Patricia Briggs: Blood Bound

I frowned at him. "Different how?"

"You say that all I did was kneel on the ground while Littleton murdered the hotel maid?"

"That's right."

"I don't remember that," he said, his voice a bare whisper. "I remember the sorcerer brought the woman out, her blood called to me, and I answered it." He licked his lips and the combination of horror and hunger in his eyes made me glance away from him. He continued in a whisper, almost to himself. "Bloodlust has not overcome me in a long, long time."

"Well," I said, not sure if what I had to tell him would help or hurt, "you weren't pretty. Your eyes glowed and you showed some fang. But you didn't do anything to her."

For a moment, a pale reflection of the ruby glow I'd seen in the hotel room gleamed in his irises. "I remember reveling in the woman's blood, painting it on my hands and face. It was still there when I brought you home and I had to wash it off." He closed his eyes. "There is an old ceremony… forbidden now for a long time but I remember …" He shook his head and turned his attention to his hands which he held loosely looped around one knee. " I can taste her still."

Those words hung uncomfortably in the air for a moment before he continued.

"I was lost in the blood"-he said that phrase as if the words belonged together and might mean something more complex than their literal meaning-"when I came to myself, the other vampire was gone. The woman lay as I remember leaving her, and you were unconscious."

He swallowed and then stared at the lightening window, his voice dropped an octave, like the wolves' voices can sometimes. "I couldn't remember what had happened to you."

He reached out and touched my foot, which was the body part nearest him. When he spoke again, his voice was almost normal. "A memory lapse is not inconsistent with bloodlust." His hand moved until it closed carefully around my toes; his skin was cool against mine. "But bloodlust usually only dulls unimportant things. You are important to me, Mercedes. It occurred to me that you were not important to Cory Littleton. And that thought gave me hope while I drove us here."

I was important to Stefan? All I was to him was his mechanic. He'd done a favor for me, and last night I'd returned it in spades. We might possibly be friends-except that I didn't think vampires had friends. I thought about it a moment and realized that Stefan was important to me. If something had happened to him tonight, something permanent, it would have hurt me. Maybe he felt the same way.

"You think he tampered with your memory?" Samuel asked while I was still thinking. He'd scooted closer and slid an arm around my shoulders. It felt good. Too good. I slid forward on the couch, away from Samuel-and Stefan let his hand fall away from my foot as I moved.

Stefan nodded. "Either my memory or Mercy's is obviously wrong. I don't think he could affect Mercy's, even being a sorcerer. That kind of thing just doesn't work on walkers like her, not unless he made a real effort."

Samuel made a hmm sound. "I don't see why he'd want to make Mercy think you were innocent of murder-especially if he thought she was just a coyote." He looked at Stefan who shrugged.

"Walkers were only a threat for a couple of decades, and that centuries ago. Littleton is very new; I would be surprised if he's even heard of anything like Mercy. The demon might know, one never is quite sure what demons know. But the best evidence that Littleton thinks Mercy was nothing more than a coyote is that she is still alive."

Goody for me.

"All right." Samuel rubbed his face. "I'd better call Adam. He needs to get his clean-up crew to the hotel before someone sees the mess and starts shouting werewolf." He raised an eyebrow at Stefan. "Although I suppose we could just tell the police it was a vampire."

It had been less than six months since the werewolves had followed the fae in coming out into the public view. They hadn't told the human population everything, and only those werewolves who chose to do so came out in the open-most of those were in the military, people already separated from the general population. So far we were all holding our breath waiting to see what would come of it, but, so far, there had been none of the rioting that had marked the fae's exposure a few decades earlier.

Part of the quiet reaction was the Marrok's careful planning. Americans feel safe in our modern world. Bran did his best to protect that illusion, presenting his public wolves as victims who took their affliction and bravely used it to protect others. Werewolves, he wanted the public to believe, at least for a while yet, were just people who turned furry under the full moon. The wolves who had come out first were heroes who put their lives on the line to protect the weaker humans. The Marrok, like the fae before him, chose to keep as much of the werewolves' darker aspects as carefully hidden as he could.

But I think most of the credit for the peaceful acceptance of the revelation belongs to the fae. For more than two decades the fae had managed to present themselves as weak, kindly, and gentle-and anyone who has read their Brothers Grimm or Andrew Lang knows just what a feat that is.

No matter what Samuel threatened, his father, the Marrok, would never agree to expose the vampires. There was no way to soft-pedal the fact that vampires fed on humans.

And once people realized there really were monsters, they might just realize that werewolves were monsters, too.

Stefan knew what the Marrok would say as well as Samuel did. He smiled unpleasantly at the werewolf, exposing his fangs. "The mess has been taken care of. I called my mistress before I brought Mercy home. We don't need werewolves to clean up after us." Stefan was usually more polite than that, but he'd had a bad night, too.

"The other vampire gave you false memories," I said to distract the men from their antagonism. "Was that because he was a sorcerer?"

Stefan tilted his head, as if he were embarrassed. "We can do that with humans," he said, which was something I didn't want to know. He saw my reaction and explained, "That means we can leave those we casually feed from alive, Mercedes. Still, humans are one thing, and vampires another. We're not supposed to be able to do it to each other. You don't have to worry, though. No vampire can remake your memory-probably not even one who is a sorcerer."

Relief climbed through me. If I were going to pick things I didn't want a vampire to do to me, messing with my thoughts was very high on the list. I touched my neck.

"That's why you wanted me with you," I sat up straighten "You said he'd done it to another vampire. What did he make the other vampire think he'd done?"

Stefan looked wary… and guilty.

"You knew he'd kill someone, didn't you?" I accused him. "Is that what he did to the other vampire? Make him think he'd killed someone?" The memory of the slow death I hadn't been able to prevent made me clench my fists.

"I didn't know what he would do. But yes, I believed that he had killed before and made my friend think he had done it." He spoke as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. "But I could not act without proof. So more died who should not have."

"You're a vampire," said Samuel. "Don't try to make us believe you care when innocents die."

Stefan met Samuel's eyes. "I have swallowed enough death in years past that more sickens me, but believe as you wish. So many deaths threaten our secrets, werewolf. Even if I cared nothing for any human's death, I would not have wanted so many to die and endanger our secrets."

So many to die?

His sureness that noise wouldn't disturb anyone in the hotel when Littleton had invited us in became suddenly clear. The thing I'd seen kill the woman would not have hesitated to kill as many people as he could. "Who else died tonight?"