Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

just nodded, saying, “How did they know where Adam lived? Or when the meeting was over? How did they know he didn’t have an army at his house like some of the Alphas do? Jesse’s not stupid. When she heard the sound of the tranq guns firing, she wouldn’t have screamed—but they knew where she was anyway.”
    I thought about that. “There was just the one human they sent up after her—and he went right to her room.”
    Darryl made a sweeping gesture. “I’m not saying that there are not explanations other than a betrayal by one of the pack—but you made the right choice.”
    It shouldn’t have made me feel good—but I’m as much a sucker for a pat on the back as the next woman.
    â€œGo on, Mercy,” said Adam.
    So I continued the explanation as succinctly as possible—which meant I left out any details that weren’t their business, such as my past relationship with Samuel.
    The rest of the pack filtered in while I talked, taking up seating on the floor—moving broken furniture out of the way as necessary. It wasn’t the whole pack, but there were ten or fifteen of them.
    Auriele sat next to Darryl, her knee just brushing his. She had a nasty bruise on her forehead, and I wondered if she would continue to treat me with the cool courtesy she’d always extended to me—or if she, like the females in Bran’s pack, would consider me an enemy from now on.
    Warren, I thought, with Adam’s support, had just cemented his place in the pack—at least with Darryl, whose body language told the rest of the pack that Warren was not in disgrace. Darryl valued loyalty, I thought, suddenly certain it wasn’t Darryl who had betrayed Adam.
    Who then? I looked out over the faces, some familiar, some less so; but Adam was a good Alpha, and other than Darryl, there were no wolves dominant enough to be Alphas themselves.
    I got to our decision to bring Adam to Warren’s, sayingonly that we thought it would be a better hiding place than his house or mine, and stopped because Darryl was all but vibrating with his need to ask questions.
    â€œWhy did they take Jesse?” he asked, as soon as I quit speaking.
    â€œWarren tells me there haven’t been any ransom calls,” Adam said. He’d begun pacing sometime during my story. I couldn’t see any sign he’d ever been hurt, but I suspect some of that was acting; an Alpha never admits weakness in front of the pack. “I’ve been thinking about it, but I honestly don’t know. One of the wolves who came to my house was someone I once knew—thirty years ago. We were both turned at the same time. His experience was . . . harrowing, because he Changed without help.” I saw several of the wolves wince. “He might bear a grudge because of it, but thirty years is a long time to wait if revenge is the only reason for taking Jesse.”
    â€œDoes he belong to a pack?” Mary Jo asked from the back of the room. Mary Jo was a firefighter with the Kennewick FD. She was small, tough-looking, and complained a lot because she had to pretend to be weaker than all the men on her team. I liked her.
    Adam shook his head. “David is a lone wolf by choice. He doesn’t like werewolves.”
    â€œYou said they had humans with them, and new wolves,” Warren said.
    Adam nodded, but I was still thinking about the lone wolf. What was a man who had been a lone wolf for thirty years doing running in a pack of new wolves? Had he Changed them himself? Or were they victims like Mac had been?
    Samuel laid his muzzle on my knee, and I petted him absently.
    â€œYou said they used silver nitrate, DMSO, and Ketamine,” said Auriele, the chemistry teacher. “Does that mean they have a doctor working for them? Or maybe a drug pusher? Ketamine isn’t as common as meth or crack, but we see it in the high school now and then.”
    I straightened up. “A doctor or a vet,” I said. Beside me Samuel stiffened. I looked at him. “A vet would have access to all of those, wouldn’t he, Samuel?”
    Samuel growled at me. He didn’t like what I was thinking.
    â€œWhere are you going with this?” asked Adam, looking at Samuel, though he was talking to me.
    â€œDr. Wallace,” I said.
    â€œCarter is in trouble because he can’t accept being a werewolf, Mercy. It is too violent for him, and he’d rather die