"Mercedes," Adam thundered, surging to his feet.
I winked at Jesse, held my gi top over my left shoulder with one finger, and strolled casually out the back door of the garage. I didn't mean to, but when I turned to shut the door, I looked back and saw Adam's face. His expression gave me cold chills.
He wasn't angry or hurt. He looked thoughtful, as if someone had just given him the answer to a question that had been bothering him. He knew.
I was still shaking as I gingerly climbed over the barbed wire fence between Adam's land and mine.
All my life I'd blended in with those around me. It is the gift of the coyote. It's what helps us survive.
I learned early how to imitate the wolves. I played by their rules as long as they did. If they pushed it beyond reasonable limits because they thought I was less than they, being coyote rather than wolf, or because they were jealous that I did not have to heed the moon's call, then all bets were off. I played my strengths to their weaknesses. I lied with my body and eyes, licking their boots-then tormenting them in whatever way I could come up with.
Wolf etiquette had become a game to me, a game with rules I understood. I thought I was immune to the stupid dominance/submission thing, immune to the Alpha's power. I'd just had a very visceral lesson that I was not. I didn't like it. Not at all.
If Jesse hadn't come in, I would have surrendered myself to Adam, like some heroine from a 1970s series romance, the kind my foster mother used to read all the time. Ick.
I walked across my back field until I stood beside the decrepit Rabbit that served as my parts car, as well as my means of getting back at Adam when he got too dictatorial. If he looked out his back window, it sat right in the center of his field of view.
I'd pushed it out of the garage several years ago when Adam had complained about my mobile home spoiling his view. Then, every time he bothered me, I made it uglier. Right now it was missing three wheels and the rear bumper, all stored safely in my garage. Big red letters across the hood said for a good time call followed by Adam's phone number. The graffiti had been Jesse's suggestion.
I dropped down in the dirt beside the Rabbit and leaned my head against the fender, trying to figure out why I'd suddenly been overwhelmed with the desire to submit to Adam. Why hadn't I felt like this before-or had that been why I'd run so hard? I tried to think back, but all I remembered was worrying about getting so involved with another werewolf.
Could he have made me submit to him on purpose? Was it physiological or parapsychological, science or magic? If I knew it was going to happen, could I resist it?
Who could I ask?
I looked at the car parked in the driveway. Samuel was home from his shift at the ER.
Samuel would know, if anyone did. I'd just have to figure out how to ask him. It was a testimony to how shaken up I was that I got to my feet and headed home with the intention of asking one werewolf, who had made it plain that he was only waiting to make his move on me, about the way another werewolf had made me desire him. I'm not usually that dumb.
I was already beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of my plans by the time I reached the front porch. I opened the door and was met by a frigid blast of air.
My old wall unit had been able to keep my bedroom about ten degrees cooler than the outside, which was all right with me. I like hot weather, but most of the wolves had trouble with it, which is why Samuel had installed the new heat pump and paid for it. A considerate roommate, he usually left the temperature where I set it.
I took a look at the thermostat and saw that Samuel had punched it down as far as it would go. It wasn't forty-two degrees inside, but it was trying. Pretty decent effort considering it was over a hundred degrees outside and my trailer had been built in 1978 before the days of manufactured homes with good insulation. I turned it to a more reasonable temperature.
"Samuel? Why'd you turn the temperature down so low?" I called, dropping my gi top on the couch.
There was no reply, though he had to have heard me. I walked through the kitchen area and into the hallway. Samuel's door was mostly shut, but he hadn't closed it all the way.
"Samuel?" I touched the door and it opened a foot or so, just enough that I could see Samuel stretched out on his bed, still in his hospital scrubs and smelling of cleanser and blood.
He had his arm over his eyes.
"Samuel?" I paused in the doorway to give my nose a chance to tell me what he was feeling. But I couldn't smell the usual suspects. He wasn't angry, or frightened. There was something... he smelled of pain.
"Samuel, are you all right?"
"You smell like Adam." He took his arm down and looked at me with wolf eyes, pale as snow and ringed in ebony.
Samuel isn't here today, I thought, trying not to panic or do any other stupid thing. I had played with Samuel's wolf as a child, along with all the other children in Aspen Springs. I hadn't realized how dangerous that would have been with any other wolf until I was much older. I would have felt better now, if those wolf eyes had been in the wolf body. Wolf eyes on a human face meant the wolf was in charge.
I'd seen new wolves lose control. If they did it very often, they were eliminated for the sake of the pack and everyone who came in contact with them. I'd only seen Samuel lose control once before-and that was after a vampire attack.
I sank down on the floor, making certain my head was lower than his. It was always an interesting feeling, making myself helpless in front of someone who might tear my throat out. Come to think of it, the last time I'd done this it had been with Samuel, too. At least I was acting out of self-preservation, not some buried compulsion to submit to a dominant wolf-I was faking it, not submitting because of some damn buried instinct.