“Fiona,” I said, and she turned to focus on me. From this distance I couldn’t see her eye color beyond that they were light. Her hair was dark, not blond, but her body language was the same.

“Mercy Hauptman,” she said, without smiling. “Bran’s little coyote pet.”

“How unexpected,” I said—though clearly she was not surprised to find me here. “Are you still …” I couldn’t think of how to phrase it.

“Running errands,” she said.

“Still running errands for Bran?” I asked, using her phrase.

She shook her head. “No, actually. I found my mate and changed my ways.”

“Not Lincoln Stuart,” I said, more to let her know that she wasn’t the only one who knew their enemies than because I thought there was a chance that it was Lincoln. She’d have been a lot more concerned about Lincoln than she was if he had been her mate. “And the Palsics are mated to each other.”

James, still standing beside my car with the struggling Lincoln in his arms, met my eyes.

“Adam remembered you,” I told him. Let them think we’d had eyes on them, too, instead of good intel from Charles.

Fiona gave me a sharp smile. “Sven Harolford is my mate, Mercedes Thompson … Hauptman. We are here to take over your pack. We will allow Hauptman to take three wolves with him—and you. You should be grateful.”

I smiled back at her, centering my weight over my feet. I was in no shape to fight, between broken nose and sore ribs, but I wasn’t going to let her see that.

“Shivering in my boots, here,” I told her. Fiona was probably a game changer. We had a lot of wolves in our pack who had killed people. But we didn’t have any killers—wolves who enjoyed murder. I didn’t want Fiona in our pack. “You won’t take my advice, but you should move on. If you need a refuge from Gartman and his pack, Bran will help you.”

“No,” said Fiona, a faint bitterness in her voice. “He won’t. James? What are you waiting around for? Get Lincoln in the truck.” She turned around and stalked back to the truck herself.

James nodded to me as he passed by with Lincoln. I stared at him, trying to fix his features in my head. I knew what he looked like from Adam’s picture. But I couldn’t get a lock on his face.

James tossed the other wolf ungently into the back of the truck. Onlookers who did not have supernatural hearing wouldn’t have heard the pop as he broke Lincoln’s neck in the middle of that toss.

“Idiot,” snapped Fiona. “Who do you think gives the orders around here?”

He stared at the truck bed for a long moment, tension in his body. Then he turned back to me.

“I told them,” he said in a soft voice. “No children. And Fiona and Sven sent him here anyway.” He looked at Fiona. “He did not find this place on his own. He’s been so wild that he could barely put his own clothes on.” He met my gaze.

I felt a spark. There was a little pop in my head, like when my ears depressurized. A zing of magic darted down my spine—and I could see his face at last.

Fiona said, “We thought he was stable. Today he was better.” And she’d sent a wolf here to cause havoc. To Kelly’s house where there were children.

I looked back at James. “Green Beetle,” I said to him. “Nicely restored. You needed a new generator.”

He’d come into the shop a couple of weeks ago—and I hadn’t even noticed he was a werewolf. Hadn’t remembered his features or recognized him when Adam had shown his face to the pack. More worrisome, Zee had been working with me that day—and he hadn’t noticed that James was a werewolf, either. Adam’s information was wrong. James Palsic’s ability to go unnoticed was definitely magic. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work on me anymore.

He smiled at me, a genuine, open smile. Which felt a little odd coming from an enemy werewolf who had just killed one of his compatriots.

“That’s right,” he said. “Nice shop you have there.”

“I’ve closed it temporarily,” I told them. “Because you folks are not the monsters we are worried about just now.”

“Having trouble with the fae?” asked Fiona. “You should let us handle them.”

I smiled at her and debated telling her that the smoke beast had already taken one victim from her people. “Not all the fae—they have locked themselves in the reservation because this one, this one they are afraid of.”

“Sirens are getting closer,” Nonnie said. “If you really don’t want to meet the human authorities until later, Fi, we should get going right now.”

They listened to her and got in the truck without another word. They drove off just as flashing lights rounded the corner I’d taken at sixty. The police cruiser took it considerably slower than I had. The truck passed them, took a right turn, and disappeared from view.

And I wondered why Fiona had asked me about the fae. There were vampires here—and other things that defied classification. Had she known about the bite?

THEY SET MY NOSE AT THE HOSPITAL. AS SOON AS the medical professionals left me to my own devices, I decamped and went looking for Makaya. I found Auriele and Kelly waiting in one of the other emergency bays and wandered in.

“Nice shirt,” said Auriele.

Mine had made me look like an extra from a horror movie because broken noses bleed. So I’d been issued a hospital top. The hospital issue was a pale beige color that made my Native-toned skin look greenish. Solemnly I turned around so she could get a good look at the open back.

“I don’t think I’ll be setting any fashion trends soon,” I told her. “Makaya in X-ray?”

“Yes,” Auriele nodded. “Hannah went with her. She’ll let them stitch her up in another room as soon as Makaya is taken care of. Makaya is pretty traumatized and wanted her mother.”

“How bad is Hannah’s cut?” I asked.

“Long,” she said. “But not deep. It will need stitches at the top, but the bottom is okay. He cut her with that knife he pulled on you.”

I knelt to talk to Kelly. “How are you doing?”

His muzzle wrinkled up and he let out a low, angry growl.

“He walked in here on his own,” Auriele said. “But it wasn’t easy for him. I checked him over pretty thoroughly. I don’t think any of his bones were misaligned.”

She meant none of them would have to be rebroken.

Kelly was still growling.

“I know,” I said. “Me, too. Those people are not becoming members of our pack. But you have to stop growling now, before you scare someone.”

“They don’t intend to join us, remember,” said Auriele dryly. “They will let Adam take three of his people and you. Who are you going to pick?” She knew Adam and me well enough to know that wandering off and leaving the pack to someone else was not going to happen.

I snorted with more dismissal than I actually felt. “They have no chance now. If they wanted to take the pack from us, they shouldn’t have gone for Kelly’s home. No one will follow a wolf who allows children to be attacked.”

I stood up abruptly. “Adam is here.” I didn’t smell him. My bond was currently telling me nothing. But I heard his voice. At least my ears were working.

I stepped out of the alcove and looked around, finding him talking to a nurse. I’d called him as soon as the truck carrying Fiona and the Palsics had left and told him what had happened.

Adam had been about an hour’s drive away, out in the Hanford Area, nearly six hundred square miles of government access-restricted land surrounding the numerous nuclear reactors and reprocessing facilities being slowly deactivated and cleaned up. He’d known Kelly was hurt—had tried calling him. Then he’d called Darryl and Warren. Apparently, no one except Auriele and me had been alerted by the pack bonds—we had been the closest to the trouble. I was, once I’d had a chance to think about it, a little uncomfortable with what that said about the pack bonds—implying an intelligence at work that did not belong to anyone in the pack.

Darryl and Warren had arrived at Kelly’s not long after I got off the phone with Adam. They bundled up the other three kids—Sean and Patrick having been recalled—and took them to our house, where they should be safe. Safer, anyway.

Adam had said he would meet us at the hospital—and here he was, as promised.

I gave a soft whistle, and Adam looked up. He said something more to the nurse and then strode over.

He stopped in front of me and took my head in his hands. He looked gutted. Whatever weirdness was going on—it could not be what was between us. Because that face said that he cared what happened to me. He was being a stubborn bastard, trying to keep his troubles to himself. Maybe I’d wait until the rest of this—the stray wolves and the smoke weaver—were dealt with. But I wasn’t going to let him continue carrying whatever was bothering him alone.

“No worries,” I told the stubborn bastard. “I broke my nose on the steering wheel. Probably I’ll have two black eyes to go with it. But the good news is that my ribs aren’t broken or cracked, just bruised.”

“I’ll spend the next week telling the press I didn’t hit you,” he said, but he looked like he could breathe again.

“Good for you,” I said encouragingly.

He smiled wryly and kissed my forehead. “Do you think that your next car could have airbags?”

Retrofitting airbags was a fool’s game—and dangerous. It was a matter of pride for me as a mechanic that I drove an old car.

“I just need to quit hitting people with my cars and we’ll be good,” I told him.

“If only,” he murmured, “you don’t run into any more who need to be hit.” Proving he knew me. “I suppose I should be grateful that you aren’t under arrest.”

“Might have been,” I told him. “Except that Kelly’s neighbor came running out of his house. He’d caught most everything on his cell phone. Just wait until you see the part with Auriele making the grab for Makaya as I rammed Lincoln with the Jetta. It looks like a scene from Cirque du Soleil. The police decided I was justified and warned me not to do it again. I pointed out that I couldn’t do it again because the car is totaled—and was, at that moment, getting towed to my garage, where I can mine it for parts.”