Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

“Because it scared me—scares me—silly.”
    He shook his head. “Not that part—the keeping it from hurting me part.”
    â€œYou don’t like being a werewolf,” I told him. “Oh, you deal with it—but you hate it. You think that it makes you a freak. I didn’t want you to know I had problems with some of the werewolf stuff, too.” I swallowed. “Okay, more problems than just that whole ‘I must control your life because you belong to me’ that most of the werewolves I know have.”
    He stared at me with his yellow eyes and elongated face. His mouth was open slightly because his upper and lower jaw no longer quite matched up. I could see the edges of teeth that were sharper and more uneven than they usually were.
    â€œI am a freak, Mercy,” he said, and I snorted.
    â€œYeah, such a freak,” I agreed. “That’s why I’ve been drooling over you for years even though I’d sworn off werewolves for life after Samuel. I knew that if I told you being a member of the pack and the bonds and all that were bothering me—it would hurt you. And you are already putting up with . . .” I couldn’t wrap my mouth around the ugly word “rape,” so I softened it as I often did. “With the aftermath of Tim. I thought if I gave myself a little time, figured out how to keep the pack from turning me into your ex-wife, and bought Samuel a little extra time as well . . .”
    Adam leaned against the wall just inside the door—the wall my counter used to block—and folded his arms across his chest.
    â€œWhat I’m trying to say,” I told him, “is that I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And, no, I did not engineer this to put some distance between us.”
    â€œYou were trying to keep me from being hurt,” he said, still in that odd voice.
    â€œYes.”
    He shook his head slowly—and I noticed that sometime while we’d been talking, he’d lost the wolfish aspect, and his face had returned to normal. Warm brown eyes caught the light from the windows as one side of his mouth quirked up.
    â€œDo you have any idea how much I love you?” he asked.
    â€œEnough to accept my apologies?” I suggested in a small voice.
    â€œHeck no,” he said, and pushed off from the wall, stalking forward.
    When he reached me, he put his hands up and touched the sides of my neck with the tips of his fingers—as if I were something fragile.
    â€œNo apologies from you,” he told me, his voice soft enough to melt my knees and most of my other parts. “First of all, as I already pointed out—you would make the same choices again, right? So an apology doesn’t work. Secondly, you, being who you are, could have made no other choice. Since I love you, as you are, where you are—it hardly makes sense for me to kick about it when you act like yourself. Right?”
    â€œPeople don’t always see it that way,” I said, stepping into him until our hip bones bumped.
    He laughed, a quiet sound that made me happy down to my toes. “Yeah, well, I don’t promise I’ll always be logical about it.” He gave a rueful glance to my broken counter and the cash register on its side. “Especially at first.” His smile dropped away. “I thought you were trying to leave me.”
    â€œI might be dumb,” I told him, putting my nose against his silk tie, “but I’m not that dumb. I’ve gotcha now, and you aren’t getting away.”
    His arms tightened almost painfully around me.
    â€œSo why didn’t you tell Bran about Samuel?” I asked him. “I was sure you’d have to tell him. Aren’t you bound by blood-sworn oaths?”
    â€œIf you’d called me last night and told me what was going on, I’d have called Bran—and shot Samuel myself. But . . . based on what happened this morning, he seems to be holding it together okay. He deserves some time.” His arms, which had loosened a little, pulled me against him even harder. “If something like that happens to me—you call Bran and you stay as far from me as you can get. My wolf is not like Samuel’s.” He gave the counter another look. “If I lose it . . . you just stay away until I’m dead.”

6

    ONCE MOST EVERYONE ELSE WAS GONE, ADAM TOSSED the fae’s rifle into the backseat of his