Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

accident three days after she met him.”
    â€œShe was seventeen, and her parents tried to talk her into an abortion, but she would have none of it. Then they tried to get her to put me up for adoption, but she was determined to raise me herself—until I was three months old, and she found a coyote pup in my crib.”
    â€œWhat did she do?”
    â€œShe tried to find my father’s family,” I told him. “She went to Browning and found several families there withthat last name, but they claimed they’d never heard of Joe. He was certainly Native American.” I made a gesture to encompass my appearance. I don’t look pureblood; my features are too Anglo. But my skin looks tanned even in November, and my straight hair is as dark as my eyes. “But otherwise I don’t know much about him.”
    â€œOld Coyote,” said Mac speculatively.
    I smiled at him. “Makes you think this shifting thing must have run in the family, doesn’t it?”
    â€œSo how was it that you were raised by werewolves?”
    â€œMy great-grandfather’s uncle was a werewolf,” I said. “It was supposed to be a family secret, but it’s hard to keep secrets from my mother. She just smiles at people, and they tell her their life stories. Anyway, she found his phone number and called him.”
    â€œWow,” said Mac. “I never met any of my great-grandparents.”
    â€œMe either,” I said, then smiled. “Just an uncle of theirs who was a werewolf. One of the benefits of being a werewolf is a long life.” If you can control the wolf—but Adam could explain that part better than me.
    His gaze was drawn back to our dead friend.
    â€œYes, well.” I sighed. “Stupidity will still get you killed. My great-grandfather’s uncle was smart enough to outlive his generation, but all those years didn’t keep him from getting gutted by a moose he was out hunting one night.”
    â€œAnyway,” I continued, “he came to visit and knew as soon as he saw me what I was. That was before the fae came out and people were still trying to pretend that science had ruled out the possibility of magic. He convinced my mother that I’d be safer out in the hinterlands of Montana being raised by the Marrok’s pack—they have their own town in the mountains where strangers seldom bother them. I was fostered with a family there who didn’t have any children.”
    â€œYour mother just gave you up?”
    â€œMy mother came out every summer, and they didn’t make it easy on her either. Not overfond of humans, the Marrok, excepting their own spouses and children.”
    â€œI thought the Marrok was the wolf who rules North America,” said Mac.
    â€œPacks sometimes take their public name from their leader,” I told him. “So the Marrok’s pack call themselves the Marrok. More often they find some geographical feature in their territory. Adam’s wolves are the Columbia Basin Pack. The only other pack in Washington is the Emerald Pack in Seattle.”
    Mac had another question, but I held up my hand for him to be quiet. I’d heard Adam’s car pull up.
    â€œRemember what I said about the Alpha,” I told Mac and stood up. “He’s a good man and you need him. Just sit there, keep your eyes down, let me talk, and everything will be all right.”
    The heavy garage door of bay one groaned, then rang like a giant cymbal as it was forced all the way open faster than it usually moved.
    Adam Hauptman stood in the open doorway, stillness cloaking his body and for an instant, I saw him with just my eyes, as a human might. He was worth looking at.
    For all his German last name, his face and coloring were Slavic: dusky skin, dark hair—though not as dark as mine—wide cheekbones, and a narrow but sensual mouth. He wasn’t tall or bulky, and a human might wonder why all eyes turned to him when he walked into a room. Then they’d see his face and assume, wrongly, that it was the attraction. Adam was an Alpha, and if he’d been ugly he would have held the attention of anyone who happened to be nearby, wolf or human—but the masculine beauty he carried so unself-consciously didn’t hurt.
    Under more usual circumstances his eyes were a rich chocolate brown, but they had lightened with his anger until they were almost yellow. I heard Mac gasp when the full effect of