River Marked (Mercy Thompson, #6)

by Patricia Briggs

“She died,” Rachel told me. “Marsilia broke her, and we couldn’t put her back together. I think that was the final straw for Stefan.”

“How did you do that?” “He doesn’t want me to get the cattle prod,” I told her.

“What was that?” asked Darryl, and Stefan gripped my arm harder. I sucked in my breath because Stefan was hurting me—and realized that Darryl had heard that, too.

“That was my lover,” I told Darryl. “Excuse me while I finish getting him off.” And I hung up the phone.

“Your ability to survive anything that gets thrown at you sometimes leaves the rest of us swallowing ulcer medication for days afterward. I don’t like the taste of Maalox.”

“We die during the day,” said Stefan. “But Max was very old. He was capable of all sorts of things, and it would not surprise me to know that he could walk in the day. I only met him once—a long time before Nosferatu. He attended one of the festas of the Master of Milan, the Lord of Night, without invitation. It was odd to see so many powerful people cower before one unwashed, poorly dressed, amazingly ugly man. I saw him kill a two-hundred-year-old vampire with a look—just disintegrated her to dust with one glance because she laughed at him. The Lord of the Night, who was her master, was very old and powerful, even then—and he did not voice an objection though she was the youngest of his get and dear to him.”

I don’t think Warren would let Stefan feed from you if he asked, and you consented. Werewolves are possessive that way.

My nose was good, too, but all it told me was that he’d had a woman sitting next to him on the flight home, because her scent clung to his sleeve.

“Zee wanted to have the honor of giving you away,” said Bran, Samuel’s father, the Marrock who ruled all the wolves anywhere I was likely to ever go, and the Alpha of the Montana-based wolf pack who had raised me. “But I had prior claim.”

“They argued for a good while,” Samuel whispered. “I thought there would be blood on the floor.”

“Before you start feeling overwhelmed by how nice we all are to do this for you, you really should know a few things. It all started with a bet ...” When we lined up in the front of the church, as smoothly as if we’d practiced it, Bran was right: I wasn’t overwhelmed anymore. Nor was I crying.

My mother, the traitor seated in the front row of pews, sent my stepfather up to pin a silk Monarch butterfly on my bouquet. He kissed my cheek, exchanged a nod with Bran, then sat back down at my mother’s side. My mother gave me a delighted smile and looked nothing at all like the nefarious plotter she was.

“Pup,” he said into the sudden silence, “today, I’m giving you one of my treasures. You see that you take proper care of her.”

Adam, not visibly cowed, nodded once. “I’ll do that.” Then the threat of what Bran was disappeared, and he became once more an unremarkable young-looking man in a nicely cut gray tux. “She’ll turn your life upside down.”

“Of course not.” My youngest sister, Ruthie, trotted up with a cookie in one hand. Nan, tall and soft-featured, took after her father; Ruthie was a miniature of Mom. Which meant she was tiny, gorgeous, and pushy. “Dad was appalled at what he’d started. Nan, Mom, and I all were the first to bet, but Bran got in on it pretty early on.”

Nan shook her head. “Some poor man is going to end up with her.”

“He is really, really a hottie. How did you manage that?” “Brat,” I told her, and gave her a hug. “Todd’s not exactly chopped liver.” She smiled smugly and took another sip. “No, he’s not.”

Adam pushed his way through the pack and ruffled Ben’s hair as he went by him. “Behave, Ben.” The Ben I’d first met would have snarled and pulled away from the affectionate scold. This one grinned at me, and said, “Not if I can help it, I won’t,” to Adam.

I liked Ben. But if I catch him alone in a room with Ruthie or Jesse, I will shoot him without hesitation. He’s better than he was when he first came to Adam’s pack, but he’s not safe. Some part of him still hates women, still looks upon us as prey. As long as that is true, he needs watching.

A situation that made them happy and Adam antsy. He liked Gabriel, but Adam was an Alpha werewolf—which put him off-the-scale protective of his daughter.

“I had a talk with Stefan,” said Adam. “Unlike you, my conscience didn’t prevent me from telling him he needed to fill out his menagerie. One of his problems is that he doesn’t want to hunt in his backyard, and he can’t leave his menagerie alone. Ben offered to watch his people, and Warren should leave for Portland tomorrow with Stefan. Anything else?”

Or maybe sex inspires the male of any species to greater lengths.

Mating is a lot more permanent than marriage. Partly, I think, it’s that usually if you find your mate, he’s not going to be someone you need to divorce. Abuse is almost not possible when two people are connected by a mating bond, and it gives you insight into your mate that allows you to avoid the nastier fights that snowball into cold distance.

“I like having you wear my ring,” said Adam, his eyes yellow and gleaming out from under half-opened lids.

“I like that people can just look at you and know that you are taken, that you are mine.” He closed his eyes and laughed.

“You better not take off your ring without a really good reason,” I told him, letting my inner coyote out where he could see her. Maybe he needed to know his possessiveness was returned, in spades. “And if your ex-wife or any moderately attractive woman from thirteen to seventy is in the area, you should be aware that there is no reason good enough for you to take off your ring.”

I nipped his ear lightly. “If it were socially acceptable to tattoo my name across your forehead, I’d do it.” “I only see my forehead when I look in a mirror,” he said. “I see my hand a lot more often.” “It wouldn’t be for you,” I told him. “You know who you belong to. It’s for all the other women. Only fair to warn them when the wrong word might get them hurt. This coyote has fangs.”

“You are too gorgeous, you know?” I said it just loud enough that the people who’d been watching us surreptitiously could hear me. Unholy laughter lit his eyes—telling me he’d been noticing the looks we’d been getting. But his face was completely serious, as he purred, “So. Am I worth what you paid for me, baby?”

I loved it when he played along with me. I sighed again, a sound that I drew up from my toes, a contented, happy sound. I’d get him back for that “baby.” Just see if I didn’t. “Oh, yes,” I told our audience. “I’ll tell Jesse that she was right. Go for the sexy beast, she told me. If you’re going to shell out the money, don’t settle.”

“Best five bucks I ever spent,” I told him fervently.

HE WAS STILL LAUGHING WHEN HE BUCKLED HIS SEAT belt. “It’s a good thing that we don’t live in Hood River,” he said. “I’d never be able to show my face in that restaurant again. Five bucks. Jeez.”

I leaned forward, kissed the white line on his cheek that came out like war paint whenever he clenched his jaw, and said lightly, “All you ever had to do was tell me you had it under control, dear.” I batted my eyes demurely. “I’m just the wife. I don’t have to strain my poor weak brain worrying about the fae because you are here to protect me.”

“He won’t hurt me, Mom.” “Of course not,” she said. “But a man like Adam, if he loses control, he’ll feel terrible. He’ll worry that he might have hurt you. Making him feel horrible isn’t what you want.” She paused, considered what she said, then modified it. “Unless it is useful for him to feel horrible, of course. Mostly, though, I’ve found that isn’t productive. Men who are miserable can be unpredictable.”

“Good,” she said. “Just make sure he doesn’t turn you into the good little wife. You’d manage it for a while—you were the ‘good little daughter’ in my house from the time you moved in until you went to college.”

“But if you try that in a marriage,” she continued, “the marriage will self-destruct eventually, and there will be casualties everywhere you look.” “Adam doesn’t want a good little wife,” I told her. “Of course not,” she said. But she didn’t know Adam that well, and I figured she was just humoring me, until she kept going. “But he was taught how to be a husband when it was assumed that his wife would be a combination cook/housekeeper/mother who would need him to provide and protect her. He knows in his head and his heart that you are an equal, but his instincts were instilled a long time ago. You are going to have to help him with that and be patient with him.”

I couldn’t let him treat me like his first wife. I couldn’t live surrounded by cotton wool.

He is colored like a Siamese cat, though in bluish grays that deepen to near black.

He dropped a second rabbit at my feet and lay down in front of me, nose on his paws and his ears flattened. Nothing says you’re sorry like a dead bunny.

I remembered his first wife. Christy had made him apologize a lot, apologize for thing...

He’d tried to protect me, and I objected.

He’d gotten mad when he thought I was going to get mad at him for not telling me about the trailer. It was his belief that I would get mad about it that had hurt him. I wiggled my hips into a more comfortable position and tried to think like Adam—a very smart person poisoned by testosterone.

know what I said before I took off—but I was provoked. No apologies from me or from you—but I’ll take the rabbit on account. However, if you try that patronizing sh-stuff on me again, not even a fat juicy rabbit is going to stop the fight we’ll have.”

“You don’t know which?” asked Calvin, speaking for the first time—though he’d been watching me since they came ashore. I’d almost forgotten I was naked until I saw his face just before I’d been tossed a woolen blanket. I supposed polite disinterest was too much to ask from everyone. Three out of four wasn’t bad.

“Boy,” he said abruptly to Calvin. “Don’t you make your mother ashamed of her son.” The young man’s mouth tightened, but he looked away from me. A few years ago his regard wouldn’t have bothered me the way it did now. But things had happened since that made me uncomfortable standing nearly naked with four strangers—five if I counted Benny, which I didn’t.

I wouldn’t be caught in the trap of assuming all men were bad—but I wouldn’t have been human if I weren’t wary.

“That was my husband,” I said nonchalantly to the adrenaline-filled air as I opened the backpack and pulled out my jeans. “He’s a werewolf—and Hank was smart enough not to make an issue of handing Benny off to him.”

“You think I bit off his foot? Hell, Marine, I just got married. I have more important things to do.”

“Tell me about the otterkin,” said Adam. “You should feel a kindred spirit with them,” Uncle Mike told him. “They are shapeshifters who can take human form though their true shape is otter. As humans, they tend to resemble someone with severe autism. In the past, it got many burned at the stake.”

“There are seven of them. You could eat them for lunch and be hungry by dinner. They have very little magic of their own though they are clever with what they have, and they cooperate with each other. When there were hundreds of them, they were dangerous. There are otter-shaped fae who are powerful—but they are still back in the Old Country and doing fine.”

“Yo-yo Girl?” I yelped. “Edythe is Yo-yo Girl? Yo-yo Girl sent us here?”