Page 37 of Winter Lost

Adam watched Mercy scramble up the stairs, listened to her ragged breathing until she shut their bedroom door. His wolf wanted to go after her, and so did he. But he had a job to do—and Mercy didn’t enjoy an audience. Not until she had matters under better control.

She wasn’t in danger. She wasn’t in danger. No matter how their bond felt, she wasn’t in danger. His wolf was reluctant to believe that, no matter how many times Adam rebuked him.

“I thought she was done with those,” growled a voice that set the beast, the one not his wolf, into high alert.

That had the benefit of making his wolf quiet. The two monsters who lived under his skin did not come out at the same time.

Adam turned cautiously to face Siebold Adelbertsmiter. The walking stick was gone to wherever it went, but Zee didn’t look one bit less dangerous without it. Adam suspected Zee had used the walking stick to make Ymir and Adam back down so that he didn’t have to do something more lethal.

Adam wasn’t intimidated by Zee—which might or might not be foolish—but he was wary around him when Mercy wasn’t in the room. Despite the tone he’d used, the tightness around Zee’s mouth made Adam think he was hurt rather than angry.

“It’s been a while,” Adam said carefully. He didn’t say it had been since last October, when the vampire who had his own ties to Adam’s mate had commanded her to stop panicking. None of that was anything Mercy would want Zee to know.

Adam knew that Mercy was afraid that one of her beloved monsters would kill one of her others. It was why Adam hadn’t killed Stefan already—that, and the knowledge that having the vampire on call helped keep Mercy safe, sometimes when Adam couldn’t. There was also the distinct possibility that Stefan’s death would not free Mercy but kill her, too. He didn’t know why Zee hadn’t killed the vampire, but assumed the old fae’s decision tree had followed the same path as his own.

“A while?” Zee asked suspiciously.

Adam nodded. “She thought she was done with them, too.” That felt true enough to appease Zee without betraying anything that Mercy hadn’t told him. Mercy didn’t like people to worry about her, so she didn’t tell them things. Like the way she hadn’t told him about Bonarata’s call—even after Ben had warned her that they all knew.

The back door opened, and Tad, Honey, and Jesse spilled in, followed by Warren. Adam had known his draw on the pack bonds would result in a mass invasion by the pack, but he’d expected it to take longer. Warren must have been in the neighborhood.

Honey glanced at him, and he tipped his head to Mary Jo and her unexpected guardian, who were still on the floor where Mercy had left them. Mary Jo was stable, so Adam had kept his attention on the biggest threat in the room, but having pack here to take care of Mary Jo was good.

Warren gave Zee a hard look, but Adam caught his eye and directed him to Mary Jo and Gary as well. Mary Jo would need all the pack support she could get for a while.

“What happened?” Jesse demanded.

“I will go,” Zee said, pointedly not looking at his son. “I will talk to the people I know who might have information on this brother of Ymir’s.”

“That would be useful,” Adam said.

Zee made a sour noise and left through the front door.

“Dad?” Jesse asked again.

The whole pack would have felt his power draw to free Mary Jo. “Wait just a second. If I don’t let the pack know they can stand down, we’ll have everyone here.”

After he sent a text to the pack, he took the opportunity to text Darryl, Auriele, and Sherwood separately. Those three he needed.

That done, he evaluated his audience—while he’d been texting, Mary Jo had recovered enough to listen. Good. He gave them all a brief synopsis on how Gary got here and why they’d called Ymir in. Then he took them through a play-by-play from the moment he realized that Ymir had caught Mary Jo.

“He can’t do that again?” asked Jesse, wide-eyed.

“I don’t know,” Adam said honestly. “But Sherwood might. He, Darryl, and Auriele are on their way over. That’s one of the things we’ll discuss.”

He could feel Mercy’s distress as a burn in his chest. But she wouldn’t thank him for abandoning his duty. He moved on to the next thing.

“Jesse, it’s late and you have school tomorrow.” He was adjusting to thinking of Jesse as an adult who could make her own decisions. The decisions she made had so far been good ones, and that had made it easier.

She was his daughter; she would know he wasn’t sending her up to bed like a ten-year-old—he hoped. He was sending her upstairs with a mission.

“Yeah,” she said, giving him a rueful smile. “I should hit the hay. How about I check on Mercy on the way?”

And that made his wolf settle a bit.

“I would appreciate that,” he told her, and watched her absorb the praise implicit in his words. Maybe he should praise her a little more often if it meant that much to her.

She gave Tad a playful shove with both hands. Whatever tension had been between the two of them earlier, it was evidently settled. “You have school, too. Get out of here.”

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