“My mother’s phrase, actually. Though not in those words. She didn’t speak English,” said Bran in a very soft voice. I don’t know anything about his mother except that Bran only mentioned her when he was seriously unhappy. “Are you finished, Mercy?”
If Adam wanted me to stay on his lap, he had a reason for it. However, it felt really awkward to deal with an irate Bran while sitting on my husband’s lap. Still, I trusted Adam’s instincts, so I stayed where I was to mount our defense. And the best defense is a good offense, right?
“You really would have preferred we let a troll loose in a major human-population center?” I asked. If he was going to be mad, he was going to aim his mad where it belonged. At me. “Like you would have let one run around throwing cars all over Missoula without lifting a hand against it?”
Adam kissed my cheek—and I got it. He was worried Bran was going to be mad at me, and he wanted Bran to remember that we were a team. If he thought a little PDA would help, I was willing to let him run with it.
“You can stop at any time, Mercy,” Adam said. “As much as I’m enjoying your stepping in to rescue me, it is not only unnecessary, it’s likely to backfire.”
He turned his attention to Bran. “We got a call from the Kennewick police that they needed our help with a troll. We had no idea it was anything more than that. I had two wolves already there, so I grabbed the other pack member and Mercy and we headed in.”
Bran pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course you did.”
Behind him, someone snorted.
“Go on,” Bran said.
“I have some video I e-mailed to you. Did you watch it?”
“It made the national news,” said Bran. “I’ve already watched it five times.”
Adam nodded. “Okay, then. You saw Mercy and Zack rescue a woman and her baby at the risk of their own lives. You saw Darryl get thrown off the bridge, get fished out by concerned citizens whom he did not hurt, and go running back up to fight the troll some more. ‘Heroic efforts’ was the phrase I heard over and over again. ‘We could not have stopped that thing without more lives lost,’ the police chief said. ‘We are grateful to Adam Hauptman and his werewolves, who saved a whole lot of people.’”
“Just wait until they get the bill for the bridge,” murmured Charles’s voice—earning an irritated look Bran sent over his shoulder.
Charles was trying to calm Bran down, I realized. I shook my head. Hard to be dignified when you’re sprawled across someone’s lap, but I tried. “They will send the bill to the fae.”
“If they can find the fae to give it to them,” Charles said.
“Werewolves fighting the fae,” said Bran.
Silence fell.
“I’ve been trying for six months to keep that from happening.” Bran’s voice had a rare growl in it. “To keep this from happening.”
“Neutral doesn’t work,” Charles said. “When you watch your allies commit atrocities and do nothing, who is more reprehensible? Those who rape and plunder or those who could have stopped it but do nothing?”
“You are misquoting your grandfather,” said Bran. “And you have caused me enough trouble. At least we could argue that the fae struck the first blow against us when you hunted down that fae lord in Arizona. Here, we are clearly the aggressor.”
He took a deep breath, raised his chin, and stared at Adam—who stared right back, though I could feel the pulse of his effort not to drop his gaze.
“Very well, then,” Bran said—and he was looking at me, not Adam. “Defend your territory.”
“You heard that part,” I said, fighting not to squirm. In retrospect, I regretted that my speech would have been at home on the set of Cleopatra, The Ten Commandments, or one of the other epic films from the middle of the last century before Hollywood decided to tone down the overacting. I could have done something more Dirty Harry and been just as effective—and less embarrassing.
“It’s been playing in various cuts on the news stations all afternoon,” said Charles. “CNN has a special show scheduled for tomorrow to discuss the fae and the werewolf pack that, and I quote, ‘protected the people who live in their territory.’ Unquote.”
Bran tapped the top of his desk. “So you two, you see if you can back up Mercy’s words. Your territory to hold when the fae come calling. There is a slim chance I can still keep this from being an all-out war between werewolves and the fae. There is a case to be made that we always have protected our territory from the fae—a fiction that stands only because they have not moved against the humans in five hundred years.” He took a breath through his teeth. “If you succeed, I’ll have to convince the other Alphas who live near the fae reservations to do the same—there are only two of them.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thinking. When he opened his eyes again, the anger was gone, though there was a grimness to his expression that I didn’t trust. “Adam, be aware that if you let that boy go after twenty-four hours and something happens to him, all of the good publicity could easily turn against you.”
Adam nodded, his body stiff. There was something going on that I wasn’t reading, something hard and tense between Adam and Bran. I was getting a bad feeling about this conversation.
“Your pack has made enemies among my Alphas,” said Bran. “Change is not easy on the old wolves. Your wholehearted embrace of it has created a lot of conflict, and they know, the old ones, exactly where to aim their ire. You should expect some challenges to your leadership from outside the pack, Adam, from other Alphas.”