Patricia Briggs - Iron Kissed

"It only protected him from his enemies," I told Warren's shirt. "I wasn't his enemy because he told me not to be."

A storm of police sirens was brewing up outside.

"All right," Nemane said. "You may have the bracelets to explain how a human killed O'Donnell. And the cup. Adam Hauptman, Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack, you will take possession of them on your honor and return them to Uncle Mike when they are of no further use."

"Samuel," said Warren, and I realized I was starting to shiver helplessly.

"She needs to sleep," Nemane told them.

Adam knelt beside us and looked me in the eye. "Mercedes, go to sleep."

I was too tired to fight the compulsion, even if I had wanted to.

I woke up with the smell of Adam in my nose and my stomach cramping. I didn't have time to wonder about my surroundings. I dove off the bed and made it to the bathroom just in time to throw up in the toilet.

Fairy brew tastes a lot worse the second time around.

Gentle hands pulled my hair out of the way—though it was too late for that—and wiped my face with a damp washcloth. Someone had put a pair of underwear and one of Adam's T-shirts on me.

"At least you made it to the loo this time," Ben said prosaically. And then, just so I could be absolutely sure it was really him and not some kinder, nicer clone, he said, without affection, "Good thing, too. We are almost out of sheets."

"Happy to oblige," I managed before heaving up some more—so hard it came burning out my nose as well as my mouth. By the time I finished, I'd have been crying on the floor if the idea of doing that in front of Ben hadn't been so repugnant.

He waited until it became apparent that getting to the bathroom was as good as I was going to manage before he sighed and heaved me up with more effort than I knew he felt. He was a werewolf; he could probably pick up a piano. My weight wasn't enough to make him sweat.

He tucked me back in the sheets with surprising efficiency. "The fae told us you'd sleep a lot for a while. The vomiting surprised her, though. Probably something to do with your resistance to magic and how much of the stuff you had. Best thing for you is sleep." He paused. "Unless you're hungry."

I turned my head out from the pillow far enough that he could see my face.

He smirked. "Yeah, well, I'm not excited about cleaning up another mess either."

It was still dark out the next time I woke up so it wasn't too much later. I lay unmoving as long as I could. I knew Ben was still in the room and I didn't want to attract his attention. I didn't want anyone to look at me.

Without nausea to distract me, the events of the evening, those that I remembered clearly anyway, rolled through my head like an Ed Wood movie: so horrible that you can't force yourself to stop watching. Worse, I could smell it on me. The fairy liquor, blood…and Tim. The worst was knowing what I had done…and what I hadn't.

In the end, I crawled out of bed and slunk on my hands and knees to the bathroom door. I kept my eyes lowered so Ben would know that I understood what I'd done.

He got to the door before me and held it open. I hesitated. Protocol would have me roll over and give him my throat and underbelly…but I couldn't stand to be that vulnerable again. Not right now. Maybe if it were Adam.

"Poor little bitch," he said softly. "Go get cleaned up. I'll keep the villains at bay for that long."

He shut the door behind me.

I stood on shaky feet and turned the water to hot. I stripped off the clothing and scrubbed and scrubbed, but I couldn't get rid of the smells. Finally I came out and searched through Adam's cabinets. I found three bottles of cologne, but none of them smelled like him.

Finally I splashed his aftershave on instead. It burned on the healing cuts and scrapes I'd picked up off the cement floor of the garage, but it covered up Tim's scent at last.

I couldn't put on the clothes I'd just taken off because they still smelled like…everything. Even though the shirt smelled only of Adam and the underwear was a clean pair of mine and I was pretty sure that someone had scrubbed me up before they put me in them since I remember being covered with blood…

As soon as the thought occurred, I remembered standing in Adam's shower and Honey's voice in my ear. You'll be fine. Let me just get this stuff off you —

I began to hyperventilate so I grabbed a towel and breathed through it until the panicky feeling went away.

So, no clothes, and I couldn't stay in here much longer before someone came in to check.

No one would ask the coyote questions she couldn't answer.

For a frightening moment I wasn't sure I could shift, when shifting had always been second nature.

You need to stay human, Mercy. We're in the hospital and you need to stay with us just a little longer . Samuel's voice.

I didn't care about police and this wasn't the hospital. Fur slid over my skin at last and my fingernails turned to claws. It took longer than it ever had, but in the end I stood on four paws. I whined to myself because I still didn't want to go out.

The door opened before I could figure out any alternative, which was just as well as there were no good hiding places in the bathroom—not even for a coyote.

Ben sniffed. "Aftershave? Good enough. Someone had time to run some sheets through the wash, and I put them on the bed. So the sheets are clean."

I realized I was looking up into his face and dropped my gaze and tucked my tail.

"Like that, eh?" he said. "Mercy…" He sighed. "Never mind. Come on, then. Get back to bed."

I didn't need to sleep, but I curled up in the clean sheets and waited for Ben to leave so I could go…somewhere. I couldn't go home because Samuel was there and he knew.

Everyone knew and Tim was right: I was going to be alone.

I should go swimming …but that wasn't right. My foster father had done that. No, I would never kill myself, never do to someone else what he had done to me.

After a while the door opened and Adam came in. He must not have had time to wash properly, because he still smelled faintly of Tim's blood and the stuff Tim had made me drink. I'd thrown up on him, I remembered with regrettable clarity.

"Zee's being released as soon as they can get the paperwork through," Adam said. He must have been talking to Ben because I was pretending very hard to be asleep. He didn't say anything more for a minute, as if he were waiting for some response. Then he sighed. "I'm going to shower. When I come out, you can take a break."

Ben waited for the shower to start before he began talking. "I don't know how much you remember. That fae, Nemane, was going to take her fairy things and leave before the police got there, but Adam thought that her part of the story was necessary to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gremlin was innocent. And that you had reason to kill Tim. So he showed her the video the security cameras caught and she changed her mind and gave us a couple of things to prove your innocence. She was very impressed that you fought your way free of the goblet's influence."

I pulled my tail tighter over my face. I hadn't fought, not until the very last. I'd let Tim…I'd wanted him. For a moment I felt the pull of his beauty, just as I had then.

"Shh," Ben said with a nervous look at the bathroom. "You have to be quiet. He's on edge right now and we don't want to send him over."

I didn't want to hear any more. Zee was free. Tomorrow I'd be very happy for it. He could take the shop back in lieu of my payment. I'd find somewhere else to go. Mexico, maybe. They had lots of Volkswagens in Mexico. Lots of coyotes, too. Maybe I'd just stay a coyote.

Unaffected by my attitude, Ben continued. "Turns out your Tim killed his best buddy yesterday before you went to his house. At least that's what we think." Even in my current state I realized that his speech was missing its usual heavy dosing of foul language. Maybe he was worried about Adam, who disapproved of swearing in front of women. I lost my curiosity about it, though, when I understood what he was saying. "Austin Summers walked into the river and drowned himself. Some old man saw him do it and said he was smiling. He tried to save him, but Austin just kept swimming and then dove. Never came up. They found his body a few miles downstream. No one knew why until the fae showed them how the cup worked and they watched the video. It was nice of Timmy-boy to confess."