Mercy Thompson 06 - River Marked

that he might have hurt you. Making him feel horrible isn’t what you want.” She paused, considered what she said, then modified it. “Unless it is useful for him to feel horrible, of course. Mostly, though, I’ve found that isn’t productive. Men who are miserable can be unpredictable.”
    I wondered if my stepfather knew how lucky he was that she felt it was in her best interests that he was happy instead of miserable. Probably he did; he was a smart man.
    “I am the queen of hit-and-run,” I told her. “All the satisfaction, none of the danger.”
    “Good,” she said. “Just make sure he doesn’t turn you into the good little wife. You’d manage it for a while—you were the ‘good little daughter’ in my house from the time you moved in until you went to college.”
    There was a little edge to her voice, as if I’d hurt her—which hadn’t been my intention at all. When I’d left Bran’s pack to live with my mother and stepfather, I’d been sixteen, and they’d already had a family without me. No. They’d had the perfect family without me. I hadn’t wanted to disturb them any more than I could help.
    “But if you try that in a marriage,” she continued, “the marriage will self-destruct eventually, and there will be casualties everywhere you look.”
    “Adam doesn’t want a good little wife,” I told her.
    “Of course not,” she said. But she didn’t know Adam that well, and I figured she was just humoring me, until she kept going. “But he was taught how to be a husband when it was assumed that his wife would be a combination cook/housekeeper/mother who would need him to provide and protect her. He knows in his head and his heart that you are an equal, but his instincts were instilled a long time ago. You are going to have to help him with that and be patient with him.”
    My mother would not be nearly as terrifying if she weren’t right so often.

    SO INSTEAD OF STICKING AROUND TO FIGHT WITH Adam, I ran to let us both cool off, and to let the hurt of his patronizing remarks ease so I could think. I can’t be patient when I’m mad—unless I’m waiting to get back at someone, and I wasn’t that mad. Not yet.
    I ran the first mile or so as fast as I could, then dropped down to a dog-trot.
    I couldn’t let him treat me like his first wife. I couldn’t live surrounded by cotton wool.
    But he knew that.
    I trusted him. What he’d kept from me hadn’t been life threatening. He was right. The fae would not offend the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack. One werewolf was a tough creature—but the real power of the werewolves lay in their packs. I could understand him wanting to make sure our honeymoon was worry-free.
    Okay. Okay.
    So at what point had our discussion turned into an argument that left us both angry? And left me with an ache in my chest that felt as if he’d punched me instead of snapped at me. He hadn’t even worked up to a good rage, and I felt miserable.
    A rabbit bolted right out in front of me. I hadn’t really intended on hunting, but if the stupid things want to present themselves for dinner ... With a fresh turn of speed, I gave chase.

    I WAS EATING THE LAST OF THE RABBIT WHEN ADAM showed up in his glorious furred form. Adam is a beautiful man, and his wolf is beautiful, too. He is colored like a Siamese cat, though in bluish grays that deepen to near black.
    He dropped a second rabbit at my feet and lay down in front of me, nose on his paws and his ears flattened.
    Nothing says you’re sorry like a dead bunny.
    I remembered his first wife. Christy had made him apologize a lot, apologize for things that were not his fault. I didn’t want an apology. I wanted to know why we’d just had a fight, and I hadn’t even enjoyed it.
    I liked to fight with Adam.
    He’d been mad first.
    I considered that.
    Adam got mad for three reasons. The most common, and my personal favorite, was frustration. Usually, when Adam was mad at me, frustration was the spark that set him off. Adam frustrated and angry with me usually started with fireworks and ended in good ways with a lot of adrenaline engendered and spent along the way.
    The second was if anyone was trying to harm someone under his protection. We’d established that the fae were probably not planning our deaths or even near-fatal entrapments.
    The third was pain—physical or otherwise.
    Having established that he wasn’t frustrated and neither I nor anyone else was in any danger—I must have hurt him