Patricia Briggs - Iron Kissed

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When her former boss and mentor is arrested for murder and left to rot behind bars by his own kind, it's up to shapeshifting car mechanic Mercy Thompson to clear his name, whether he wants her to or not. And she'll have to choose between the two werewolves in her life-whether she wants to or not.

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Austin knew too much, I thought. He must have known something about the artifacts, and once Tim learned that I knew about them, and might have told other people, Austin was too much of a liability. It hadn't been all my fault, though.

Tim was jealous of Austin and hated him for being so good at everything. He would have killed Austin sooner or later. It wasn't my fault. Not completely.

Ben pulled the edge of the blanket over me and sat on the edge of the mattress. "We showed the cops the video, too. Don't worry, your change was off camera. No one knows you're a coyote. Adam also picked the camera shots that didn't show any of us werewolves except for him. He's pretty fast with that computer of his." I heard professional approval in his voice: Ben was employed as a hotshot computer geek and he was apparently good at his job.

"Adam was going to go with the police anyway," he continued. "He had to since Nemane put him in charge of the artifacts—but the police were kinda freaked out about the condition of old Tim's body. There was no danger they'd keep him—not with the clear evidence that you killed him. But Adam didn't fuss. Truth to tell, I think that Adam was freaked, too. They, ah" — a sudden, satisfied smile was in his voice—" requested very nicely that he come with them to the police station with the video. Warren went, too, just in case the police decided to give Adam a bad time. All in all, it's a good thing that Tim was already dead when we happened on the scene, or Adam might have been kept more than a few hours."

"Not so," Adam said from the bathroom. He turned off the shower. "I'd rather have gotten there a lot sooner and taken the consequences with the police."

Ben stilled on the bed, but when Adam didn't say any more, he relaxed a little.

I shouldn't have taken Tim to my garage. Surely I could have figured out some other way. I'd been running to Adam for help again, just as if I hadn't brought Fideal to his door yesterday and endangered his home, his pack, and his daughter. If it hadn't been for Peter, Honey's sword-wielding husband, they might not have been able to drive him off. Adam might have been killed.

If Adam had been closer to my shop when I used my birthday on the keypad to call for help, if he'd killed Tim…I hadn't even considered the risks. I'd just known that Adam would come and save me from my own stupidity. Again.

Adam came out of the bathroom dressed in clean jeans and nothing else, rubbing his short-cropped hair with a towel. He dropped it on the floor and knelt beside the bed. Ben slipped off and went to stand by the window.

Adam's face was drawn with worry and weariness.

"I'm sorry," he said tiredly. "I'm so sorry that I forced you. I told you I'd try not to do that and I broke my word."

He reached out to touch me and I couldn't bear it. Couldn't bear that he'd apologize to me when I'd endangered him. When I'd betrayed him.

I slid out from under his hand before he could touch me and cowered on the far side of the bed. His face was very still as he let his hand drop to his side.

"I see," he said. "I'm sorry, Ben, you'll have to stay here a few more minutes. I'll find Warren and send him up."

"Don't be stupid, Adam."

Adam came to his feet and took two long strides to the door. "She's afraid of me. I'll send someone else up."

He shut the door very quietly behind him.

Ben stood in the middle of the room and used all the words he'd left out when he'd been speaking to me earlier. With a jerky motion, he pulled his cell phone out of the front pocket of his jeans and hit a button.

"Warren," he said, his voice tight, "would you tell our lord and master to get his arse back up here? I have a few things to tell him."

He closed his phone without waiting for an answer and began to pace restlessly back and forth muttering swearwords to himself. He'd begun to sweat and it smelled of anxiety and anger.

The door swung open and Adam loomed in the open doorway. He was so angry I came to my feet.

"Come in and shut the door," Ben said harshly, in a voice he really shouldn't have used to his Alpha.

Without glancing in my direction, Adam came in and shut the door with awful precision that was a strong indication of how close he was to losing control—if the way the brass doorknob deformed in his hand hadn't already been a clue.

As Adam walked to the middle of the room, I sank on the bed, not so much lying down as gathering my feet underneath me in preparation for running.

Ben didn't seem to notice how much trouble he was in. Or maybe he didn't care. "How much do you want her?" Unable to meet Adam's hot glare, he turned and stared out the window. "Do you want her enough to put aside your worries and hurt?"

There was something in Ben's voice…Adam heard it, too. He didn't exactly cool down, but he was paying attention. A different Alpha, one less sure of himself, would have already put Ben in his place.

Ben hadn't paused as he continued to talk in a quick, nervous voice. "If you handle this right, tomorrow, next week…she's probably going to be all pissy by then about how you forced her to drink that fairy shit. She'll take off a door from that old car out there—that old car that makes sure you always think about her even when you're cursing at her for spoiling your view." He looked at me and I dropped my ears. Adam's eyes weren't the only ones that had gone wolf. Before I could back away from him, Ben turned his attention to Adam.

As if they were equals, Ben took two steps forward and I saw that he was actually taller than Adam. "An hour and a half ago she was still puking that fairy shit that you and Mr. Wonderful poured down her throat. You heard Nemane. She said it would be a while before the effects wore off completely. And you are still holding her responsible for what she does."

Adam growled, but I could tell he was trying to hold on to his control and listen. After a moment he asked, "What do you mean?" in a fairly civilized voice.

"You're treating her like a rational being and she's still off in Fairyland." Ben was breathing hard and that stink of fear was growing—making it more difficult for Adam to control himself. But that didn't slow Ben down. "Do you love her?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation in his voice. None at all. And yet he'd seen…he must not have seen, must not have realized…

"Then put aside your goddamned self-loathing and look at her."

Golden eyes settled on me, and unable to meet Adam's gaze, I turned my own eyes to the wall as my stomach twisted uneasily.

"She's afraid of me."

"That stupid bitch has never had the brains to be afraid of you, me, or anyone else," Ben snapped with more force than truth. "Forget yourself and take another fucking look. You're supposed to be able to read body posture."

I didn't see it, but I heard Adam quit breathing for a moment.

"Damn," he said in an arrested voice.

"She crawled," Ben said. There were tears in his voice. That was wrong. Ben barely even tolerated me on the best of days. "She crawled to the bathroom to clean herself again. If it weren't for the two subs in the pack, I'd be on the bottom. And she wouldn't stand up in my presence for guilt."

Unable to take the scrutiny anymore, I slunk off the bed entirely and hid between the wall and the mattress.

"No, wait. Leave her alone for a minute and listen to me. She's safe enough there."

"I'm listening." All that anger had been swallowed until the only emotion I could smell in the room was Ben's.

"A rape victim…a rape victim who fights…They've been violated, made helpless and afraid. It breaks their confidence in the safety of their little world. It makes them afraid." Terror and anger and something else pushed Ben until he paced all the way to the bathroom and then back to the bed in quick, frantic steps.

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