Iron Kissed (13 page)

“He didn't ask me,” I interrupted her, with heat. “I wasn't there and I didn't find out about it until it was done. It wasn't my fault.”

She shook her mane of honey-colored hair and crouched down beside me. If she could have seen the floor, I think she'd have been sitting like I was, because she was technically lower in the pack (thanks to Adam declaring me his mate), but she was too fastidious to sit on a pile of dirty clothes.

“I'm not saying it is anyone's fault,” she said. “Fault doesn't change what is. We can all feel it, the weakness in the pack. It is allowed for you to refuse him absolutely, and then things will return to normal. Or accept him, and things will change another way, a better way. But until then…” She shrugged.

It was easy, even for someone like me who was around them all the time, to forget that there was more to the magic of the werewolves than their change. I think it's because the change was so spectacular—and the rest of the magic is the pack's business and affects no one else. I didn't consider myself pack—and until Adam had made his claim, no one else had either.

My foster father told me once that he was always aware on some level of all the other pack members. They knew when one of their own was in distress; they knew when one died. When my foster father committed suicide, it took a while for them to find the body, but they'd all known when to go looking. I'd seen Adam call his pack to him with more than the sound of his voice and had seen them heal him of silver damage that should have killed him.

I hadn't realized that there might be more to Adam declaring me his mate than the simple act until I'd been able to help Warren control his wolf when he was too hurt to do it himself. I'd been grateful, but I hadn't looked at it any closer.

I was getting a headache; dread sometimes does that to me. “Tell me that again and be clear, please.”

“When he declared you his mate, he offered you an invitation to join us. He opened a place for you that you have not filled. That opening is a weakness. Adam mostly keeps it from us, but he only does it by absorbing all of the effects himself. His wolf knows there is a weakness, a place where harm might come to us, and it leaves him on alert, on edge, all the time. We can feel that, and respond to it.” She gave me a tight smile. “That's why I was so unpleasant to you when he sent me to play bodyguard against the vampires. I thought you were playing games and leaving us to pay the price.”

No. No game playing. Just a lot of panicking. Whomever I chose in the end, Adam or Samuel, I'd lose the other one—and that was more than I could bear.

“All of us depend upon our Alpha to help us live among the humans,” Honey said. “Some of Adam's wolves have human women as mates. It is his willpower that allows us to control ourselves, particularly as the moon nears her zenith.”

I put my aching head on my knees. “What was he thinking? Damn it.”

She patted me on the shoulder, an awkward touch that managed to convey both comfort and sympathy. “I don't think he was thinking of anything except to place his claim on you before another wolf killed or claimed you.”

I gave her a look of disbelief. “What is going on? Is everyone losing their minds? I haven't had so much as a date for ten years and now there's Adam and Samuel and—” I'd have bitten off my tongue before I continued and mentioned Stefan. I hadn't seen the vampire since he and the Wizard had killed two innocents to take the blame for killing Andre so Marsilia didn't kill me. It was just as well as he wasn't my favorite person.

“I know why Samuel wants me,” I told her.

“He thinks that the two of you could have children—and you can't forgive him for wanting you for practical reasons.” There was something in Honey's voice that told me that she liked Samuel—and maybe it hadn't been just my perceived “game playing” with Adam and her pack that she'd resented. But the expression on her face told me more. She understood Samuel's point from experience; she wanted children, too.

I don't know why I started talking to Honey. I didn't know her that well—and had spent most of that time disliking her. Maybe it was because there was no one else I knew who was in a position to understand.

“I don't blame Samuel for realizing that a shapeshifter who changed into a coyote and was not bound by the moon might be a good mate,” I told her, speaking very quietly. “But he let me love him without telling me exactly why he was so interested. If the Marrok hadn't interfered, I'd probably have been his mate when I was sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” she said.

I nodded.

“Peter is a lot older than me,” she said, speaking of her husband. “That was hard. But I wasn't sixteen and…” She paused, thinking. Finally she shook her head. “I don't recall ever hearing how old Samuel is, but he's older than Charles, and Charles dates back to Lewis and Clark.”

The outrage that filtered into her voice, still pitched not to carry to the other werewolves, was like a balm. It gave me the courage to tell her a bit more.

“I am happy with who I am,” I told her. “The incident with Samuel let me break with the pack and join the human world. I'm independent and good at my job. It's not glamorous, but I like fixing things.”

“And still,” she said, voicing the thing I hadn't said.

I nodded. “Exactly. And still…what if I'd taken him up on his offer? I tell myself that I'd be a lesser person, but Samuel isn't the kind of man to iron all the personality out of his wife. Half the trouble I got into when I was a teen he got me into—and got me out of the other half.”

“So you'd be a doctor's wife, and free to do as you please—because Samuel's not the control freak that most of the dominant males are.”

There it was. Oh, not Samuel. She, like most people, saw what he wanted them to see. Gentle, laid-back Samuel. Hah.

But, I'd always wondered why Honey had married her husband, who was so far down in the pack power structure when she was as dominant as all but the top two or three wolves. Since she took her rank from her husband, she was a lot lower than she'd been before she'd taken Peter as her mate. There weren't actually all that many submissive wolves out there. The kind of determination it takes to survive the Change isn't usually found in a person who isn't at least a little dominant.

“Samuel is as much a control freak as any of them. He just hides it better,” I said. “The reality of it is that he'd have wrapped me in cotton wool and protected me from the world. I'd never have grown or become the person I am.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Like what, a mechanic? You work for less than minimum wage. I saw Gabriel do the paychecks—he clears more than you do.”

I'd been wrong. She'd never understand.

“Like owning my own business,” I told her, though I knew it was futile to expect her to comprehend what I meant. I'd turned down everything that she'd wanted out of life—status, both in the werewolf world and the human one, and money. “Like being able to take something that doesn't work and fix it. Like being able to hold my own with Adam today instead of falling on my knees and looking at the ground. Like deciding what I'm going to do every day—including going after that demon-riding vampire who almost killed Warren. I'm not all that, especially not compared to the werewolves, but you have to admit that I was uniquely suited to taking him out. The werewolves couldn't. The vampires and fae wouldn't. What would have happened if I hadn't been able to kill him? Samuel would never let his wife risk her life to do something like that.”

I realized something then. As scary as it had been (and I had the nightmares and the scars to prove it), as stupidly dangerous as it still was—and possibly deadly—I was proud of killing those two vampires. No one else would have been able to do it. Just me.

Samuel would never let me do something like that.

I could never have Samuel without giving up something I cherished about myself. It was the first time I'd let myself look at that because then I'd have to admit that Samuel could never be for me.

The question was, would Adam be any better? And if I took Adam, Samuel would leave. Part of me still loved Samuel, and I was not ready to give him up.

I was so screwed.

“You think that Adam would have let you go after that thing if you were his mate?” asked Honey in disbelief.

Maybe.

“I didn't mean to walk in on anything,” said Jesse in a small voice.

I realized that I hadn't been hearing the water from the shower for a while. I hadn't heard her approach either.

She'd wrapped a towel around herself, but she was still quick at closing the door behind her. She gave Honey a wary look, but then dismissed her.

“I overheard that last part,” she told me. “Dad told me to stay out of his affairs. But I thought you ought to know that he told me not too long ago that if you don't fall out of a plane now and then, you never learn to fly.”

“He gave me bodyguards,” I told her dryly. Honey had been one of them.

She rolled her eyes at me. “He's not stupid. But if there is something you have to do, he'll be at your back.” I gave her an incredulous look and she rolled her eyes again. “Okay, okay, he'll lead the way. But he won't make you stay behind. He doesn't waste his resources that way.”

When Jesse had been missing, and Adam too hurt to do anything about it, he'd all but recruited me to find her, knowing that the people who had her had almost killed him. For some reason that recollection let me breathe deeply again.

Knowing that I could not have Samuel hurt. I think giving up Adam might just break me—which didn't mean that I might not have to anyway.

I hopped to my feet.

“I'll keep it in mind,” I told her and then changed the subject. “How are you feeling?”

She smiled and held out a rock-steady hand. “I'm fine. You were right; a hot shower really helped. I'll have some bruises, but I'm all right. Gabriel helped, too. He's right. I did defend myself, better than they expected. I know to watch for them now and…” Her smile widened just short of splitting her lip again. “Dad's given me bodyguards.” She said it in the same exasperated tones I used.

Sometimes it seems like the distance between Adam's house and mine changes. Just an hour or so earlier, it had taken me only a moment to get from my door to his. It took me a long time to walk back home and I mourned all the way.

I would not choose Samuel. Not because I didn't trust him, but because I could trust him absolutely. He would love me and care for me, until I chewed off my arm to be free—and I wouldn't be the only person I'd hurt. Samuel had been damaged enough without me adding to it.

When I told him how I felt, he would leave.

I hoped he would still be gone, but his car was parked next to my rust-colored Rabbit. I stopped in the driveway, but it was already too late. He'd know I was outside.

I didn't have to tell him today, I thought. I wouldn't have to lose him today. But soon. Very soon.

Warren and Honey were right. If I didn't do something soon, blood would flow. It was a testament to the control both Adam and Samuel had, that there had been no fighting up until now. I knew in my heart of hearts, if it ever came down to a real fight between them, one of them would die.

I could bear losing Samuel again if I had to, but I could not bear being the cause of his death. And I was certain that it was Samuel who would die in a fight with Adam. Not that Adam was a better fighter. I'd seen Samuel in a fight or ten, and he knew what he was doing. But Adam had an edge of ruthlessness that Samuel lacked. Adam was a soldier, a killer, and Samuel a healer. He would hold back until it was too late.

The screen door of the house creaked and I looked up into Samuel's gray eyes. He wasn't a handsome man, but there was a beauty to his long features and ash brown hair that went bone deep.

“What put that look on your face?” Samuel asked. “Something wrong at Adam's house?”

“A couple of bigoted kids beat up on Jesse,” I told him. It wasn't a lie. He wouldn't know that I was just answering his second question, not his first.

For an instant anger flew across his face—he liked Jesse, too. Then his control reasserted itself, and Dr. Cornick was on the spot and ready for action.

“She's all right,” I told him before he said anything. “Just bruises and hurt feelings. We were worried for a bit that Adam was going to do murder, but I think we've got him settled down.”

He came down off the porch and touched my face. “Just a few rough minutes, eh? I'd better go check Jesse over anyway.”

I nodded. “I'll get something on for supper.”

“No,” he said. “You look like you could use some cheering up. Adam in a rage and Zee locked up, both in one day, is a little much. Why don't you get cleaned up and I'll take you out for pizza and company.”

 

The pizza place was stuffed full of people and musical instrument cases. I took my glass of pop and Samuel's beer and went looking for two empty seats while he paid for our food.

After Tumbleweed shut down on Sunday night, their last night, all the performers and all the people who'd put it on apparently gathered together for one last hurrah—and they'd invited Samuel, who'd invited me. They made quite an impressive crowd—and didn't leave very many empty seats.

I had to settle for an already occupied table with two empty chairs. I leaned down and put my lips near the ear of the man sitting with his back to me. It was too intimate for a stranger, but there was no choice. A human ear wouldn't have picked up my voice in this din from any farther away.

“Are those seats taken?” I asked.

The man looked up and I realized he wasn't as much of a stranger as I thought…on two levels. First, he was the one who had complained about Samuel's Welsh, Tim Someone with a last name that was Central European. Second, he had been one of the men in O'Donnell's house, Cologne Man, in fact.

“No problem,” he said loudly.

It could be coincidence. There could be a thousand people in the Tri-Cities who wore that particular cologne; maybe it didn't smell as bad to someone who didn't have my nose.

This was a man who knew Tolkien's Elvish and Welsh (though not as well as he thought he did, if he was critical of Samuel's). Hardly qualifications for a fae-hating bigot. He was more likely one of the fae aficionados who made the owner of the little fae bar in Walla Walla so much money, and had turned the reservation in Nevada into another Las Vegas.

I thanked him and took the seat nearest the wall, leaving the outside one for Samuel. Maybe he wasn't one of O'Donnell's Bright Future crowd. Maybe he was the killer—or a police officer.

I smiled politely and took a good look at him. He wasn't in bad shape, but he was certainly human. He couldn't possibly have beheaded a man without an ax.

So, not a Bright Futurean, nor a killer. He was either just a man who shared poor taste in cologne with someone who was in O'Donnell's house, or a police officer.

“I'm Tim Milanovich,” he said, all but shouting to get his voice over the sound of all the other people talking, as he extended his arm carefully around his beer and over his pizza. “And this is my friend Austin. Austin Summers.”

“Mercedes Thompson.” I shook his hand—and the other young man's hand as well. The second man, Austin Summers, was more interesting than Tim Milanovich.

If he'd been a werewolf, he'd have been on the dominant side. He had the same subtle appeal of a really good politician. Not so handsome that people noticed it, but good-looking in a rugged football player way. Medium brown hair, several shades lighter than mine, and root beer brown eyes completed the picture. He was a few years younger than Tim, I thought, but I could see why Tim was hanging around him.

It was too crowded for me to get a good handle on Austin's scent when he was sitting across the table, but impulsively, I managed to move the hand I'd used to shake his against my nose as if I had an itch—and abruptly the evening turned into something besides an outing to keep my mind off my worries.

This man had been at O'Donnell's house—and I knew why one of Jesse's attackers had smelled familiar.

Scent is a complicated thing. It is both a single identification marker and an amalgam of many scents. Most people use the same shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste all the time. They clean their houses with the same cleaners; they wash their clothes with the same laundry soap and dry them with the same dryer sheets. All these scents combine with their own personal scent to make up their distinctive smell.

This Austin wasn't the man who'd attacked Jesse. He was too old, a couple of years out of high school at least, and not quite the right scent—but he lived in the same household. A lover or a brother, I thought, and put money on the brother.

Austin Summers.
I would remember that name and see if I could come up with an address. Hadn't there been a Summers boy that Jesse had had a crush on last year? Before the werewolves had admitted to their existence. Back when Adam had just been a moderately wealthy businessman. John, Joseph…something biblical…Jacob Summers. That was it. No wonder she was so upset.

I sipped my pop and glanced up at Tim, who was eating a slice of pizza. I'd have bet my last nickel that he wasn't a police officer—he had none of the usual tells that mark a cop and he wasn't in the habit of carrying a gun. Even if they are unarmed, police officers always smell a little of gunpowder.

The odds of Tim being Cologne Man had just made it near a hundred percent. So what was a man who loved Celtic folk songs and languages doing in the house of a man who hated the largely Celtic fae?

I smiled at Tim and said sincerely, “Actually, Mr. Milanovich, we sort of met this weekend. You were talking to Samuel after his performance.”

There were places where my Native American skin and coloring made me memorable, but not in the Tri-Cities, where I blended in nicely with the Hispanic population.

“Call me Tim,” he said, while trying frantically to place me.

Samuel saved him from continued embarrassment by his arrival.

“Here you are,” he said to me after murmuring an apology to someone trying to walk through the narrow aisle in the opposite direction. “Sorry it took me so long, Mercy, but I took a minute to stop and talk.” He set a little red plastic marker with a black
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on top of the table next to Tim's pizza. “Mr. Milanovich,” he said as he sat down next to me. “Good to see you.”

Of course Samuel would remember his name; he was like that. Tim was flattered to be recognized; it was written all over his earnest face.

“And this is Austin Summers,” I yelled pleasantly, louder than I needed to, since Samuel's hearing was at least as good as mine. “Austin, meet the folksinging physician, Dr. Samuel Cornick.” Ever since I heard them introduce him as “the folksinging physician,” I'd known he hated it—and I'd known I had to use it.

Samuel gave me an irritated look before turning a blandly smiling expression to the men we shared the table with.

I kept a genial expression on my face to conceal my triumph at irritating him while Samuel and Tim fell into a discussion of common themes in English and Welsh folk songs; Samuel charming and Tim pedantic. Tim spoke less and less as they continued.

I noticed that Austin watched his friend and Samuel with the same pleasantly interested expression that I'd adopted, and I wondered what he was thinking about that he felt he had to conceal.

A tall man stood up on a chair and gave a whistle that would have cut through a bigger crowd than this one. When everyone was silent, he welcomed us, said a few words of thanks to various people responsible for the Tumbleweed.

“Now,” he said, “I know that you all know the Scallywags…” He bent down and picked up a bodhran. He sprayed the drumhead with a small water bottle and then spread the water around with a hand as he spoke with a studied casualness that drew attention. “Now the Scallywags have been singing here since the very first Tumbleweed—and I happen to know something about them that you all don't.”

“What's that?” someone shouted from the crowd.

“That their fair singer, Sandra Hennessy, has a birthday today. And it's not just any birthday.”

“I'll get you for this,” a woman's voice rang out. “You just see if I don't, John Martin.”

“Sandra is turning forty today. I think she needs a birthday dirge, whatd' you all think?”

The crowd erupted into applause that quickly settled into anticipatory silence.

“Hap-py birthday.”
He sang the minor notes of the opening of the “Volga Boatmen” in a gloriously deep bass that needed no mike to carry over the crowd, then hit the bodhran once with a small double-headed mallet. THUMP.

“It's your birthday.”
THUMP.

“Gloom and doom and dark despair,

“People dying everywhere.

“Happy birthday.”
THUMP.
“It's your birthday.”

Then the rest of the room, including Samuel, started to sing the mournful tune with great cheer.

There were well over a hundred people in the room, and most of them were professional musicians. The whole restaurant vibrated like a tuning fork as they managed to turn the silly song into a choral piece.

Once the music started, it didn't stop. Instruments came out to join the bodhran: guitars, banjos, a violin, and a pair of Irish penny whistles. As soon as one song finished, someone stood up and started another, with the crowd falling in on the chorus.

Austin had a fine tenor. Tim couldn't sing on pitch if his life depended upon it, but there were enough people singing that it didn't matter. I sang until our pizza arrived, then I ate while everyone else sang.

Finally, I got up to refill my soda, and by the time I returned, Samuel had borrowed a guitar and was at the far end of the room leading a rousing chorus of a ribald drinking song.

The only one left at our table was Tim.

“We've been deserted,” he said. “Your Dr. Cornick was summoned to play, and Austin's gone out to the car to get his guitar.”

I nodded. “Once you get him singing”—I waved vaguely to indicate Samuel—“you're in for it for a while.”

“Are the two of you dating?” he asked, rolling the Parmesan jar between his hands before setting it down.

I turned to look at Samuel, who was singing a verse alone. His fingers flew on the neck of the borrowed guitar and there was a wide grin on his face.

“Yes,” I said, though we weren't really. And wouldn't now. It was less complicated just to say yes rather than explain our situation.

“He's a very good musician,” Tim said. Then, his voice so quiet I knew I wasn't supposed to hear him, he murmured, “Some people have all the luck.”

I turned back to him and said, “What was that?”

“Austin's a pretty good guitarist, too,” he said quickly. “He tried to teach me, but I'm all thumbs.” He smiled like it didn't matter, but the skin around his eyes was taut with bitterness and envy.

How interesting, I thought. How could I use this to pry information from him?

“I know how you feel,” I confided, sipping my pop. “I was practically raised with Samuel.” Except that Samuel had been an adult several times over. “I can plunk a bit on the piano if someone forces me. I can even sing on key—but no matter how hard I worked at it”—not very—“I could never sound as good as Samuel. And he never even had to practice.” I let a sharp note linger in my voice, a twin to the jealousy he'd revealed. “Everything is so easy for that man.”

Zee had told me not to help him.

Uncle Mike told me to stay out of it.

But then I'd never been very good at listening to orders—ask anyone.

Tim looked at me—and I saw him register me as a real person for the first time. “Exactly,” he said—and he was mine.

I asked him where he'd learned Welsh, and he visibly expanded as he answered.