Silver Borne

AT THREE IN THE MORNING, I FOUND MYSELF DRINKing hot chocolate at the kitchen table in Adam's house with Jesse, Darryl, Auriele, and Mary Jo. Given my druthers, I'd have had a couple of people between Mary Jo and me - because I don't believe in throwing water on boiling oil - but by the time I'd finished pouring cocoa, the seat between Jesse and her was the only one open.



The one good thing was that most of the wolves had returned to their homes, and Adam was still safe. Sam and Warren were in Adam's room, doing guard duty, while the rest of us tried to decide how to proceed until Adam was up and about. All the other wolves who'd shown up had been sent away.



I planned on joining Adam as soon as we were done here, but I knew he was all right without me. He'd eaten about ten pounds of meat and lapsed into a sleep so deep it resembled a coma. Warren was a big enough wolf to take on any two of the rest of the pack as long as the group didn't contain Darryl, who outranked him. Mostly.



Sam was a little unpredictable, but in his current state I was pretty sure he would be on our team. When a wolf is hurt, he is vulnerable. In the best scenario, an injured wolf will be protected by his pack mates - but when the pack is uneasy, as Adam's was just then, it is best to keep trustworthy guards around.



Between the two of them, Warren and Sam, they'd see to it that no harm came to Adam.



Ben trudged in, towing one of the dining-room chairs. He slid it between Jesse and Auriele, painfully pulled his gory fingers off the chair back, and dropped to the seat. Jesse slid a cup of hot cocoa in front of him, then reached across with the can of nondairy whipped cream and squirted a bunch of sweet artificial white goo on top. Jesse's curly hair had grown out a little, and she'd dyed it pink.



"Thanks, darling," Ben told her in a suggestive voice, and she scooted her chair away from him. He tipped his head so she couldn't see his face and smiled until he realized I was watching him. I narrowed my eyes, and he cleared his throat. "E-mail's out to the list, detailing what happened and that Adam'll be up and about in a day or two."



That there was a mailing list had been news to me. I wasn't on it, probably so they could all complain about me without hurting my feelings. Given the state of Ben's hands, Auriele had offered to send out the report, but he'd said that computer work was his duty, and as he still had ten fingers, he figured he could complete it.



He leaned forward and sipped his cocoa without touching the hot cup.



"It's instant," I apologized. "My stash of spicy real stuff went up with the house." I wished I hadn't said it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I had been doing just fine at forgetting that out in the darkness beyond the kitchen windows, my house was a pile of black scraps.



"It's chocolate," Ben said. "At this point, that is sufficient."



Silence fell, and I remembered that I was supposed to be running this. It reminded me in an odd way of the time I'd had to take over my sister's Girl Scout troop when my mother had been sick. Fourteen preteen girls, a tableful of werewolves - there were certain monstrous similarities.



I ran my hands over my face. "So what else needs to be dealt with before we can go to bed?"



Darryl folded his big hands on the table. "The fire marshal hasn't made it out yet - but the firemen seemed pretty convinced it was the wiring. The fire started near the fuse box in the hall. Apparently, the old manufactured homes sometimes go up like that, especially the first few weeks the heating system kicks in in the winter." He glanced at me. "Do we accept that, or have you been riling people up again?"



He might owe his ebony skin and his size to his African father, but he could do Chinese inscrutable better than anyone I'd ever met who was wholly Chinese instead of just half. It was hard to tell whether he meant the last sentence as a joke or a justifiable criticism.



"It was the fae," I said with a sigh, bumping the nearest table leg halfheartedly with my ankle.



"What - all of them?" asked Ben humorously. I slid down in my chair so I could reach past Jesse and kicked his foot, which was more satisfying.



"No, not all of them," I said, after he yipped with mock pain.



"You just bring us one damned thing after another don't you, Mercy," said Mary Jo, looking out the window.



"Bitch," said Ben. It seemed to be his word of the day - which was better than the usual assortment. He hadn't actually sworn much around me that day, if I didn't include the time while Samuel was fixing his hands. And if the only words that counted were the ones that got movies an "R" rating. I wondered if it was coincidental, if he was trying to improve himself - or if I hadn't spent enough time with him.



Mary Jo's lip curled. "Suck-up."



"You have some nerve throwing stones," he told her, "when you just sat there and watched them set fire to Mercy's house."



"What?" said Darryl in a very, very soft voice.



But Mary Jo wasn't listening to Darryl. Instead, she half rose to her feet and leaned on the table, threatening Ben. "So what? You think I should have taken on a bunch of unknown fae for her?"



Auriele stood up and gave the table a hard shove, pinning Mary Jo against the wall behind her with a bang that must have hurt. If someone didn't know her very well, I suppose it might be possible to underestimate Auriele. She was delicately built, as some Hispanic women are, and looked as though she'd never gotten her beautifully manicured hands dirty.



Most of the pack would rather have Darryl mad at them than Auriele.



Darryl's mate's voice was frozen as she asked, "You just watched a bunch of fae burn down the house of a pack member?"



I'd picked my cocoa up off the table when it moved and managed to save Jesse's, too. With my hip, I altered the trajectory of the table just enough to make certain that it didn't hit Jesse. Darryl caught Ben's cup - he'd finished his own. So it was only Mary Jo's and Auriele's cocoa that spilled across the table and down on the floor.



Into the tense silence of that moment, the interruption of my ringing phone seemed decidedly welcome. I thumped the two mugs I held down onto the table and pulled the phone out of my pocket.



I didn't recognize either the number or the area code. Usually, I recognize the number of people who call me in the middle of the night.



"Hello?"



"Mercedes Thompson, you have something that belongs to me. I have something that belongs to you. Shall we play?"



I hit the speaker button and set the phone in the middle of the table. Of course, everyone except for Jesse could have overheard the call anyway - but with all of us listening full volume, maybe someone would hear something different. My cell was relatively new, and I'd paid extra to get one with good sound quality.



Darryl pulled out his phone - one of those miniature computers with every gadget known to man - hit the screen a couple of times, and set it next to mine. "Recording," he mouthed.



"Everything I have went up in flames last night," I told my unknown caller, and after I said it, the truth of that hit me again. Poor Medea. I set my jaw with determination that this person - who sounded female to me, though a female with a deep smoker's voice - would never hear the pain she'd caused me. Assuming that this was one of the fae who set the fire.



"It wasn't there," she said - and I was growing more confident it was a "she." Her next words made me certain that she was one of the fae, too. "It would have revealed itself in fire or in death. We watched it burn, watched the fire eat your life, and what you took from Phineas Brewster wasn't in the coals or in the ashes."



Fae often say things that sound odd to human ears. I've found myself spouting Zee's sayings and having people stop to look at me.



"In fire or in death," I said, repeating the phrase that had sounded like a quote of some kind.



"It reveals itself when the one who holds it dies or if it burns," she clarified impatiently.



"Your bounty hunter seemed like the kind of man who gets things done," I said. "Why didn't you have him kill me instead of relying on backup?" Growing up with werewolves has taught me several ways of controlling the situation without being too aggressive. Asking a question a little off topic is one way of doing it - and if the question is hidden as another question, my chances of getting information are even better.



"Kelly?" she said, her voice incredulous. But she knew who I was talking about. She must be the fae who'd created the incident that had almost gotten Maia hurt. "Kelly would never hurt a woman. But the police wouldn't have believed it."



There was a tone to the woman's voice that told me she knew Kelly Heart personally - and felt a veiled contempt for something in him that she thought was a weakness.



"I take it I am speaking to the one who calls herself Daphne Rondo?" I'd remembered the missing producer's name because she shared the first with Scooby Doo's token cute girl and it had caught my attention. I phrased the question carefully because the fae cannot lie - and it probably wasn't her real name. Mostly the fae don't give their true names to anyone.



"Sometimes," she said, but she didn't like it that I'd figured her out. She could have refused to answer, of course, but that would have been as good as an answer anyway. A fae who wasn't Kelly Heart's missing producer would take great pleasure in informing me I was mistaken.



"Mr. Heart is worried about you," I told her. And then could have bitten my tongue. This woman did not deserve to know about his concern - she'd sent him here to die. If Adam had believed that Kelly had killed me, he would have personally seen to Heart's death. Anyone who knew I was dating the local Alpha would understand that much - it was why she had contrived to set the bounty hunter up. "He'd feel differently if he knew what you planned for him."



"If he knew what I was after, he would support me with his whole heart," she said with sudden passion that told me she had her doubts, and they bothered her. "He is my soldier, and he follows my orders."



I'd heard that kind of talk before and felt my lips curl in anger - on behalf of a stranger who'd mainly just ticked me off . . . but mostly for a friend of mine, Stefan, another soldier who'd been used too hard and had finally broken.



"You are overburdened with self-importance," I told her. "But that is a common condition with the fae." I was tired, and it was hard to keep to the fine line that kept her from taking the upper hand without enraging her. Who did she have? Stefan? I hadn't seen the vampire for weeks. Zee? I hadn't called him as I'd planned to before my house burned down.



"You are overburdened with stupidity," she replied with icy contempt. I'd pricked her about Kelly . . . not that she'd hurt him, but that he might not do her bidding if he'd known what she wanted. "But that is a common problem with humans. Especially humans who involve themselves in matters that are none of their business." There was a pause as if she was weighing some matter. Then she said, "You would be wise not to irk me when I hold something you value."



There were two distinct sounds right as she finished. The first was something striking flesh, the second a muffled cry. We all stilled, listening for a hint of identity.



"Male," mouthed Darryl.



I nodded. I'd caught that as well. The cry was followed by a third sound: someone who was gagged trying to talk. He was furious. There was something about the sound . . . not Stefan, not Zee.



Mary Jo caught my shoulder. Her face was pale and pinched. "Gabriel," she mouthed.



That was it. Mary Jo had spent some time doing guard-Mercy-at-work duty this summer, working with me and Gabriel. She knew him, too.



I hadn't been listening for Gabriel - because I thought he was safe. I closed my eyes in momentary despair. Stefan was a vampire; Zee was a fae other fae gave a good deal of respectful space to. Gabriel was a seventeen-year-old with no supernatural powers. He didn't stand a chance against one of the fae.



Jesse made a little sound, then jerked her hands to her mouth, but the fae on the other end caught the noise.



"Angry, child?" she asked. She thought she'd heard me. "Do you know who we caught? I'll give you a hint. He was stealing a car from you. We almost disposed of him - but he belongs to you, doesn't he? We decided to bring him along and see if you would play the game."



"Gabriel is welcome to drive anything I own," I told her in clear tones - and hoped that even Gabriel's human ears could hear me. "The Gray Lords are not going to be happy that you brought a human into fae matters."



She laughed. Her laughter caught me completely by surprise. Any woman with a voice as deep as hers usually has a complementary laugh. But hers was delicate and light - completely inhuman, like silver bells ringing - and the sound of it told me what kind of fae she was, which only made my stomach clench harder. Gabriel was in more than one kind of danger.



There was a pad of paper next to the phone on the wall. I pointed at it, and Auriele got up soundlessly and brought it back to me.



"So you figured out who we have," the fae woman said. "Did his mommy call you? He's awfully sweet-looking, don't you think?" There was a wistfulness in her voice. "If this were a different age, I would keep him for my own." I waited for the diatribe about how it was different in the old days - I've heard a lot of variations on that over the years. But there was only silence.



I wrote, Fairy queen. Travels with five to twenty fairy followers. Used to capture humans to use as servants/lovers. Takes them to her own realm, sort of like Underhill but different. Enchantment: humans perceive time passing oddly. "Rip Van Winkle" (100 years) or "Thomas the Rhymer" (seven days became seven years). I underlined Thomas the Rhymer's name because it was history and Rip was a story by Irving that might or might not have been based on various legends - including Thomas's. Her laughter like tinkling of silver bells. Also some sort of mesmerizing spells. Robs victims of free will - might have the same effect on her fae followers, too. Rule bound more than most fae, but powerful within those rules.



That book had taught me a lot more about the fae than I'd known before. I hoped something would help us find Gabriel before the fairy queen decided to keep him.



"You are patient," she said. "That doesn't match what I've heard of you."



"Not so patient," I told her. "I don't think I'll play your game by myself. I think the Gray Lords might as well take care of my problems for me." They wouldn't, of course, and I wasn't so stupid as to invite them in. But I wanted to hear what her reaction would be to it.



She laughed again. "You do that. You just do that, Mercedes Thompson. And if they figure out what you have - and have any inkling that you might know what it is - they will kill you, werewolves or no. They'd kill you to get it, too - and trust me, it is easier to kill you, human, than it is to bother looking for it wherever you have it stashed."



I didn't doubt that she was telling the truth about the Gray Lords. Fae always tell the truth. They usually respond to taunts, too - which is why I added a smug tone to my voice as I said, "Most especially because you don't know what it is, either."



"The Silver Borne," she said.



She wasn't looking for the book. I had no idea what "the silver borne" was, but the book was made of leather and embossed with gold; there wasn't anything silver about it. I had nothing to bargain with for Gabriel. So we'd have to find them and take him back in such a way that she never bothered us again. A lot of fairy tales ended "and the evil fairy never bothered them from that day until this."



"You don't know what it looks like," I said confidently. "You think I have it because Phin is dead, and it didn't reveal itself to his killers as it would have if he were in possession of it." I told her as if I knew it to be fact.



"Do you have it?" she asked. "Maybe he did give it to someone else. Though if you don't have it, I shall take this beautiful young man as consolation and continue looking for it."



I bit my lip. Phin was dead.



"I have something of Phin's," I said with obvious caution. In the morning, I'd feel bad about the man who'd stuck his neck out to help me in defiance of the Gray Lords, who loved books and old things - and who'd had a grandmother who'd called him and worried about him. As things were, I needed to keep my wits. I was tired, and Adam's pain and fatigue were starting to trickle through me as our bond chose this inconvenient time to begin to mend itself.



"You will not tell the wolves," she said. "That is the first step. I will know if you break your word. Then I will take the boy and redouble my efforts to see you dead."



I glanced at the wolves around the table. "You didn't seem so anxious to kill me that you would risk my mate's ire yesterday morning."



She hissed. "When I have that which is silver borne, I shall have no need to fear. Not wolves, not Gray Lords. The only thing that saves you at this moment is that it might take some time after you die for it to reveal itself. If you make this too difficult for me, I will risk it."



"What did you want me to do?" I asked her.



"Tell me you won't tell any of the werewolves about me, about what you have, and that Gabriel is in any kind of distress or danger."



"Okay," I said reluctantly. "I won't tell any of the wolves about you, about the thing I have that was Phin's, or about Gabriel's current danger."



"You will not tell any of the fae. Not the Gray Lords, not the old fae who was at your place of work this morning."



I looked at Darryl, and he nodded grimly. He'd tell Zee for me.



"I will not tell any fae I know about you, about the thing I have that was Phin's, or about Gabriel's current danger."



"I can't force you to adhere to that agreement," she told me. "That magic is no longer mine. But I will know the instant you break your word - and our deal will be off. This young and beautiful man will be mine, and you will die."



Jesse's cold hand gripped mine. She and Gabriel had been sort of dating for a while. "Sort of" because he was concentrating on school since he needed scholarships for college.



"All right," I told the fae.



"Second. You will bring this thing to the bookstore and give it to my knight of the water."



Fishy Boy, I thought. Though Knight of the Water didn't ring any bells. Maybe it was a title rather than a type of fae.



"Nope. I'm not bringing it to the bookstore to your knight." One of her people could kill us all, and leave her not foresworn. We needed to deal only with her.



"You will - "



"Not trust you unless it is a full exchange. You bring Gabriel, and I get him safe and unharmed in exchange for this thing I will bring you."



"I cannot bring you Gabriel unharmed," she said, sounding amused.



Mary Jo gave a very soft rumbling growl, and I poked her to stop it. Maybe the fae wasn't paying attention. She'd heard the earlier sound Jesse had made, but as Bran liked to tell me, you can have the best senses in the world, but if you forget to use them, they can do you no good.



"No more harmed than now," I said. "Himself, in his own mind, his body no more bruised than it is at this instant."



"That I can manage," she said, still sounding amused.



"I would consider death as further damage."



She laughed. The sound was beginning to get on my nerves. "So distrustful, Mercedes. Don't you read your fairy tales? It is the humans who betray their bargains. Get a good night's sleep . . . Whoops, too late. Rest, then. I'll call you at this number sometime tomorrow when I have a chance to organize a safe meeting place."



I wracked my brain because she was too happy, like she knew something we didn't.



"Gabriel is the only human you have," I said, suddenly worried that she had more hostages.



She laughed again. "You don't really think I'll answer that, do you?"



And she hung up.



"Does anyone know what area code 333 belongs to?" I asked.



"There isn't one," said Ben. "No 333, no 666. Phone company doesn't officially believe in numerology, but they have a lot of customers who do."



"You want me to call Zee right now?" rumbled Darryl. "Or does he get grumpy when you wake him up?"



I looked at him. "I can't answer your first question. And Zee is almost always grumpy. Don't let it bother you."



"I'll call him," said Auriele.



"Wait before . . ." I hesitated to say anything about her calling Zee, not knowing just how far I could go without triggering the fae's spell. But Auriele understood and sat back down.



"Did anyone hear anything that might pinpoint where she was calling from?" asked Jesse - who watched several forensic police procedural TV shows regularly.



"No trains," Mary Jo said dryly. She pushed the table so she wasn't pinned anymore. "No water noises. No highway or car sounds. No airplanes. No distinctive church chimes. No dolphins playing in the background."



"Which eliminates a lot of places," said Auriele. "I'm pretty sure it was indoors. I heard a hum that might have been a fluorescent light fixture."



"I heard echoes, like she was in a room with hard sides," said Darryl. "Not a huge room, though. It didn't sound hollow."



"When - " I couldn't say "she hit him," because I'd promised not to talk about the fairy queen or Gabriel's danger to the werewolves. "When Mary Jo heard something, there was a slight scuffing sound," I said. "Like a chair sliding on cement." I closed my eyes and thought about the feel of the background sounds.



"The lack of outdoor noises might mean that she was in a basement instead of just indoors," said Darryl. "If she's not from around here, she'd need to acquire someplace secure - not a hotel. Rentals are hard to find in the area right now - one of my coworkers was complaining about it. If Phin is dead, maybe the fae is using his house."



"He lived in an apartment, one of the newer ones in West Pasco - and he has nosy neighbors." I got up and got a dishcloth and wet it down so I could clean up the cocoa.



"The bookstore, then," said Auriele. She took the cloth and tossed it to Mary Jo. "Your mess, you clean it up."



Mary Jo's shoulders were tight, but she started to clean up without protest.



"Sam and I were in the bookstore's basement tonight," I said. "But the lighting there is incandescent - no buzzing. Beyond that, the sound was wrong. There were a lot of books down there, so it wasn't as echo-y. The room in the phone call sounded emptier."



"You were at the bookstore? Did you catch a scent?" Ben had been dozing, I thought. Even after he spoke, his eyes were closed. The stress of his wounds and the full belly from Warren's mysterious ice chest of roasts would work like a narcotic.



"Do you need to go downstairs and sleep?" I asked.



"No, I'm fine. Did you find out anything?"



"We picked up Phin's scent - and four other fae who had been in there. One of them, some kind of forest fae, came back, and Sam killed it. There was another forest fae, a female we didn't meet. She was the same kind as the one Sam killed - I'm pretty sure of it. And then there was one who smelled of swamps and wet things who hopefully is her knight of the water. The fewer allies she has, the happier I am. I met the fourth, who left traces in the bookstore earlier today . . . I guess that's yesterday now. She looked like a happy-grandmother type. I couldn't tell what she was."



"Was it her?" asked Ben, and nodded at the phone.



"I can't answer that," I told him.



"But you can answer me," said Jesse. "Was the old woman the one who took Gabriel?"



"I don't know," I said. I closed my eyes and thought about what had happened and when. "No. She was looking through Phin's records, trying to find out who Phin gave something to. The bad guys had already tried to kill me once - if you didn't pick up on it, the incident at my garage yesterday morning was aimed at me. They knew where they were looking." Maybe if I could have talked to her, we'd know more about what it was that the fairy queen wanted.



"She's not smart, this fairy queen," said Ben. "If she were, she'd have known that you weren't human."



"I don't exactly advertise," I told him. "And, other than my connection to Adam and the Marrok, I'm not important. There's no reason that she should know. Especially since she's been producing shows in California."



"She makes assumptions," Darryl said. "Most people look at you, Mercy, and wonder if you are fae or wolf and just hiding it, because you're mated to a wolf and working with a fae." He stopped and raised a speculative eyebrow. "Or she thinks you are one or the other and might react and tell her which one if she kept taunting you with being human."



"That sounds about right," I said.



"Why not just give them whatever she wants and get Gabriel back," Mary Jo said. "It's not yours, and it sounds like the rightful owner is dead anyway."



Ben snorted. "You aren't usually this dumb. You want to hand a woman like this fairy queen an object of power that she believes can protect her from us?"



Darryl tilted his head and looked at Mary Jo. She flushed and dropped her gaze. "Don't think I don't remember that you disobeyed Adam," he said. "You have no standing here, and you will not leave this house until your punishment." He waited, then answered her question. "Ben's right. Besides, you really think she's going to let anyone live who knows what she has? I don't know a damn thing about what she wants. If the Gray Lords are willing to kill Mercy just because she knows about it - Mercy who has their favor and is beloved by our Alpha - don't you think they'd kill one of those under their power, who has no such protections? If I can figure that out from one phone conversation, this Daphne, she knows it, too. She has no intention of letting anyone go. She'd make the exchange, then kill both Mercy and the boy."



"Or keep the boy and kill Mercy," added Jesse, who had her dad's clear eye for strategy. "Gabriel would rather be dead." She was still a teenager with a streak of drama, though. I wasn't so sure Gabriel would rather be dead than serve the fairy queen - from all accounts it was fairly pleasant from the victim's side because they had no willpower to object.



I'd rather be dead. Maybe she was right.



"Mercy," grumbled Darryl, "she was right about one thing: you need some sleep. Go to bed." His voice softened. "You, too, Jesse. We can all help your boy better on a full night's sleep."



He was right. I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open.



I yawned and hooked my arm through Jesse's. "Okay."

* * *



AFTER DROPPING JESSE OFF AT HER ROOM, I OPENED the door to Adam's as quietly as I could. Someone had stripped the comforter and thrown it on the floor. Adam was sprawled naked on top of the sheet - and he looked horrible. A mass of dark red scabs covered most of his extremities as well as here and there on the rest of his body.



Warren had taken off his boots and was lying on the near side of the bed on his side, facing the doorway. Sam was curled up between them at the foot of the bed.



I'd worried a little about leaving him with a wounded Alpha, but apparently he was still behaving atypically for an uncontrolled werewolf. While I closed the door, he rolled flat on his side and half looked at me. He wiggled a bit and let out a satisfied oof as he pushed Warren's feet over a few inches. I noticed that he didn't touch Adam.



Warren was awake - even if he looked like he was deeply asleep. I crawled over him and the corners of his mouth tipped up. I settled in between him and Adam, curling my legs up so I didn't kick Sam.



I tried not to touch Adam, but he rolled over and threw an arm over my hip. It felt warm and safe and good - and probably hurt him. His eyes opened a slit, then closed.



I lay there a while in simple appreciation that he'd survived the fire. The door opened just as I was drifting off to sleep.



"Is there room for one more?" asked Ben. I lifted up my head to see him standing in the doorway in a pair of baggy sweats. His hair was ruffled on one side as if he'd been lying down before he came up. "If not, I can go - "



"Come on in," rumbled Warren. "I'll go take the upstairs guest room."



Warren rolled off the bed, and Ben crawled on. He put one foot on mine, then let out a sigh and collapsed like a puppy who'd been playing for too long. Pack is for comfort when you hurt, I thought, putting my head back down. And for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, I appreciated being a part of one.

* * *



I WOKE UP BECAUSE THE TOP OF MY HEAD WAS TOO warm. The sensation was vaguely familiar so I started to go back to sleep when sharp, pokey things started digging into my scalp. And then I remembered why there shouldn't be a cat sleeping on my head.



I sat up and stared into the cool gaze of the slightly singed calico Manx who expressed her irritation with my abrupt change of position with an irritated meow. She smelled of smoke, and there was a raw spot on the top of her back, but otherwise she seemed to be fine.



Adam didn't move, but Ben rolled over and opened his eyes.



"Hey, cat," I said, tearing up, as she adjusted to my new position and maneuvered herself so she was within easy petting distance of both Ben and me. "I thought you were toast."



She pushed her head under my hand and rolled so my hand slid through her coat. Ben started to reach out, but stopped as soon as he moved his fingers. They looked better than they had before - though they still looked like something that might appear in a horror movie.



"I didn't realize you didn't know," Ben said, his voice still rough. "I should have told you. Adam went to your room. I went to Sam's and found her under the bed."



I wiped my eyes and nose on my shoulder (both hands being occupied with cat and covered with cat hair anyway). Then I leaned forward and kissed Ben's nose.



"Thanks," I said. "I'd have missed her a lot."



"Yeah." He stretched out on his back, hands carefully laid across his belly. "We'd have missed her, too. Only cat I've ever seen who tolerates werewolves." He sounded oddly vulnerable. I don't think he was used to being the hero.



"Don't feel too flattered," said Adam dryly. "Medea likes vampires, too."



"Adam?" I said.



But he was asleep again. And I could feel him in my head, just as he should be.