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Warren usually retreated from the frowns of others or ignored them. Kyle was a different kettle of fish entirely. He believed in making the bastards squirm.
Werewolves don’t have jails. The people who break their laws are either punished physically or killed.
‘You risked too much, Mercy,’ said Warren, turning back to me. ‘How do you think I’d feel if I lost both of you?’ All the anger left him suddenly, leaving only misery behind.
‘Odd how you showing up let him back down. Just as if Adam’s second were there – or his mate.’ ‘I’m not pack,’ I said shortly. ‘I’m not dating Adam.
‘Adam’s staked his claim on you before his pack. Did you know that?’ I hadn’t. It made me suck in an angry breath before I realized why he might have done that. ‘He had to keep his pack from killing me somehow.
somebody has to ask me before he can claim me for a mate.’ Samuel laughed, but there was no amusement in it. ‘You can think as you please.
Her imitation of a human was very close, but not quite close enough to be real – and that small difference was giving me the creeps.
She wasn’t stupid; she knew I was not Adam’s mate, no matter that he’d claimed me before the pack. I was not werewolf, not pack, not her dominant, and she could not listen to me and keep her place.
I raised my head too soon and had to put it back down. Adam rested his hand on the top of my head, then moved away.
but you made the right choice.’ It shouldn’t have made me feel good – but I’m as much a sucker for a pat on the back as the next woman.
He turned back to me. ‘But you have his scent all over your van, and he has a picture of you in his bedroom.’ Samuel gave me a sharp look. ‘In his bedroom?’
I wasn’t sure he was hearing me anyway, but I wanted to soothe him rather than rile him.
His head dropped forward until his face was buried between my shoulder and my neck.
‘Mercy?’ she said in a small voice. ‘When he starts coming out of it, he’s …’ ‘Pretty scary?’ I patted her hand.
‘What did you expect when he’s helpless in the hands of his enemies?’ I said reasonably. ‘He’s trying to defend you as best he can. It takes a tremendous amount of will to overcome the stuff they’ve been pumping into him. You can’t expect the results to be pretty.’
After the third swallow, he opened his eyes, and they were night-dark velvet. He reached up and grasped Jesse’s hand where it lay on his shoulder, but his eyes were on me. ‘Mercy,’ he mumbled. ‘What the hell did you do to my French Roast?’
‘Will he be okay?’ Jesse’s voice shook. ‘He’s tough,’ I told her, hoping she wouldn’t notice I hadn’t answered the question.
Adam didn’t look away from me, though he flinched subtly at the sound of Shawn’s voice. His blazing gold eyes held mine, somehow hot and icy at the same time. I should have looked away – but it didn’t seem like a dominance contest. It felt like he was using my eyes to pull himself up from wherever the drugs had forced him. I tried not to blink and break the spell. ‘Mercy?’ His voice was a hoarse whisper.
He closed his yellow eyes, and momentarily I felt cut adrift and abandoned until I realized he was still holding my wrist as if he were afraid I’d leave if he let go.
He might have sounded calm, but his scent and the compulsive way he was holding on to my wrist contradicted his apparent control.
‘So,’ he said, as I finished the last bit, ‘I’m forgiven?’ ‘You are arrogant and overstep your bounds,’ I told him, pointing my cleaned fork at him. ‘I try,’ he said with false modesty.
I thumped my hands down on the table and leaned forward. ‘That is not fair. I’ll eat your dessert and like it – but you can’t use sex to keep me from getting mad.’ He laughed, one of those soft laughs that start in the belly and rise up through the chest: a relaxed, happy sort of laugh.
‘Honey,’ he drawled, pulling on his Southern roots. ‘When a wolf watches a lamb, he’s not thinking about the lamb’s mommy.’ I grinned. I couldn’t help it. The idea of Bran as a lamb’s mommy was too funny. ‘I’m not much of a lamb,’ I said. He just smiled.
His lips were soft as they feathered over mine tentatively until I leaned against the pressure of his hands, trying to get closer. Then he laughed, a low, chest-deep sound, and really kissed me.
When he drew away from me, I left my hand on his cheek, enjoying the faint scratchiness of his beard and the pounding of my heart. Silence grew between us, silence and something tentative and new.
He hadn’t been happy when I left, but I refused to let guilt decide who I would date.
