Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

can’t be in two places at once,” Samuel said. “And I won’t allow you to go out on your own and talk to who knows what kind of fae.”
    â€œWe need to find Jesse,” I said.
    â€œMy daughter comes first.”
    Samuel twisted around to look at Adam. “You have a dominant wolf in your pack that you trust? Someone not in line to be pack leader?”
    â€œWarren.” Adam and I said his name in the same instant.
    Warren was my favorite of Adam’s pack, and the only wolf whose company I sought out. I met him shortly after I moved to the Tri-Cities, before I even knew there was a pack in town.
    I hadn’t met a werewolf since I’d left Montana, and I certainly hadn’t expected to meet one working the night shift at the local Stop and Rob. He’d given me a wary look, but there were other people in the store, so he accepted my payment without a word. I accepted my change with a nod and a smile.
    After that we’d mostly ignored each other, until the night a woman with a fresh shiner came into the store to pay for the gas her husband was pumping. She gave Warren the money, then took a firmer grip on the hand of the boy at her side, and asked Warren if he had a back door she could use.
    He smiled gently at her and shepherded the two frightened people into a small office I’d never noticed before atthe back of the store. He left me to watch the till and went out and had a short talk with the man at the pump. When he came back, he had two hundred dollars cash for her, and her husband drove away with a speed indicating either terror or rage.
    Warren and I waited with the battered pair until the lady who ran the local women’s shelter drove over to collect her newest clients. When they left, I turned to him and finally introduced myself.
    Warren was one of the good guys, a hero. He was also a lone wolf. It had taken him a while to trust me enough to tell me why.
    Perhaps in other ages, in other places, it wouldn’t have mattered that he was gay. But most of the werewolves in power in the US had been born in a time when homosexuality was anathema, even punishable by death in some places.
    One of my professors once told me that the last official act of the British monarchy was when Queen Victoria refused to sign a law that made same-sex acts illegal. It would have made me think more highly of her, except the reason she objected was because she didn’t believe women would do anything like that. Parliament rewrote the law so it was specific to men, and she signed it. A tribute to enlightenment, Queen Victoria was not. Neither, as I have observed before, are werewolf packs.
    There was no question of Warren’s staying in the closet, either, at least not among other werewolves. As demonstrated by Adam and Samuel just a few hours ago, werewolves are very good at sensing arousal. Not just smells, but elevated temperature and increased heart rate. Arousal in werewolves tends to bring out the fighting instinct in all the nearby males.
    Needless to say, a male wolf who is attracted to other male wolves gets in a lot of fights. It spoke volumes about Warren’s fighting ability that he survived as long as he had. But a pack won’t accept a wolf who causes too much trouble, so he’d spent his century of life cut off from his kind.
    It was I who introduced Adam and Warren, about the time Adam moved in behind me. I’d had Warren to dinner and we’d been laughing about something, I forget what, and one of Adam’s wolves howled. I’ll never forget the desolation on Warren’s face.
    I’d heard it all the time when I was growing up—wolves are meant to run in a pack. I still don’t understand it completely myself, but Warren’s face taught me that being alone was no trivial thing for a wolf.
    The next morning, I’d knocked on Adam’s front door. He listened to me politely and took the piece of paper with Warren’s phone number on it. I’d left his house knowing I’d failed.
    It was Warren who told me what happened next. Adam summoned Warren to his house and interrogated him for two hours. At the end of it, Adam told Warren he didn’t care if a wolf wanted to screw ducks as long as he’d listen to orders. Not actually in those words, if Warren’s grin as he told me about it was an accurate measure. Adam uses crudeness as he uses all of his weapons: seldom, but with great effect.
    I suppose some