He pivoted back toward Darryl without raising his eyes—and we all saw the effort that took.

It was a pretty well-kept secret that if he wanted the post, he probably could have beaten Darryl for second, both by combat and by dominance. Adam and I knew it. Warren knew it. I was pretty sure that Darryl knew it, too (which wouldn’t have helped matters while they were trapped together in Honey’s SUV). But although Warren was more accepted by the pack than he had been a few years ago, that he was gay would still be an issue. Our pack, like most packs, was composed mostly of men born in the last century. The opinion of the pack held sway in pack magic, and his rise to second would disrupt it.

This was not the time to disrupt the pack. And Warren didn’t want to be second. Darryl was good at his job, Warren had told me a few months ago: “Why fix sumthin’ that ain’t broke?”

“I’m sorry, Darryl,” Warren said sincerely. “I’ve got some things riding my hide. But I don’t have to take it out on my friends.”

Darryl considered him a moment—which was enough unlike his usual response to make me wonder how bad the altercation in Honey’s Suburban had been. Or maybe whatever had Warren acting weird was spreading through the pack. When Darryl nodded, it was pretty obvious that he was still riled.

“It’s the seethe,” Adam told me quietly.

I nodded. Darryl’s dislike of vampires had solidified when he’d spent a few days as the unwilling guest of Marsilia’s vampires not long after he’d first moved here, a long time before I’d been a member of the pack. It had been some sort of misunderstanding. Darryl had stayed behind in New Mexico when the pack moved up here to finish up some work projects. Adam hadn’t been expecting him for another week. Marsilia hadn’t known he was coming at all. She had still been pretty immersed in her hibernation-lethargy at the time, so she did not police her people as well as she did now. Maybe, considering the timing, the incident with Darryl could have been why she’d started to wake up again.

At any rate, a group of vampires found a strange werewolf running around and decided to bring him home to play. Though blindsided because he’d been told that the vampires and werewolves here were not actively hostile, Darryl had still torn two of them apart. The other three had succeeded in capturing him and had treated him just as if he’d killed two of their buddies.

Someone apprised Marsilia of the situation, and she’d stirred enough to contact Adam. Darryl had been released, but he nursed a mean grudge. Unhappily for him, the incident meant he knew the layout of the seethe better than any of the other wolves, or else Adam could have left him out of the expedition.

Adam surveyed his troops. “Mercy and”—he hesitated long enough that I knew he’d originally planned on sending me with someone else—“Warren, you search the main house. Start from the ground floor and work up. Darryl, Auriele, Honey, and Zack—go out to the guesthouse, hit the tunnels, and work back toward the main house. Ben, George, and Mary Jo are with me. We’ll enter the tunnels from the main house and plan on meeting in the middle. If you run into trouble, call out. Cell phones won’t work in the tunnels, but wolf calls will travel. Don’t split up from the groups I’ve assigned you.”

“What about damage?” said Darryl. His voice was usually deep, but unhappy as he was, it had dropped until it was almost difficult to distinguish words. “Can we break down locked doors?”

Adam nodded. “We need to clear the seethe, and we aren’t going to dawdle about. No unopened doors, no unsearched rooms. Be thorough.”

The designated four jumped the wall, taking the shortest way to the guesthouse. I found I could sort of catch a glimpse of its roof if I hopped a bit for more height.

“Mercy,” said Adam.

“Just making sure it’s still there,” I told him. I caught up to him as he got to the front door.

It was unlocked.

I couldn’t decide if that meant anything. Marsilia wouldn’t be worried about thieves, but I’d have expected her to lock the whole place down during the day.

“Like a flytrap,” Ben said, hesitating before he entered the foyer. “You know—open maw to sucker the flies inside.”

“Thanks for that,” I said, and he grinned, though he didn’t look any less spooked.

The interior of the house hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen it. Like the exterior, it showed the influences of the Spanish explorers in the tiles, textures, and color choices of the decor. Our summer heat meant that Spanish-influenced architecture was pretty common in the Tri-Cities.

“The entrance into the basement is in the kitchen,” Adam said as he led the way.

“I know,” I said. “The first time I came here I escaped that way.”

He nodded. “This house is mostly for show, but Marsilia is unpredictable, so don’t get complacent.” That was directed at Warren and me, I thought. No one could get complacent in the tunnels, which reeked of blood, death, and vampire. “Look for anything that might tell us where they went.”

“That’s more likely to be in the guesthouse,” I said. Marsilia spent her daylight hours in the smaller building, where her enemies would not expect her to be. “But we’ll stay on our toes and look everywhere.”

I met his gaze and he held it for a minute, then nodded.

The kitchen was the same as it had been the first time I’d seen it. Bird’s-eye maple cabinets and cream-colored Spanish stone countertops added to the effect of the backlit stained-glass panels on the walls, making the kitchen appear bright and airy despite the lack of windows. The stainless-steel elevator doors were in line with the fridge and a walk-in freezer, making for a wall of metallic gray without so much as a fingerprint smudge.

Adam and his team got into the elevator—and Adam looked at Warren. “Don’t get complacent.”

“You got it, boss,” drawled Warren. He looked more like himself than he had when he’d gotten out of Honey’s SUV, but I didn’t miss the tension in his shoulders.

After the elevator closed and hauled my mate down to the bowels of the earth, I said, “Sorry you got stuck with babysitting duty.”

As the least able fighter, I was always destined to be stuck with exploring the main house because it would be the safest place. All the scary stuff would be down in the tunnels. Warren, however, was one of the pack’s big guns.

Tags: Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net