He ate quickly and without much conversation, which was just fine with me. My head still churned from the events of the previous day and night, since it felt like everything else in my life was playing in fast forward. Miles said something about a business meeting and that Mercy would keep me company. He kissed me quickly and disappeared into the hall to shout at someone.

I shook my head and started gathering pans and dishes to wash, since apparently the man was incapable of cleaning up after himself. At least he could actually cook. Although that raised more questions about why he didn’t just cook for himself more often instead of being a lazy ass and making Mercy do all the work for him. Maybe it was part of the pack deal. The boss didn’t have to cook.

I was still muttering and shaking my head when Mercy skipped in, and the force of her personality almost knocked me back a step or two. She immediately tried to box me out of the kitchen. “I’ll take care of those!”

“I’d rather do them,” I said. I didn’t exactly throw an elbow to keep her from taking over the skillet Miles had used to make a mess of eggs on the stove and the floor, somehow, but she backed up with an oof. “I haven’t done chores in over a week, so I’ve gotta make sure I remember how. Why don’t you feed Cricket the rest of this bacon?”

She eyed me sideways and gingerly picked up the bacon crumbles as the cat stalked her from the counter. “I think I need a stick for this.” Mercy concentrated on not losing her fingers to my precious furbaby but still managed to make conversation. “So I take it you had a good night?”

I laughed in surprise, my cheeks burning, and frowned down at the sink full of dirty dishes. “Yeah. For the most part.”

“For the most part?” She snorted, trying to suppress a grin. “I guess he didn’t do his job, then.”

“Can we not talk about it? You’re his family. It’s…weird.”

“Not for us.” She shrugged and threw a chunk of bacon across the room so Cricket could exercise his fat ass, and she hopped onto a stool to pick through some of the leftover sausage. “But if it makes you uncomfortable, no problem. I don’t need details. It just…would be nice if he had someone. Todd didn’t think he’d ever get over Ashley.”

I refused to react, just in case she was fishing for information, and pulled open the dishwasher to start loading. “Oh? Miles hadn’t mentioned her.”

“Well, he’s an idiot, but he’s not a total idiot,” she said. “I don’t know all the details, but he thought she was supposed to be with him forever and apparently she didn’t get the memo. Crushed him. Apparently that’s when he really started being an asshole. He was just kind of a jerk before, and she tipped him over into total douchebag territory, at least when it comes to people who aren’t pack.”

“That’s too bad.” I closed the door and washed my hands, taking my time so I didn’t have to confront her right away. Just in case my face gave away too much of what I was thinking. “She must have done a number on him.”

“Not just him.” Mercy sighed and leaned her elbows on the counter, trying to ignore Cricket as he stretched up to pat his paws along her thigh, hoping for more treats. “Whatever happened to them destroyed his pack, too. Tore everyone apart and most of them went with her. They regretted it later, Todd said, because she just kept up the bullshit with a new alpha. Evershaw didn’t... It took a while for him to accept people again.”

A knot formed in my throat. He’d lost a whole pack because of a woman; that explained a lot. And maybe he knew something about being alone and what it felt like to look around and feel like you could just disappear out of your own life without much more than a sneeze. I made a thoughtful noise, though, and watch Cricket heave himself up onto the kitchen counter. I shooed him back off and he grumbled, sashaying over to test his claws on the corner of the couch, though he scampered pretty quickly when I ran the tap to flick water at him. “It seems like he’s got good people here. At least most of you all put up with his bullshit.”

She smiled, then smacked her hands on the counter. “What are we doing today? Evershaw said you’re supposed to rest.”

“I’m going stir-crazy,” I said. Even though part of me was definitely still exhausted after not getting a whole lot of sleep the night before. Which was entirely his fault. “Can we take a walk or something?”

“Sure thing.” Mercy hopped to her feet and went immediately to the door. “I’ll let Henry know. We can wander around inside. Want to swim? We have a pool. Or we can do laps in the gym.”

“I don’t have a suit,” I said. And I didn’t know how many hickeys and nibble marks Miles left on me. “So maybe not swimming. Besides, I just ate.” I attempted a lame smile when it looked like she’d offer to let me borrow one, and tilted my head at the door. “Let’s just walk. You can show me around. I feel like I’ve only seen these rooms, the first cell you guys had me in, and the garage.”

“There’s so much more,” she said. Mercy took a deep breath and then proceeded to talk nonstop for the next hour.

She knew everyone in the building and stopped to talk with everyone we passed, introducing me as “the alpha’s guest” so I got courteous nods and smiles and not a single raised eyebrow or hint of surprise. 

When she finally stopped to get a drink of water, I managed to wedge a question into the blessed silence. “So everyone already knows about me, I take it? Since everyone already seems to know my name and why I’m here.”

“Pretty much.” She waved at someone across the massive living room she’d called the “gathering room” and started towing me over to a smallish room with built-in bookcases. “Since you saved his life a couple of times—and then yelled at him a lot in public more than once—everyone knows who you are.”

I cleared my throat, nodding and attempting to smile at a young woman who looked a great deal like Henry, before I gazed around the library Mercy showed me. “And no one is mad about... well, about a witch being in the building?”

“Why would they?” Mercy shrugged. “You saved the alpha’s life. And you’re here to help.”

“But I hexed a bunch of them,” I said slowly. Maybe she didn’t understand. She hadn’t been there when they tried to capture me and I’d tried to kill as many of them as I could.

She blinked a couple times as she looked at me. “Yeah. They were kidnapping you. Why would they hold that against you?”

I felt like maybe we were having two different conversations. “Because I could have hurt them.”

“Sure.” And she continued to stare at me like I was insisting that the sky was purple.

“And they wouldn’t care that they got hurt?” 

“Nah.” Mercy grinned and linked her arm through mine, dragging me out of the library and into another long wing of rooms and hang-out areas. “That’s just part of the job. We work for Evershaw. He’s not exactly the kind of guy who negotiates things out, you know? We’re always ready to fight, and sometimes following his orders means running afoul of some pretty powerful people—including witches. Well, you’re our first witch. Everyone was very excited. The guys who did end up hexed haven’t stopped bragging about it.”

“Oh,” I said weakly. Such weirdos. “That’s…good to know. I can hex whoever else wants me to.”

“Really?” Mercy swung around and grabbed my shoulders, stopping us short. “Really really? Can you do some magic for us?” 

“She’s not supposed to,” a gruff voice said, and Henry appeared out of the woodwork. “She’s supposed to be resting, Mercy, not being dragged around and shown off.”

“Shown off?” I asked, as Mercy made a face at him.

“She was bored and going stir-crazy.”

Henry’s frown was far too severe for someone as handsome as he was, but he relented when I threw my arm around Mercy’s shoulders and made a sad puppy dog face at him. The shifter sighed. “I don’t know what the alpha was thinking when he let you be part of the witch’s guard detail, Mercy.”

“Guard detail?” I smiled and glanced around, wondering how the hell I could get back to Miles’s rooms for an afternoon nap. We’d been walking for what felt like hours, and everything inside the warehouse was starting to look the same. “Sounds fancy.”

“And ridiculous,” Mercy said. “As if anyone would have looked sideways at the alpha’s mate.”

Henry made a sharp gesture to cut her off and another shifter I didn’t know, standing a couple feet away, made a strangled noise. Mercy’s face reddened and she folded her arms over her chest. “The alpha’s guest, I mean. No one would say anything to the alpha’s guest.”

“You didn’t say guest,” I said. I looked between all three of them—the two I knew and the stranger, all of them equally uneasy—and tried to parse what the hell was going on. Of course there were more secrets I hadn’t been let in on, just like Miles’s past and Ashley and the old pack. There were still more rules that I didn’t know anything about. Of course. Just perfect. “You said mate. What’s a mate? What did you mean by that?”

“It’s nothing.” Henry offered a tight-lipped smile to me. “Mercy misspoke. She doesn’t think before she speaks, and this is just one of those moments. Are you ready for lunch?”

I set my heels and folded my arms over my chest. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Henry.”

Mercy tried to catch my hand. “It’s really nothing.”

“I know how to cast truth spells.” It would have taken me three days and a hell of a lot of larkspur, but I could definitely do it. They didn’t need to know the details. I even held up my right hand, curled into a claw, and scowled at all three of them. “Too bad it lasts for a couple of days. Seems like that could cause some damage if you couldn’t lie for that long.”

Henry and the stranger took deep breaths and bore up, preparing themselves to be cursed, but Mercy couldn’t take it. She blurted out, “It means you’re his soulmate,” and bolted for the exit.

I stared at where she disappeared, impressed with her speed despite the grenade she’d dropped right in the middle of my life, then looked at Henry. “What the fuck did she just say?”

He ran his hands through his hair, expression dark, and jerked his chin at the other shifter so the guy took off after Mercy. Then Henry gestured for me to start walking. “It’s not our business to discuss with you. The alpha should have said something.”

“Well, clearly he didn’t,” I said. “And at this rate he won’t have a chance to, because I’m getting the hell out of here as soon as I can. What’s with all the secrets, Henry? You guys are killing me.” 

“We have soulmates,” he said. “Every one of us has one person born just for them in the whole world. Some people are lucky enough to find theirs. You’re Evershaw’s.”

“And I don’t get a say in this?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “It’s just how it is. It’s fate.”

Fate. Fate was bullshit, too. “That’s just fantastic. Where’s Miles?”

“He...” Henry’s gaze drifted away. “Has a business meeting still. Busy day. I’ll take you back to the suite, and this afternoon he can—”

“Sounds fantastic,” I growled. 

I tried to keep my cool as Henry took a direct route back to the suite, and managed to recognize the turns and stairs that would get me back to the main part of the house. I needed to think, get myself squared away, and figure out how to separate Miles and me from whatever bound us together. Maybe he only thought the mate thing was true because of the geas Smith used. That seemed like the most logical answer, since the odds of crossing paths with a single person out of the entire world were minuscule. And maybe that was all I felt, too. I hadn’t lost my head and ended up in bed with a guy who’d kidnapped me a couple of days before. I was smarter than that. It had to be magic or Smith, not fate.