Fire Touched (8 page)

“She's our Alpha's mate,” said Darryl in a very unfriendly voice. “That means that right this moment, she's in charge of the Columbia Basin Pack.” Then he raised his voice without looking away from Aiden the Fire Touched.
“One of you bring some sweats for Joel.”
Apparently, we were going to step down the threat level so we could take care of our own.

“Got it,” called Warren. I'd thought he was still down talking to the police. But there was no mistaking the sound of his voice or the rhythm of his footsteps as he ran back down to the base of the bridge.

I could leave Joel's care to Warren and Darryl. That left me to deal with Aiden.

“You aren't a werewolf,” he said, but I could tell he wasn't sure.

“No,” I agreed. “But I am in charge right this minute.”

Aiden made an angry noise.

“If Zee promised to do his best to see that we protected you,” I told him, “he's fulfilled his word to you.” I smiled grimly. “If he'd come singing your praises, we'd have killed you where you stood. The only way Zee would sing anyone's praises is if someone had managed to hit him with some kind of nasty magic when he had his back turned.”

Joel moaned and rose to hands and knees just about the time Warren came up with a pair of sweats in his hand bearing the letters
KPD
. He must have gotten them from Tony. Warren walked
through the invisible no-man's-land between me and Aiden without apparent effect on his usual loose-limbed, big-strided walk. Ignoring Aiden altogether, Warren knelt and began helping Joel. If it weren't for Adam resting against my leg, I'd have run over to help—leaving Aiden until I was sure that our people were okay. I was worried that Ben wasn't back with Zack, yet.

Darryl stayed where he was—to guard me from Aiden, I realized, guarding
Adam
and me. He didn't look down at Adam, but I could feel his awareness and worry.

Warren helped Joel, now modestly covered in Kennewick Police Department sweats, to his feet. Without ever quite looking at the boy, Warren kept himself between Aiden and Joel. That told me that Warren still viewed the boy as a threat.

Joel shivered as if he were cold. Warren started to put an arm around him, then stopped.

Warren was the only gay werewolf in our pack, in any pack that I knew of. The older werewolves were largely male and largely intolerant of homosexual leanings. Gay werewolves didn't last very long unless they were extraordinarily tough or lucky. Warren was tough. He was also careful not to push any of the pack members unless he
intended
to bother them. It wasn't fear, it was courtesy. He glanced at Darryl.

Darryl looked at me, then Aiden, deciding how much of a threat he still was. Then he walked over and wrapped a big arm over the much smaller Joel. “You have this, Mercy?” he asked me. “I'll get him home.”

I nodded. “Joel? Are you okay?”

“It doesn't burn inside,” he said, his voice husky and a little helpless. “It's gone.”

“It'll be back,” the boy said dispassionately. “I robbed the spirit of its heat, but it is still there.”

“Are you okay, Joel?” I asked again.

This time he nodded. “I think so.” He took a deep breath. “I would have killed you.”

I shook my head. “We're pack, Joel, even the tibicena knows it. He was just ticked because he got a chance to get out and strut his stuff, and we were cutting short his playtime.”

Joel huffed a shaky laugh. “Maybe. But it didn't feel like that from the inside.”

Ben and his minions rounded a semi. Zack, still in wolf form, limped heavily on his own four feet. He looked pretty battered, but he'd be all right. Just like Adam, who was fully awake and hiding it from the pack. I didn't do anything to give him away.

None of the wolves looked at Adam. It would be disrespectful to observe their Alpha in a weak position or to express concern that might be interpreted to mean that they thought Adam was too weak to heal. But that left me on my own to deal with the harmless-looking, if hostile, boy who had single-handedly taken down a servant of a volcano god.

“Who are you? What are you? Why do the fae want you?” I asked, because information was always good and because it would give me time to think.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “None of your business.”

“You've made it her business,” said Darryl.

The boy didn't think much of me, but his expression told me that Darryl had made an impression.

“Darryl,” I said, “please arrange for Zack and Joel to make it back home with a couple of guards and someone who can patch
them up.” I didn't say “and then get back here,” but I knew he heard it.

Darryl bowed his head in a move that made him look like he was a thousand years old—though I knew that Darryl was only ten years or so older than he looked. He picked Joel up in his arms and without another word managed to harness Ben, Zack, and a couple of other wolves in his gaze as he strode away toward the police lines at the end of the bridge.

I returned my attention to Aiden.

“I'm a human,” he told me sullenly. “I was lost in Underhill until she opened her doors again. The fae want to keep me until they understand how Underhill changed me so that I can do this.” He waved a hand at Joel. “I'm tired of being a prisoner, and I need somewhere to stay for a day to put my options together.”

“Lost in Underhill,” I said slowly, “for how long?”

The boy shrugged. “I don't know.”

There was a lot he wasn't telling me.

“It's not a difficult decision,” he said. “Tell me to rabbit, and I will. Tell me you'll have my back, and I'll stay.” He smiled, and it wasn't a pretty smile. “Don't you wolves always worry about status?” For someone who'd been trapped in Underhill, he knew an awful lot about werewolves. “Wouldn't defying the fae give you the upper hand?”

“Unless we're all dead,” murmured Warren helpfully. “Then we don't care about what the fae think of us.” He paused. “Come to think on it, we really don't care what the fae think of us anyway.” He gave the boy a cold look that seemed strange on my Warren, reminding me that though he was my friend, he'd also survived against the odds more than once, and it wasn't because he was too nice to kill someone.

The boy, unaware of his danger, sneered.

I looked at Zee because it didn't appear as though the boy was going to tell me anything. I knew I should just let him run. I could tell after five minutes that he was going to cause trouble.

But if Zee thought it was a horrible idea for the pack to protect him, he'd have pushed the boy at me as if he were a helpless mite that Zee was determined to help—and I'd have known to steer clear.

Aiden had saved Joel. Despite what I'd told Joel, I'd seen my death in the tibicena's eyes. If Joel had killed me, he wouldn't have survived that figuratively or literally. Joel would have been devastated, and Adam would have killed him. Not just in revenge, but because Joel would have proved himself a danger to the pack. Werewolves had learned to be ruthless to survive.

There was this also: Tad and Zee saw something in the boy to admire.

I wouldn't mind thumbing my nose at the fae,
Adam admitted, his voice strong and humorous in my head.

I looked at Zee, who I trusted to tell me what I needed to know. “So what exactly is he?”

“He's human,” growled Zee. “Or mostly, anyway. He started out that way a long, long time ago. He's been lost in Underhill since she closed her borders to the fae, and it changed him. He's not the only abandoned one who turned up when Underhill reopened herself to us. He's just the only one who was coherent. Underhill changed him, changed them all, gave some of them elemental powers. Powers of earth, air, water, or fire. Most of those children . . . have been returned to the Mother.” “Returned to the Mother,” I thought, meant killed, but this wasn't the time to ask. “They were broken by their time alone.”

The boy smiled fiercely. “They don't want to kill me,” he said. “They want to figure out why I can work fire. They want to know why Underhill likes me better than she likes them. Why she played games with me while leaving them out in the cold for all these centuries. They want to know everything I know about Underhill because they've forgotten what they used to know.”

From the expression on his face, I was pretty sure that “played games with me” might have the same meaning to Underhill that it would to Coyote.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” I quoted.

“Nietzsche?” murmured Zee. “Appropriate. Also, perhaps this one:
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.
”

I dragged out my college German and came up with a few words.
Ungeheuern
was “monsters.”
Kämpft
was “battles.” “Let he who battles with monsters take care lest he become one?” I translated out loud.

Aiden gave the old fae a smile with teeth. “We are all monsters here,” he said. “It's too late for any of us to be anything else.”

His words sent a flinch through far too many of the pack, including Adam. “That depends,” I said.

He looked at me with mild inquiry.

“On your definition of ‘monster,'” said Tad. “Who do you allow to tell you what you are? Monster or angel, it's in the eye of the beholder, surely.”

“Why . . .” I started to ask, then stopped. Aiden had told me why the fae wanted him. He knew things they had forgotten, secrets about Underhill. And they were jealous because she kept him and gave him power. Any of which, I thought, would be reason enough for the fae to want him.

He'd helped Tad and Zee escape. I owed him—and I wouldn't have left anyone I could help at the mercy of the fae. As a last precaution, I tried to get permission from Adam, but either he didn't hear me (most likely) or he wanted me to make the decision, because he didn't answer.

“Twenty-four hours,” I said abruptly. “If you do not harm one who is pack or who belongs to the pack. If you obey the pack leaders as the pack itself does. Those leaders are Adam who is our Alpha, myself, Darryl”—I gave a general wave to Darryl, who had returned sometime during the Nietzsche discussion—“Warren”—Warren nodded as I looked toward him—“and Honey, who is not here. For twenty-four hours, we'll grant you sanctuary in the pack stronghold—with the option to renew this agreement.”

I almost missed it, the faint widening of his eyes and the almost imperceptible loosening of his shoulders. Relief. Far more obvious was the rise of outrage from the wolves—that I would risk their lives for a stranger, that I had overstepped my authority. I couldn't tell which wolves were spearheading it, my pack sense was not that clear at the moment. Maybe all of them were unhappy.

For the benefit of those unhappy wolves, I said aloud, “Bran Cornick taught me that the pack only rules the territory it can keep safe from other predators. He taught me that where a debt is owed, it must be repaid.”

“What did this boy do for us?” asked Mary Jo, who'd come up with the others of the pack. At her back, as usual, stood Paul and Alec. Mary Jo wore a baseball cap and sunglasses to keep from being recognized. She was a firefighter in Pasco and had chosen to keep what else she was secret from them. But her secrecy felt like a “for now” thing, not a “forever.”

We'd been friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, until Adam
had courted and married me. She thought he deserved a human woman, someone better than a werewolf like she was. That he'd chosen me, a coyote shifter, had devastated her—but she needed to get over it.

“He saved Joel,” I said mildly. She'd been on the bridge long enough that I was pretty sure she knew that.

“Oh. Joel. Your pet, right? The one you invited into the pack.” She gave voice to the unhappiness I felt through the pack, the bond we all shared feeling like sandpaper.

I stared at her, and she met my eyes for a whole two seconds before she dropped them. The roar of the pack rebellion died down to a murmur that no longer pounded at me through the pack bonds. Mary Jo's wolf was convinced I outranked her, whatever her human half thought; that left her no room to challenge me, and she knew it.

“Bran also taught me guesting laws,” I continued. “A person who asks for shelter will get twenty-four hours if he makes no move to harm. He will get food, drink, and a bed. Protection from his enemies. Safety. It is what we offer any who come to us.” Those guesting laws were old. Bran adhered to them, but not all the wolf packs did. From the unease in the pack, I thought that they would be happier if I hadn't mentioned the guesting laws. But the walking stick warmed gently in my hand.

“Can you keep your half of that bargain?” the boy asked me, looking around at the rest of the pack. He couldn't read pack bonds, but he apparently was pretty good at reading unhappy expressions.

“Aiden,” I said. “I bid you welcome to my territory and my home.” It wasn't enough, but, with the walking stick heating beneath my fingers, I could feel the words that needed to be said. “By my
name, Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, by my authority as the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack, I give you as much safety as my pack can provide for twenty-four hours as long as you act as a guest in my house and my territory.” I don't know what kept my tongue going, or why I raised the walking stick. “By my word as Coyote's daughter and bearer of Lugh's walking stick, I so swear.”

The staff lit up like a lantern. Red fire circled the silver ring at the bottom of the staff and raced up the bark in Celtic knots that spiraled from the bottom to the silver top that had once again lengthened to a spear and glowed as if heated in a blast furnace. It felt as though all of the pack held their breath, waiting.

I kept the staff up in the air, and said, “Let the Gray Lords in their halls know that the Columbia Basin Pack holds these lands and grants sanctuary to whomever we choose.”