Patricia Briggs - Iron Kissed

A werewolf whose mate is unfaithful is seen as weak. If it is the Alpha…well, I knew that there had been one Alpha whose mate had slept around, but she did it with his permission. By not accepting Adam, I had already weakened him. If his pack knew that Tim had…that I'd let Tim…

Adam dropped his arm, freeing Darryl. "Did you hear that?"

I'd quit whining as soon as I realized I was making noise. But it was too late.

"It came from over there," said Honey. She stepped over a few pieces of Tim on her way to my side of the garage, followed by Darryl and Ben. Adam stayed where he was, his back to me, his hands braced shoulder high against the wall.

So it was him that the fae attacked when she came through my office door.

Nemane looked very little like the woman who had come to my office with Tony. Her dark hair glowed with silver and red highlights and floated about her as if held away from her body by the power of her magic. She blasted Adam with a wave of magic that knocked him halfway across the garage to land flat on his back in a puddle of dark blood. He rolled to his feet as soon as he hit and went for her.

War, I thought. If he killed her or she him, it would be war.

I was off my shelf and sprinting as fast as my three legs could manage before the thought had completed itself.

Though there was no uncertainty in his movement, she must have hurt him because I reached her before he did.

I shifted so I could talk, but I didn't get a chance because Adam hit me like a football player, his shoulder in my stomach. I don't think he meant to hit me, because he rolled under me, jerking me down with him. I never hit the ground.

Diaphragm spasming, I sprawled all over him in an awkward position that left one of my knees in his armpit and my good arm caught under his opposite shoulder. In another instant he was on his feet and I was cradled against him, all three of the other werewolves between us and the enraged fae.

I tried to talk, but he'd knocked the wind out of me.

"Shh," Adam said, never taking his eyes off the enemy. "Shh, Mercy. You'll be all right now. I've got you safe."

I swallowed against the bleak sorrow. He was wrong. I would always be alone now. Tim had told me so. He had had me, and now I would be alone forever. No, not forever because there was the river flowing nearby, almost a mile wide and so deep that it could appear black. My shop was close enough that sometimes I could catch a scent of the water from the Columbia.

Thoughts of the river calmed me, and I could think a little better.

The werewolves were waiting for Nemane to attack again. I don't know why Nemane waited, but the pause gave me a chance to talk before anyone got hurt.

"Wait," I said, getting my wind back. "Wait. Adam, this is Nemane, the fae who was sent here to deal with the guard's death."

"The one who was willing to let Zee die rather than find the real murderer?" He lifted his upper lip in contempt as he spoke.

"Adam?" Nemane said coolly. "As in Adam Hauptman? What is the werewolf Alpha doing with our stolen property?"

"They came to help me," I said.

"And who are you?" She cocked her head to the side and I realized that I didn't sound like myself. My voice was hoarse, as if I'd been smoking for a dozen years—or screaming all night. And Nemane was blind.

"Mercedes Thompson," I said.

"Coyote," she said. "What mischief have you been making tonight?" She took a step forward, into the room, and all the werewolves stiffened. "And whose blood is feeding the night?"

"I found your murderer," I told her tiredly, resting my face against Adam's bare skin. His scent washed over me in a falsely comforting wave: he didn't love me. I was so weary that I accepted the comfort while I could. I would be alone soon enough. "And he brought his own death upon himself."

The tension in the air went down noticeably as Nemane's magic quit scenting the air. But the wolves waited for Adam to tell them the danger was over.

"Darryl, call Samuel and see if he can come," Adam said quietly. "Then call Mercy's policeman. Honey, there's a blanket and some spare clothes in the back of the truck. Fetch them."

"Should we call Warren, too?" asked Ben, looking away from Nemane so he could see Adam, but his eyes stopped on my arm. "Bloody hell. Look at her wrist."

I didn't want to, so I watched Nemane, because she was the only one who didn't look horrified. It takes a bit to horrify a werewolf. I'd certainly never managed it before.

"It's crushed," said Nemane, in her cool professorial voice. "And her arm broken above it, too."

"How can you tell that?" said Honey, returning with the blankets and clothes. "You're blind."

The fae smiled. Not a happy expression. "There are other ways of seeing."

"How can they fix that?" said Ben, looking at my arm. He sounded a lot more shaken up than I expected from Ben. Werewolves are used to violence and its results.

Nemane walked past Adam like a wolf on a scent. She bent and picked up the druid horse's skin. It must have fallen off Tim when Adam ripped him to pieces.

Those pieces might haunt my dreams for a good long time, but I was too numb to be horrified by them now.

Nemane caressed the cloak and shook her head. "No wonder we couldn't find him. Here, this is what she needs." She'd found the goblet where it had rolled under my tool chest.

"What is that?" asked Adam.

"Orfino's Bane, it was once called, Huon's cup, or Manannan's gift. It has a few uses and one of those is healing."

"That's not what it does," I told Adam in a horrified whisper.

Nemane looked at me.

"He made her drink from it," Adam said. "I thought it contained some kind of drug—but it's fairy magic?"

She nodded. "In the hands of a human thief, it allows him to enslave another, given as a gift it will heal as well, and in the hands of the fae it will testify to truth."

"I won't drink it," I told Adam's shoulder, shifting in his arms until I'd gotten as far from the cup as I could.

"It will heal her?" he asked.

We all heard a car drive up.

"It's one of mine," Adam said—I assumed he was talking to the fae because the rest of us could all recognize the sound of Samuel's car. To get here so fast he must have come from work. The hospital was only a few blocks away. "He's a doctor. I'd like to get his opinion."

When he came in, Samuel's single, awed swearword took in the whole garage: bits of Tim scattered wherever Adam had deposited them, blood all over the place, a couple of naked people (Adam and I), and Nemane in her full fae glory.

"I need you to check out Mercy's arm," Adam said.

I didn't want him to touch it. It was numb right now, but I knew that could change at any time. It looked more like a pretzel than an arm, bending in places that it shouldn't. It had been working when we came into the office. Sort of. Tim must have damaged it more while I was killing him.

No one cared what I wanted.

At first Samuel just knelt so he could look at it lying across my thighs. He whistled between his teeth. "You need to pick out new friends, Mercy. The crowd you hang out with is awfully hard on you. If things keep going this way, you're going to be dead before the year is out."

He was so relentlessly cheerful, I knew it was bad. His hands were light on my arm, but the searing pain made odd flashes of light dance in front of my eyes. If Adam hadn't been holding me, I'd have jerked away, but he held me steady, murmuring soft, comforting things I couldn't hear over the buzzing in my ears.

"Samuel?" It was Ben who asked, his voice sharp and clear.

Samuel quit touching my arm and stood up. "Her arm feels like a tube of toothpaste filled with marbles. I don't think it's something that can be tacked back together with a hundred pins or bolts."