Archive of Our Own

It wasn't the worst possible time for a call like that. I'd had worse. That time Stephan asked me to change into my coyote self and let him take me to meet a demon riding vampire came to mind. Or the time Zee drove me out to the Reservation to sniff through the houses of dead people. Or, most recently, when Adam's ex-wife ended up on the wrong side of an angry and possessive volcano god and come to him for help.

            I wasn't un-used to calls involving things going bad. Or about to go bad.

            So, knowing my past luck, I probably should have never answered the phone. It was two in the afternoon; I was sweaty and sated, one of Adam's legs thrown over my own and his free arm wrapped around my ribcage. Most importantly, it was my honeymoon. Second. The one that was supposed to be quiet and away from anything and anyone related to our pack or the fairies that lived near the Tri-Cities. Our last honeymoon had ended when I had helped Coyote, my father-who-was-not, Thunderbird, Snake and several others of the Native American spirits put a river monster down before she got strong enough to eat the world.

            That hadn't been a call for help, but the fairies had maneuvered us into position just the same.

            I shouldn't have answered the phone.

            Instead, I flipped it open without looking at the caller ID and mumbled a semi-coherent. "Yeah?"

            There was a pause on the other end of the line, but before I had a chance to keep going, Bran answered me. "Mercy. Is Adam there?" Unspoken was the comment: He's not answering his phone.  Of course he wasn't. It was in the kitchenette, sopping and smelling of saltwater. Seaworld. That's all that really needed to be said. And he hadn't been in a huge hurry to replace it after the incident. Something about the sight of me in a wet t-shirt and not giving a damn. He hadn't been very clear. Hard to talk when you're kissing someone.

            "I'm here," my husband mumbled, lifting his head from the pillow he'd been buried in.

            "There's a situation in Los Angeles. I need you to go take a look."

            That brought Adam upright. Ah, werewolf hearing. I could have passed him the phone, but we could all hear each other fine this way. So I snatched it away when he reached for it. Giving me a wry look for my childishness, Adam ran a hand through his hair. "There's a pack in LA. Or you could send Charles."

            Charles. Bran's second son. His executioner and all-around fixer when someone stepped over the line from good behavior to things a werewolf shouldn't be doing if they wanted humans to accept them in this modern world. Did Adam know something I didn't, suggesting Charles like that? Or was it just that he didn't want to cut the honeymoon short?

            "I already have. The pack in LA is part of the problem. But Charles can't be in two places at once. And the victims need someone with dominance and a lot of control."

            Victims. Oh no.

            But Adam just raised his eyebrows and nodded, as if there wasn't an odd note in Bran's voice. He did know something. "Send the details to Mercy's phone for now. Mine is...dead." He slanted a look my way and I contrived to look innocent. I may have been the one to let it get wet. Maybe.

            I could almost feel Bran nodding on the other end of the line. "I'll do that. I'm sorry your honeymoon is being cut short. Again." And then he was gone. Not big on goodbyes is the Marrock.

            I sighed and cut the call from my end, then looked over at my husband. His jaw was set and he was staring at the cell in my hand, its message light blinking as the information from Bran hit my texts. "All right, Adam. What happened?"

*******

            Animal attack. For years. Hundreds of them, the werewolves had been able to hide their existence from normal humans by way of large breed dogs and the cover of 'animal attacks'. Witches were paid to help with clean up, and pack magic did its part to mask the wolves. But since they'd come out of the closet, so to speak, just over a year ago, there were fewer barriers to belief. And suspicion.  The general public was still struggling to come to terms with fairies in their midst, much less the other races of the supernatural and preternatural creatures that lived among them. They looked closer at lab tests that in the past had been assumed to be contaminated. They eyed their neighbors. And every time a new spurt of random violence flared up, they started seeing hostile fairies and ravenous wolves around every corner and under every bush.

            Except, apparently, in places like L.A. A reputation for gang violence and a lack of proximity to a fae reservation-the closest was up near Las Vegas- must help people turn a blind eye to things. Looking at the headline in the paper, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad. Gang violence. Old enemies, and a territory dispute after someone came back to town after a long absence. It sounded like wolves, but the article didn't make any mention of how the interloper was attacked or who did the attacking. Police were still investigating.

            They'd never find the attackers. If they were wolves, Charles would get to them first and do what he'd done for most of the hundred plus years he'd been serving as his father's enforcer. There would be no arrest. No arraignment. No jury or appeals for shortened sentences. He would hear the truth. And then they would be dead. Simple as that. It was the life I'd been raised in, and while it didn't make me happy, I wasn't blind to the need for it. Even in a world that knew the wolves existed. Maybe especially.

            But that wasn't the part that concerned Adam and I. He'd given me the paper to read on the drive from San Diego. The paper he'd had sitting next to his coffee that morning as we munched our way through breakfast. Now I sat with it in my lap, cell phone in the other hand checking house numbers as we drove slowly down the street. The window was open so Adam could scent the wind, but all I was getting was overheated tar, dying grass, and the pong of someone's trash rotting on the curb.

            It wasn't a neighborhood I would have gone sightseeing in. Older houses, small lawns and older model cars lined the street. Our big shiny SUV, at home in the scrub desert of Washington, did not fit in a city. And it definitely didn't fit here. It was the low end of the income bracket. I should know. I'd lived in a single wide trailer for a number of years before it had been burnt to the ground and I'd married Adam. Not cause and effect though. I knew what money looked like and I knew what dirt poor looked like, and this was just scraping by.

            Then we turned a corner and I saw it. It stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Nobody'd mowed lately. Maybe in years. The mailbox with the house number was obscured by all the grass. But the cars out front told us all we needed to know. Street racers, Bran had said. And they were definitely not stock cars. Brightly colored and shining in the sun, they were a stark contrast to the state of the house they sat in front of.  The official looking SUV looked even more out of place than our rig, but it was nosed up into the driveway as if whoever drove it knew the place. I held my breath as Adam parked, less for the way he'd wedged the big Suburban in behind the SUV and more because of my worries that whoever drove the thing would end up trying to get out before we could move. A fender bender with law enforcement. Just what this situation would need.

            Nobody came out onto the front porch of the house as we edged between vehicles and picked our way up the front walk. The steps sagged and I made sure to walk on the outer edges as we climbed up to the porch. The screen door was ripped and the paint was flaking off the main door inside, and the plastic button of the doorbell had long since been popped and broken off. Adam hit the exposed little knob that was left, mainly out of manners. With the racket we'd made coming up the steps, even a human would have known we were there.

            Something scuffled inside the house, boots thudded on wooden floors, and the door swung open.

            My first impression was muscles. My second was height.

            The man who'd opened the door was tall. Huge, in more than one way. His shoulders filled the space in the door frame, arms corded with muscle and his neck thick with it. He was bald, with a straight nose and deep-set eyes and a mouth that didn't bode well for anyone about to give him an argument. His skin was the color of some tropical wood I couldn't remember the name of, something Kyle had in the interior of that mansion he called a house. It was warm and brown and rich, and I guessed there must be some Pacific Islander in the man's background. Maybe in all of his background.

            And he was a wolf.

            With a baby tucked in the crook of one arm.

            The image of a man so dominant and threatening holding a baby so carefully was enough to make me bite down on a grin.

            "Lucas Hobbs?" Adam asked; all business and apparently ignoring my sudden burst of humor.

            The man nodded, propped the door open with one foot, and settled his free hand on a hip holster. "And you would be?"

            "Adam Hauptman." I could fairly smell the testosterone in the air. Fun first meetings of uber-dominant werewolves. "Bran called and said there was a situation."

            The man snorted and fury colored the air, but he opened the screen door to let us in. "You could say that. Fucked up to hell and gone and me without a pack or legal leg to stand on in this case. Ma'm." He started to shut the door as I passed him and stepped into the entry, then stopped, nostrils flaring. I let him stew for a moment, confusion and wary hostility growing in his posture. "The coyote girl," he said finally, and only relaxed marginally.

            I huffed out a breath and slid past Adam so Lucas could get the door shut all the way. "Remind me to have Jesse make me a shirt that says that when we get home," I told my husband. "Or better, I'll get it tattooed across my forehead."

            Adam shook his head and followed me into the main living area of the house. The entryway just wasn't big enough for two dominant wolves and a coyote, especially when one of them was the size of Lucas.

            "Hey. This is a family thing. We don't need no reporters. This is what you get for letting the Hulk man the door." A man had come into the living room, belligerence in every line of his body. His black skin was pasty where the light hit it, and the lines in his face made him look haggard. He also smelled of wolf.

            That sinking feeling I'd been having about the nature of this errand solidified. This wasn't just an attack. People were Changed.

            Charles was going to be very busy.

            "They're not reporters," Hobbs said from behind me, just as Adam stepped in front of me. I could tell he was keeping a hold on his temper, but the atmosphere in the house was nothing short of explosive as it was. I dropped my shoulders and made myself relax as I laid a hand on my husband's shoulder. He shot me a look and I raised an eyebrow at him. Body language. People can't control their scent, but the right body language can help defuse a tense situation.

            "'Scuse me," Lucas stepped around us and over to the other man. "This is Adam Hauptman and his wife. They came to help. Folks, this loudmouth here is Roman Pierce."

            "Help?" The man's face twisted in a snarl. "Ain't no help for this. There's just picking up the pieces and going after those miserable sumbitches. And we don't need no outsiders for that." He stepped up to glare at Adam, almost nose to nose. Adam shifted, but said nothing. I knew why he was doing it, of course. Better to see the whole picture first. And make a few explanations. But in the meantime, he wasn't going to back down. He couldn't. He was about as dominant as they came, outside of the Marrok's pack, and that was one of the reasons he'd been sent here.

            So, predictably enough, the man, Roman, made a few muttering noises and backed up a step after a moment or so. He hid his loss fairly well, turning and stalking off with the sort of calculated frustration that said he was trying to do it because he couldn't care less rather than he'd lost the contest of wills. He waved us after him, heading into the kitchen at the back of the house with a "Well, Help, come on then. The Captain has spoken."

            Lucas shook his head as he watched him go, then looked back at us. "Toretto'll probably try to throw you out too. Might come to blows. He got a temper about as sweet as a pissed off badger and now he's got the strength to back it up. But he looks out for his own, his family. You even breathe a threat their way; he'll try an' kill ya." He looked at me. "You might want to stay here ma'm. I can have Elena come in to keep ya company if you like."

            I could feel Adam laughing at me, even though he hadn't made a noise. I could also feel his worry start to grow. Before he could let his dominant instincts override his good sense, I shouldered past them both and stalked towards the kitchen. Behind me Adam said, "Best way to get Mercy to do something? Tell her not to do it."

            There was nobody in the kitchen, so I kept going, out the back door and onto a stoop that led down to a trampled and battered little square of yard. I smelled blood, human and werewolf, and I managed to grind to a halt just before I plowed into the woman perched on the top step. She looked up at me with clear hazel eyes and I realized from the smells that she was the only human here.

            The other five were wolves.

            Five victims

            Five wolves.

            The survival rate was nothing short of phenomenal.

            And from the way they were standing, there wasn't going to be a way to integrate them easily into any other established pack. Especially not with the way the man in the center of the grouping was looking at me.

            I know wolves. Most are dominant to one degree or another. To survive the brutality of the change, there has to be a certain amount of steel and refusal to give up in a person's spirit. Adam was the fourth most dominant wolf in the United States. That I'd known of. Lucas Hobbs, now standing just behind me with a baby in the crook of one arm, wasn't much further down the scale. I shoved aside the wondering of what pack he was attached to for the moment to focus on the man glaring at me with open hostility. He pulled attention like a magnet, and the air around him fairly vibrated. He wasn't Adam, but he was close.

            Very close.

            I could see now why we'd been called. Charles was more dominant. So was Samuel. But neither was in the public eye. Neither were they Alphas of any pack. And despite my husband's spectacular temper, he could handle people.  And what these people needed was handling. Not threats of violence, but an introduction to this new world they'd had no choice in entering. And Adam was very good at helping new wolves adjust and dealing with the unusual. His pack had a gay man, a coyote, and a volcano dog enrolled as members, and any one of the three would have been enough to destabilize a normal pack.

            As the coyote representative of that odd conglomerate, I probably should have let the dominant wolves take the lead. These people were upset enough as it was. But, me being me, I couldn’t manage to keep my big mouth shut. Not that I was trying very hard.

            Spinning on my heel, I stabbed a finger into the meaty chest of Lucas Hobbs. “What in God’s name happened? And how are they sitting here like this when they’re six inches from snapping and eating the neighborhood?”

            Exaggeration. Slightly. Maybe. The way the air sang with rage and fury and almost out-of-control wolf magic, I was amazed none of the new wolves had turned and gone on a rampage yet. And unless this house had a hidden basement with secretly reinforced walls, there wasn’t anything around to help contain them when they did finally slip the leash.

            The big man snarled at me as startled exclamations filled the yard. Behind Lucas, Adam's eyes had gone yellow, but there was no way for him to get around our host so he could protect me. I couldn’t go backwards without tripping over the stairs, now clear of the woman, and Adam was stuck up against the door into the kitchen. So I squared my shoulders, crossed my arms, and glowered up at the looming wolf who probably could have snapped me in half like a toothpick even before he’d been Changed.

            Another moment passed, and the tendons and veins stood out on the man’s head and neck as his hot golden eyes bored into me. He was trying to back me down. To intimidate me. To put me in what he thought was my place. But I was the wife of an Alpha, and not a wolf. As the Alpha female, I couldn’t back down. As a coyote, I didn’t need to if I didn’t want to.

            Finally he swallowed the last of his growl, settled back on his heels, and snorted. “Stories said you grew up with wolves, woman. Thought you’d know better’n to provoke them.”

            “Then you haven’t heard all the stories,” Adam said from his spot by the door. His eyes were bleeding back to brown, and although his tone was light, his face was serious. “She picks fights with Bran. Now, if we all get down to ground level?”

            Lucas opened his mouth, scowled, and shut it. I backed down the steps so he could get off the stoop and he followed me down, still looking at me like I was some sort of strange bug. I was so focused on making sure he didn’t have an opportunity to pounce, baby and all, that I missed the last step.

            And landed up against someone who smelled of barbeque, engine grease, some sort of aftershave and rage. Pure an unadulterated fury. There seemed to be a running theme with these people, as a set of huge long-fingered hands caught me, set me back on my feet, and shoved me gently aside. Adam growled at the top of the steps, but he still had the linebacker and the baby in the way. I raised an eyebrow and cocked a hip at him just to prove I was ok.

            “What do you mean, eat people?” The man who’d caught me had a bass rumble of a voice, not quite gravelly. More like an engine without its muffler. He was looking at me, jaw clenched and eyes hard. And turning the most amazing shade of burnt orange. And that’s when I realized. He had no idea what had really happened to him.

            My heart did a solid thump-thump of panic before I could stop it. Five wolves. New wolves. They weren’t just sitting out in the open, waiting for their first Change to hit them. They were oblivious. And exponentially more dangerous. I shot a look up at Adam, who’d made it to the second to last step, and he tipped his head at me, just slightly. He’d known. And that was really why he was here.

            Someone was going to have to show them the ropes. They’d need a pack.

            And aside from the Marrok, ours had become the next best place to put the odd and the troubled.

            Once I figured out what to do to Bran, he was going to get it. Peanut butter and shoe stealing weren’t a tithe on what he deserved for springing this on us. And on these poor people.

            “And what’s all this about wolves?” That was Roman again, hands on his hips. “Damn Tran boys set their dogs on us, what you say about wolves?” Nope. No worries about foul language here.

            “Wasn’t dogs, was it?” That was the blond man who’d been half hidden by his friends when we came outside. His cheeks were hollow, his shoulders slumped, and his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his ripped up jeans. But his eyes were ice white, and he’d shouldered his way up next to the man with the Detroit engine of a voice like there was nowhere else he belonged. No hesitation.

            “Tell me Hobbs,” the man continued, tipping his face in Lucas’ direction. “You ever plan on tell’n us what you are? Better yet, when were you going to tell us we’ve all been Changed against our will?” He snarled, hands out and fisted, and advancing on Lucas with the slow creep of a predator about to pounce. “Everything we’ve been told about werewolves,” he was almost shouting now. “And they can just come in and attack. Change a person.” He shook free of the men to either side of him who’d been trying to hold him back. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be!”

            Lucas, or Hobbs as they called him, had a hand on the gun at his side. But he didn’t get a chance to use it because Adam was there. Right in front of the new wolf. He was doing the thing Alphas do, pulling attention, forcing a confrontation of wills before things devolved into bloodshed instead. I could feel it pulling on me, and I almost let it win, except for the thin cry of the baby that Lucas was holding. The man was just as entranced as the rest of them, and his grip was slacking. So with a shake of my head to clear it and a sliding step around the group, I went to go play baby catcher.

            I got there just in time and made little sh-sh-sh-shhing noises under my breath as I silently thanked my sister for making me hold her newborn during the last couple visits. Babies and children weren’t really my thing, but at least I could manage. Sort of. He was too big for me to hold like a football the way Lucas had been. And to top it off, the little boy didn’t seem any more impressed with me than he had his last caretaker, and I wondered who he belonged to. There were only the two women, and a surplus of males. Somewhere in all of this, though, he had to have a parent.

            Hopefully.

            While I’d been getting the baby rearranged on my hip, I’d lost track of what Adam was doing. I listened with half an ear as he told them that unsanctioned Changes were punished very harshly, and that the ones who’d done this were already being dealt with.

            “Not your fight,” snarled the big one in the middle, the one who seemed the least under the sway of Adam’s Alpha-ness. “They came after me. My family! They killed my sister!” His voice echoed off the walls of the house, more than a bit of wolf snarl garbling the words. I glanced up to see his jawline solidify into something a bit longer, his teeth moving in his mouth. His body strained, reaching for a shape it wasn’t familiar with yet, and his knuckles were popping as bones shifted and realigned under the skin.

            I should have been finding minimum safe distance, but there is no such thing with an uncontrolled wolf, so I just went back to trying to quiet the baby, who’d decided that enough was enough and he was going to make his opinion about all the ruckus very clear. Unfortunately, knowing how to hold a baby did not directly translate in being able to convince it to be quiet. Not that I blamed him.

            “Jack,” the big man breathed, and he and the smaller white man moved as one, reaching for me and the baby.

            I took a step back and dropped my free hand to the butt of the gun that wasn’t there. Right. California. Different carry and conceal laws. I’d left my weapons at home, assuming this would be a normal honeymoon.

            “Give me my nephew.” It was the command of a dominant to a sub, and even though he wasn’t part of my pack, not part of any pack, I felt its power rolled over me like lava. But he wasn’t an Alpha and any power in his words was less magic and more force of personality.

            I took another step back.

            He snarled and lunged.

            And ran right up against Adam and Hobbs. The force of his charge was blunted against their combined mass, although I doubt Hobbs was protecting me for myself.

            The dark haired woman who’d been hovering at the big man’s shoulder darted around the wall of muscle in front of me and made a snatch for the baby. I danced out of her way, ducked under the reaching arms of Roman with his burning yellow eyes, and put my back to the shop that bracketed the other side of the driveway. The residue of oil, dust and heated metal was a familiar tang in my nose as I tucked the baby closer and angled my body between him and the wolves. “Look at your hands,” I barked at the big man whose name I didn’t know. Hobbs had his arms locked behind him, but that wouldn’t hold him for long.

            All motion paused for a moment.

            “Look,” I said again, raising my voice to be heard over the wail of the baby. “Look at yourselves”

            They wavered. I had borrowed on Adam’s power, but I didn’t know how well it had worked with me half distracted by young Jack. 

            “Listen to her Toretto,” Hobbs said, loosening his grip on the other man. “Look.”

            Toretto yanked himself free, then looked. “What the fu-” he stopped. His words were misshapen by his jaw, still malformed and off kilter. He stared at me.

            “You’re out of control,” I said in the softest voice I could manage. “If I let you have Jack here,” and one baby fist covered in spit reached up to smack me in the chin. I kept going. “If I let you take him as you are now, you could kill him. And you wouldn’t even realize it.”

            Deep brown bled back into his eyes as he reared back. Next to him the white man was staring at his own fingers. Not as far gone as Toretto’s, but still not a normal human’s set of ten. Every bit of him was shaking, and there was a high keening whine building in his throat. He swayed on his feet, gaze going from his hands to the baby to me.

            Toretto took a deep breath, shook his head, and set a hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. “Brian,” he managed. “Get your shit together man.”

            Brian didn’t move, just quivered under the other man’s touch.

            “Hey. Bri.”  A man I hadn’t noticed yet eased up next to his friend. I couldn’t get a good whiff of him will all the emotion in the air, but I hadn’t smelled a human in the backyard besides little Jack and the woman on the steps, so I had to guess he was a wolf too. And for whatever reason, he had more of a hold on himself than any of the others. Yellow edged his eyes, but his voice was calm as he laid a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Lady’s got a point man.”

            Brian snapped his face in the man’s direction, snarl still peeling his lips back from his mouth and hands clenched so tight I thought I’d be able to hear joints creak soon. I would have pegged him for being fairly dominant, not nearly as strong as Adam, but strong enough to back down any one of a hundred wolves. The other man didn’t give off any warning signals about needing to control things, so I’d pegged him for submissive. Especially with the way he’d been holding back up until now.

            But he held the other man’s gaze, ice white to mostly human brown. And after a breath or two, when Brian didn’t show any signs of stopping the contest of wills, the man shook his shoulder slightly. “Nothing you could do, man. Nothin’ any of us could do, all bleedin’ out and shit. Mia’s gone, Bri. Can’t change it. And,” he glanced up at Adam, still completely fearless. “We’re going after the sonofabitch who set this up. But first you gotta get a hold of yourself so you can take care of Jack.”

            Well, that answered the question of parentage. And took care of the question I’d had at the back of my mind about Toretto and Brian’s relationship. I looked from one to the other, then at the surrounding pack of wolves who were already so in tune with each other and decided to leave the question of how we were going to absorb them into our own pack for later. Preferably for Adam to worry about first. As he no doubt was.

            “Here,” my husband said, and I bit down on a squeak of surprise. Sneak. He was holding out his arms for the baby. I blinked at the rush of confidence and wry amusement that our mate bond was giving us. Yup, he was already working on the problem. I handed Jack over, knowing that soon I’d have to put in my two cents on the issue, but more glad to have those sticky little fists out of range of my hair for the moment.

            The pack in front of us tensed at the transfer of the baby, but Adam ignored it. The time would come for more formal introductions and dominance displays, but things were edgy enough at the moment that I knew we couldn’t afford that here and now, especially not with the two humans who might get caught in the crossfire. In the meantime, we’d do our best to keep things calm.

            Adam and Brian were of a height, more or less, and we might have had more trouble right there, except the other man’s eyes were fixed on his son, hands clenching and unclenching.

            “When my daughter was born, I was terrified,” Adam said quietly. “I’d been a wolf for a while by then. Longer than most survive. I have a temper like,” he stopped and I reached for the bond, trying to let him know that I was here for him. Opening himself up like this to a pack of strange wolves went against every dominant instinct he had. I don’t know if I managed to help or not, but he kept going. “And here was this tiny creature. My daughter. I could have crushed her in one hand and not even realized I’d done it. My wolf could have eaten her in one bite and that would have been the end. And there they were, offering her to me to hold and all I could think was that I was going to break her. Ruin her. Nothing hits you like that.” And he held out the baby to Brian.

            The other man hesitated a moment. And another. The wolves around him breathed in unison. Up on the porch the human woman had a hand on her hip, right where a gun should be. Lucas had moved out of the way, standing between her and the pack.

            “Remember what I told you about bein’ a good father Brian?” Toretto’s voice was a quiet rumble as he placed one hand on his second’s shoulder.

            “What makes you so sure,” the other man whispered.

            “I’ll be there to kick your ass if you ain’t.”

            The pack let out a collective wry laugh, as if they all knew something we didn’t. My coyote perked up her ears in curiosity, but I shoved it down. Now wasn’t the time.

            Brian blew out an explosive breath and reached for his son with hands that still shook, fear seeping from him strong enough to overwhelm the nose. But Adam handed the little boy over easily enough, and miraculously, he stopped crying. The look on the other man’s face was enough to convince me that if for no other reason than to take care of his son, he’d find a way to control his wolf.

            Or die trying.

            Maybe this could actually work.

Author’s Note: This little brain worm dropped into my head not long after the trailers came out for Fast Seven. It is set after Night Broken and before Fire Touched in the Mercy Thompson universe. Complete for now. None of them are mine, more’s the pity!