Frost Burned

this much silver in his body, he’d be dead—and look like the Tin Man.”
    Kyle blinked. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite so . . . neutral.
    “You can talk to Adam when he’s not in the room, and you don’t have a phone?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    He closed his eyes, and I could read his expression when he opened them again. “Thank you, dear Lord,” he said with relief. “I thought I was going crazy.”
    In spite of everything, I couldn’t help but grin.
    “Warren’s a little nervous about how much werewolf stuff you can absorb without running for the hills,” I said half-apologetically.
    He narrowed his eyes. “Warren doesn’t get to keep me in the dark.” Then the temper faded out of his face. “I’d put up with all sorts of werewolf shit if it meant he was back here and safe.” His words were raw, and I felt them on my skin because I knew exactly what he meant.
    “Yeah,” I agreed with feeling. “But the silver? I think that was more about what
I
am than any weird werewolf magic.”
    “Being Native American made you toss up silver?” asked Kyle skeptically, but Ben gave me a look of sudden comprehension. The pack knew about Coyote.
    The mess on the floor was definitely becoming solid. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to come off with a little soap and elbow grease—and heard Coyote laugh in my ear. A silver dollar, when they were still silver, was a troy ounce of .90 pure silver. I have a host of trivia in my head.
    “How many troy ounces in a pound?” I asked because that wasn’t some of the trivia I knew.
    “I don’t know,” said Kyle soberly. “That looks like a lot of troy ounces to me.”
    Coyote magic, I thought, breaks rules. I looked at Kyle and decided that he could be trusted, just like the rest of the pack. “It’s not Indian magic—or not just Indian magic anyway. It’s Coyote magic.”
    “Coyote?” asked Kyle. “Are you talking about your other form or
the
Coyote?”
    Ben just narrowed his gaze.
    “My father was a Blackfeet bull rider from Browning, Montana, named Joe Old Coyote,” I told Kyle. “But before he was Joe Old Coyote, he was the Coyote of song and story. After Joe Old Coyote died in a car wreck, he was Coyote again.”
    I understand from people who have seen him in court that Kyle is mostly unflappable until he chooses to be otherwise. Being in love with a werewolf had raised his ability to nearly supernatural levels.
    He didn’t blink, didn’t pause, just said, “So the silver slime is because you are Coyote’s daughter?”
    “I’m not
Coyote’s
daughter,” I said firmly. I glanced at the floor. “And it’s not slime, anymore. Joe Old Coyote
wasn’t
Coyote.” Because if he had been, my father hadn’t just died, he had abandoned me, abandoned my mother, and I would have to hunt him down and hurt him.
    “Okay,” Kyle said. “You’re rambling.” He reached out and touched me. “Are you okay? You look flushed, but you’re cold.”
    As he spoke, a shiver rolled up my spine. I crouched down and held my hand over the silver slab that covered a couple of squares of stone tile.
    “That is the freakiest thing that ever happened to me.” I nodded toward the mess. “And if you knew my life, you’d realize just how freaky that is. While I was sleeping, I drank the silver out of Adam, woke up, and threw it up on your floor—sorry for that, by the way—and now my lips are black.”
    Kyle took in a breath. “While you were doing
freaky
stuff with Adam—as fine as he is—did you figure out
where
he is?”
    I shook my head, and he sighed. “That’s good.”
    I raised my eyebrow. He grinned, tiredly. “That would have been useful, Mercy. And having something
freaky
and
useful
would have been too good and sent the spirits of evil gods on our tail.”
    I stared at him.
    His grin grew less tired. “You might have been raised by werewolves, Mercy, but I was raised by a Scottish granny while my parents were out earning their millions. When the fae came out, she just harrumpfed, and said, ‘There’ll be trouble now.’ And she was right about it, just as every doom-filled prediction she ever made was right.”
    I let myself fall down onto my butt because my knee was remembering I’d been in a car accident, and it had had enough of my kneeling. Ben steadied me briefly, then jerked away.
    “Thanks,” I told Kyle. “I’ll keep the wrath of the dark gods in mind. Any more cheery thoughts?”
    “Not until Warren is