Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

him I was coming to deliver an apology, so he gave them to me.”
    â€œDid he lock the van?” I asked. “I’ve a pair of guns in there, loaded for werewolves—” Mention of the guns reminded me of something else, something odd. “Oh, and there’s a tranquilizer dart of some sort that I found near Adam when I moved him.”
    â€œThe van’s locked,” he said. “Charles found the dart and left it at the lab because he said it smelled of silver and Adam. Now that I know where you found it, I’ll make sure to look it over carefully.”
    â€œMac said someone was using him to experiment on,” I told him. “They’d found some drugs that worked on werewolves, he said.”
    Samuel nodded. “I remember you telling us that.”
    He held out my keys and, careful not to touch his hand, I took them from him. He smiled as if I’d done something interesting and I realized I shouldn’t have been so careful. If I had felt nothing for him, touching his hand wouldn’t havebothered me. Living among normal humans, I’d forgotten how difficult it was to hide anything from werewolves.
    â€œGood night, Mercy,” he said.
    Then he was gone, and the room felt emptier for his leaving it. I’d better go in the morning, I thought, as I listened to the snow squeak under his feet as he walked away.
    I was busy reading page fourteen for the third time when someone else knocked on the door.
    â€œI brought dinner,” said a man’s pleasant tenor.
    I set the book down and opened the door.
    A sandy-haired young man with a nondescript face held a plastic tray loaded with two plastic-wrapped sub sandwiches, a pair of styrofoam cups of hot chocolate, and a dark blue winter jacket. Maybe it was the food, but it occurred to me that if Bran looked that much like the cliché of a delivery boy, it was probably on purpose. He liked to be unobtrusive.
    He gave me a small smile when I didn’t step away from the door right away. “Charles told me that Adam is going to be fine, and Samuel made a fool of himself.”
    â€œSamuel apologized,” I told him, stepping back and letting him into the room.
    The kitchenette had a two-burner stove, six-pack-sized fridge, and a small, Formica-covered table with two chairs. After tossing the coat on the bed, Bran set the tray on the table and rearranged the contents until there was a sandwich and cup on each side.
    â€œCharles told me that you didn’t have a coat, so I brought one. I also thought you might like something to eat,” he said. “Then we can discuss what we’re to do with your Alpha and his missing daughter.”
    He sat down on one side and gestured for me to take the other seat. I sat and realized I hadn’t eaten anything all day—I hadn’t been hungry. I still wasn’t.
    True to his word, he didn’t talk while he ate and I picked. The sandwich tasted of refrigerator, but the cocoa was rich with marshmallows and real vanilla.
    He ate faster than I did, but waited patiently for me to finish. The sandwich was one of those huge subs, built to feed you for a week. I ate part of it and wrapped the rest in the plastic it had come in. Bran had eaten all of his, but werewolves need a lot of food.
    My foster mother had liked to say, “Never starve a werewolf, or he might ask you to join him for lunch.” She’d always pat her husband on the head afterward, even if he was in human form.
    I don’t know why I thought of that right then, or why the thought tried to bring tears to my eyes. My foster parents were both of them almost seventeen years dead. She died trying to become a werewolf because, she’d told me, every year she got older and he didn’t. There are a lot fewer women who are moon called, because they just don’t survive the Change as well. My foster father died from grief a month later. I’d been fourteen.
    I took a sip of cocoa and waited for Bran to talk.
    He sighed heavily and leaned back in the chair, balancing it on two legs, his own legs dangling in the air.
    â€œPeople don’t do that,” I told him.
    He raised an eyebrow. “Do what?”
    â€œBalance like that—not unless they’re teenage boys showing off for their girlfriends.”
    He brought all four legs back on the flour abruptly. “Thank you.” Bran liked to appear as human as possible, but his gratitude was a little sharp.