Frost Burned

Asil. Maybe he had recovered from being crazy.

“He kept that bastard from wiping the floor with me,” said Tad. “I was overmatched—and that’s an understatement. I might have been able to slow the spriggan down long enough for Jesse and Gabriel to get the kids away, but it would have been a close thing, and I would have had to pull out my big guns to do it.” He looked out the window, and continued blackly, “My control of the big guns isn’t what it should be. So I’m glad Asil showed up.”

College had changed Tad. It was supposed to, Adam knew. But looking at Tad for a moment longer than was really safe while he was driving, Adam was afraid that he’d gained the sort of knowledge that a chick learned from being pushed off a cliff rather than the low branch of a tree, and had taken damage from the fall.

Adam had grown up that way, too.

The Moor was waiting for them, leaning on a lightpost and looking bored. Adam had never actually met Asil, but he looked Moorish, wolfish, and dangerous. Who else could he be? He didn’t have a mark on him from the fight, though it would be hard to see a bruise on his skin from a distance. People were looking at him as they drove past in their cars, mostly, Adam thought, because Asil was wearing nothing more than a summer-weight shirt. It took a more experienced eye than most people had to see exactly what Asil was.

As he pulled the Corolla over to the curb, Adam met Asil’s eyes briefly, and the old wolf gave Adam a commiserating smile, which Adam found himself returning. This trip was going to be rough. Probably worse for Adam, who was still wound up tight with the aftermath of this morning’s killing. But if half the stories Adam had heard were right, Asil waswobbling precariously between human and beast, so it wouldn’t be easy for him to be cooped up in the car with an unfamiliar dominant wolf, either.

Asil opened the door behind Mercy and slid into the back seat. As soon as the door shut, the urge to tear out the strange wolf’s throat tightened Adam’s hands on the wheel. He should not be driving feeling like this. But without the task of getting to Kyle’s in one piece to focus on, he was certain to do something regrettable.

“Adam,” said Tad, clearing his throat, because he doubtless could read the uncomfortable atmosphere in the car, “we need to go to my dad’s house before we go anywhere else.”

“Why?” It was almost a growl rather than a real word. Adam needed to keep his time in the car with the other wolf to a minimum, and that didn’t include a side trip. Asil’s presence behind him was an itch between his shoulder blades.

“Because that damned sword isn’t the only fae artifact that Sliver and Spice ran around with, and Mercy is acting strange.”

Yes, howled the beast that lived in his heart.There is something wrong with Mercy. I’ve been trying to tell you, but you thought it was just from the fighting. It isn’t. This is like what happened to her before, when we couldn’t protect her.

Adam looked at Mercy, who looked back at him with big eyes and a half smile on her face.“I’m fine,” she said, which if it had been true, she would never have said, not in that tone of voice. She’d have been arguing with Tad or making smart-ass quips about strange people.

“Rub your nose,” Tad told her.

She rubbed her nose.

“Pat your knee.”

She did that as well.

“Cough twice.”

She covered her mouth and coughed.

“Have you ever seen Mercy take three orders in a row without arguing?” Not being psychic and able to hear Adam’s inner beast, Tad thought he had to convince Adam.

“Not even when Bran is the one giving the orders.” Adam put his foot down on the gas. If the tension in the car had been strong before, it was nothing to the current conditions—and it had nothing to do with the Moor.

Adam wanted to kill something, anything to make Mercy all right. Under his hands, the wheel of the car groaned, and he loosened his fingers and fought not to lose control.

The other werewolf was doing his best to make this easy, keeping quiet and keeping his gaze focused out his window, so Adam couldn’t meet his eyes. Adam appreciated it and tried to reciprocate as well as he could when anger was a tide that threatened to blind him.

“What did they use? And how do we fix her?” He spoke between gritted teeth, trying to keep his human form and stay between the white lines on the road. His hands tightened again, and there was a pop as something gave way in the steering wheel of the little car. When it didn’t seem to affect his ability to turn, Adam ignored it.

“I don’t know how to fix her,” said Tad. “But my dad will. He can’t use phones anymore—Mercy called him yesterday, and the powers that be took away his phone privileges. I have a way to reach him at home.”

Okay. Zee was good. Adam sucked in a deep breath and tried to make his wolf realize that changing right now was a genuinely bad idea.

“What was it that got her?” He knew squat about fae magic but couldn’t help but ask. Maybe it would be something that wore off.

“An artifact—a set of bone wrist cuffs,” Tad said. “It’s supposed to make prisoners easy to control. Before Asil killed her, did Spice put a set of cuffs on you, Mercy?”

“Just one,” Mercy said in a chipper voice. “I changed to coyote and stepped out of it. Asil threw the cuffs into the trunk with the body.”

“If this is true,” Asil said, “why didn’t it show up until after the battle was over? She wasn’t being compliant when she threw herself at the fae in the apartment.”

“I don’t know,” answered Tad. “Maybe because she only wore one of the cuffs. Maybe because she only had it on for a short time. But you see it, don’t you, Adam? It took me a while to be sure.”

“Yes.” His beast had noticed immediately and become frantic, but Adam hadn’t wanted to see anything wrong.

Zee’s house was less than a mile from Kennewick High School, a small Victorian nestled in a small cluster of houses that dated from the time that Kennewick was a tiny transportation hub connecting railroad and river traffic. The house needed paint and a little work on the porch. The yard was tiny, as was common in the days when the use of horses meant that the distance between places mattered more. House and yard were surrounded by a wrought-iron fence that was suitably elaborate for an iron-kissed fae’s home.

Adam put his hand on Mercy’s shoulder and brought up the rear of the procession to the house. Even through the sweatshirt she wore, he felt the silver that coursed in her blood.

Tad didn’t unlock the door when he turned the fancy brass knob, but Adam had the feeling that he’d unlocked it in some other way. Mercy would have known because Mercy could sense magic a lot better than Adam could.

Zee’s house was furnished sparsely and none-too-fancily despite its Victorian appointments, which included the original light fixtures and fine woodwork. The living room had a matching couch and love seat that were comfortably worn. A small flat-screen TV adorned the wall between two built-in bookcases filled with paperback books. A handmade rug softened the hardwood floor.

To the right, a door opened to an eat-in kitchen that had a 1950s-style table for two that had passed shabby and hit antique. On the wall next to the table was a large photo of a serious, young-looking man who looked a lot like Tad. The man was dressed in a suit and standing next to a good-looking woman in a wedding dress with her brown hair in a poofy style common a couple of decades ago. Her smile lit up the room even from a photograph.

Mercy lingered, looking at the photograph.

“Come on, Mercy,” said Tad, and she immediately complied.

“You’ve made your point,” growled Adam, unable to hold back his anger, though Tad didn’t deserve it. “That’s enough.”

Asil hadn’t spoken a word, just took everything in. He didn’t protest when Adam hung back so that the other wolf was never behind them.