Patricia Briggs - Silver Borne

“ Mamá ,” said Gabriel. “You’re over the top.”

“No,” I told him wearily. “She’s right.” I’d known that I made the wrong choice the moment I heard Maia’s first cry. It hadn’t been Sam—but it might have been. That I’d been sure it was him right up until the moment I saw Kelly Heart with his gun told me that I’d made the wrong choice. I’d endangered Sylvia’s children.

“Zee, would you back her car out of the garage, please?” He bowed his head and turned on his heel. I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me, too, or not. Of course, I was pretty sure he had no idea how much of a risk I’d taken. He wasn’t a wolf, hadn’t lived with the wolves; he wouldn’t know what Sam was.

“Mercy,” said Gabriel, helplessly.

“Go,” I told him. I’d have hugged him, but I thought we’d both cry. I could deal, but Gabriel was seventeen and the man of his family. “ Vaya con Dios .” See, I do know a little Spanish.

“And you also,” he said formally.

And his sister started wailing again. “I want my puppy,” she cried.

“Go,” said his mother.

They left, the girls subdued, following Gabriel, with Sylvia bringing up the rear.

WITH SAM AT HIS HEEL, ADAM CAME INTO THE OFFICE while Sylvia and her family were still in the garage, waiting for Zee to get the Buick out. From Adam’s face I could tell he’d heard every word Sylvia and I had said. He put a hand on my shoulder and kissed my forehead.

“Don’t be nice to me,” I told him. “I screwed up.”

“Not your fault that overeager boy out there came in with guns blazing,” Adam said. “Someone sold him a whole pack of lies. Tony and he are trying to get in touch with his producer, but she’s not answering her phone. I suppose she wanted a big fight on TV. Man versus werewolf.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe he wasn’t my fault. But if it hadn’t been Kelly Heart, it could just as easily have been a vampire or a fae. Neither of which would hesitate to kill Gabriel or one of the girls if they thought they were in the way.”

The hand on my shoulder slipped down and pulled me into a hug. I leaned into it, knowing I was receiving it under false pretenses—I could tell from the way he was acting that he hadn’t realized the full extent of my transgressions yet. Doubtless he’d been too busy to take a good look at Sam—and Sam, miraculously, hadn’t done anything to attract anyone’s attention. Yet. The day was still young.

I breathed in Adam’s scent and took comfort I wasn’t entitled to. Sylvia was right. I was feeling far too sorry for myself, and I wasn’t entitled to that either.

I pulled away and hopped up to sit on the counter next to the gun before I enlightened him—I couldn’t bear it if he were touching me when he decided he didn’t want anything more to do with me. As Sylvia just had.

The sticky black stuff left from where someone in the Dark Ages had taped a piece of paper to the edge of the counter was gone, and I ran my finger over the newly clean spot. She’d left the cookies.

“Mercy?”

I’d betrayed him. For all the good reasons in the world, but I was his mate—and I’d chosen Samuel. I suppose I could have hoped he wouldn’t notice, but that seemed wrong in light of this morning. What if Heart hadn’t come here first? What if he’d run into Adam and shot him? What if he’d gone to Adam’s work or had a photo of him . . . Come to think of it, wasn’t that odd? Adam was out to the public, and his face photographed very well.

Someone hadn’t wanted Heart to know who Adam was.

“Mercy?”

“Sorry,” I told him. “I’m trying to distract myself. You need to look at Samuel.” I picked at a mucky spot on my overalls because I couldn’t meet his eyes.

If Bran wanted Samuel dead, he’d have to go through me to do it, which he could. But I was through lying to Adam, even if only by omission, merely to keep Bran from finding out.

Sam had trotted past both of us and gone to stand in the doorway, looking through the garage. I could hear Maia still crying for her puppy.

“Puppy?” said Adam, sounding amused. Sam turned and looked at him—and Adam froze.

I was well on my way to passing stupid for idiotic. It was only when Adam stilled that I had the sudden thought that it might not have been the best idea to show the Columbia Pack Alpha that he had a problem with Sam in the narrow confines of my office.

It was Sam who growled first. Temper flared in Adam’s face. Sam was more dominant, but he wasn’t Alpha—and Adam was not going to back down in his territory without violence.

I hopped off the counter in between them.

“Settle down, Sam,” I snapped, before I remembered what a bad idea that was.

I kept forgetting—not that Samuel was in trouble; I had no trouble remembering that—but that his wolf was not Samuel. Just because he hadn’t turned into the ravening beast that the only werewolves I’d seen who lost control to their wolf became, did not mean he was safe. My head knew that—but I kept acting as if he were just Samuel. Because he acted just like Samuel would have. Mostly.

Sam sneezed and turned his back to us—and I started breathing again.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized to both of them. “That was a dumb way of doing things.”

I didn’t want to look at Adam. I didn’t want to see if he was angry or hurt or whatever. I’d had just about enough already that day.

And that was a coward’s way out.

So I turned and looked up at him, keeping my gaze on his chin—where I could see his reaction without challenging him by meeting his eyes.

“You are so screwed,” he said thoughtfully.

“I’m sorry I let you think . . .”

“What?” he asked. “That you needed some time away from the pack, from me? When you really wanted to keep any of us from seeing Samuel?”

He sounded reasonable, but I could see the white line along his jaw where he was gritting his teeth and the tension in his neck.

“Yes,” I told him.

Ben boiled into the room—saw our little tableau, and came to an abrupt halt. Adam glanced over his shoulder at him, and Ben flinched and bowed his head.

“I didn’t catch it,” he said. “Her. The fae thing. But she was armed, and she dropped her weapon when she bolted.” He’d been carrying a jacket, and from under it he pulled a rifle that had very little metal on it. If it had been a little prettier, it might have looked like a toy because it was mostly made of plastic.

“Kel-Tec rifle,” said Adam, visibly dragging himself into a businesslike manner. “Built to fire pistol cartridges out of pistol magazines.”

Ben handed it over, and Adam pulled the magazine. Jerking his hand back with a hiss, he dropped it on my counter. “Nine millimeter,” he said. “Silver ammunition.” He looked at me. “I’m pretty sure that was a nine millimeter or a thirty-eight you were holding on Heart.”

The topic of my transgression was not dropped, just set aside for business. I wished we could just get it over with.

“Nine millimeter,” I agreed. “She could have shot someone, and they’d have blamed it on the bounty hunter. How likely is it that someone would have done a ballistics test and noticed one of the bullets didn’t come from the same gun?”

“Someone was supposed to die,” said Ben. “That’s what I think.”

“Agreed,” said Zee from the garage doorway. Samuel moved—a little stiff-legged, but he moved—so Zee could come into the office.

“Ballistics wouldn’t have mattered,” said Zee. “Making one bullet match another is cake if the fae is dealing with silver. Even a few with little magic could handle it. Iron is impossible for most fae to work, lead isn’t much better, but silver . . . Silver accepts magic easily and keeps it.”