“Wulfe,” Adam said dryly. “It’s what’s for dinner.”
“Yes!” Wulfe said, suddenly sitting cross-legged and facing us. “See, Bryan? I told you he would get it!”
“Actually, you said she would get it, master,” the man who’d let us in said.
Wulfe looked at him thoughtfully. “Am I still allowing you opinions?”
The man blinked at him.
“How long have you belonged to me, Bryan?”
Bryan had been the name of my foster father. There were lots of people named Bryan. It shouldn’t bother me so much that they shared a name, this man who was the victim of a vampire and my foster father.
“Two days?” Bryan sounded unsure.
“That’s right,” said Wulfe. “I let you think until the third night. What happens on the third night, Bryan?”
Bryan’s heartbeat picked up. For a moment I thought it was fear, but then I caught the scent of arousal. “You drink me dry,” he said in the same breathless voice that six-year-olds talk about Christmas.
“Go away, Bryan,” Wulfe told him. “Go sleep until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Bryan agreed, and hurried eagerly past Adam and me. After a moment, I heard a bedroom door slam.
“You feel sorry for him,” Wulfe accused me.
“You intended me to feel sorry for him,” I assured him. “Mission successful. What do you want in exchange for the address?” I couldn’t rescue the vampire’s victims without starting a war, and it was too late for this Bryan anyway. If I were sure that war would confine itself to Marsilia’s seethe and our pack, I might try it—but my connection to Bran and Marsilia’s to the Lord of Night who ruled vampires the way Bran ruled the werewolves held the danger of escalation. If there was a war between werewolves and vampires, everyone would lose.
Still, if one of their victims ever asked for help …
Wulfe lowered his eyes as if he were a little shy. “I want a drink, Mercy. Just a little sip.”
“No,” said Adam, and the word was echoed by another No—Stefan’s voice in my head.
I’d let Stefan bind me to him once, because another vampire had been feeding from me, and I didn’t want to belong to that one. Belonging to any vampire was bad—all anyone had to do was look at Wulfe’s victim, his Bryan, to understand that. Belonging to a vampire the other vampires called the Monster would have been worse than bad, so I’d asked Stefan for help and he’d tried. But Stefan’s hold had been broken when the Monster had taken me again. When he died, all of the ties between the vampires and me were gone. Stefan had told me so. I’d known him a long time, ten years and more. Until this moment, I’d have sworn he wouldn’t lie to me.
I wanted to be shocked at proof that he’d lied—but … he’d spoken in my head a few months ago, when I was fighting the vampire Frost, who wanted to take the city from Marsilia. I’d been hoping it was a leftover effect, a glitch, something that wouldn’t happen again, so I hadn’t talked about it to him or Adam. When nothing else happened, I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about.
I’d evidently been wrong.
Adam heard that second no as well, because he looked at me, his eyes widening. Before he could say anything, though, Stefan was just suddenly there in the kitchen, standing between us and the vampire on the table.
There are some powers all vampires have. There are others that only a few gain as they age. Stefan could teleport. As far as I knew, he and Marsilia were the only vampires who could do that.
He had gained weight since I saw him just a month or so ago at one of the bad-movie nights Kyle and Warren hosted. Not enough to bring him back to where he’d been before Marsilia had nearly broken him, but close. He wore a dark blue t-shirt and faded jeans.
Wulfe started giggling as Stefan grabbed him by the throat and growled, “Mercy is off-limits.”
Shivers slid down my spine, and my knees weakened. All this time, Stefan had been listening in. Could he call me, too? Make me come to him, no matter what I wanted to do?
“No, she isn’t,” Wulfe said triumphantly. Stefan’s hold on his throat didn’t seem to be having any effect on his ability to talk. “She’ll never be off-limits to you, isn’t that right?”
“His tie to her was broken,” said Adam.
“It must have been a strong link,” said Wulfe, hanging limply from Stefan’s hands. “It must have been strong if the Monster couldn’t take it. But then a lot of people underestimate our Soldier, our Stefan. Even so, a stronger vampire than Stefan should be able to supercede the blood bond he has with you, Mercy—we could fix that for you. Who would you rather serve, Mercy—Marsilia or me?” Wulfe giggled some more.
“Stefan?” I asked, wanting Wulfe to be wrong about the tie between Stefan and me, but empirical evidence suggested otherwise.
Stefan’s back was to us. He set Wulfe down on the table. Wulfe quit laughing as soon as he was free. Face abruptly expressionless, he confronted Stefan. “Did you think that I wouldn’t tell her? You think to keep her, and that keeps you from rejoining Marsilia because through you, Marsilia would have access to Mercy.”
Adam’s arms came around me, and he pulled me to him as I absorbed what Wulfe had just said—and that Stefan was not protesting. This was why Wulfe had insisted we come to his house—because he wanted to confront Stefan. I hadn’t missed that Wulfe watched me as much as Stefan. He’d also wanted me to attack Stefan for lying to me—to give Stefan no one to turn to except Marsilia.
“I will not betray her,” whispered Stefan, eyes on Adam.
“We know that,” Wulfe said, but he’d been watching me, not Stefan when Stefan spoke. Wulfe thought Stefan was speaking of Marsilia, but Stefan’s eyes had been on Adam. He’d been talking to Adam about me. “Come, Stefan. With you in the seethe, Marsilia will fight to protect Mercy because she is needed to keep you in line. You have been Marsilia’s Soldier for four centuries and more. Marsilia needs you. You’ve been hiding your secret bond from the coyote-girl. Now that she knows, you have nothing more to hide. Marsilia will give her word that she will not touch the bond you share with Mercy, won’t try to claim her for herself—no matter how useful a tame walker would be.”
“I will not take that chance,” Stefan said. He raised his head and met my eyes. “Mercy,” he said. “Never say yes when Wulfe asks if he can bite you. It will open doors you do not want open. I am sorry I didn’t tell you the blood bond between us wasn’t gone. I didn’t want you to know because I knew it would chafe, this tie between us. If the Monster couldn’t sever it, then the chances are good that neither Wulfe nor Marsilia could do it, either. Though, as Wulfe pointed out, they could probably take the tie from me and tie you to them.” He hesitated, then said, “With you bound to me, Marsilia would not dare kill you because her actions hurt so many of those I protect—I would kill her, or she would be forced to kill me.”