Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

scared her, she still wanted him?
    She tried to take another step toward him and stopped. I could smell her terror, sharp and sour. She backed away from him with a little sigh.
    â€œIt is very good to see you again, Samuel,” she said. “Because of you I am whole and here all these centuries after my father would have destroyed me. Instead, his body long ago fed his beasts and the trees of his forests.”
    Samuel bowed his head and, to the floor, he said, “I’m glad you are well—and apologize for causing your panic attack today. I should have stayed out . . .”
    â€œYes. Panic attacks. They can be pretty . . .” She looked at Zee, who was back in his chair looking as relaxed as if he’d spent the last ten minutes watching a very boring soap opera. “Did I hurt anyone, Siebold?”
    â€œNo,” he said, folding his arms. “Just true- named our wolf, and told Mercedes and Jesse the story of the Silver Borne.”
    She looked at me, then at Jesse, maybe to see how frightened we were. Whatever she saw reassured her because she gave a shy smile.
    â€œOh, that’s good. Good.” Her shoulders relaxed, and she turned her attention back to Samuel. “I don’t have them often anymore. Not at all with mortal canines. It’s just the fae dogs, the magic ones—black dogs and hounds—that set me off. Only when I am overcome with—” She bit her lip.
    â€œFear?” Samuel suggested, and she didn’t answer. She also had left off werewolves, I noticed.
    â€œI am glad to see that your magic has returned,” he said. “You thought it was gone.”
    She took a deep breath. “Yes. And for a while I was glad of it.” She looked at me. “And that has bearing on the present situation. You are Samuel’s friend, Mercedes?”
    â€œAnd mate of the local Alpha werewolf—Jesse’s father,” I told her. I could hardly tell her that Samuel was single—that was a little too obvious. I saw that it mattered to her that Samuel didn’t belong to me.
    â€œYou were going to—” I was so caught up in matchmaking that I almost flubbed it then and there. I shut my mouth and grabbed Jesse’s hand.
    â€œâ€”help us find Gabriel.” Jesse completed my sentence for me.
    Ariana didn’t move like a human at all when she came back to where we sat, with her chair in hand; she moved like a . . . wolf, bold and graceful and strong. Without a glance at Samuel, she sat down.
    â€œAsk her about the thing the fairy queen wants,” I told Jesse.
    â€œZee said she wants the Silver Borne,” Ariana said. “That is the object of power I built for my father—although it never quite worked as the one who commissioned it would have liked. For many years I thought I had destroyed all my magic by making it.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “I lived as a human, except for my long life span. I married, had children . . .” She glanced at Samuel, who was looking over our heads and out the window. His face was composed, but I could see the pulse beating fast in his throat.
    Ariana continued her story quickly. “It took me nearly a century to make the connection between my lack of magic and the Silver Borne.”
    She gave me a wry smile. “I know. I had no magic anymore, and the last thing I made was something that was supposed to eat magic. You’d think I’d have made the connection. But all I knew was that it wasn’t finished . . . and I couldn’t remember how far I’d gotten when my father called the wolves. After a while it was not as important to me—it was only a broken thing that did nothing. Someone stole it, and I thought, good riddance. I left it to them, and after a few months my magic returned. It was then that I first understood I’d succeeded, in part. It does consume fae magic—but mostly just the magic of the person who currently possesses it.”
    â€œWhy would a fairy queen want it, then?” I asked, then added a belated, “Jesse?”
    â€œIt eats fae magic, Mercy,” said Zee. “How easy to change a formidable opponent to someone more vulnerable than a human—at least a human knows he has no power. Dueling is still allowed among the fae.”
    â€œOr maybe she doesn’t really understand what it does,” suggested Ariana. “She could believe it does as it was built to do: take power