Jesse pulled back and wiped her eyes, a smile on her face. “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite cowboy?”
“Of course I am,” he said smugly.
“You’re the only cowboy she knows,” I informed him.
He glanced at his watch. “You got about two minutes left.”
“Mercy?” Jesse asked, catching my arm before I could go. “What about Gabriel?”
“We’ll find him,” Warren said, before I could respond. He smiled at me. “I have good hearing, and the house was plenty quiet enough last night to hear a phone call in the kitchen.” He bent down so he could look Jesse in the eye. “Running around when we don’t know anything won’t help him. Zee’s looking into it, and waiting for him is our best option at the moment.”
“If Zee couldn’t help us, he’d have told us by now,” I said, looking only at Jesse. I wasn’t talking to Warren; I was talking to Jesse. No oath breaking here. “We’ll get Gabriel out of this.”
“Maybe we’ll sic Sylvia on them,” said Warren.
“You heard?” Of course he had. News travels fast in the pack.
“Heard what?” Jesse was coming back online, I thought. Warren’s hug had been exactly what she needed.
“Sylvia threatened to set the police on me if I darkened their doorstep again. Gabriel isn’t working for me anymore.” I frowned. I hadn’t thought about it, but it might affect Jesse, too. “I don’t know if you’re considered one of the prohibited people—but since she got mad because I didn’t warn her that Sam was a werewolf before Maia adopted him as her new pony, I expect that werewolves of any kind are going to be a hot button for a little while. Once we get him home, you need to talk it over with Gabriel.”
She nodded. “If we get him home, I’ll be happy to fight with Sylvia about my right to hang out with Gabriel.”
“Good for you,” said Warren.
She stepped back from him and almost fell over Sam. “Hey,” she said to him. “How come you let Warren and Dad take care of Mary Jo?”
“He’s not himself,” I said. “It wouldn’t have been a good idea.”
Sam gave me a look full of guilt and turned his head away.
I thought about that guilty look all the way in the house and into the living room where the pack was scattered all over the furniture and the floor. There were more wolves—latecomers receiving the blow-by-blow account of the fight. And I hadn’t seen Adam’s pack this relaxed since . . . ever. I hadn’t hung out with the werewolves much until this last year—and it hadn’t been a peaceful one for the pack.
Honey caught me on my way to get Adam, who was sitting on one end of the leather couch. I hadn’t noticed her in the garage—and I would have because Honey doesn’t go unnoticed, partly because she is very dominant and partly because she is very beautiful—so she must have been one of the latecomers.
“Mary Jo was recognized as more dominant than Alec?” she asked. She didn’t sound happy, which was odd. Because her mate, Peter, was a submissive wolf, Honey was considered the lowest member of the pack except for Mary Jo, though by personality and fighting power she was actually closer to the top. Maybe the idea that they might rank her where she belonged offended her idea of what a lady should be. Maybe she worried it would cause trouble in the pack, or between her and her mate. Maybe she was afraid that she was going to get targeted in the dominance fights. Whatever it was, her trouble ranked way down in my priorities at the moment—Adam was listing to the right. In a few moments, someone else was bound to notice.
“Yes,” I said, sliding by her and stepping over someone who was lying on their side on the floor. “Don’t ask me what it means long-term; I don’t think anyone knows. Adam?”
He looked up, and I wondered if Warren should have knocked a minute off his countdown to the crash; he looked that bad.
“You should come with me. We need to call the Marrok.” Invoking the Marrok’s name should make it unlikely that anyone would follow us. I ensured that by adding, “He’s not going to be happy about being left out of this. The sooner he hears, the better.”
There was a twinkle in Adam’s eyes, though he kept the rest of his face stoic. “Better be in my bedroom, if I’m going to get chewed on. Give me a hand up, would you? Paul gave me a few good ones.”
He held up one of his poor, sore hands, and I took it without wincing for the pain that closing his hand over mine must have given him. It was a show to reassure the pack he was as strong as ever. The twinkle left his eyes though his mouth turned up in a smile as he stood up easily, without pulling on my hand at all.
When we got to the moron who was sitting in the only path to the stairway, Adam caught my waist and lifted me over before stepping over the man himself.
“Scott?” Adam said as we headed upstairs.
“Yeah?”
“Unless someone shoots you, skins you, and throws the results on the floor, I don’t want to see you lying in the walkway again.”
“Yessir!”
When we reached the top of the stairway, his hand was heavy on my shoulder, and he leaned harder on me all the way to the bedroom.
Someone—and I was betting it was Darryl—had left three huge roast beef sandwiches, a cup of hot coffee, and a glass of ice water on the table by the side of the bed. Medea was sleeping on the pillow in the middle of the bed. She looked up at us and, when I didn’t make any move to oust her, closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
“Crumbs on the sheets,” muttered Adam, watching the sandwiches intently as I pushed him down on the bed.
“Bet there are clean sheets in this mausoleum somewhere,” I told him. “We can find them tonight and remake the bed. Presto, no more crumbs.” I took half a sandwich and held it up to his face. “Eat.”
He smiled and bit my finger with a playfulness I’d have thought beyond him, as beat as he was.
“Eat,” I said sternly. “Food, then sleep. Rescue—” I bit my lip. Adam was a wolf. I couldn’t talk to him about Gabriel, no matter how wrong that felt. “Food, then sleep. Everything else can wait.”
But it was too late. He’d never let that word go by without a challenge. He accepted the sandwich from me, took a bite, and swallowed it. “Rescue?”
“I can’t talk about it. Talk to Jesse or Darryl.”
Mercy?
His voice wrapped around my head like a bracing winter wind, fresh and sweet to my taste. Here was a way I could communicate without speech—if I could just figure out how. I stared at him intently.
Finally, he smiled. “You can’t talk about it. You promised . . . someone. I got that much. I keep a notebook in my briefcase in the closet. Why don’t you get that and spend some time writing a letter to me about whatever it is you can’t say.”
I kissed his nose. “You’ve been hanging out with the fae again, haven’t you? Wolves are usually a little better about keeping the spirit as well as the letter of the law.”
“Good thing you aren’t a werewolf, then.” His voice was gravelly with fatigue and smoke damage.
“You really think so?” I asked. When I was growing up, I’d wanted to be a werewolf so I could really belong to the Marrok’s pack. I’d always wondered whether, if I had been a werewolf instead of a coyote, my foster father would have reconsidered his decision to follow his mate in death. But when Adam said he was glad I wasn’t a werewolf, it sounded like he meant it.
“I wouldn’t change a hair on your head,” he told me. “Now, go get the notebook and write it all down before I die of curiosity.”
“I will if you eat.”
He obligingly took another bite, so I rummaged through his closet until I found the briefcase. He scooted over, making Medea protest until he scooped her into his lap so I could sit on the edge of the bed. While I sat beside him and wrote down everything I could think of, he finished all but half a sandwich (“Yours,” he said. “Eat.”) and fell asleep while I was still writing.