Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4)(47)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"Trouble?" asked Samuel carefully.

He meant, trouble over me – or rather over that nifty video I’d never seen of Adam in a half- wolf form, ripping up Tim the Rapist’s dead body.

Adam shook his head. "Not really. Mostly just the same old, same old."

"Have you called Marsilia?" I asked.

"What?" Jesse had been getting a glass of milk for her dad, and she set it down a little too hard.

"Mercy," growled Adam.

"Part of the reason you’re here is that your dad has a pair of vampires in his holding cell," I informed her.

"We’re in negotiation with Marsilia so she’ll quit trying to kill everyone."

"I only get told half of what goes on," said Jesse.

Adam covered his eyes in a mock-exasperated fashion, and Samuel laughed. "Hey, old man. This is the tip of the iceberg. Mercy’s going to be leading you around with a ring in your nose." But there was something in his eyes that wasn’t amusement.

I didn’t think anyone else noticed or heard the odd note of unhappiness in his voice. Samuel didn’t want me, not really. He didn’t want to be an Alpha… but he wanted what Adam had, Jesse as much as me, I thought – a family: kids, a wife, a white picket fence or whatever the equivalent had been when he was a kid.

He wanted a home, and his last home had died with his last human mate long before I was born. He glanced at me just then, and I didn’t know what was in my face, but it stopped him. Just stopped all the expression, and for a moment he looked amazingly like his half brother, Charles – one of the scariest people I’ve ever met. Charles can just look at raging werewolves and have them whimpering in the corner.

But it was only for an instant. He patted me on my head and said something funny to Jesse.

"So," I said. "Did you call Marsilia, Adam?"

He watched Samuel, but said, "Yes, ma’am. I got Estelle. She’s supposed to give Marsilia my message and have her call me back."

"She’s playing one-upmanship games," observed Samuel.

"Let her," Adam said. "Doesn’t mean I need to do the same."

"Because you have the edge," I said with satisfaction. "You have a bigger threat."

"What?" asked Jesse.

"The Big Bad Boogeyman vampire of Spokane," I said, sitting on the table. "He’s coming to get her."

It wasn’t a sure thing, but it didn’t have to be as long as we could convince Marsilia of it. If I had been

Marsilia, I would’ve been worried about Blackwood.

ADAM AND JESSE WENT HOME. SAMUEL WENT TO BED, and so did I. When my cell phone rang, I was in the middle of a dream about garbage cans and frogs – don’t ask, and I won’t tell.

"Mercy," Adam purred.

I looked down at my feet, where Medea slept. She blinked her big green-gold eyes at me and purred again.

"Adam."

"I called to tell you that I finally got in touch with Marsilia herself."

I sat up, suddenly not sleepy at all. "And?"

"I told her about Blackwood. She listened all the way through, thanked me for my concern, and hung up."

"She’s hardly going to panic over the phone and swear to be forever friends," I said, and he laughed.

"No, I don’t think so. But I thought I’d do my bit for goodwill and let her two baby vamps go."

"Besides, now that Jesse knows they’re there, you’re not going to be able to keep her away."

"Thanks for that."

"Anytime. Hostage-holding is for the bad guys."

He laughed again, this time faintly bitterly. "You obviously haven’t seen the good guys in action."

"No," I told him. "Maybe you were just mistaken on who the good guys were."

There was a long pause, and he said in a soft, midnight voice, "Maybe you’re right."

"You’re the good guy," I explained to him. "So you have to cope with all the good-guy rules.

Fortunately, you have an exceptionally talented and incredibly gifted sidekick…"

"Who turns into a coyote," he said, a smile in his voice.

"So you don’t have to worry about the bad guys very much."

And we settled into some serious, heart-accelerating flirting. Over the phone, passion brought on no panic attack.

I hung up eventually. We both had to get up in the morning, but the call left me restless and not sleepy in the slightest. After a few minutes I got up and took a good look at the stitches in my face. They were tiny and neat, individually tied and set so when my face altered, they wouldn’t pull. Trust a werewolf to give me stitches so I could shift with them.

I stripped out of my clothes and opened my bedroom door. And as a coyote, I popped out of the newly installed dog door and dashed out into the night.

I covered several miles before heading out to the river and my favorite running ground. It wasn’t until I stopped to get a drink from the river that I smelled vampire – and not my vampire. I stood in the shallows of the river and lapped at the water as if I hadn’t sensed a thing.

But it didn’t matter because this vampire had no desire to remain unseen. If I hadn’t smelled him, the distinctive sound of a shotgun shell jacked into place was quite an announcement of intentions. He must have followed me from home. Or maybe his sense of smell was werewolf good. At any rate, he knew who I was.

Bernard stood on the bank, the gun held with obvious familiarity with the barrel pointed at yours truly. Vampire with shotgun – it seemed a little like Jaws with a chain saw, too much of a good thing. I’d have preferred a chain saw in this case. I hate shotguns. I have scars on my butt from a close-range hit, but that wasn’t the only time I’d been shot – just the worst. Montana ranchers don’t like coyotes. Even coyotes who are just passing through and would never attack a lamb or chase a chicken. No matter how much fun chasing chickens is…

I wagged my tail at the vampire.

"Marsilia was so certain he’d kill you," Bernard told me. He always sounded to me like one of the Kennedys, his a’s broad and flat. "But I see that he fooled her. She’s not as smart as she thinks – and that will be her downfall. I need you to call your Master so I can talk to him."

It took me a moment to remember who the Master he was referring to was. And then I didn’t know how to do it. I had so many new ties, and I didn’t know how to use any of them. What if I tried to call Stefan and ended up with Adam here?

I took too long. Bernard pulled the trigger. I think he meant to miss me – unless he was a really bad shot. But several of those stupid pellets hit, and I yipped sharply. He had the next shell in the gun before I finished complaining.