"You're yelling at me," I told him. "Of course I'm mad."
He waved his hands impatiently. "I don't mean now. I mean earlier in Warren 's room."
"I was angry with the stupid wolf who came in to challenge Warren as soon as he was lying on his back." which reminded me of how Adam had scared me when he'd used the Alpha thing to calm me down. But I wasn't up to talking about that yet. "I wasn't mad at you until you grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the room to yell at me."
"Damn it," he said. "Sorry." He looked at me and then looked away. Robbed of his defensive anger, he looked tired and worried.
"Warren and Ben are not your fault," I told him. "They both volunteered."
"They wouldn't have gone if I hadn't allowed it. I knew it was dangerous," he snarled, the anger back as quickly as it had gone.
"Do you think that you are the only one entitled to feel guilty about Warren - and about Ben?"
" You didn't send them out," he said. "I did."
"The only reason they knew about the sorcerer was because of me," I said. Then because I could see that he really felt guilty I told him my own worse deed. "I prayed that they would catch the sorcerer."
He looked at me incredulously, then laughed, a harsh and bitter sound. "You think that praying makes you responsible for Warren 's condition?"
He didn't believe. I don't know why it shocked me so. I knew a lot of people who didn't believe in God, any God. But all the werewolves I'd grown up with were believers. Adam looked at my face and laughed again at the expression.
"You are such an innocent," he said in a low angry purr. "I learned a long time ago that God is a myth. I prayed every hour for six months in a stinking foreign swamp before I opened my eyes-and a crazy werewolf finished teaching me that there is no God." His eyes lightened from warm brown to cool yellow as he spoke. "I don't know. Maybe there is. If so, He's a sadist who watches His children shoot at each other and blow themselves up without doing something."
He was pretty wound up because he wasn't even making sense-and Adam usually made sense even when he was shouting at the top of his lungs. He knew it too, because he turned abruptly and strode over to the big picture window that looked out over the Columbia.
The river was nearly a mile wide just here. Sometimes, when it was stormy, the water could appear nearly black, but today the sun turned it a glittery, bright blue.
"You've been avoiding me," he said, sounding calmer.
The other window looked out over my place. I was gratified to see that the partially dissected Rabbit was framed in the center of his view.
"Mercy."
I just kept looking out the window. Lying would be pointless and telling the truth would lead to the next question, which I didn't want to answer.
"Why?" He asked it anyway.
I glanced over my shoulder, but he was still looking out the other window. I turned around and hitched a hip on the window sill. He knew why. I'd seen it in his eyes when I walked away from the garage. And if he didn't know... well, I wasn't going to explain it to him.
"I don't know," I said finally.
He spun around and looked at me, as if spotting unexpected prey, his eyes still hunter's yellow. I'd been wrong. Lying was worse than pointless.
"Yes, you do," he said. "Why?"
I rubbed my face. "Look, I'm just not up to your fighting weight tonight. Can it wait until Warren is out of danger?"
He watched me out of narrowed amber eyes, but at least he didn't prod any more.
Desperate to change the subject, I said, "Did the reporter get in touch with you? The one with the daughter."
He closed his eyes and took a deep, lingering breath. When he opened his eyes again they were the color of a good chocolate bar. "Yes, and thank you for dropping that one on me without warning. He thought you had already called me: it took us both a while to realize I hadn't a clue what he was talking about."
"So are they coming here?"
Adam waved his hand toward Warren 's room, "When there is something that can do that to one of my wolves here? They were supposed to come here. I'll have to call him and tell him it's not advisable. I don't know who to send them to, though. There's not an Alpha I know that I'd trust to watch over my daughter-and his is even younger than Jesse."
"Send him to Bran," I suggested. "Bran said he's raised a few strays in his time."
Adam gave me an assessing look. "You'd trust the Marrok with a child?"
"He didn't hurt me," I said. "And a lot of Alphas would have."
Adam grinned suddenly. "And that's saying something. Did you really run his Lamborghini into a tree?"
"That's not what I meant," I said hotly. "A lot of Alphas would have killed a coyote pup thrust upon them."
I strode across the room to the door. I stopped there.
"It was a Porsche," I said with dignity. "And the road was covered with ice. If it was Samuel who told you about it, I hope he told you he was the one who egged me into taking the car out in the first place. I'm going back to see how Warren is."
Adam was laughing quietly as I shut the door behind me.
I drove home alone a few hours later. Samuel was staying all night to make sure nothing went wrong-at least nothing more wrong than it already had. Kyle was staying as well: I was pretty sure it would have taken more than a pack of werewolves to get him out of that room.
There was nothing I could do for Warren, or for Stefan. Or Ben. Why couldn't the people I cared about just need someone to fix their cars? I could do that. And when had I started worrying about Ben? He was a rat bastard.
But the sick feeling in my stomach was partly on his account, too. Damn it. Damn it all.
There were two phone messages waiting for me when I got home. One from my mother and the other from Gabriel. I returned Gabriel's call and told him that Warren had been badly hurt, but should be fine. My mother I couldn't face. Not without crying, and I didn't intend to cry until I found out for certain what had happened.
I ate ramen noodles for dinner and fed most of it to Medea who purred as she licked the broth. I cleaned up my meal, then vacuumed and dusted. You can tell the shape of my life by how clean my house is. When I'm upset I cook, or I clean. I couldn't eat anything more, so I cleaned.
I turned the vacuum off to move the couch and realized that the phone had been ringing. Had something else gone wrong?
I picked up the receiver and hit talk. "Thompson residence."