Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson 13)

Uncle Mike gave Adam a somewhat ironic salute and slanted an unreadable look at Sherwood—or maybe Zack, it was hard to tell. To me he gave his usual wide grin, his “I’m just a friendly innkeeper, darlin’ ” smile that I found significantly less reassuring than I had before I knew him well. My ongoing wariness seemed to amuse him, though, so I’d learned to not let it show.

Uncle Mike touched a controller I’d assumed were lights, but instead the music stopped. He stepped back into the corridor and made a gesture, meeting my eyes meaningfully before he moved out of sight behind the closing door. There was a funny sort of pop as the door shut, something that my ears didn’t quite hear but I knew was magic.

Sherwood’s eyebrow climbed.

“I asked Uncle Mike for a bit of privacy,” Adam said, and I realized that I hadn’t needed to say anything to our waiter. No one would disturb us—and no one would overhear us, either.

I wondered if that magically enhanced privacy was the reason for Uncle Mike’s look. Maybe. Probably.

But Uncle Mike was old. And I was pretty sure that he knew who Sherwood was—or had been. That look... had he glanced at Sherwood first and then me? I couldn’t remember.

“What do you want to do?” Sherwood asked bluntly, drawing my gaze back from the closed door.

He looked a little... more real than I was used to. I blinked and the impression faded, leaving me not quite sure what I’d seen.

Probably it was my subconscious acknowledging that he was more than he had been, I decided. Possibly the impression had been aided a little by the intensity that the two dominant werewolves at this table couldn’t help but generate. I wasn’t Adam, to read the fine points in our pack bonds, but I could feel the magic warn that trouble was imminent if something didn’t give.

I hadn’t heard the invitation, but Adam had told me he would ask Sherwood to our table, as a guest. For the majority of werewolves it wouldn’t have had any effect. They aren’t fae, who observe guesting laws by necessity. But Adam was sure that Sherwood was old, maybe old enough that guesting laws would mean something. Conditioning wasn’t magic, but it tended to linger.

The little table, designed for two, made a fragile barrier between Adam and Sherwood. I wondered if I should shove the table over a foot—Zack and I didn’t need a barrier between us.

Instead of directly answering Sherwood’s question, Adam poured himself a glass of water. He was being careful to keep his gaze away from Sherwood’s face, except for brief, sweeping glances. Sherwood, I noticed, was doing the same.

Adam took a drink and, with the formal politeness of a dowager duchess in a Jane Austen movie, said, “I don’t know what they do to this, but it might be the best water I’ve ever tasted.”

We all knew that it was an invitation to Sherwood to accept the hospitality of the table. What he did in response would set the tone of the negotiations.

Sherwood looked at Adam a moment, not quite long enough to initiate active conflict. Then he looked away, sighed audibly, and relaxed his shoulders a degree or two.

With a quirk of his lips and a touch of showmanship, he filled his own glass. As if it were fine wine in a crystal goblet instead of battered barware, he brought the drink to his nose and inhaled. He sipped it, working his mouth as if rolling it on his tongue.

The room’s dim lights caught his hazel eyes. I couldn’t recall if I had noticed what color his eyes were before. Which was a little odd, now that I thought about it.

“Nothing magical,” Sherwood said, a not-so-subtle reminder that he was adept with some sort of magic.

He took a second drink. “Not magical anymore, I should have said. They’ve purified it somehow.”

He put the glass down deliberately, as if putting an end to the theater. Adam glanced at Zack and me, then nodded his head toward the pitcher.

Zack and I each filled our glasses and drank. The water could have been out of a sewer and I wouldn’t have noticed, not just then. I swallowed quickly and set the glass down. Zack took his time. No one spoke until he put his glass down, too.

“Just about two weeks ago, something happened to you,” Adam said in the same conversational tone that he’d used to talk about the water. “I felt it in the pack bonds as you came back into your power. As if a firework sparkler turned into a fusion bomb. Quite extraordinary.”

Even now when I sought Sherwood through the pack bonds, he felt the same as he always had. Adam thought Sherwood was doing something that kept me and all the pack unaware of his true power. Either Sherwood had not bothered to hide what he’d become from Adam—or he couldn’t hide himself from the Alpha of his pack. I thought it was the latter.

“Something died,” Sherwood said. He gave a brief, unhappy smile. “You could ask Charles about that if you’d like to. I heard that he was in the right place when it died, but I haven’t talked to him about it.”

“Something?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Something. Someone. An old foe. By its death, it released me.”

It wasn’t the time for stories now. I’d call Anna and see if she knew anything.

“You remember yourself,” Adam murmured.

“Yes,” agreed Sherwood, in an equally quiet voice.

“I gave you time to come to me,” Adam said. “But you didn’t. For the sake of the pack, I could not let it lie any longer.”