Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(36)
Author: Patricia Briggs

I started to say something, but he held up a hand in a mute request for me to be quiet. He didn’t seem angry, which actually surprised me after the display he’d put on for Tim. But he didn’t start the car and drive off either.

"I love you," he said finally, and not happily.

"I know." My stomach tightened into knots and I forgot all about Tim and Citizens for a Bright Future. I didn’t want to do this now. I didn’t want to do this ever. "I love you, too." My voice didn’t sound any happier than his did.

He stretched his neck and I heard the vertebrae crack. "So why aren’t I tearing that little geeky bastard into pieces right now?"

I swallowed. Was this a trick question? Was there a right answer?

"Uhm. You don’t seem too angry," I suggested.

He hit the dash of his very expensive car so fast that I didn’t even really see his hand move. If his upholstery hadn’t been leather, he’d have cracked it.

I thought about saying something funny, but decided it wasn’t quite the moment. I’ve learned a little something since I was sixteen.

"I guess I was mistaken," I said. Nope. Haven’t learned a thing.

He turned his head slowly toward me, his eyes hard chips of ice. "Are you laughing at me?"

I put my hand over my mouth, but I couldn’t help it. My shoulders started to shake because I suddenly knew the answer to his question. And that told me why it bothered him that he wasn’t in a killing rage. Like me, Samuel had had a revelation tonight – and he wasn’t happy about it.

"Sorry," I managed. "Sucks, doesn’t it?"

"What?"

"You had this great plan. You’d weasel your way into my house and carefully seduce me. But you don’t want to seduce me all that much. What you really want to do is cuddle, play, and tease." I grinned at him, and he must have been able to smell the relief pouring off me. "I’m not the love of your life; I’m your pack – and it’s really ticking you off."

He said something really crude as he started the car – a nice Old English word.

I giggled and he swore again.

That he didn’t really consider me his mate answered a lot of questions. And it told me that Bran, who was both the Marrok and Samuel’s father, didn’t know everything, even if he and everyone else thought he did. Bran was the one who told me Samuel’s wolf had decided I was his mate. He’d been wrong: I was going to rub his nose in it next time I saw him.

Now I knew why Samuel been able to restrain himself and not attack Adam all these months. I’d been crediting Samuel’s control with a dash of the magic that comes from being more dominant than most other wolves on the planet. The real answer was that I wasn’t Samuel’s mate. And since he was more dominant than Adam, if he didn’t want to fight, it would make it much easier for Adam to hold off.

Samuel didn’t want me any more than I wanted him – not that way. Oh, the physical stuff was there, plenty of spark and fizzle. Which was puzzling.

"Hey, Sam," I asked. "Why is it, if you don’t want me as a mate, that when you kiss me, I go up in flames?" Why was it that after the first rush of relief was over – I was starting to feel miffed that he didn’t actually want me as a mate?

"If I were human, the heat between us would be enough," he told me. "Damned wolf feels sorry for you and decided to step down."

Now that made no sense at all. "Excuse me?"

He looked at me and I realized he was still angry, his eyes glittering with icy fury. Samuel’s wolf has snow-white eyes that are freaking scary in a human face.

"Why are you still angry?"

He pulled over on the shoulder of the highway and stared at the lights of Home Depot. "Look, I know my father spends a lot of time trying to convince the new wolves that the human and wolf are two halves of a whole – but that’s not really true. It is just easier to live with and most of the time it’s so close to being the truth that it doesn’t matter. But we’re different, the wolf and the human. We think differently."

"Okay," I said. I could kind of understand that. There were plenty of times when my coyote instincts fought against what I needed to do.

He closed his eyes. "When you were about fourteen and I realized what a gift had been dropped in my lap, I showed you to the wolf and he approved. All I had to do was convince you – and myself." He turned to look me squarely in the eyes and he reached out and touched my face. "For a true mating, it isn’t necessary for the human half to even like your mate. Look at my father. He despises his mate, but his wolf decided that he had been alone long enough." He shrugged. "Maybe it was right, because when Charles’s mother died, I thought my father would die right along with her."

Everyone knew how much Bran had loved his Indian mate. I think that was part of what made Leah, Bran’s current mate, a little crazy.

"So it is the wolf who mates," I said. "Carrying the man along for the ride whether he wants to or not?"

He smiled. "Not quite that bad – except maybe in my father’s case, though he’s never said anything against Leah. He never would, nor permit anyone else to say anything against her in his hearing either. But we weren’t talking about him."

"So you set your wolf on me," I said, "when I was fourteen."

"Before anyone else could claim you. I was not the only old wolf in my father’s pack. And fourteen was not an uncommon age for marriage in older days. I couldn’t chance a prior claim." He rolled down the window to let the cooler night air flush the stuffy car. The noise of the traffic zipping past us increased dramatically. "I waited," he whispered. "I knew you were too young but…" He shook his head. "When you left, it was a just punishment. We both knew it, the wolf and I. But one moon I found myself outside of Portland where the wolf had taken us. The need…we went all the way to Texas to make sure there was no chance of an accidental meeting. Without distance…I don’t know that I could have let you leave."

So, Bran had been right about Samuel after all. I couldn’t bear the closed-off look on his face and I put my hand over his.

"I’m sorry," I said.

"You shouldn’t be. It wasn’t your fault." His smile changed to a lopsided grin as his hand gripped mine almost painfully tight. "Usually things work out better. The wolf is patient and adaptable. Mostly he waits until your human half finds someone to love and then he claims her, too. Sometimes years after they marry. I did it backward on purpose and got caught in the backlash. Not your fault. I knew better."

There’s something really disturbing about finding out how little you really know about something you felt like you were an expert on. I grew up with the wolves – and this was all news to me.