Extraits

Elle contempla quelques instants en silence la brûlure sur ma joue. Peut-être n’aurais-je pas dû mentionner ce doigt, mais il ne cessait de hanter mes pensées. Personne ne m’avait attaquée avec un doigt jusque-là. Une expérience à ajouter au panthéon de mes pires cauchemars.

Je ne l'avais pas remarqué, mais, une fois qu'il l'eut mentionné, je le vis aussi : un soleil de femmes mortes... Cette image allait me hanter pendant un bon bout de temps.

Je récupérai quelques vêtements, mais il nous fallut un moment pour mettre la main sur Médée. Chercher un chat dans un champ ? Pas de problème. Chercher un chat dans la maison où il vit ? Une vraie misère.

J’eus beau courir aussi vite que je le pus, il conserva son avance. Je ne voyais pas vers qui il se précipitait ainsi, mais ne fus pas surprise quand, au bout d’une minute ou deux, au détour d’un virage, Gary Laughingdog apparut, assis au milieu de la route, le dos tourné. Je m’arrêtai derrière lui. Coyote, lui, l’avait déjà dépassé, de sorte que Gary ne put éviter de le regarder.

Warren officiait en tant que détective privé depuis un moment. Il possédait une certaine intelligence en matière de relations humaines et était devenu un expert dans l’art de découvrir les secrets. Mais ce n’était pas cela qui me faisait plaisir. Warren était mon ami, et Christy ne l’aimait pas, ce qui me donnait l’avantage pour le dîner. Même si je ne pensais pas sérieusement avoir besoin d’un avantage.

— Ça suffit, intima-t-il à voix basse, ce qui fit tressaillir Mary Jo.

Il parle doucement quand il est vraiment en rogne. En général, juste après, des gens meurent.

Normally, our bond fluctuated on how much information I got from it, swinging pretty widely during the length of a day. But even within a few minutes there was some variation, like a swing moving up and down. One second, I was getting grumpy because he was laughing at me, and the next, I was flooded with this mix of tenderness, love, and amusement all mixed together in a potent bundle that meant happy.

Hard to get grumpy over that.

His smile grew, and the dimple appeared and … and I kissed him. I rested my body against him, at an angle so I didn’t squish the cat, and thought, Here is my happiness. Here is my reason to survive. Here is my home.

“I never forget,” I murmured to him when I could.

“Forget?”

“Forget who you are to me,” I said, petting him with my fingertips because I could, because he was mine. “I’ll be fretting about Christy, worrying about the pack, hoping Christy trips and spills her cardaywatsafanday stew—”

“Carbonnade à la flamande,” said Adam.

“—all over the floor, then I look at you.”

“Mmmm?”

“Yep,” I said, putting my nose against him and breathing him in. “Mmmm.”

Mercy?” Wulfe’s voice was enough to wake me right up.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I wished I had more of Mary Jo’s glass of water left.

“Mercy,” he whispered. “Mercy. I can still taste you in my mouth.” I pulled the phone away from my ear because I didn’t want his voice that close to me. “I long for your blood on my tongue, little coyote-girl.”

Creepy. Of all the creepy people and monsters I’ve encountered—and a lot of monsters are pretty creepy—Wulfe is the one who gets to me the worst. I think it’s because he scares me the most. I had been thinking about drinking, and he started talking about it, as though he was reading my mind. He does that kind of thing a lot. He knows it bothers me, and that just encourages him.

“And I can see you turning to dust in the middle of the afternoon under the hot summer sun,” I told him, trying to sound bored. I did a pretty good job. Exhaustion and boredom sound a lot alike. “If your dream comes true, then mine gets to come true, too.”

“Life is not so fair, Mercy,” he said, and someone in the same room with him made a noise.

Any adult who has ever watched a p**n flick knows that noise. It’s the one that real people don’t make unless they are faking something.

“If you just called to flirt, I’m hanging up.”

He drew in a shaky breath, then moaned.

I hung up.

“Who was that, and why was he having phone sex with you?” asked Gary.

“I need to wash my brain,” muttered Darryl. “Next time I see that vampire, I’m going to squish him like a bug.”

“I feel violated,” I said, half-seriously.

The phone rang, and I set it on the table. It rang again, and we all looked at it.

Adam picked it up and hit the green button on the screen.

“Mercy, you spoil all my fun,” Wulfe said, sounding less psychotic and more petulant. “You keep killing my playmates. It’s only fair that you take their place.”

I don’t know which playmates he was talking about. Andre? Frost? Frost was the last vampire I’d killed.

Are they still following us?” I asked urgently.

“We’re not dead,” said Gary, who hadn’t moved from his prone position on the ground. “I’d guess that we lost them when we got dumped back here. It’s too much to say that we’re safe, not when Himself is about—but safe for now.”

“I take it you met with Coyote?” Adam said politely as he sat up so I was sitting on him instead of lying on him and glanced at Gary. “Both of you?”

Gary got up and started pulling goathead thorns out of his arm. “I hate Coyote,” he said without aiming the remark at anyone.

I ignored Gary and answered Adam. “Was it the walking stick that gave it away?” I asked with mock interest that would have worked better if I weren’t still trying to catch my breath. My heart was beating so hard that the force of my pulse almost hurt.

“No, I figured it out earlier, when your scent trail disappeared into nothing. Mostly. The walking stick just meant my suspicions were correct.” Adam closed his fingers on my shoulder, not quite hard enough to hurt. “Don’t do that again,” he said. “My heart can’t take it.”

“I didn’t intend to do it the first time,” I half whined. I would have all-the-way whined, but it was suddenly too difficult to whine. Why was it that I could run and run—but a minute or so after I stopped, I couldn’t breathe anymore?

“The upside of this,” Adam told me as we stood next to the air mattress, which had a fitted sheet already stretched over it, a pair of pillows, and a blanket, “is that we get this room to ourselves.”

I dropped down to sit on the mattress and gave him a look. “No door, no fun.” The sounds of the movie filtered down the stairs and into the room. Everyone in that room, everyone who was something other than human, at least, would hear whatever we said—or did—in here.

Adam smiled and plopped down beside me. The air mattress bucked under his sudden weight and tried to toss me off, so I lay down for more stability.

“I’m too tired to do anything anyway,” he said, lying back beside me. He reached over and took my hand. “If it’s any consolation, we’re not going to get a whole lot of sleep before we have to head to the lawyer’s.”

“I’d forgotten about the lawyer,” I said. “Somehow, that seems a long time ago.”

His hand clenched on mine, hard enough to hurt before his grip gentled. “I thought he’d kill you before I got there,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to sound like it hadn’t bothered me. “Me, too.”

“Don’t do that again.”

“Okay,” I said agreeably. “How often can I get attacked by a volcano god in my shop?” I groaned. “Not that there is a shop.”

“You have insurance,” Adam said.

I sighed. “I’m not covered for acts of God,” I told him. “I wonder if they’ll try to find a way to make that mean volcano gods as well as God God.”

“God God,” Adam said, sounding amused. “I’ll remember that. Speaking of things to remember”—and now he didn’t sound amused at all—“I like it when you defend me. I haven’t gotten a lot of that.”

“That voice,” I said, and he laughed happily, though even his laugh held that rough sexual overtone. He rolled until he was on top of me, and he nibbled along my jawline.

“You like my body,” he told me, “you like me sweaty, and watching my belly when I do sit-ups.”

“Hey,” I said, trying for indignation, “I never told you that.”

He laughed again. “Sweetheart, you tell me that every time you can’t look away, and you know it. But”—he laughed again, then said, in that deep growly voice that was his own personal secret weapon—“you really like it when I talk to you, like this.”

“No door,” I squeaked. “She’ll walk in on us and make sure Jesse is with her.”

Adam froze and growled for real. “You’re right. You’re right. And I almost don’t care.”

“Jesse,” I said.

“Jesse,” he agreed with a groan, then rolled up—abdomen flexing nicely—and onto his feet. He began to strip, not bothering to hide his arousal. If Christy walked in, she’d get quite a show of what she’d thrown away.

“You might as well get ready for sleeping,” he told me in grumpy tones. “Morning is going to come early.”

“I’m keeping my clothes on,” I told him, equally grumpily. “Without doors, everyone will feel pretty free and easy stopping in to bring you their complaints.” Everyone being Christy. “I’m not taking chances.”

“They come in, they deserve what they get,” Adam told me and, naked, spread the blanket over the mattress and me.

I wiggled until I was right way around. Then I pulled the blanket off my face while he climbed under the covers. He planted himself right next to me, and his scent spread over both of us.