Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, #5)

by Patricia Briggs

“I meant to thank you for Samuel,” Bran said. I shook my head. “It wasn’t me. It was Ariana—have you seen them together? Aren’t they cute?”

She wasn’t quite up to bearing a pack of werewolves celebrating madly. Samuel had talked about her for twenty minutes, though. Ariana hadn’t managed to touch Samuel when he was a wolf—yet, Samuel had told me. But she didn’t have any trouble with Samuel the man, and she didn’t have panic attacks around any of the werewolves—as long as they were calm and approached her one at a time in human form. She’d just needed a reason to work on her phobias, he’d explained with great pride.

“Zee had no trouble freeing the forest lord from his chains. He’s a charming fellow, by the way, very gracious as well as powerful. She kidnapped him from his own place in northern California about a year, year and a half ago. His wife and family were very glad to hear that he’ll be coming home soon. Daphne, the fairy queen, apparently visited the reservation and decided this would be a good place to roost. She enthralled a nasty witch and used her to grab the forest lord—because she didn’t have enough power to enthrall him.”

His mother wasn’t happy with his doing that, so he was living at Adam’s house. In the basement—as far from Jesse’s bedroom as Adam could manage.

I gave it a thoughtful look. “You’ve seen it?” “It was sitting on the couch in Adam’s basement,” he said. “When I picked it up—suddenly all my efforts bore fruit at last, and I found you among the pack bonds as if you had never been missing.”

He smelled of need and impatience.

“If you want to make it to Warren’s,” he said, his voice almost guttural, “you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself.”

There is something incredibly arousing about being wanted. I pulled my hand back and sucked in a deep breath. “Adam,” I said.

“If you don’t want this,” he told me, as he had since the . . . incident with Tim, “you can say no.”

“A month,” he said. “And neither Zee nor any of the fae we knew could tell us if we’d ever get you back. Samuel’s woman couldn’t find you—everything you had burned up in the fire. Neither the van nor the Rabbit worked as a close enough tie. She tried to approach me to see if she could use me, but she couldn’t even walk into the same room as me—not half-crazed as I was. Touching me was out of the question. I thought I had lost you.”

“Our bond was broken, and I couldn’t tell if you’d done it on purpose, if the queen had managed it—or if you were dead. We could feel you in the pack bonds, but that’s been known to happen when people die. Bran came and he couldn’t find you either. Then yesterday, Darryl was feeding us lunch and dropped the pan on the floor.”

I’d heard about that already, from various people, but I didn’t interrupt. “Darryl thought someone was messing with Auriele, and stormed halfway up the stairs—only to be met by Auriele, who was worried about him for the same reason. That’s when Bran came up from the basement and said . . .” He stopped speaking. “He said, ‘I’ve done the hard part, Alpha. Now tell us where your mate is,’ ” I said. “And he was holding the walking stick in his hand.”

“And there you were,” Adam told me. “Inside of me, just w...

The heat of his skin felt precious to me, his hot amber eyes feeding the fires in my heart—and my body.

But I didn’t feel the cold, not while I could feel the force of Adam’s need roaring like a welding torch.

“I can’t be gentle. I know . . . I know you need care, and I can’t do that right now.” He pulled open the door. “I’ve got to go. I’ll send—”

“If you leave me naked and waiting on the bed without making love to me, I’ll—” I didn’t get to finish the threat. I think it was the word “naked,” though maybe it was “bed,” but before I finished my sentence, he was on me.

He was right; he wasn...

He rose over me, closing his golden eyes as he pushed through me, into me, became a part of me with one heavy thrust. Only when he was all the way in did he look at me again, and in that look was triumph and a claiming so basic that it should have scared me. “Mine,” he said, rocking his hips against my own in a move that was more about possession than passion.

I raised my chin and held his eyes in a challenge only I could make without consequences. I tightened my belly and dug my heels into the mattress to give my own thrust power. “Mine,” I said. Adam’s wolf smiled at me and nipped my shoulder. “I can live with that,” he said. And then he demonstrated what that possession would mean when it involved an Alpha werewolf who knew how to be patient and thorough when hunting coyotes.

I DREAMED I WALKED IN THE SNOW, BUT I WASN’T AFRAID. There was a thick golden rope wrapped securely around me. It was free of fray or knot and led me into the forest, lighting my way with its bright warmth. I followed it with a light heart and the humming anticipation of finding something wonderful. At last I came to the end of the rope and a blue-gray wolf with golden eyes. “Hello, Adam,” I told him.

I wouldn’t lie to him.

Darryl didn’t crack a smile, though it would have been obvious to him what we’d been doing, even if he’d been a human and didn’t have the nose of a wolf. Instead, both he and Auriele had observed us with a satisfaction I found a little disconcerting. I was glad when they’d left us.

“You’ve changed,” she told him, relaxing a little. “She contents your wolf.”