Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

Bran?”
    â€œNo!” The word left him in a roar that jerked him forward until he was crouched on both hands, one leg knee up, one leg still down on one knee.
    That one knee on the ground meant that he wasn’t, quite, ready to spring on me.
    â€œOur father will kill us,” Sam said, his voice slow and thick with Welsh intonation. “I . . . We don’t want to make him do that.” He took a deep breath. “And I don’t want to die.”
    â€œGood. That’s good,” I croaked, suddenly understanding just exactly what his first words to me had meant. Samuel had wanted to die, and his wolf had stopped him. Which was good, but left us with a nasty problem.
    There is a very good reason that the Marrok kills any werewolves who allow the wolf to lead and the man to follow. Very good reasons—like preventing-mass-slaughter sorts of reasons.
    But if Samuel’s wolf didn’t want them to die, I decided it was better he was in charge. For a while. Since he didn’t seem to want to kill me yet. Samuel was old. I don’t know exactly how old, but sometime before the Mayflower at least. Maybe that would allow his wolf to control himself without Samuel’s help. Maybe. “Okay, Sam. No calls to Bran.”
    I watched out of the corner of my eye as he tilted his head, surveying me. “I can pretend to be human until we get to your car. I thought that would be best, so I held this shape.”
    I swallowed. “What have you done with Samuel? Is he all right?”
    Pale ice blue eyes examined me thoughtfully. “Samuel? I’m pretty certain he’d forgotten I could do this: it has been so long since we battled for control. He let me out to play when he chose, and I left it to him.” He was quiet a moment or two, then he said, almost shyly. “You know when I’m here. You call me Sam.”
    He was right. I hadn’t realized it until he said it.
    â€œSam,” I asked again, trying not to sound demanding, “what have you done with Samuel?”
    â€œHe’s here, but I cannot let him out. If I do, he’ll never let me get the upper hand again—and then we will die.”
    â€œCannot” sounded like “never.” “Never” was bad. “Never” would get him killed as surely as suicide—and maybe . . . probably a lot of other people along the way.
    â€œIf not Bran, what about Charles’s mate, Anna? She’s Omega; shouldn’t she be able to help?”
    Omega wolves, as I understand them, are like Valium for werewolves. Samuel’s sister-in-law, Anna, is the only one I’ve ever met—I’d never heard of them before that. I like her, but she doesn’t seem to affect me the way she does the wolves. I don’t want to curl up in a ball at her feet and let her rub my belly.
    Samuel’s wolf looked wistful . . . or maybe he was just hungry. “No. If I were the problem, if I were ravaging the countryside, she might help. But this is not impulse, not desperation. Samuel just feels that he no longer belongs, that he accomplishes nothing by his existence. Even the Omega cannot fix him.”
    â€œSo what do you suggest?” I asked helplessly.
    Anna, I thought, might be able to put Samuel back in the driver’s seat, but, like the wolf, I was afraid that might not be a good thing.
    He laughed, an unhappy laugh. “I do not know. But if you don’t want to be trying to extract a wolf from the emergency room, it would be good to leave very soon.”
    Sam rocked forward to get up and stopped halfway with a grunt.
    â€œYou’re hurt,” I said as I scrambled up to give him a hand.
    He hesitated but took it and used me to give him better leverage so he could get all the way to his feet. Showing me his weakness was a sign of trust. Under normal circumstances, that trust would mean I was safer with him.
    â€œStiff,” Sam answered me. “Nothing that won’t heal on its own now. I drew upon your strength to heal enough that no one would know how bad the injuries were.”
    â€œHow did you do that?” I asked, suddenly remembering the fierce hunger that had resulted in a rabbit-and-quail dinner on top of the salmon I’d had with Adam. I’d thought it had been someone in Adam’s pack—for the very good reason that borrowing strength was one of those things that came with a pack bond. “We aren’t pack,” I reminded