Iron Kissed (28 page)

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in his voice. None at all. And yet he'd seen…he must not have seen, must not have realized…

“Then put aside your
goddamned
self-loathing and look at her.”

Golden eyes settled on me, and unable to meet Adam's gaze, I turned my own eyes to the wall as my stomach twisted uneasily.

“She's afraid of me.”

“That stupid bitch has never had the brains to be afraid of you, me, or anyone else,” Ben snapped with more force than truth. “Forget yourself and take another fucking look. You're supposed to be able to read body posture.”

I didn't see it, but I heard Adam quit breathing for a moment.

“Damn,” he said in an arrested voice.

“She crawled,” Ben said. There were tears in his voice. That was wrong. Ben barely even tolerated me on the best of days. “She crawled to the bathroom to clean herself again. If it weren't for the two subs in the pack, I'd be on the bottom. And
she
wouldn't stand up in my presence for guilt.”

Unable to take the scrutiny anymore, I slunk off the bed entirely and hid between the wall and the mattress.

“No, wait. Leave her alone for a minute and listen to me. She's safe enough there.”

“I'm listening.” All that anger had been swallowed until the only emotion I could smell in the room was Ben's.

“A rape victim…a rape victim who fights…They've been violated, made helpless and afraid. It breaks their confidence in the safety of their little world. It makes them afraid.” Terror and anger and something else pushed Ben until he paced all the way to the bathroom and then back to the bed in quick, frantic steps.

“All right,” agreed Adam in a gentle voice, as if he understood something I'd missed. Not surprising. After Ben pointed it out, I realized that I wasn't exactly firing on all four cylinders.

“If—if you don't fight. If the rapist is someone you're supposed to obey so you can't fight or don't think you can fight or they've drugged you so you…” Ben stuttered to a halt and then swore. “I'm making a muddle of this.”

“I understand.” Adam's voice was a caress.

“Fine then.” Ben stopped pacing. “Fine. If you don't fight, it's not quite the same. If they make you help, make you cooperate, then it's not clear to you anymore. Is it rape? You feel dirty, violated, and guilty. Most of all guilty because you should have fought. Especially if you're Mercy and you fight everything.” Ben's breathing was rough, his voice pleading. “You've got to see it from her point of view.”

I crawled all the way under the bed until, still hidden in a fall of blankets, I could see their faces.

“Tell me.”

“Samuel told you…told us that she'd flirted with that one. She hadn't meant to, but you don't always see it until it happens. Right?”

“Right,” Adam agreed.

“Samuel said he told her that she better not do that in front of you.”

He waited for Adam's nod to continue. “But she needs to help her friend and that means going to this man's house. It's all right, though, because there will be a lot of other people and she won't flirt because she knows that it's a danger. And she doesn't flirt. She behaves just like an interested guest—which is going to piss him off at her.”

“How do you know she didn't flirt?” Adam asked, then in response to something I hadn't caught, he moved a hand in a negating manner. “No, I don't doubt you. But how do you know?”

“It's Mercy,” Ben said simply. “She wouldn't know how to betray someone she cared about. Once she noticed, she'd stop and not start again.”

He kept his gaze on Adam's face, but his head was canted so he was looking up into the Alpha's eyes rather than challenging him. “But she knows that she's skirting the line. She knows that you wouldn't like it that she went to his house…not that she's done anything wrong…but it feels that way.” He started pacing again, but he'd calmed down. Now that he was talking about me. “I don't know why she went back again. Maybe he tells her that he knows who killed Zee, or that he knows something about O'Donnell or the stuff that was stolen. He would know, wouldn't he? He lured her to his house because he thought she posed a danger to him—or maybe just because he knew she had that damned walking stick that followed her around and he wanted it. Or maybe he just wanted to get even with her for rejecting him.”

“Right.”

“Right. So she knows that you won't like it if she goes back. She knows that you'll be all territorial about her going to a man's home even if she's just trying to keep Zee safe. Did you know that until a couple of days ago, she thought that your declaring her your mate was just politics? Just a way to keep her safe from the pack?”

There was a little silence.

“Honey told me that last night. She explained to Mercy that it was a little more. So Mercy learned more than you intended her to.”

“Pressure makes her run in the other direction,” Adam said dryly. “I thought I'd wait to explain until matters became critical.”

“So she knows that it's more than words. She knows that your declaration makes you vulnerable.”

“Make your point.”

“So, she knew she should call you and tell you that she was going to the bastard's house. But she also knows that you'll tell her no and she feels like she needs to go for Zee's sake—or whatever reason Tim found to persuade her.”

“Okay.”

“And maybe she doesn't like checking in with you for every move she makes. In any case, she knows she should call you and she doesn't. She chooses to go to Tim's house, but she also feels on some level that it's the wrong thing to do. Her choice. Her fault. Her fault when she drinks from that bloody fairy cup. Her fault that he—”

Just that fast Adam had Ben on the ground underneath him while he snarled. “It's not her fault she was raped,” he growled.

Ben lay limp and gave Adam his throat, but he didn't quit talking, even though a tear slid down his cheek. “She thinks so.”

Adam stilled.

“What's more,” he continued hoarsely. “I bet she wonders if she was raped at all.”

Adam sat back, releasing Ben entirely. “Explain it to me.” His voice was very soft.

Ben shook his head and put an arm over his eyes. “You saw it. You
heard
him. That drink took away her ability to resist, but he didn't just make her take off her clothes. He made her feel, made her want.”

Adam shook his head. “And you heard her…You saw her. She told him, ‘No.' He made this friend of his drown himself with a smile on his face—and he couldn't keep Mercy under control while he was with her. He had to pour the frickin' stuff down her throat.” Was that
pride
in his voice?

“But she took off her clothes and she touched him.”

“She fought it,” Adam snarled. “You saw. You heard her. You saw Nemane's shock when she saw Mercy's resistance. She couldn't believe it when Mercy hit him with the walking stick.”

Ben whispered, “When he told her that she wanted him, that she loved him—she
felt
it. Did you see her face? It was real to her. That's why she could kill him while he was wearing that fucking fairy horse pelt. Wasn't that what she said? In that moment Mercy loved him so she couldn't be his enemy—otherwise she wouldn't have been able to kill him while he was wearing it.”

Adam believed it. I saw his face change and heard the growl that rumbled in his chest. Now, he understood. Now, he'd hate me for betraying him.

The floor creaked as Ben rolled suddenly to his feet. He dusted off his pant legs, a nervous gesture because the floor was clean. Adam had covered his face with a hand.

“So was it rape?” Ben asked lightly as he rubbed his face briskly, cleaning it of any evidence of tears. It was a good performance. If the other two people in the room had been human, they might have believed in this nonchalant Ben and not the tormented one he'd let peek out. “You'll have to decide for yourself. If you blame her for how he made her feel, then go back down those stairs and send Warren up. He'll take care of her, and when she can, she'll leave and you won't ever have to worry about her again. She won't blame you because she knows it was her fault. Everything was her fault. She'll be sorry that she hurt you and she'll leave us all so we can forget about her.”

Startled, I stared at Ben. How did he know I planned to leave?

Adam stood up with slow deliberation. “You live,” he rasped, “you live because I know how you really feel. Of course it was rape.” He stared at Ben's bowed head and I could feel the sudden rise in power that told me he was using some touch of the power that was his as Ben's Alpha. He waited until the other werewolf raised his eyes and even I felt the sudden sizzle of that connection. Then slowly he said, “Just as it is rape when an adult coerces or cajoles a child. No matter if the child cooperates or not. Whether it feels good or not. Because that child is not able to do anything else.”

Something changed in Ben's face, a subtle shift that Adam saw, too, because he dropped the magic. “And now you know that I understand and believe that.”

Ben was abused as a child. It wasn't surprising given his warm and cheery personality, really. I'd just never given much thought about why he was the way he was.

“Thank you for sharing your understanding,” Adam said formally.

Ben dropped to his knees as if they had suddenly turned to water. It was a supremely graceful move. “I am sorry that I did not do it…better. More respectfully.”

Adam cuffed him gently. “I wouldn't have listened. Get up and go get some rest.” But when Ben stood, Adam pulled him into a hug that proved that werewolves aren't people. Two men, heterosexual and human, would never have touched after a revelation like that.

“Being a werewolf gives you time to get over your childhood,” Adam whispered into Ben's ear. “Or it gives you time to destroy yourself with it. I'd rather you be one of the survivors, do you hear me?” He stepped back. “Now go downstairs.”

He waited until the door closed behind Ben, and then shook his head. “I owe you,” he told the door. “I won't forget.”

He dropped down beside the bed as if he were too tired to stand. With the same suddenness, though I thought I was more than adequately hidden, he reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me out from under the bed and onto his lap.

I shivered, torn between the knowledge that I didn't deserve his touch and the tentative understanding that he didn't blame me, no matter how much I thought he should.

“My father always told me that when I heard good advice, I needed to listen to it,” he said.

He continued to hold me firmly by the scruff of the neck with one hand, but the other caressed my face. “We're going to wait for a talk until that stuff has worn off completely.” His caress stopped. “Don't misunderstand me, Mercedes Thompson. I am mad at you.”

He bit my nose once, hard. Wolves do that to discipline their young—or misbehaving members of the pack. Then he tipped his head so it rested on mine and sighed.

“Not your fault,” he told me. “But I'm still mad as…mad as heck that you scared me like that.

“Darn it, Mercy, who would have thought that a pair of humans caused all this misery? Even if you had called me, I wouldn't have objected to you going…at least not because I thought it was dangerous. I wouldn't have sent a guard with you just to go talk to some human.” He put his face against my neck then gave a half laugh. “You smell like my aftershave.”

Hard arms pulled me tightly against him as he said in a quiet voice, “It's only fair to warn you that you sealed your fate tonight. When you knew you were in trouble, you came to me. That makes twice, Mercy, and twice is almost as good as a declaration. You are mine now.”

His hands, which had been moving in circles in my fur, stopped and took a good hold. “Ben says you might run. If you do, I will find you and bring you back. Every time you run, Mercy. I won't force you, but…I won't leave or let you leave either. If you can fight that cursed fairy drink, you can certainly overcome any advantage being an Alpha gives me if you really want to. No more excuses, Mercy. You are mine, and I am keeping you.”

My independent nature, which would doubtless reassert itself soon, would be outraged by this possessive, arrogant, and medieval concept. But…

Tim's wish that I would always be alone had hit me particularly hard…because it was something I already knew. Nothing like being a coyote raised among werewolves to make you understand that different means not belonging. I didn't belong with my human family either, though I loved them and they loved me.

Under the weight of the unvarnished, possessive intent that began in Adam's words and carried through to his body, my whole world shook on its axis.

He slept eventually, curled up around me as if he were in wolf form, but the lines of strain stayed behind, making him look older—as if he were thirty, say. With Adam surrounding me, I watched as the sky lightened and the new day began.

Somewhere in the house a phone rang.

Adam heard it, too. Jesse's door opened and she ran down the stairs and picked up the phone.

I couldn't quite hear what she said as she was downstairs in the kitchen, but the tone of her voice went from polite to carefully respectful.

Adam stood with me in his arms, then set me on the bed. “You stay there.”

“Dad? It's Bran on the phone.”

He opened the door. “Thanks, Jesse.”

She handed him the phone and peered around the door to look at me. Her eyes were puffy. Had she been crying?

“You go get ready for school,” Adam told her. “Mercy's going to be fine.”

Today was Thursday morning. The thought galvanized me—I had to get to work…Then I settled back into the bed. I wasn't going back to my garage, not with stray bits of Tim scattered here and there. I should call Gabriel and tell him not to show up after school. I should…