Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, #5)

by Patricia Briggs

My mate wouldn’t tell me where he was taking us—leaving it for me to discover his plans by whatever means necessary. It was a sign of his respect that he expected me to be successful.

But it was Mercy. She didn’t look cheerful—but then, she seldom did when she had to come over and talk to him. She was tough and independent and not at all happy to have him interfere in any way with that independence.

“Here,” she said stiffly. And he realized it was shyness that pinched in the corner of her mouth. “Chocolate usually helps me regain my balance when life kicks me in the teeth.”

But it wasn’t the chocolate or the food that made him feel better. It was Mercy’s kindness to someone she viewed as her enemy. And right at that moment, he realized something. She would never love him for what he could do for her.

I’d seen him the moment that I’d become something more than an assignment from the Marrok.

I remembered feeling stupid standing on his back porch with a plate of cookies for a man whose life had just gone down in the flames of a nasty divorce. He hadn’t said anything when he answered the door—so I’d assumed that he’d thought it stupid, too. I’d gone back home as fast as I could without running.

I had had no idea that it had helped. Nor that he saw me as tough and capable. Funny, I’d always thought I...

“Whatever you need,” he said, his body suddenly still as the evening air. “Whatever I can do.”

I relaxed my shoulders, burying my nose against his collarbone, and after a second, the relaxation was genuine. “I love you,” I told him. “And we need to talk about me paying you for that truck.”

“Nothing embarrassing,” I told him. “Just one time when I brought cookies over to you.” His eyes brightened. “I see,” he said, and his shoulders relaxed a bit, even if his cheeks reddened. “I was thinking about that.” “We okay?” I asked him. “I’m sorry I intruded.”

He shook his head. “No apologies necessary. You’re welcome to whatever you pick up.” “So,” I said casually, “your first time was under the bleachers, huh?” He jerked his head up.

“One more month,” he said finally. “And then they—and Samuel, too—will just have to get used to it.” His eyes, the color of bitter dark chocolate, were serious as he leaned forward. “And you will marry me.”

I smiled, showing my teeth. “Don’t you mean, ‘Will you marry me?’

“Your mother is happy that she’ll be able to use some of the stuff from your sister’s wedding that wasn’t.”

“You’re okay with marrying a werewolf who has a teenage daughter and a pack that’s falling apart—and your mother panics you?”

“All the pink balls have kid-sized holes in them,” he told me. “The black balls are the heaviest.”

opened my mouth, but he shut me up with a kiss. “Not here,” he said. “Look next to us.” We were being observed by a boy of about five and a toddler in a frilly pink dress. I raised my nose in the air. “As if I were going to joke about your ball. How juvenile.”

Adam is mostly uninterested in children (other than his own) until they are teenagers or older and, as he told me once, capable of interesting conversation.

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you? What in the hell were you thinking?”

He should have understood sooner. He should understand his mate better than anyone. You shouldn’t have to defend yourself to him. Best not to say anything at all.

I wanted to be myself again instead of this stranger who was afraid of being touched—and who had little voices in her head that made her throw bowling balls at children.

“I’ll send someone over to stand guard.” Because I was the Alpha’s mate. Because he worried about me. Because of Tim. Because of guilt. “No,” he said, taking a step closer to me, telling me the bond was stronger on his side at that moment. “Because I love you.”

But silence had been Adam’s ex-wife’s weapon of choice.

WHEN I ARRIVED AT MY BACK DOOR, BEN WAS PACING back and forth in front of it uneasily. When he saw me, he froze—he’d started realizing something was wrong, but until he saw me, he hadn’t been sure I wasn’t there. His upper lip curled, but he didn’t quite manage a snarl, caught as he was between anger and worry, dominant male protective instincts and the understanding that I was of higher rank.

He would. Ben could be creepy and horrible, but he was almost my friend—shared nightmares do that.

“He tried to kill us,” Samuel said, and my heart stopped, then began to pound painfully in my chest because I’d been wrong about the bowed head. Very wrong. The “he” he was talking about was Samuel—and that meant that “he” was no longer in charge. I was talking to Samuel’s wolf.

“Our father will kill us,” Sam said, his voice slow and thick with Welsh intonation. “I . . . We don’t want to make him do that.” He took a deep breath. “And I don’t want to die.”

“Okay, Sam. No calls to Bran.” I watched out of the corner of my eye as he tilted his head, surveying me. “I can pretend to be human until we get to your car. I thought that would be best, so I held this shape.”

“You know when I’m here. You call me Sam.”

“He’s here, but I cannot let him out. If I do, he’ll never let me get the upper hand again—and then we will die.”

Samuel’s wolf looked wistful . . . or maybe he was just hungry. “No. If I were the problem, if I were ravaging the countryside, she might help. But this is not impulse, not desperation. Samuel just feels that he no longer belongs, that he accomplishes nothing by his existence. Even the Omega cannot fix him.”

“Nothing that won’t heal on its own now. I drew upon your strength to heal enough that no one would know how bad the injuries were.”

He looked directly at me again, then away. “Aren’t we?”

“Pack existed before ceremonies,” Sam said, sounding amused. “Magic binds more obviously, more extensively, but not more deeply.” “Did you mess with my head on my date with Adam?” I couldn’t keep the accusation out of my voice. “No.” He tilted his head, then snarled, “Someone hurt you?” “No,” I said. “It’s nothing.” “Lies,” he said. “Right,” I agreed. “But if it wasn’t you who did it, the incident is something for Adam and me to handle.” He was still a moment. “For now,” he said.

As we moved through the walkway and out the door, Sam kept his eyes on me, and his regard had a weight to it. I didn’t protest. He did it so that no one would see the change in his iris color—but also because when a werewolf as dominant as Samuel meets someone’s gaze with his wolf in the fore, even humans bow their knees. That would be pretty awkward and hard to explain. At this point, we were operating with the hope that it would matter to Samuel that he could come back and practice medicine here again.

He slept on the foot of my bed. When I suggested he might be more comfortable in his room, he regarded me steadily with ice-colored eyes. Where does a werewolf sleep? Anywhere he wants to.

I thought it would bother me, thought it would scare me. It ought to have bothered me. But somehow I couldn’t work up the energy to be too worried about the big wolf curled up on my feet. It was Sam, after all.

Sometimes gray is the color I’m stuck with. “You need some distance from the pack—and me,” Adam said. “I can understand that.” There was a small pause. “I won’t leave you without protection.”

“All right.” There was an awkward pause, and Adam said, “I’m sorry, Mercy. I should have noticed there was something wrong.” He swallowed. “When my ex-wife decided I’d done something she didn’t like, she’d give me the silent treatment. When you did it . . . it threw me.”

“I think that was the point someone was aiming for,” I said dryly, and he laughed. “Yeah. I didn’t stop and consider how unlikely a tactic that was from you,” he agreed. “Sneak attacks, guerilla warfare, but not silence.”

I reached for her, but froze when Sam gave me a look.

“We took her to the fair and she saw the horses—now she climbs on every dog she sees. She almost got bitten by the last one.”

“You spoil them,” she told me in a dismissive tone. “So it is your problem to deal with. You must pay the price.”

“Deine Mutter war ein Cola-Automat!”

“Why is it that all cars are women?” he asked. “Because they’re fussy and demanding,” answered Zee. “Because if they were men, they’d sit around and complain instead of getting the job done,” I told him.

I smiled widely at the bounty hunter, showing my teeth like any good predator.

“We are going home now. And my family will have nothing further to do with you. Because of you, because of your werewolf, my daughter will have nightmares of a man pointing a gun at her. She could have been shot—any of my children could have been shot. I will have a tow truck come to pick up my car.”

I could deal, but Gabriel was seventeen and the man of his family.

“You were supposed to be the Alpha’s eye candy.” Adam laughed. “What?” I asked him. “You don’t think I’d be good eye candy?” I looked down at my overalls and grease-stained hands. I’d torn another nail to the quick. “Honey is eye candy,” said Ben apologetically. “You’re . . . just you.” “Mine,” said Adam, edging between Heart and me. “Mine is what she is.”

“Ah. Would you be so good as to put one or the other on the phone?” “I think,” Adam said carefully, “that it might be a little precipitous to do that.” Another long pause, and Bran’s voice was cooler when he spoke. “I see. Be very careful here, Adam.” “I believe I am,” Adam said. “I can talk to him,” I said, knowing Bran would hear me.