Patricia Briggs - Iron Kissed

"I meant what I said, Mercy," Adam told me. "No running. I have to go to Washington and you'd better be here when I get back. Until then, one of my pack will stay with you."

The bed sank heavily under Warren's weight as the huge wolf tucked himself beside me. He licked my face with a rough tongue.

I lifted my head and met Adam's gaze.

He knew. He knew it all and he still wanted me. Maybe he'd change his mind, but I'd known him for a long time and he was as changeable as a boulder. You might move him with a bulldozer, but that was about it.

He nodded once, and was gone.

For a whole day I indulged myself. I slept on my bed with whatever wolf had been sent to stay with me. Whenever I started to have a nightmare, someone was always there. Samuel, Warren, Honey, and Darryl's mate, Aurielle. Samuel dragged one of the kitchen chairs into my room and played his guitar for hours.

The next morning I woke up and knew I had to do something or all this pity and guilt was going to make me go stir crazy. If I let them all treat me like I was broken, then how was I going to convince myself I wasn't?

It was Friday. I should be at work…My lungs froze at the thought of going back into my shop. I breathed my way through the panic attack.

So I wouldn't go to work. Not today at least.

What to do…

I lifted my head to the pile of wolves that were threatening to make my twin bed collapse under their weight and considered my minions. Darryl wouldn't work. He wouldn't twitch without Adam's say-so—and Aurielle wouldn't go against her mate. She opened her eyes to look at me. Like me, both of them should have been at work: Aurielle at her high school and Darryl at his high-price think tank. Neither of them would do for the main project, but for now it didn't matter. Today would be reconnaissance.

It was actually Warren who came with me, shifting to his human form so he could play "walk the coyote" while Darryl and Aurielle stayed at Adam's house to play guardians for Jesse.

"So how far are we going to walk?" Warren asked.

I staggered a few steps, fell on my side, and then dragged myself forward weakly before hopping back up and continuing to walk briskly down the shoulder of the highway.

"If things get that bad, I'll give Kyle a call and tell him he needs to come pick us up," Warren said dryly.

I gave him a canine grin and turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. The Summers' house was a nice two-story house built in the past decade on a two-acre parcel. They had a dog who took one look at me and came at us in a silent rush that stopped dead as soon as Warren growled—or maybe it just smelled the werewolf on him.

I put my nose to the ground and searched for the trail I'd hoped was there. It was summer and just a quarter mile away was the river. Most self-respecting boys would…yes. Here it was.

I'd thought about finding Jacob Summers at home, but it would be hard to explain why I needed to talk to him alone. I wasn't even quite sure what I was going to tell him—or if I was going to say anything at all.

The road continued most of the way to the river, sort of petering out just after it crossed the canal. I found Jacob's favorite place by following his trail. There was a pretty good sized boulder right on the edge of the river.

I hopped on it and stared out at the river, just as Jacob must.

"You aren't thinking of jumping in, are you, Mercy?" Warren asked. "I wasn't much of a swimmer when I was human and matters haven't improved over the years."

I gave him a scornful look, then remembered that Tim had told me to drown myself for love of him.

"Glad to hear it," he said and sat on the rocky shore beside me.

He leaned over and picked up a tangle of fishing line complete with hook and sinker and a couple of old beer cans. He put the hook in the cans. Suddenly he straightened and looked around.

"Do you feel that?" he asked me. "Temperature just dropped about ten degrees. Do you suppose your Fideal friend is about?"

I knew why it was colder. Austin Summers stood beside me and petted me with his cool, dead hand. When I looked up at him, he was just staring at the river, as I had been.

Warren paced back and forth along the shoreline, looking for Fideal, unaware that we'd been joined by someone else.

"Tell my brother." Austin didn't look away from the deep blue water. "Not my parents, they wouldn't understand. They'd rather believe that I committed suicide than hear that I'd succumbed to Tim's magical potion. They get that kind of stuff mixed up with Satanism." He smiled faintly with a hint of contempt in his voice. "But my brother needs to know I didn't abandon him, all right? And you're right. Here is a good place. It's his thinking place."

I leaned into his hand a little.

"Good," he said.

We sat there a long time before he faded away. I lost his scent soon after, but I felt his fingers in my fur until I hopped off the rock and headed back home, with Warren walking beside me, two crumpled beer cans in his hand.

"So did you have something you wanted to do?" Warren asked. "Or did you just want to stare at the river—which you could have done without coming all of this way."

I wagged my tail, but made no effort to answer him any other way.

The next step required me to be human. It took me twenty minutes in the bathroom with the door shut before I managed it. It was stupid, but for some reason I felt more vulnerable as a human than I did as a coyote.

Warren knocked on the door to tell me that he was going home to catch some shut-eye and that Samuel was home for the night.

"Okay," I said.

I could hear the smile in his voice. "You're going to be just fine, girl." He banged his knuckles one more time on the door and left.

I stared at my human face in the mirror and hoped he was right. Life would be simpler as a coyote.

"You wuss," I told myself and got in the shower without warming it up first.

I showered until the water was cold again, which took a while. One of the upgrades Samuel had put in was a huge hot water tank, even though there hadn't been anything wrong with the old one.

With goose bumps on my skin, I braided my hair without looking in the mirror. I'd forgotten to bring in clothes so I wrapped myself in a towel. But the bedroom was empty, and I dressed in peace.

Safely covered in a sweatshirt with a picture of the two-masted sailing vessel, Lady Washington , on the front and black jeans, I headed into the kitchen to look for a newspaper to see when Austin Summer's funeral was going to be—if they hadn't already held it. I figured after the funeral was as good a time as any for Jacob Summers to head for the river.

I found yesterday's newspaper on a counter in the kitchen and made myself a cup of chocolate from the water that was already hot in the teakettle. It was the instant kind, but I didn't feel like doing the work to make the good stuff. So I dumped a handful of stale minimarshmallows on top.

I took the paper and my mug and sat down at the table next to Samuel. Unfolding the paper, I began to read.

"Feeling better?" he said.

Politely I said, "Yes, thank you." And went back to reading, ignoring him when he tugged at my braid.

I'd made the front page. I hadn't expected that. When you run with werewolves and other things that people aren't supposed to know too much about, you get used to fake news. MAN DIES IN MYSTERIOUS FIRE, ARSONIST SOUGHT, or WOMAN FOUND STABBED TO DEATH. Things like that.

LOCAL MECHANIC KILLS RAPIST was just above STUDENT DROWNS IN COLUMBIA. I read my story first. When I finished, I put down the newspaper and took a thoughtful sip of cocoa in which the marshmallows had softened to chewy.

"Now that you can talk, tell me how you are," Samuel said.