Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson 9)

Beside me, Warren patted my leg. Warren, bless him, had saved a spot for me right by the door—so I could escape first, he’d told me. But also, I thought, beside him, to show his support for me when I came under fire.

“Didn’t the pack used to have meetings a lot more often than we do now?” I asked him. “We have pack breakfast Sundays, but other than that, or some emergency, the whole pack only meets before the full-moon hunt. But I seem to remember a lot more meetings when I used to only live on the other side of the back fence.”

Warren laughed soundlessly; I could feel his body shake next to me.

“Oh, meetings,” he said after a moment. “Yes, there were meetings. You can always tell if Adam is ticked off with the pack by the number of meetings we have. Some days, when someone was really stupid, we had meetings twice on the same day. I think it’s his military background. There are a lot of us who are grateful to you for keeping him happy—saves on our gas bill, and some of us even have time for date nights once in a while. Or hobbies.”

I saw Adam’s lips quirk before he blanked his face again. Etiquette among werewolves was that you tried to ignore private conversations. But like everyone else in the room, he could hear us just fine.

Ben entered with Zack and Joel, both of whom still looked a little shaky, but Zack was by far the most battered. The hit with the Miata had fractured his pelvis and four ribs. Werewolves are tough, but Zack was as far from an Alpha as he could get; he’d be in pain for days yet. Ben kept a hand under Zack’s arm. The cool expression on Ben’s face meant that he was still working as their . . . babysitter? Escort? Something. On his own, he might still have decided to make sure they were safe, but he’d have had his happy mask on and come in making rude comments designed to get a rise out of someone. Under orders, he tended to be much more businesslike, especially lately.

Ben had watched over Joel at the barbecue, too, making sure he got plenty to eat. Zack had been in our mini-clinic with Adam, getting patched up.

As soon as Ben entered, Adam nodded to Darryl, who shut the meeting-room door and went back to his seat in the front of the room. I felt the pack magic surround us, sliding over walls and doors and windows, encasing us in secrecy so that no one outside this room could hear us. It would block our ability to hear anything going on outside, too.

I’d have been more worried about that last, given that we had a stranger in the house, but Tad had promised, out of Jesse’s hearing, to keep Adam’s human-fragile daughter busy and safe “while the werewolves discussed what to do with their fae . . . guests.”

Adam crossed his arms, and said, “Do we have anyone who would like to start?”

Mary Jo shot to her feet, body tense, though her eyes were lowered.

“Not you, I think,” said Adam thoughtfully. I’d never seen him refuse to allow a wolf their say in a meeting. “Someone else.”

Mary Jo’s mouth squinched down until it was hard to be sure it was there. But she sat down without saying anything because there had been something in that thoughtful voice, an edge that was not calm, not quiet, no matter how relaxed Adam’s posture was.

A wave of . . . unease swept through the room as Adam’s werewolf gold eyes passed over them. Adam was well and truly angry. I wondered if there was some way I could fix it. I’d set the pack up against the whole of the fae. I had no trouble fighting with Adam when I knew I was right. Over this? I found myself wishing I hadn’t eaten the half of the burger I’d consumed at the barbecue to appease Kyle, who had, he said in his usual sardonic fashion, cooked it just for me. Warren must have told him what I’d done because the two of them had mother-henned me just as Ben had Joel.

Now that food sat, an indigestible lump, in my stomach.

Ben stood up, his body language casual, confident that he, at least, wasn’t the subject of Adam’s ire. This time.

Adam raised an eyebrow.

Ben took that as permission. “Tad told me that his father will be fine, and it was probably better just to leave him alone unless he asks for help. He also assured me that his father is more than capable of dealing with . . .” Ben stumbled.

“Aiden,” said Zack. “Probably not his real name, ’cause it means ‘little fire.’”

“Welsh?” Warren asked.

“Irish, I think,” said Zack. “Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t also be ‘fire’ in Cornish, or Welsh, or a hundred and one related languages.” I’d known English wasn’t Zack’s original language any more than Zack was his real name. When he’d first come to us, he’d hesitated answering to it, as if he had to remind himself that “Zack” meant someone was addressing him. It wasn’t unusual for wolves, especially old ones, to adopt new names. I wouldn’t have picked him out as Irish. Maybe he’d just spent some time in Ireland, the same way he’d spent some time in the US. Maybe I was overanalyzing, and he just knew that “Aiden” meant “little fire” because he’d read it in a book somewhere.

Zack’s speech had been a little blurry. The troll had crushed his jaw, too. But his eyes were happy. Very happy.

I leaned forward in my seat so I could get a better look at his face. He looked like a man who knew something no one else did. He’d been closeted with Adam in medical.

I frowned at him, but he didn’t see it.

“So Mercy’s fae friend can save us from her other fae friend,” said Alec bitterly. There were subpacks in the pack, groups of people who just liked one another and hung out together. Alec was one of Mary Jo’s cadre.