Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

have to buy a new one. The seat was broken with splinters of wood sticking through the plush fabric. The second werewolf lay chest down on the floor. His head was twisted backward, and his death-clouded eyes stared accusingly at me.
    I stepped over a pair of handcuffs, the bracelets bent and broken. They weren’t steel or aluminum, but some silver alloy. Either they were specifically made to restrain a werewolf, or they were a specialty item from a high-ticket BDSM shop. They must have been used on Adam; he’d never have brought a wolf he had to restrain into his house while Jesse was here.
    The noises of the fight were coming from around the corner of the living room, toward the back of the house. I ran along the wall, glass crunching under my feet and stopped just this side of the dining room as wood cracked and the floor vibrated.
    I put my head around the corner cautiously, but I needn’t have worried. The fighting werewolves were too involved with each other to pay attention to me.
    Adam’s dining room was large and open with patio doors that looked out over a rose garden. The floors were oak parquet—the real stuff. His ex-wife had had a table that could seat fifteen made to match the floor. That table was upside down and embedded in the far wall about four feet from the floor. The front of the matching china closet had been broken, as if someone had thrown something large and heavy into it. The result of the destruction was a fairly large, clear area for the werewolves to fight in.
    The first instant I saw them, all I could do was hold my breath at the speed and grace of their motion. For all theirsize, werewolves still resemble their gracile cousin the timber wolf more than a Mastiff or Saint Bernard, who are closer to their weight. When weres run, they move with a deadly, silent grace. But they aren’t really built for running, they are built for fighting, and there is a deadly beauty to them that comes out only in battle.
    I’d only seen Adam’s wolf form four or five times, but it was something you didn’t forget. His body was a deep silver, almost blue, with an undercoat of lighter colors. Like a Siamese cat’s, his muzzle, ears, tail, and legs deepened to black.
    The wolf he was fighting was bigger, a silvery buff color more common among coyotes than wolves. I didn’t know him.
    At first, the size difference didn’t bother me. You don’t get to be the Alpha without being able to fight—and Adam had been a warrior before he’d been Changed. Then I realized that all the blood on the floor was dripping from Adam’s belly, and the white flash I saw on his side was a rib bone.
    I stepped out where I could get better aim and lifted the rifle, pointing the barrel at the strange werewolf, waiting until I could take a shot without risking hitting Adam.
    The buff-colored wolf seized Adam just behind the neck and shook him like a dog killing a snake. It was meant to break Adam’s neck, but the other wolf’s grip wasn’t firm, and instead he threw Adam into the dining table, sending the whole mess crashing onto the floor and giving me the opportunity I’d been waiting for.
    I shot the wolf in the back of the head from less than six feet away. Just as my foster father had taught me, I shot him at a slight downward angle, so that the Marlin’s bullet didn’t go through him and travel on to hit anyone else who happened to be standing in the wrong place for the next quarter mile or so.
    Marlin .444’s were not built for home defense; they were built to kill grizzlies and have even been used a time or two to take out elephants. Just what the doctor orderedfor werewolves. One shot at all but point-blank and he was dead. I walked up to him and shot him one more time, just to make sure.
    I’m not usually a violent person, but it felt good to pull the trigger. It soothed the building rage I’d felt ever since I’d knelt on my porch next to Mac’s body.
    I glanced at Adam, lying in the midst of his dining table, but he didn’t move, not even to open his eyes. His elegant muzzle was covered in gore. His silver hair was streaked dark with blood and matted so it was hard to see the full extent of his wounds. What I could see was bad enough.
    Someone had done a fair job of gutting him: I could see pale intestines and the white of bone where the flesh had peeled away from his ribs.
    He might be alive, I told myself.