Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

embrace with some difficulty—and care, because the hands that clutched me convulsively were burned and blistered—but I had to be able to breathe. “Ben. Tell me where Adam is.”
    â€œHospital,” said Darryl, trotting over to us from where he’d been talking to some of the firemen. Darryl was Auriele’s mate and Adam’s second. “Mary Jo was able to ride in with him on the strength of her job.” Mary Jo was a werewolf whose day job was as a fireman and a trained EMT. “I’ll take you.”
    I was already running back to the Rabbit. Sam somehow slithered past me when I was getting in, and when the passenger door opened, he hopped into the backseat so Ben could sit down.
    â€œWarren’s on his way,” Ben said. His teeth were chattering with shock, and his eyes were bright wolf eyes. “He was working, couldn’t get off in time for the meeting. But I called him and told him that Adam was at the hospital.”
    â€œGood,” I said, pulling out in a storm of gravel. “Why didn’t they take you to the hospital, too?”
    Away from the fire, the scent of burnt flesh and his pain was impossible to miss. The little car’s engine roared as I opened it up on the highway. Ben closed his eyes and braced himself against the seat.
    â€œI was still in the building,” he said. He coughed, rolled down his window, and hung out the side, choking and hacking for a while. I handed him a half-empty water bottle, and he rinsed his mouth out and spit.
    He rolled up the window and took a drink. “Adam went for your bedroom, and I went for Samuel’s.” His voice was even rougher than it had been.
    â€œHow bad are you?”
    â€œI’ll be all right. Smoke inhalation sucks.”

    WE THREE BARGED INTO THE EMERGENCY ROOM. Even for a place that was used to odd things, we must have looked a sight. I glanced at Sam. He’d rolled on the ground when I wasn’t looking, covering up the remnants of bloodstains with dirt. All of us looked bedraggled, but at least I didn’t think Sam and I looked as if we’d been killing fae. Of course, we didn’t look like we’d been fighting a fire, like Ben did, either. I’d come up with some story if someone asked.
    I’d forgotten that there was something more shocking about us than dirt, burns, and old, mostly washed-out bloodstains.
    â€œHey, you can’t bring a dog in here!” The triage nurse took three quick strides to us and met my eyes . . . and she stumbled to a halt. “Ms. Thompson? Is that a werewolf?”
    â€œWhere is Adam Hauptman?”
    But a roar from the emergency room told me all I needed to know.
    â€œWhose bright idea was it to bring him here?” I muttered, running for the double doors between the waiting room and the emergency room, Ben and Sam flanking me.
    â€œNot me,” Ben said, sounding a little more cheerful. I think he’d been worried about what we’d find, too. “I am absolved of guilt. I was in the trailer getting toasty-warm when they sent him here.”
    A gray werewolf whose fur darkened around his muzzle stood in the aisle between the patient rooms and the central counter, his change so recent that I could still see the muscles of his back realigning themselves.
    He was missing large patches of fur where his skin was blackened and had bubbled up like wax. All four of his feet were hideously burnt, the singed skin a horrible imitation of the black fur that usually covered them. The curtain from the room was caught over his tail.
    I stopped just inside the doors, assessing the situation.
    Jody, the nurse I’d talked to the night of Samuel’s accident, was standing very still—and someone had coached her on how to behave around werewolves, because her eyes were fixed on the floor. But even from where I stood, I could smell her fear, an appetite-rousing scent for any werewolf. Mary Jo crouched in front of Adam, one hand resting on the floor, her head bowed in submission—and her tough athletic body, so fragile- appearing next to the wolf, was directly between the bystanders and her Alpha.
    I glanced down at Sam, but apparently he’d fed enough on the dead fae that his attention was all on Adam, though he stayed next to me. Ben waited on my other side, holding himself very still, as if he was trying really hard not to attract Adam’s attention.
    In other circumstances I wouldn’t