Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson 13)

I grinned at him. “That should be interesting.”

Zack made to shut his door again.

“One more thing,” Adam asked.

Zack waited.

“Is there something I should know about Warren?”

Zack hesitated, then shook his head. “Nothing that’s my place to speak of. Not right now.”

“There is something?” I said anxiously.

Zack smiled at me. “He’s smart. If he needs help, he’ll ask for it.”

—

Adam was quiet on the way home. I didn’t say much, either. It was late, I had a pumpkin-induced headache, and Zack had just given us a lot to think about. But the biggest take-home of the night was the message Marsilia had given us. I wished I was sure what that message really was.

Adam was probably doing the same thing without the headache. I treated myself to a pause in my deliberations so that I could enjoy the play of the dashboard lights on my mate’s face. Werewolves don’t age, but I still thought he looked older than he had a few months ago.

The witches had inflicted some deep internal wounds. The poison had been drawn, but there were still scabs and scars that remained, exacerbating his already infamous temper. He worried about the monster Elizaveta had cursed him with. His cheekbones were sharper, and there were hollows under his eyes.

He caught my look and grinned suddenly. “Like what you see?” he asked.

Adam had anti-vanity. He knew he was gorgeous, and though he was happy to use it as a weapon, it didn’t much affect him otherwise. I suspected it embarrassed him.

Not wanting to tell him that I’d been assessing rather than admiring (primarily assessing, anyway), I pressed my face against his shoulder. I closed my eyes and inhaled, feeling my headache abate just a little.

“I love you,” I told him. “I know we have a lot on our plate again, but I’d like to take this moment to tell you that I’m glad you and Sherwood don’t have to fight.”

“Maybe,” he cautioned.

“You’ll figure it out,” I said confidently. I was a little surprised that I was able to be so confident. I suspected it was because we had another disaster on our hands for me to worry about.

What had Marsilia meant with that performance? It wasn’t out of character for her, just out of character for her with us. She knew that it wouldn’t impress us the way it would impress someone who didn’t know her. So what had it accomplished that a normal meeting would not have?

She had left us no openings to question her, and I had a lot of questions. How did she know Wulfe was gone? Where was the last place she’d seen him? What was she hiding with her veil and the brimstone? Why had she needed to hide her eyes?

The brimstone was particularly interesting because it meant we couldn’t smell anything but the brimstone: not emotions, not whether she was telling the truth, and not any incriminating scents like blood, either. It was possible that the brimstone could have been part of the magic she’d used to create the smoke effects and not an attempt to mask scents. Possibly she’d used it for both reasons.

I didn’t think she had used the brimstone to lie. I couldn’t use my sense of smell to tell me that, but my instincts were that she was telling the absolute truth. So far as it went.

“Did she not want us to believe her?” I asked when Adam turned onto our road. “I mean, I think she was telling the truth—it had that feel. But the brimstone, the smoke, the veil are all the kinds of things the vampires use to confuse the issue.”

“I think,” Adam said slowly, “that Wulfe is missing, and she needs us to find him. I am sure that the theatrics were partially to clue us in that there are other things at play, possibly things she can’t tell us.”

“Like maybe someone is going to question her?” I asked.

“Or has forbidden her to tell us,” he agreed.

“Bonarata?” I asked, and didn’t like the quiver in my voice at all. Bonarata, Marsilia’s maker, was the only one I could think of who could possibly make Marsilia do his bidding.

Adam reached out and gripped my hand.

“Last I heard he was still in Italy,” he said. “But my information is a couple of weeks old. I’ll check again. I think that you are looking at the right scale. Someone powerful enough to get Marsilia’s tail in a twist, and possibly to capture or manipulate Wulfe.”

I shivered.