Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

anyone’s attention. Yet. The day was still young.
    I breathed in Adam’s scent and took comfort I wasn’t entitled to. Sylvia was right. I was feeling far too sorry for myself, and I wasn’t entitled to that either.
    I pulled away and hopped up to sit on the counter next to the gun before I enlightened him—I couldn’t bear it if he were touching me when he decided he didn’t want anything more to do with me. As Sylvia just had.
    The sticky black stuff left from where someone in the Dark Ages had taped a piece of paper to the edge of the counter was gone, and I ran my finger over the newly clean spot. She’d left the cookies.
    â€œMercy?”
    I’d betrayed him. For all the good reasons in the world, but I was his mate—and I’d chosen Samuel. I suppose I could have hoped he wouldn’t notice, but that seemed wrong in light of this morning. What if Heart hadn’t come here first? What if he’d run into Adam and shot him? What if he’d gone to Adam’s work or had a photo of him . . . Come to think of it, wasn’t that odd? Adam was out to the public, and his face photographed very well.
    Someone hadn’t wanted Heart to know who Adam was.
    â€œMercy?”
    â€œSorry,” I told him. “I’m trying to distract myself. You need to look at Samuel.” I picked at a mucky spot on my overalls because I couldn’t meet his eyes.
    If Bran wanted Samuel dead, he’d have to go through me to do it, which he could. But I was through lying to Adam, even if only by omission, merely to keep Bran from finding out.
    Sam had trotted past both of us and gone to stand in the doorway, looking through the garage. I could hear Maia still crying for her puppy.
    â€œPuppy?” said Adam, sounding amused. Sam turned and looked at him—and Adam froze.
    I was well on my way to passing stupid for idiotic. It was only when Adam stilled that I had the sudden thought that it might not have been the best idea to show the Columbia Pack Alpha that he had a problem with Sam in the narrow confines of my office.
    It was Sam who growled first. Temper flared in Adam’s face. Sam was more dominant, but he wasn’t Alpha—and Adam was not going to back down in his territory without violence.
    I hopped off the counter in between them.
    â€œSettle down, Sam,” I snapped, before I remembered what a bad idea that was.
    I kept forgetting—not that Samuel was in trouble; I had no trouble remembering that—but that his wolf was not Samuel. Just because he hadn’t turned into the ravening beast that the only werewolves I’d seen who lost control to their wolf became, did not mean he was safe. My head knew that—but I kept acting as if he were just Samuel. Because he acted just like Samuel would have. Mostly.
    Sam sneezed and turned his back to us—and I started breathing again.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I apologized to both of them. “That was a dumb way of doing things.”
    I didn’t want to look at Adam. I didn’t want to see if he was angry or hurt or whatever. I’d had just about enough already that day.
    And that was a coward’s way out.
    So I turned and looked up at him, keeping my gaze on his chin—where I could see his reaction without challenging him by meeting his eyes.
    â€œYou are so screwed,” he said thoughtfully.
    â€œI’m sorry I let you think . . .”
    â€œWhat?” he asked. “That you needed some time away from the pack, from me? When you really wanted to keep any of us from seeing Samuel?”
    He sounded reasonable, but I could see the white line along his jaw where he was gritting his teeth and the tension in his neck.
    â€œYes,” I told him.
    Ben boiled into the room—saw our little tableau, and came to an abrupt halt. Adam glanced over his shoulder at him, and Ben flinched and bowed his head.
    â€œI didn’t catch it,” he said. “Her. The fae thing. But she was armed, and she dropped her weapon when she bolted.” He’d been carrying a jacket, and from under it he pulled a rifle that had very little metal on it. If it had been a little prettier, it might have looked like a toy because it was mostly made of plastic.
    â€œKel-Tec rifle,” said Adam, visibly dragging himself into a businesslike manner. “Built to fire pistol cartridges out of pistol magazines.”
    Ben handed it over, and Adam pulled the