"No problem," he said agreeably, going up my front steps ahead of me. He opened the door and held it for me. "I'll wait while you shower - Samuel's not home."
There was no reason to feel like Adam's prey, I told myself firmly as I walked past him into my own house. No reason to feel Adam's intent eyes on my back. He couldn't read my mind to know that I was planning on running. But I didn't turn back as I said, "Make yourself at home. I'll be right out." And I closed my bedroom door on him and leaned against it.
I SCRUBBED MY HANDS FIRST, USING A STIFF-BRISTLED brush and Fast Orange to get the last of the day's grime off. It never managed to get it all, but if it bothered Adam to run around with someone who had dirt ingrained in the skin of her hands, he'd never said anything. When they were as good as they were going to get, I stepped into the shower.
Could I change my mind about being Adam's mate?
I'm not as sensitive to pack magic as the werewolves are. They don't talk much about it. Secretive bunch, those werewolves. I've been finding out that there's a lot more to it than I'd believed. I knew it was possible for a mated pair to dissolve their union, though I'd never met any who had.
Had my agreement been just words, or had it started some process in the pack magic? Consent, I knew, was necessary for a lot of magic to take place. I am immune to some magic. Maybe mating would turn out to be one of those things. I also knew pack magic worked subtly differently for the Alpha than it did for the rest of the pack. Adam had bound himself to me by declaring me his mate before his pack - and it had had an effect on the pack's magic, and on Adam. I was pretty sure it didn't work quite that way for most wolves, that both had to agree, and that their mating was a more private matter.
I frowned. There was a ceremony. I was almost certain of it. Something happened to make a couple into a mated pair - and then there was some sort of werewolf-only ceremony. Maybe Adam had done it backward? Maybe mating an Alpha was no different than mating with any other wolf. Maybe I was going to drive myself crazy. I needed real information, and I had no idea who to ask.
It couldn't be any of Adam's pack - it would undermine his authority. Besides, they'd just go tell him I was asking. Samuel didn't seem like a good choice either, not after we'd only just agreed not to try it as a couple. Or Bran, for the same reason. I knew he had sent Samuel to the Tri-Cities in a misguided attempt at matchmaking. I wasn't sure Samuel had told him it hadn't worked. I wished, not for the first time, that my foster father, Bryan, was still around. But he'd killed himself a good long time ago.
I turned my face in to the hot spray of my shower. Okay. So assume the mating thing wasn't permanent.
How would I make Adam hate me?
Well, I certainly wasn't sleeping with Samuel. Or hurting Jesse.
Water hit the healing wound on my chin, and I tipped my head down. Making him leave me had seemed logical, but Adam wasn't the kind of person to leave when things got rough. And even if I managed it, wouldn't he still care if Marsilia killed me? Maybe if I had a few months or a year to work on it, I might manage.
Could I run? With my bank balance, I might make it as far as Seattle.
The threatening panic attack faded as relief swamped me. First time being broke had ever made me happy.
I might be a dead woman, but I was going to get to keep Adam for however long I had left.
THOUGH ADAM'S HAND WAS COURTEOUSLY UNDER MY arm as we walked across my field to the barbed-wire fence between our properties, there was a proprietary feeling to the charged air that always seemed to accompany him. Mine, it said.
If it weren't for Marsilia, doubtless I'd have been grumpy about the possessiveness stuff. As it was, I was unhappy because I couldn't just relax into the safety he represented... not without risking his getting hurt because of me.
Maybe I needed to leave, money or not.
My stomach was back in knots, and if I didn't bottle everything up, I was going to have that stupid panic attack, and not safely behind the sound of water and the closed bathroom door. Right here where anyone could see. Next to the poor beat-up Rabbit, with Adam's phone number painted on the roof. For a good time call...
He stopped. "Mercy? What are you so angry about?"
He would know. Even I could smell it: anger and fear and... I had it all, and I had nothing.
It was too much. I closed my eyes and felt my body shake helplessly and my throat close, refusing to let air through...
Adam caught me as I fell and pulled me against him, in the shadow of the old car. He was so warm, and I was so cold. He put his nose against my neck. I couldn't see him, lack of air left me with black dots impairing my vision.
I heard the growl shake Adam's chest, and his mouth closed on mine - and I sucked a deep breath though my nose. I could breathe again, and the weight on my stomach lifted, and I was left shaking, with blood... no, snot running down my face.
Embarrassed beyond anything, I jerked free of Adam's hold - knowing with humiliating certainty that he let me go. I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt. And settled in the shelter of the Rabbit, my cheek against the cooling metal.
Weak. Broken. God damn it. God damn me. I felt the wave of it hovering, ready to descend upon me again. Despair and helpless anger... They were all dead. All dead, and it was my fault.
But no one was dead. Not yet.
All dead. All of my children, my loves, and it was my fault. I put them at risk and failed. They died because of my failure.
I smelled Stefan.