11

Adam

I could wish that Adam were more concerned with his own life than with saving everyone else’s. Since it is a wish Adam has expressed (often) about me, I suppose I have no grounds to complain. I do anyway, of course.

BONARATA WAS DRESSED IN SLACKS AND A TURQUOISE silk shirt that had been made for him. He was seated, doing paperwork, at a desk Adam had barely noticed the first time he’d been here. “A moment, please,” he said, without glancing up.

Adam’s dad had liked to do that when Adam had transgressed in some way. Invite him into his study, then sit down and do some other work for a while so that Adam could think very hard about whatever it had been that he (or one of his brothers) had done to get called into the study. And let him know that neither he nor his transgressions were as important as whatever else his father was working on.

It had worked quite well on Adam when he was eleven.

Adam strolled over to the desk and stood, looking down upon the vampire, Honey at his shoulder.

Marsilia gave him a horrified look. Stefan flashed him a quick smile before turning his attention to a painting hanging some distance away. It was not the painting of Marsilia. From his position, Adam couldn’t see the subject other than there was a lot of blue, maybe a seascape. Elizaveta found an oil painting done in the classical style, the rape of Leda, Adam thought, because there was a muscled and naked woman grappling with a human-sized swan. The two goblins and Smith were on the far side of the room speaking softly—very softly if Adam couldn’t hear it. If he couldn’t, then neither could Bonarata.

Bonarata figured out what had happened pretty quickly, Adam thought. His intimidation tactic had been turned on its head. The minute Bonarata looked up, Adam had the upper hand.

Adam was fighting down amusement when the door next to the desk opened—and his wolf recoiled with horror and pity and revulsion as a dark-haired woman came in.

She could have been beautiful or ugly or anything in between, and Adam would not have noticed. Every hair on his body, every sense belonging to the werewolf and Alpha and pack understood that the werewolf who came into the room was wrong.

“Jacob,” she said in a perfectly unremarkable tone as she set a large envelope on the desk in front of Bonarata. “Annabelle gave me this for you. She says that the architect has redrawn the section in the house in Seattle.” She turned to look at Adam and stared blankly at him.

Her wolf was dead. And not dead. And so was the woman. Or not. Whatever she was confused his wolf and sent him into a frenzy of horror.

“Good,” Bonarata said. “I’ve been waiting for these.”

Adam thought that he was supposed to be nervous that the vampire was building a home in Seattle, but he had no emotion to spare for the vampire; his wolf was too focused on the damaged wolf. She wore a silver collar, though there was no marring of the skin where it rested—so it was not real silver. White gold, maybe. Her neck was covered with scars of bite marks and so was every bit of skin he could see that wasn’t on her face. Her clothing had been chosen to display as much of that scarred skin as possible without being tacky.

Adam wasn’t the only one reeling. On the far side of the room, Smith forgot himself far enough to utter a low growl.

“Lenka,” said Honey, in a low voice that held the same horror that Adam felt.

While Adam had been paying attention to the broken werewolf, Bonarata had come to his feet, effectively putting an end to the dominance issue he’d begun. Adam was very far from caring about whether he or Bonarata had the upper hand.

“Lenka,” said Honey again, taking a step toward the wolf, who looked at her without recognition.

Honey said something in a tongue that had a nodding acquaintance with German, her voice taut and frantic.

The broken wolf said something in reply in the same language, then turned to Bonarata. “I am sorry. You told me to speak only in English. You must punish me.”

She sounded . . . eager, though her scent carried bitter horror.

Bonarata smiled. “It is of no matter. You were accommodating our guest.” And then Bonarata made a mistake. He turned to say something to Honey.

Distracted by Marsilia, Bonarata had not paid much attention to Honey the day before, and he hadn’t paid any attention at all to her while indulging himself trying to get one up on Adam. Honey was worth looking at normally—dressed as she was to attract attention, she could stop traffic.

“You—” said Bonarata, and that’s as far as he got, because as well as traffic, she apparently was pretty good at stopping speech. But mostly because Bonarata was an addict—and Honey fit his craving like a bespoke suit.

Honey, uncharacteristically, didn’t see Bonarata’s reaction. She was only paying attention to Lenka. Adam wasn’t entirely certain Lenka saw it, either, since he was watching Bonarata and Honey, but there wasn’t a werewolf in the room who wouldn’t have smelled Bonarata’s sudden interest. Lust had a very distinctive scent, be it a human, werewolf, or vampire.

“Honey,” Bonarata said slowly, his voice deepening. “Honey Jorgenson, correct?”

Lenka looked at Bonarata. Then she drew a knife from somewhere and struck Honey. Or rather she struck at Honey, who moved and thus caught only a thin slice across the front of her shoulder.

Kill that one, said Adam’s wolf as clearly as he’d ever heard anything. He’d heard other werewolves say that sometimes their wolf spoke to them—and a couple of those he respected too much to discount their word. But in the nearly five decades he’d been a werewolf, he’d never had it happen to him. She is broken. Kill her.

Honey was a fighter, born and bred. Adam had spent the better part of three decades teaching her martial arts, but she’d had a good foundation before that. Lenka had no style, but, like some of the men he’d known in the Rangers, she showed every sign of having killed a lot of people. Honey moved prettier—but Lenka moved faster.

His people started toward them as soon as Lenka pulled her knife. But they stopped when Adam waved them away. “Honey was attacked. She has the right to finish this. Lenka broke the guesting laws.” The rest of them could interfere, but then the expectation would be that they subdue Lenka. If he left it as Honey’s battle, she could take it all the way to the death because Lenka had struck the first blow.

Bonarata moved around his desk. “Let me put a stop to this.”

But Adam stepped in front of him. “No. She attacked Honey unprovoked. This is a legal fight by guesting law.”

Bonarata snarled at him, “She’ll kill your wolf.”

Adam took a step backward and turned at the same time, putting some distance between him and the vampire and allowing him a clear view of the fight. Let Bonarata see for himself how likely Honey was to die in a fight with any werewolf, let alone one who was underweight and broken.

Lenka was changing, her facial bones moving subtly under the scarless skin of her face. She took a kick in the ribs and let her body move with it as her hands snaked down to grab Honey’s leg. But Honey saw it coming and dropped her body into a shoulder roll that brought her back into the outer circle of combat.

Honey was holding back.

Adam told her the words the wolf was whispering in his head. “Kill her, Honey. The woman you knew is not in that body anymore and cannot be brought back.”

Honey didn’t look at him, though he could tell from the stiffness of her shoulders that she had heard him and didn’t like what he’d said. Across the room, Smith met his eyes and nodded agreement. He, too, understood what Adam’s wolf had known instinctively.

Bonarata turned to Adam with a hiss. “She is mine.”

Adam assumed he meant Lenka, but given his addiction, he could have meant either one of them.

“Then you should have kept better control of your wolf,” Adam told the vampire. “If she had not attacked Honey, we would have left her alone.”

Bonarata growled soundlessly, but Adam heard it just the same. The vampire turned to the fighters and said, “Lenka, kill her for me.”

Adam was pretty sure that Lenka was doing her best to do just that. Those words had been aimed at Adam.

After that, everyone was silent, only moving to get out of the way—and Elizaveta was both quick and graceful for a woman of *ahem* years.

The room was mostly empty of furniture except for the small desk Bonarata had been using. And the desk didn’t last. Lenka ripped off a delicately carved leg and broke it over Honey’s thigh—a hit that was meant for her knee.

It was the table leg that got Honey’s head on straight. Up until that point, despite Adam’s order, she had been fighting defensively, unwilling to seriously hurt the other wolf. Honey tore off a second leg. When it broke off with a sharp point, instead of using it as a club, she used it as a modified lance.

“Good,” Adam said quietly. She’d hear him. “That’s it.”

She lost the table leg eventually. She brought it up as a shield when Lenka struck with her knife, taking advantage of an opening Honey had lured her into. The knife sank deeply into the wood. Honey twisted, and Lenka couldn’t keep her grip on the weapon. Honey threw the table leg, knife and all, through one of the plate-glass windows, shattering the glass and leaving the knife out of play unless and until someone decided to go through a window after it.

“She is beautiful,” Bonarata said, mesmerized, his desire scenting the room. “Like a tigress. All muscle and speed.” Lust had changed his eyes, and not even the most mundane human would have looked into that feral face and thought anything but vampire. Even though vampires didn’t need to breathe, he was sucking in great gulps of air, air now scented with blood and sweat and need. His need.

Across the room, Marsilia was watching Bonarata with sad eyes. Not hurt or brokenhearted or anything like that, just sad. The way someone would look at a fallen Ajax or Hercules.

She was wrong. Bonarata wasn’t even down yet, let alone out. But there was no question that his hunger for Honey—for any female werewolf’s blood—was driving him now.

He wouldn’t like having Adam and his people see him like this. He’d remember it later. But so would Adam.

It took her a while—because Lenka was a hell of a fighter—but Honey pinned the other wolf to the floor in a wrestler’s hold. Panting, blood dripping from her mouth and her nose, Honey looked, not at Adam, but at Elizaveta.

“Can this be fixed? I smell witchcraft on this band around her neck,” Honey said.

Adam was starting to think that he should find out more about Bonarata’s witches. According to Bonarata, he had a healer who had mended Mercy’s near-fatal wound. Healing was not something black witches are supposed to be good at, and no white witch would have that kind of power. He’d had someone who’d made a gris-gris that had impressed Elizaveta—Adam knew how to read that old witch.

Elizaveta walked to where the werewolf was pinned to the floor. She sank to her heels and examined the metal band around the werewolf’s neck.

Lenka bucked and struggled, but Honey held her fast. Elizaveta didn’t seem worried.

After a moment, she stood up.

“No,” she said sadly. “The band keeps her under control, but it is a simple thing, if powerful. It makes certain that she follows the orders she is given.”

Honey looked at Adam then.

He said, “It is a kindness.”

She nodded.

She had to let up, just for a second, to get the knife she kept strapped to the inside of her thigh. The one that she hadn’t drawn during the fight because she needed to be sure that killing was the right thing to do.

Lenka almost broke free, but she wasn’t quick enough. She was malnourished, and that had hurt her fighting abilities. She was neither as strong nor as fast as she could have been. Now she was tired, too, and her speed was half what it had been in the beginning, though the fight had been relatively short.

She couldn’t avoid the small blade that slid into the joint between her spine and her head. She died when the blade slipped in, but it took a moment for the air to leave her lungs and her body to quit moving. Honey’s blade wasn’t silver, but it was deadly enough.

Honey pulled the blade out when Lenka was dead. He couldn’t always tell with vampires, but werewolves were easy—their smell changed.

She wiped the blade clean on her pant leg. It wasn’t a prudent place in a building filled with vampires, but he thought she was not in the mood for prudence. She sheathed the blade and accepted Adam’s hand up. She didn’t need his help rising, but he knew the touch of pack would center her. She stood, letting him hold her for half a breath before she slipped away.

As soon as she was standing, Adam turned his attention to Bonarata. Adam knew he’d been taking a chance by turning his back on the vampire. But Honey came first, and he had people in the room who would watch the vampire for him.

As it turned out, Bonarata had had other things to occupy himself with. The Lord of Night was staring at Lenka’s body with an expression Adam had seen on junkies looking at a dime bag, a deep need that overwhelmed any other thought or emotion. But the expression faded as Lenka’s blood died with her. Leaving Bonarata with an expression that looked very much like regret and relief on his face.

“Adam,” said Stefan urgently.

“Beside you,” said Smith, at nearly the same moment.

Adam reached out and wrapped a hand around Honey’s biceps and blocked her with his body as she launched herself at Bonarata.

“Stand down,” he told her, pulling her close to his body so she could smell pack and Alpha. So she could feel his command sink into her bones.

He felt her resistance, though she never pushed against him. She just leaned her forehead to his shoulder and said, “Lenka was a wolf I’d have hunted the moon with. Not a friend. But she was smart and tough. Peter had stories . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Adam didn’t take his eyes off Bonarata, who was beginning to look at Honey the way he’d looked at Lenka. Adam didn’t want to share intimate things in front of the vampire, but for Honey he’d do what he could. He put a smile in his voice. “Peter had a thing for powerful women.”

She laughed wetly against him. “I guess he did. I miss him.”

He kissed the top of her head. “We all do. You should go change your clothes and clean up.” He looked around for someone to send with her.

Stefan said, “I’ll go up with her.” He was watching Bonarata’s face, too.

Dressing Honey to seduce had, in retrospect, been a stupid thing to do. Adam glanced at the body on the floor. A stupid thing, but he couldn’t regret it. This poor creature was free now.

Keeping his body between Bonarata and Honey, Adam turned her over to Stefan. They walked slowly, but no one in the room spoke or moved until after they were gone.

When the door shut behind them, Bonarata blinked and came back to himself. Ignoring the body, as though Lenka had not been his . . . “sheep” was the wrong word, and Adam couldn’t find a right one . . . “victim,” maybe. As though Lenka hadn’t been his victim for centuries, Bonarata said, in a light, casual voice, “I had asked you to meet with me here to tell you that I have disturbing news.”

Standing close behind Adam, Smith inhaled and made a sound, and Adam wondered if he was going to have to send Smith out, too. It was probably a good thing that they weren’t pack; the two of them weren’t connected at all really. Rage was one of those emotions that tended to snowball between pack members.

“What news?” asked Marsilia. Adam thought that she had decided to play mediator, then remembered that he’d asked her to do just that. To get them out of there in as short a time as possible, so he could go find Mercy.

He reached out to Mercy and found her. Just knowing that she was still okay was enough to settle his wolf a bit. But, like Bonarata, Adam made an effort not to look at the dead wolf on the floor. Impossible not to smell her, though.

A chime sounded, a slightly different chime than the one that had announced last meal.

“Ah,” Bonarata said. “First meal. Why don’t we discuss matters over food?”

“Agreed,” said Adam. “We have news for you as well.”

Bonarata led the way into the dining room. Marsilia and Elizaveta followed him. The two goblins, Harris slightly to the back of Larry—like a guard—fell in behind the women. Smith, taking up the tail end of the line, stopped by the dead werewolf. He went down on one knee beside her and touched her forehead.

He bowed his head and said, very softly, “What are you going to do with the body?”

Bonarata came to a halt and turned back. Adam would swear the sadness on his face was genuine. “She served me well for a long time. We will bury her in the garden where she liked to rest in the sun when she could. I think she would have liked that, don’t you?”

Smith vibrated, his hand still on the dead wolf’s forehead. Adam waited. Finally, the wolf said, “It sounds peaceful, I think. Thank you.”

“Did you know her, too?” Harris asked.

Smith got up, sighed, and walked to the others. “Everyone knew about Lenka,” he said.

“Then someone should have done something sooner,” muttered Larry.

“Lots of someones tried,” said Bonarata. “We did not bury them in the garden.” His voice sounded amused. His public mask was back on and firmly in place.

Adam didn’t think that Bonarata would have been so sanguine if he’d been looking at Smith at that moment. But maybe he was wrong. People discount submissive wolves.

—

ADAM HAD HOPED TO BE GONE BEFORE THE FIRST meal, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Mercy was still on the other end of their bond, so he could manage another hour of negotiations as long as he wasn’t the one doing the negotiating. Now that they were being honest in their dealings with Bonarata, he trusted Marsilia to reclaim her role as diplomat.

And there was still Guccio, who had marked Adam as his food. To get to Mercy an hour sooner, Adam would have forgone the pleasure of teaching Guccio why vampires didn’t go about thinking of Alpha werewolves as prey. So he wasn’t altogether disappointed with the delay.

They crossed into the dining room, and Bonarata stopped to speak softly to one of his vampires, who then walked quickly off without appearing to rush.

“Your witch wasn’t careful,” said Elizaveta as they started forward again. “That collar would not have . . .” She paused. “I think it was already no longer keeping her obedient.”

Behind them, Smith growled again. It was a quiet thing, so maybe the vampire and witch didn’t hear it.

Bonarata nodded. “It was becoming a concern,” he said. “But I have not had a witch capable of that kind of work since before the Second World War.” He smiled at Elizaveta. “Would you be interested in a job?”

When she didn’t immediately respond, Adam looked at her thoughtfully.

“No,” she said at last. “Though if you let us leave with Honey, I’ll let you pay me to remove that unfortunate addiction you have.” She pursed her lips. “It won’t be cheap, I warn you.”

“He could not keep Honey,” Adam said coolly, because it had been obvious from Bonarata’s expression at Elizaveta’s reply that the vampire had been considering how he might do that very thing.

“No?” asked Bonarata silkily.

“No,” said Marsilia.

He turned on his heel so that he faced Marsilia. Her shoulders were back, her weight was balanced over the balls of her feet: she was ready for a fight.

Bonarata’s mask held for a heartbeat, then it was gone.

Adam realized that they had done what they set out to do—upset the Master Vampire in the middle of his own game. The bonhomie of their first meeting was no longer a solid disguise behind which Bonarata could run the show. Adam could see the monster quite clearly—and as Bonarata looked at Marsilia, Adam could see the man, too.

A man with a million regrets that mostly surrounded the woman who defied him.

Ironically, now that Adam knew where Mercy was and he just had to shake himself free of Bonarata, Adam would have been happier with the genial host. They could have taken care of business in a cool and logical fashion, and Adam would be on his way by now.

Instead, Adam could feel his wolf’s satisfaction as it settled itself for the brutal fight the beast foresaw. Something would happen. The energy of the room had tipped into potential violence. Because if Bonarata said the condescending pablum Adam could see his mouth forming—Marsilia was going to hit him.

No matter how happy that would make his wolf, it would be faster to go if a fight didn’t break out, so Adam broke up the moment between Marsilia and Bonarata by saying, “If you don’t have a witch of my Elizaveta’s power at your call, how did you heal Mercy from her ‘near-fatal’ wounds?”

His intention was to turn the vampire’s ire from Marsilia to himself and to force Bonarata to backtrack. Because, logically, either Bonarata had lied about what he’d done for Mercy—and Adam knew those wounds had been bad, he’d felt her pain and seen the blood—or just now Bonarata had lied about not having a witch.

Bonarata dragged his eyes from Marsilia, and the look he gave Adam was almost grateful. It was a guy thing. He, too, knew whatever he had been about to say to Marsilia wouldn’t have been useful. It had just been beyond his power to not say it. Adam was happy to help.

“We didn’t have a witch mend your wife,” Bonarata said. “A healer did it. Come and meet her.”

A healer?

Bonarata didn’t wait for questions. He looked around the dining room and led them to a back table with a soft-looking vampire male who was playing games designed to encourage the girl sitting next to him to eat. Adam recognized those games because he’d played them more than a time or two when Jesse was a toddler.

This girl was a lot older than a toddler. She was dark-haired and blue-eyed and oddly unfinished. A mundane human would look at her and think Down syndrome or something of the sort. Adam observed her and his nose told him that she was fae and human. She looked like she was fourteen or fifteen, but, having fae blood, she could have been four or five hundred years old and looked no different.

She was too thin, and there were circles under her eyes, but when she looked up and saw Bonarata, her face lit up. She left her place and trotted (there was no other word that fit the high-stepping shuffle) around the table and made happy noises as she raised her arms.

Bonarata laughed—a big booming laugh that suited him oddly well and was nothing any vampire had any business having—and wrapped his arms around her. He swung her around twice and set her down gently on the floor. He stopped her too-loud babbling that didn’t, to Adam’s ears, appear to actually be words.

She quieted and looked up at the vampire with the eagerness of a corgi awaiting orders.

“Stacia,” Bonarata said, “Stacia, these are my friends. Marsilia. Elizaveta. Adam. Larry. Austin. Matt. People, this is my friend Stacia.”

She gave each of them a cheerful wave until she got to Adam. She squinted, stuck out her tongue in thought—then clapped her hands suddenly and her mouth rounded in surprise. She looked at Bonarata and wiggled her fingers with such abandon it took Adam a moment to realize she was using a form of sign language.

She turned back to Adam and gave him a huge smile. She patted his arm, sending a zing of power all the way from the skin where she touched up to his nose. He didn’t flinch. He took her hand in his and kissed it.

He knew what he was looking at. This child was the single reason Bonarata’s machinations hadn’t killed Mercy.

She blushed and clasped her hands together, pressed close to her stomach. But the smile she gave Adam was pure delight.

“She says that you belong to the pretty lady she healed,” Bonarata said. “She thinks that you should go find her and give her a hug.”

The girl patted Bonarata. He laughed. “Okay. A very big hug.” She nodded firmly, apparently having no trouble understanding English, even though she apparently didn’t speak it—and maybe no other language except her own. “And you need to go eat, young lady. You are too thin.”

She gave him a sweet smile and took the hand of the vampire who was evidently her caretaker and let him lead her back to her food.

On the way through the dining hall, Bonarata said, “We found her in a ghetto in some little town in the middle of the Great War.”

World War I, Adam thought, a century ago.

“She is fae,” said Larry.

“Partly,” Bonarata said. “Or so we think.”

“More than half,” Larry told him seriously. “Don’t let the fae know you have her here. She’d be useful to them, and I don’t think they’d treat her as well as you do. They’ve little patience with creatures who are not perfect.” He spoke, as he often did, as though he did not consider himself to be one of the fae.

“So I have always thought,” agreed Bonarata as he turned, presumably to take them to where they would be eating this evening.

He paused. Looked sharply at Adam and took a step closer and inhaled.

The vampire who’d brought drinks to their room earlier approached before Bonarata could comment on the scent he’d finally noticed.

“Your pardon,” she told them. “Our seating arrangements had to be rapidly rearranged. Ms. Arkadyevna, Mr. Harris, Mr. Sethaway, Mr. Smith. I have you seated over there, the little table with the peach-rose flower arrangement. There was not time to find a cordial dining companion, so I thought it was best to seat you among yourselves.”

Bonarata held up a hand. “One moment, Annabelle. Could you find Guccio, please, and bring him here?”

“Adam met Guccio wandering the hall with a witched bag that allowed him to walk in the day,” Marsilia told Bonarata in a low voice, because people were starting to look at them.

“Ah,” murmured Bonarata. “I’d been told that piece of witchcraft was no more.”

They all watched as Annabelle walked quickly through the room and found Guccio talking to a small group of vampires near the table where they’d eaten before. Guccio looked over at Bonarata, then said something to Annabelle and patted her shoulder before breaking off from the others and weaving his way to Bonarata’s side.

“Why is it that Adam carries your mark?” Bonarata’s voice was almost cheerful.

And now the whole room fell silent. No one looked at Bonarata, but they were listening as hard as they could.

Guccio blushed and swore. Then he said contritely, “I am sorry, Master. I had hoped to have a word before this meal, but I was distracted with some confusion about a delivery of—I suppose that part doesn’t matter. It was a stupid thing. I was going through an old trunk last night and happened upon this”—he pulled the gris-gris out of his shirt—“I didn’t even know if it worked or not anymore. Mary made it for me a long time ago. I thought I’d try it.” He took a deep breath, then said, in a voice that was raw, “I miss the sun.”

There was a sympathetic echo that had no sound, but it swept through the room just the same. Those words found a home with every vampire here. A human might not have noticed it, but Adam’s wolf was on high alert, and that left Adam taking note of everything.

“It still worked, but Mary’s spells always brought out the wild in me,” Guccio continued.

A second, lesser reaction in the hall. There were a number of people, Adam judged, who knew what Guccio was saying and agreed with it. He thought about Elizaveta’s words—how such objects should be used with caution because the . . . evil could bleed through.

“I was just walking,” Guccio said, his eyes half-closed, as though he was reliving that moment in his dreams. “I could feel the sun above me, reaching through the walls of the house, and suddenly there he was. I touched him before I thought.” He gave Adam an apologetic smile. “I am sorry. It will fade in a day or two as long as I don’t touch you again.”

“It is of no matter,” said Adam.

—

MATT SMITH’S SUSPICION TURNED INTO A CERTAINTY. He’d been concerned since this morning when Adam had come in to tell them he’d had a run-in with Guccio. It was not like an Alpha to allow another person to trespass—to mark him as if he were prey—then dismiss it as nothing.

Matt stepped forward and touched Adam on the shoulder. When the other werewolf looked at him, Matt dropped his gaze.

“I need to have a word, sir,” he said. “It’s important.”

Bonarata frowned at him and said, “It will wait until after breakfast, I trust. I would not have my cook offended for a light matter.”

Matt could have heaved a sigh of relief, but he didn’t. If there were words better guaranteed to get him his five minutes alone, he wasn’t sure what they were.

“Of course not,” said Adam. “We wouldn’t dream of offending your cook. You will start without us. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Adam?” said Marsilia.

Adam glanced at Matt, who shook his head. This was a matter for wolves.

“Start without me,” he told Marsilia, and he headed for the nearest door, which happened to be the one that led back into Bonarata’s art gallery.

Matt trailed after him, doing his best to look apologetic. He knew people well enough to understand that no one who wasn’t seated at the table with the little healer half-blood would get to eat until he and Adam got back.

Adam shut the door behind them. “There are cameras in this room,” he said. “And this model includes a mic, so don’t say or do anything that you don’t want Bonarata to know about.” And Adam would know, wouldn’t he? Security was what the Columbia Basin Alpha did for his other job.

Matt said baldly, “You’ve been Kissed by a vampire, Adam.”

Adam stared at him. “No,” he said without conviction. “I looked.” His breathing grew rapid, and so did the pulse in his neck. “There were no bite marks.”

He pulled up his sleeve, and there were two rough puncture marks on the inside of his arm. “See?” he said. “Vampire bites heal as slowly on a werewolf as any wound on a mortal. If I had been bitten, there would be marks.” His voice was slowing, slurring, as something inside—probably his wolf—fought to uncover the lies he’d been fed, lies that blinded him to the red marks on his skin.

Matt wished there were pack bonds between them—pack bonds always made it easier to get an Alpha to listen to him. He raised his eyes and met Adam’s.

“You were bitten,” he said. “Without the pack here to anchor you, a powerful enough vampire can make you remember whatever he wants you to remember. You have to fight it, Adam. Listen to your wolf and fight it.”

Adam held his gaze and broke out in a sweat as the brown lightened to gold. The wolf inside Adam, in another place and time, might have objected to another wolf holding his eyes. But this was not a dominance fight. Matt’s status, instead of making this a fight, made it an offer of help acceptable to Adam’s wolf.

Matt had hoped it would work. But dominant wolves were unpredictable. This could have ended in bloodshed.

“Shit,” said Adam, the words dragging out of him like pulling a body out of quicksand. “Shit. Damn it to hell. I’ve been bitten by a fucking vampire.”

“Change,” Matt suggested. “That will help.”

Adam shook his head and gritted his teeth. “Can’t,” Adam said. “Can’t lose face with Bonarata. I have to stay human. I have to get out of here tonight to get Mercy—and before I do, I need to figure out why the hell Bonarata stole her in the first place. Stupid fucking vampires.”

“Agreed,” said Matt. “Though pretty undiplomatic if we are being recorded. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not now,” Adam said. “I’ll fight this out myself. Now that I know what’s going on. I think I’ve got this.” He took a deep, ragged breath. “This will teach me not to listen to my wolf. It’s been telling me there is something wrong since”—Adam looked at Matt and flashed him a surprisingly sweet smile, given the sweat trickling down his forehead—“since Mercy disappeared, I guess. And that was the problem. Too hard to tell one hissy fit from another.”

He fell silent. Matt put a hand tentatively on the other wolf’s shoulder, and when Adam didn’t shrug him off, he left it there. They didn’t share a bond, but Matt was older than he looked, and there were ways to feed power through touch.

Adam lifted his head and opened blind eyes when he felt the initial rush. He sucked in two gulps of air, then said in a hoarse voice, “You’ll have to teach me how to do that when this is all over. I can think of all sorts of times that would come in handy.”

Matt smiled, though the other wolf couldn’t see him. “Will do.” And then he fed him more power.

It wasn’t as much help as Adam’s pack would have been. With a pack, Guccio would never have been able to get such a hold on an Alpha’s mind. It said something about Guccio’s ranking among the vampires that he could do it at all. He caught a whiff of Honey and knew that Adam was pulling on that bond, too.

He could tell when Adam freed himself because the Alpha wolf’s body relaxed, and his breathing eased. When Adam opened his eyes, they were dark brown once more.

“I’ve left the tie in place,” he told Matt. “I don’t want to give Guccio warning. Let’s see what he does with it.”

Matt’s eyebrows rose. “Is that wise?”

“Probably not,” Adam said with a toothy smile. “But I’ve got it. Do me a favor, though?”

“Anything,” Matt said.

“If I start doing what Guccio says, take that gun in your ankle holster and shoot me with it, would you?”

Matt grinned. “Sure thing.”

—

ADAM TOOK THE LEAD BACK TO THE DINING HALL. THE filthy tie that Guccio had imposed upon him made him feel like Little Miss Muffet on her tuffet—but he couldn’t afford to react to the great spider.

He tried to look as if all that he’d been discussing with Smith had been the latest episode of Doctor Who, though he couldn’t do anything about the sweat. Thankfully, his suit would hide any sign of dampness even if there was nothing to be done about the smell.

As he’d surmised, despite having told them all to eat without them, everyone was seated with food growing cold on their plates or in their glasses, depending upon what kind of monster they were.

Without saying another word, Smith headed to the table with the goblins and Elizaveta, who was frowning at him. He felt something, and a gentle breeze, that smelled of Elizaveta, brushed his skin. Her face went blank; and then she looked pleased. She greeted Smith with a pleasant smile.

Adam sat down opposite Bonarata, with Marsilia on his left and Guccio on his right. There was a warmish American-style breakfast on his plate, enough food to satisfy a werewolf. If he were to guess, conversation hadn’t been going too well while he was gone. Marsilia’s mouth was tight around the edges, Guccio looked amused, and Bonarata looked particularly bland.

“Sorry to keep you,” Adam said to Bonarata. “Urgent pack business.”

“I thought your pilot wasn’t pack,” Bonarata said.

“He isn’t,” agreed Adam pleasantly, dumping ketchup on his eggs. “But sometimes submissive wolves run into problems if they’re around too much violence. Since he is here because of me, he has the right to ask me for help.” Which was sort of true—violence became a problem for most people eventually unless they were true sociopaths, and there was no need to tell everyone that Adam had been the one in need of help.

The food was good, even cold, and Adam made his way through the meal with the dedication of a man drained from fighting off a vampire attack. As soon as he took the first bite, other people started eating, too.

A male vampire stopped by the table and handed Bonarata a note. He read it, frowned, and looked at Adam.

“This concerns the bad news I had,” he said. “I sent out word yesterday that my people were to locate your mate and assist her if necessary and otherwise just keep watch and send me word.”

As opposed to kill her on sight, Adam thought.

“My people have all been contacted except for one—and from him I have had no word at all.”

“He is in Prague,” said Adam.

Bonarata looked at him with narrowed eyes, and Adam knew he was right.

“Mercy has this . . . this uncanny ability to go where the trouble is thickest,” Adam told him. He had decided a while ago that it wasn’t deliberate, and that it had something to do with being Coyote’s daughter. He was pretty sure that Mercy was completely oblivious. “My wife went to Prague. A city where, my people tell me, there are two vampire seethes in a place that should only be territory enough for one. Hopefully she is safe with Libor of the Vltava.”

“You sent Bran’s foster child, whom he loves, to Libor of the Vltava,” said Bonarata. Because, evidently, Bonarata knew there was something up between Bran and Libor.

“Do you know what caused the bad blood between them?” asked Marsilia with interest.

Adam had discussed his qualms about Libor with his people, including the secret trouble between Libor and Bran. Marsilia suggested asking Bran himself. Adam had just shaken his head and explained that Charles had told Ben that the secrecy was powered by an oath of silence. Taking their curiosity to Bran would be useless. Bran doubtless knew, Adam had told them, that Charles had told Mercy to go to Libor. If Bran had had objections, he’d had plenty of time to voice them.

Bonarata shook his head. “Libor doesn’t talk much. He especially doesn’t talk to vampires. He informed me so when I attempted to meet with him a few months ago to discuss why his city had two seethes—one of which no one can pin down, not even my . . . the Master of the city. I have a few ideas about it.” He frowned. “It was probably a mistake to put it off, since the Master is no longer communicating with me. We tried him just before dawn, because we couldn’t reach my hunter.”

“Is the Master of Prague still Strnad?” asked Marsilia.

“No,” said Guccio. “Strnad killed himself seventy or eighty years ago. Kocourek took over the city from him.”

She frowned. “I don’t remember Kocourek.”

“After your time,” said Bonarata shortly.

“Is this Kocourek a rebel type?” she asked. “Or is he in trouble? Or is he just away from the phone for a couple of hours?”

“Maybe Mercy did something to him,” offered Adam dryly. “You can never tell with Mercy. I expect there are buses in Prague, too.”

Marsilia raised her eyebrow at Adam—an admonishment to behave. Adam raised one back at her.

“It is unlikely that Kocourek is away from the phone,” said Bonarata. “That is cause for concern, certainly. But anything further than that is speculation at this point.”

He didn’t sound like it was speculation. He sounded like he was seriously angry about it. Adam suspected Kocourek was not long for the world, but that was Bonarata’s business.

“I’m sure you will understand,” Marsilia said, “that Adam is anxious to collect his wife. Especially if your vampires on the ground in Prague are not responding. Perhaps we should get on with business. You took Mercy. Why?”

Bonarata pursed his lips, took a sip of his wine as if he enjoyed it. Then he looked up at Adam.

“You have made a bold move,” he said. “It was a brilliant move, perhaps, to claim your town as your territory and vow to protect all the people in it. You’ve made your town a place for humans to come and treat with the fae and the werewolves. A place where they feel safe. Humans come to see the fae, and the fae show their true faces—at least part of their true faces there. All because you have said you can keep them all safe from each other. It is a happy thing, a thing full of infinite possibilities and hope.”

He played with the glass. It looked fragile in his big hands. Then he set it down with a sigh and said, “And when it doesn’t work, you are going to spark a war with the humans that has not been seen on this planet since the Spanish Inquisition set off the Witch Wars. When I was a boy, every village had a coven of witches. Every city of any size had a witch as strong as Elizaveta in charge of it. The humans began it, driving the witches into breaking treaties that had been in place for centuries. By the time it was finished . . . I thought for fifty years that they had succeeded in killing off every witchborn person on the planet.”

The vampire spread his hands, then set them on the table on either side of his glass. “I do not believe that you—a pup not even a century old—can do this thing you claim. Even the Marrok has pulled his support from you, though your mate is this woman you claim is the child of his heart. He waits for you to fail, because if he did not think you would fail, he would join you. You are no match for the Gray Lords. You are no match for the werewolf packs who will move in on your territory because the Marrok no longer gives you the mantle of his protection. You are no match for me.” He gave Adam a sad smile. “No matter how much I wished it to be otherwise.”

Adam waited until Bonarata seemed to be done. Then he cut into a crescent roll dusted with raspberry drizzle and ate a large bite. He made sure to chew it well and washed it down with a swallow of water.

“Point of fact,” Adam said. “The Marrok broke with us because he thought we were going to step into the middle of a war the fae were courting with the humans. He needed to keep the rest of the werewolf packs out of that because, as you well know, if the fae turned their attention to eliminating the werewolves, they’d probably be able to do it before the humans managed to destroy the fae.”

He took another bite and chewed slowly.

Marsilia said, “The question you should be asking yourself at this point, Jacob, is why didn’t the fae destroy Adam and his pack out of hand? We all here at this table know they could have done it.”

Bonarata looked at Adam and invited Adam to answer the question with a lift of his eyebrow.

Adam swallowed his food. “You are looking at this wrong. You think I hold my territory by the might of my fist. But that’s not it. I hold my territory by consent of the governed. I think it is a very American concept, which might be why you never looked for it.”

He ate another bite in virtual silence. The rest of the people in the room—and there were maybe forty people here outside of his—seemed to understand that something was going on, and they quieted to hear it.

Adam decided that he’d offered enough. If Bonarata wanted to know more, he could ask. This time it wasn’t a dominance thing, a power play. This was for keeps. If Bonarata asked the questions he needed answers to, he was more likely to believe what he heard. The sooner he understood how their safe zone worked and why, the sooner Adam could get into the plane and fly to Prague.

“Explain it to me, then,” gritted Bonarata, “who is hampered by being old and European. Explain to me how a single Alpha werewolf can dictate behavior to the Gray Lords. To Beauclaire, who has the power to level cities. To the children of Danu, who were worshipped as gods.”

“Oh, that one is simple,” Adam said. “They made me do it.”

Silence.

“He’s not lying,” Marsilia said. “I rather enjoyed the show.”

Adam tipped his water glass at her. “I’ll remember that.” Then he dropped his indolent air and sat forward, all business. “When they made their dramatic exodus, the fae expected to be able to retreat to the reservations and never deal with humans again. Three thousand years ago they could have done that, retreated to Underhill and lived happily for as long as they cared to do so. But that Underhill fell and closed her doors to the fae, forcing them to make their peace with the humans, who reproduce so very quickly and love the cold iron that is the doom of most of the fae.

“Moving to the New World was a desperate move, revealing themselves to mankind again was a desperate move, creating the reservations was an even more desperate move. The latter paid off, or so they thought. In the wilds of western North America, where cold iron doesn’t have the weight of history that it has here, they were able to reopen the ways to Underhill in the territories they controlled. Places where cold iron and Christianity had no hold. So they flipped the bird at the humans and retreated, expecting that they could run from this world.”

Arrested, Bonarata absorbed that. When Adam started to speak, the vampire held up a hand. “I had not heard . . . a moment, please.”

Adam went back to eating. Maybe if he weren’t hungry, if he hadn’t been a soldier, the tension in the room would have ruined his appetite. Maybe.

“They opened the old ways,” Bonarata said, “but they did not find what they expected.”

Adam nodded. “Exactly. Underhill wasn’t happy with them—wasn’t entirely sane—and had no intention of allowing them to return and reign in their old, arrogant fashion.”

“Leaving the fae trapped in a cage of their own making,” the vampire said.

Adam nodded. “They had some choices. One of them was to go out fighting. Even a hundred years ago, they might have won a war with the humans, though I doubt it. They have the power, but the fae just don’t have the numbers—and a fair percentage of them would rather kill other fae first, then go kill the humans. Now? With modern weapons? I don’t think it is a fight they can win, and neither do most of them. But the fae still have the kind of power that could make it a war with no winners.” He brought his fists up together, made a quiet explosive sound, and opened his fists like fireworks. “Everybody dies. Some of the fae find this a very attractive option, death in the glory of battle.”

Bonarata snorted inelegantly. “Morons,” he said. “Where is the glory if there is no one left to tell the story?”

“Thankfully, most of the Gray Lords agree with you,” Adam said. “They had locked themselves in their fortress. But the fae are not vampires or werewolves, who can live in peace with their brethren.” His wolf laughed at that. Fae living together in peace? Werewolves maybe, if the Marrok were there to bang heads together. Vampires? Still, one must flatter one’s host, and the vampires were better, generally, at living together than the fae were.

“If they kept their people trapped in the reservations for much longer, they would die at their own hands.” Adam only voiced what was obvious to everyone here who knew the fae. “They were already starting to murder and torture their own—out of sheer boredom, I think.”

“If they are to return to the world, they have to negotiate with humans again,” Bonarata mused. “But now they have thoroughly schooled their hosts in exactly how scary, how powerful they really are. How could they reestablish communications after that?” He gave Adam a doubtful look, clearly indicating he didn’t think Adam was up to the task.

“I don’t think you understand just what Adam is to the humans,” Marsilia said. “He was a celebrity werewolf almost from the first moment the werewolves came out. He’s good to look at, and he understands how to walk in the halls of power. He was respected by the military-industrial complex of the US before it was known that he was a werewolf. He was a person trusted by high-level military and political people. So he helped to weave relationships between the werewolves and humans.” Here Marsilia paused to smile wryly. “And then Mercy took a handful of Adam’s pack and killed a troll to save the humans. They risked their lives and were hurt in a battle they could have avoided. But they put themselves between the fae bad guys and the humans and turned themselves into heroes. They are celebrities.”

“Stupid of us,” Adam said. “Because it gave the Gray Lords an idea.”

“You were set up,” Bonarata said sitting forward. In a hushed, power-filled voice, he said, “They set you up. Set you up to be a hero, pretended to be afraid of you so that the humans would believe you could make the fae behave.”

Bonarata was being surprisingly reasonable for a man who had just lost one of his pets. Elizaveta had said the collar was almost out of power, hadn’t she? And the witch who had made it was no longer working for Bonarata. Maybe Lenka’s death hadn’t been as unplanned as it had seemed.

“The fact is,” Adam said, addressing the issue at hand, “no one believes the fae are afraid of me. Not the fae. Not the humans. Certainly not me. What they believe, because we have done it, is that we will fight to the death to protect the humans in our territory. But, I can tell you that if a fae steps wrong in my city, I won’t have to lift a finger to destroy him, because the fae themselves will do it for me. We have a treaty signed in blood to that effect.”

Marsilia cleared her throat, and Adam thought back over his words.

“Destroy him or her,” he said. “The humans believe that we can protect them—and we can. They are mistaken, a little, because they don’t know about that treaty, about why we can protect them. The fae know that the Gray Lords will kill to protect that treaty. And the fae are afraid of the Gray Lords.”

“Most important,” Marsilia said, “is that the humans don’t just think Adam and his pack can protect them—they know that Adam will protect them. He is a superhero—like Wolverine or Spider-Man.”

“And it isn’t just my pack enforcing order,” Adam said. He wasn’t a superhero—but he could see Marsilia’s point. “It’s Marsilia and her seethe. It’s Larry.” He raised his water glass in Larry’s direction and, twenty feet away, Larry raised his in return. “It is Elizaveta.” He and Elizaveta exchanged the same distant toast. “It is the fae themselves. I am, for my sins, just the face of that protection to the public eye.”

Bonarata stared thoughtfully at Adam. Adam met his eyes and held his gaze. This time, Bonarata smiled, a wide, generous expression that was as honest an expression as a vampire of his age and stature was capable of.

Yes, Adam thought, Lenka’s death had been planned. Bonarata’s sorrow had been real enough. But her death at the hands of Adam and his people had been planned. Maybe Bonarata wanted to use her death to justify killing Adam. That felt like something a vampire of Bonarata’s reputation might engineer. It had been an accident that Lenka had struck the first blow—and that Honey had been entirely justified in killing her.

Bonarata glanced around the room, and people resumed talking and doing things other than paying attention to Bonarata. Sound reestablished itself comfortably.

In this semiprivacy, Bonarata said to Marsilia, “Recently, you lost several of your stronger people. If you would leave me a list of my vampires you would trust at your back, I will see who is willing to travel to you.” He paused, then said, with evident sincerity, “You may account the gift as my endorsement of this idea of your safe zone.” He paused. “Alternatively, you could return here, and I will send people to replace you so the werewolves are not left without support.”

As an “I love you and wish you to return to me” it lacked both clarity and passion, Adam judged. If he’d said something that lame and uncommitted to Mercy, she’d make sure he paid for it. He didn’t think Marsilia would be any more impressed by it than Mercy would have been.

Marsilia looked down at the table. “I loved you,” she said in a very low voice.

“You defied me,” Bonarata said in the same low voice. “You fought me. I could not let it go, no matter how much I loved you.”

She gave him a hard smile. “You destroyed Lenka and her mate because it was easier than controlling your hunger for her blood. By destroying her, a strong werewolf, you demonstrated that you were still in charge—a very big lie. It worked only because people are willing to believe lies that are big enough. Because you did not want to control your addiction, not really. You enjoyed the power boost the blood of a werewolf gave you more than you recognized the addiction as a weakness that is more than a match for any strength it gives you.”

“Yes,” said Bonarata without apology.

“You loved power more than you loved me,” she said. “You chose once as you would choose again.” She smiled, and it was tender and sad at the same time. “I know you, Iacopo. I would not change you for anything. But I cannot live here.” She waved her hand to indicate his home, his seethe, Milan. Everything. “I am useful where I am. There are people who depend upon me.” She looked at Adam, who solemnly nodded. “It is then my choice to go back to my home. I will send you a list of people I might trust, and you may do what you wish with it.”

Adam finished his food. He glanced at Guccio, who was watching the other two vampires. Guccio had managed the whole meal without saying more than a single sentence. Adam was a little, a very little, disappointed in Guccio, that the vampire was going to do nothing—leaving Adam in an awkward position. Maybe the story Guccio had told about marking Adam had been true—except that he’d bitten him and bound him instead. The marking could be overlooked as the bite never could. Should Adam let the trespass go if Guccio didn’t make a move? Adam found that answer extremely unsatisfying, and so did his wolf.

“I regret what I had to do,” Bonarata was telling Marsilia in a soft voice.

Marsilia lifted a brow in disbelief, and Bonarata gave a half-embarrassed laugh and spread his arms. “You are right. I needed the power, Marsilia. If I had not had it, we would not have survived.”

She made a sound that might have been disagreement. “Did your werewolf blood give you more power than having Stefan and me by your side would have? More than Wulfe? You broke him, too, Iacopo. He is not . . . not safe anymore.”

Bonarata nodded. “When they saw what I was willing to do, what I could do, they quit fighting me. It allowed me to take the reins here. To keep us all safe.”

She looked at him. “Then, my once-love, what is it that you regret?”

“That I could not have just told you what I was doing and why,” he said. “That I had to hurt you.”

She shook her head. “Don’t pretend that was part of your plan. You hurt me, I hurt you back. I broke your rules, fed from Lenka, and tried to break your hold on her. I failed in that, to my regret. You punished me for breaking your rules—but my real crime was hurting you. Was daring to tell you that what you had done, what you were doing, was wrong. I know you, Iacopo. You aren’t sorry for anyone except yourself.”

She didn’t say it like she was condemning him, but she meant it.

His face lost all expression. “You don’t know me, Marsilia. You knew the person I was. And call me Jacob.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “But I, too, have changed. I’m not yours through thick and thin anymore, I am not your Blade. I do not feel the need to forgive you anything, Jacob. I will never pine for you again, though I think I will remember you fondly. In a few years, perhaps.” She glanced around. “And if you really wanted me back, we’d have had this conversation without an audience. Having discussed everything that needed to be said, Adam needs to leave for Prague to find his mate. Have we your leave to go?”

Bonarata leaned back in his chair, looking at Marsilia. His face was sad and hungry and lonely. “I believe our business is concluded.” Bonarata looked at Adam for confirmation.

Adam considered the vampire. “Just to have things clear between us,” he said. “You know what we’re doing back home, and it isn’t what you thought. The fae aren’t going to suddenly kill a bunch of humans in a spectacularly messy fashion because it is not in their best interests. There won’t be a second Inquisition begun because of us. You are now okay with this and won’t send another crew out to attack me and mine.” He took a deep breath and had to fight to keep his wolf from snarling. “If you do, I won’t be coming over here on a diplomatic mission a second time. I am not a diplomat. Like you, I am a killer, and anyone who forgets that deserves what they get. That said, I am leaving as soon as I can get my crew packed and ready.”

Bonarata said, very quietly, “Be careful, wolf. Remember what I am.”

“Back. At. You.”

“Adam,” Marsilia. “Jacob. Perhaps we should just agree that matters have been settled.”

Bonarata stood up, giving permission for everyone in the room to do likewise. Adam got to his feet, too, tucking his chair back under the table.

Bonarata rounded the table, his path taking him around Guccio rather than Marsilia. “I won’t say it has been a pleasure,” Bonarata said. “But it has been interesting. I wish you luck on your endeavors.”

He held out a hand, Adam reached out and—finally, finally Guccio made his move.

“Hold him,” Guccio said softly, sending the command up the blood bond he’d initiated when he had fed from Adam in the hall this afternoon.