter of small rocks rained down on the SUV.
I twirled the card in my fingers before handing it reluctantly to Adam.
“Here,” I said, more casually than I felt. “I think we’d better call Ariana and Elizaveta, don’t you think? Someone has got to know how to make werewolves fireproof.”
Warren met us at the door to Honey’s house.
“Hey, boss,” he said, drawling like there was nothing wrong, but I could tell that he was upset by the set of his shoulders. “We were taking Gary Laughingdog to the bus station like you asked–and Kyle says to tell you thank you for making him aid and abet an escaped convict like that–when he started having convulsions in the backseat. We pulled over, and he was unconscious, so we brought him back. He hasn’t woken up, and Kyle is pretty well resigned to losing his license to practice law.”
I gave the cat carrier to Adam and set down the bag of Medea necessities I carried. The cat box and kitty litter were still in the car, and so was my .44 S&W, which I’d retrieved from the house. “Here. You take the cat and Warren. I’ll take Kyle,” I said.
Adam gave me a look.
“Sorry. You heap big Alpha dog,” I told him. “I’ll let you call it next time. But I’m right, and you already know it. Kyle will just make you mad on purpose–and Warren will listen better to you than me about relationships because he’d feel comfortable storming away from me when I said something he didn’t want to hear. Where is Kyle?” I directed my question at Warren.
“Down the hall, third bedroom on the left. Watching over Laughingdog, who is still unconscious.” He frowned at me. “Before Christy came, I never thought about how much you manipulate the people around you–it doesn’t feel like manipulation when you do it.”
“The difference is,” I told him, “that I love you and want everyone to be happy. And”–I lifted a finger–“ Iknow what’s best for you.”
“And,” said Adam, “Mercy’s not subtle. When she manipulates you, she wants you to knowyou’ve been manipulated.”
I’d already crossed the living room toward the wing with the bedrooms, but I turned around to stick my tongue out at Adam.
“Don’t point that at me unless you are going to use it,” he said.
I smiled until I was safely out of sight.
The door to the bedroom Warren had indicated was shut, so I knocked.
Kyle opened the door. I’d seen Kyle angry before. But I don’t think I’d ever seen him that angry. Maybe it was because that anger was directed at me.
I slipped through the doorway, though I was pretty sure he’d intended to send me on my way. But I’m really good at sticking my nose in where no one wants it.
The room was one of those bedrooms that builders throw into huge houses because they know the kids aren’t going to get a vote about what house their parents buy. Honey’s house was huge. This bedroom was maybe ten feet by nine feet. Just big enough for a twin bed and a chest of drawers. I hadn’t seen Honey’s suite, but I was sure that it wasn’t ten feet by nine feet.
The bed that someone had tucked Gary into was a queen‑size bed, and that meant there wasn’t room for a chest of drawers of any size and that Kyle and I were very close to each other. If he’d been a werewolf, I’d have been worried.
“So,” Kyle said mildly as he shut the bedroom door. “We’re driving to the bus station in Pasco with the guy who had stopped at my house to look for you. Warren, I want you to know, told me that he was a distant relative of yours. I don’t know if that’s the truth–and at this point, I don’t think I care. But I digress. The important part is that while I’m driving Gary to the bus station, I’m still at the point where I trust that what Warren tells me will be the truth. I’m just begi