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This song was going to haunt his dreams. He had suffered through plenty of poor Beethoven renditions—all of their child pianists covered his vast works at some point—but this was something else. The same song every time, sawing his ear drums in two.
Samuel was enjoying himself somehow. He found it funny. Bran did not.
Charles was watching him out of the corner of his eye, tense as if he was unsure what his father would do. This was the fourth time she had butchered this piece.
He found her, later, as she grabbed a water bottle from one of the coolers alone.
“Would you like extra lessons?” He wasn’t sure why he asked it or in fact know whether he was offering that he’d teach her or just money to find them. At this point, he didn’t care. Whatever he needed to do to make it stop, he’d happily do. He couldn’t sleep another night with her racket in his head.
She frowned at him then, little brow furrowing slightly as if he’d just said something completely unintelligible and she was trying to puzzle it out.
“I think the consensus was that my group performance was better than yours tonight.” And her frown turned back into a smile. “So maybe you should be asking for lessons!”
Her shoulder bumped into him as she passed him, not a care in the world for the beast that he was. It was Bran’s turn to frown then, now left staring at a cooler. It was maybe only a minute longer before he turned to rejoin the group, his gaze stopped on her foster father.
Bryan stood several yards away, arms crossed, looking every bit as if he were contemplating something. Bran raised an eyebrow and the other man turned elsewhere, still carrying tension in his shoulder that put Bran at unease.
It was the Marrok to close the distance.
“How many days a week does she take lessons?”
Bryan didn’t immediately answer.
“Add another and bill it to me. This is ridiculous.”
***
“Mercedes, I have one rule whilst you live here.” Bran grit his teeth. “You wear a cross.”
She’d been conveniently “losing” them while she ran. Mercy snorted, rolled her eyes, and turned her back on him all in the matter of a few seconds.
“You have more than one stupid rule.”
Bryan at least had the wherewithal to yank her to the side for a stern talking to.
Bran straightened up to a full standing position and frowned.
We’ll have to find something else.
***
Bran handed her the box one day when he visited Bryan to speak about his recent work on Bran’s behalf. It was as his way out the door.
She opened it and stared for a few minutes.
Then she looked up at him with narrowed eyes and shut the box, but scurried off to her room nonetheless.
He spotted its chain the following day, hanging delicately around her neck and satisfaction bloomed within him.
Good girl.
***
“Hi! You’ve reached Evelyn and Bryan. If this is a friend calling, you can reach us at—“ Bran sighed and balanced the receiver on his shoulder as he wrote down the hospital and the room number. “If you’re our gracious overlord, Bran Cornick, fuck off.“
Bran slammed the phone down. It was likely that Bryan hadn’t been aware that Mercy had changed the answering machine. More likely, he hadn’t known to what.
He considered his options a moment, yanked the phone back off the hook, and dialed Charles.
“Call Bryan for me. You can reach him at—“
“You heard the machine.” Charles sounded a little exhausted. “He’s at the hospital with Mercy and Evelyn. She’s terminal.”
Bran growled.
“I need him.” He paused. “And Mercy should stay home. A hospital is no place for a girl and she has studies to attend.”
Charles was silent for a moment before the phone clicked and Bran was met once more with the dial tone. Satisfied at least that would be managed, he leaned back in his chair and forced himself to breathe.
***
Mercy was retching in the background of the phone call.
“Liquid soap, Da?” Samuel sounded murderous. “Overkill, don’t you think?”
It was clear there wasn’t any actual vomit being expelled. Bran was certain he’d hear that much. Mercy was simply being dramatic. She’d left with tears in her eyes not because she was upset, but because the scent was probably burning her eyes. Quite frankly, he didn’t care.
“I forgot where Leah kept the bars.” Not true. She was currently keeping them in the trash can in the garage because Bran had disposed of them.
Samuel would, likely, be none the wiser over the phone.
“She’ll be burping up citrus bubbles for days.” Samuel insisted.
“She didn’t have to drink it.” And Bran didn’t think she had. She would definitely be sick if she’d swallowed any.
Mercy whined pitifully in the background, nothing with words. She was just garnering sympathy.
“It goes against the Geneva Convention, Sam.” Mercy whimpered, sounding all the part of a wounded pup.
“She’s not wrong, Da.”
Bran hung up.
***
Leah screeched angrily from somewhere downstairs. Bran blinked in surprise, putting down the book he had been reading to listen to her footfalls growing rapidly closer and somehow angrier.
The door to his study flew open.
“The back half of the house is flooded.”
It didn’t matter, it was just a material thing, but Leah had screamed in anger which meant it wasn’t just a burst pipe. They’d had those plenty of times before and, while frustrating, Leah had never overreacted in this way.
He practically jumped down the stairs and was not immediately met with flooding in any form until he rounded the kitchen. The dishwasher was bubbling over like it was rabid.
His blood began to boil, but he really started to see red when he realized there were more bubbles leading down the hall in the direction of the garage. The last door on the left before you entered the garage itself was the laundry room.
Bran splashed down and threw open the door to see the washing machine similarly overflowing and then some.
It would be unwise to leave Leah to deal with it all given who had no doubt started it, he knew that much. Bran tended first to the machines and then to the water.
And then he picked up the phone. Samuel answered almost immediately with his usual phone-answering-voice.
“Is Mercedes with you?” Because she very obviously wasn’t here and there was no one in Bryan’s home.
“…Yes, I believe so?” Rustling and then Samuel called out for the young teen who replied with her location. “Yes. She is.”
“You might ask her why she flooded my kitchen and laundry today.”
“She what?” There was certainly shock, initially. Samuel seemed to try and process what had happened.
Bran gritted his teeth, but heard Samuel call out again. There were footsteps, not Samuel’s certainly because Bran knew his phone cord did not reach that far. It must have been Mercy.
Samuel relayed the question.
“Oh. Well the wash and the dishes needed to be run and Leah was out so I thought I’d ‘do something useful’ with myself.” Mercy was definitely trying to mimic Bran.
“With hand soap?”
It was, as Bran had come to discover, the culprit. Several boxes of their industrial hand soap bags for the dispensers in public locations and some of the bottles Leah kept for bathrooms had been emptied into the machines. He found them in the garage when he took out the trash.
“I forgot where Leah kept the detergents.” She answered easily.
***
A tiny coyote made herself suddenly very small underneath the bigger, snow-white wolf that Bran recognized as his son.
She had the decency to look aomewhat apologetic, even if Bran didn’t believe her. He nipped her gently. She would not play with him in that way again. Flooding property was ridiculous.
***
“Da, it’s not just Leah.”
Bran looked up from a paper he was reading over to stare at his younger son. It’s not just Leah? The conversation starter wasn’t ringing any bells.
“Samuel suggested she might be able to bear children.” Bran finally put it together. “I’m sure that’s it.”
Charles looked uncertain and as if he perhaps had more to say on the topic so he folded his arms across his chest and waited.
“She’s not pack.” Charles said, hesitantly.
Bran nodded. This was correct. Mercy was not a werewolf and he did not want to experiment with something like that. It was already a toss-up each time they added an old wolf who leaned a little too witch.
“So she’s not yours, because of that.”
Wasn’t it interesting that that should strike a chord within him. Bran let out a huff of air through his nose and Charles froze.
“Continue, Charles. I have things to tend to.” Bran nodded at his desk.
Charles, still looking unsure, proceeded. “And wolves have started to notice her.”
Right. Because hormones. Mercy was coming of age in more physical ways even if she behaved like a toddler who didn’t get their way. This made logical sense.
“And so women are jealous of a thirteen year old girl?” Bran pressed. “Tell them to keep a better hold on their husbands. None of our mated wolves would take Mercy to bed.”
Charles stayed a moment longer, but Bran turned back to his work and it became obvious to the younger that he had been dismissed. It wasn’t until Charles was at the door that Bran spoke again, not looking up.
“You and Samuel might keep an eye on her regarding those not spoken for.”
***
She was Mercy. She played with him every day. He had already sought to tell her off for it, had made sure Bryan wasn’t there.
And the shirt was the final straw. The intention had never been to go after Evelyn. Truthfully, he had just planned to embarrass Mercy. He was sick of her games. They were no longer harmless. Charles kept emphasizing her safety within the confines of Aspen Creek and he thought…
He thought if he just stopped her from playing that it would put an end to it all.
But as much as he hated to admit it, going after Evelyn had worked. Mercy stopped.
She had peanut buttered the seat of his car for it. Bran had spotted her before it even happened, but he didn’t think she had noticed. She had tried very hard to trick him, but peanut butter did not blend in even on the tan, arguably peanut-butter-colored leather seats and the sandwich, while a good touch, did nothing either.
Bran had taken a deep breath and sat just for good measure—Mercy always put a little too much thought into this sort of thing—and made sure to let her know he had seen her.
She cleaned the car. Bran had already apologized more than once. But she was going to humiliate him for it.
And now she sat, silent except for her breathing.
And he could accept that because the talk had mostly quieted and the wives were, according to Charles, less restless. Mercy was safe.
She just needed to be safe.
***
Neither of his sons questioned him when he allowed Mercy the freedom to live alone. Of all people, Leah had snarled nastily about it for weeks. She felt it invited suitors. Bran wasn’t so sure that Leah personally cared for Mercy’s innocence, but chalked it up to her feeling any indiscretions by the girl would reflect poorly on them.
Which, at this time they were indirectly in charge of her. It made sense that it would look badly on them.
“I have made it clear from the day she began to run in our territory that no one is allowed to lay a finger on her.”
Leah scoffed, but left it very much alone.
***
Her figure was barely visible, standing just beyond the grove of trees. One would be foolish to compare Mercedes to a summer day. She was neither warm nor was she “fair” in any sense of the word. A summer’s storm, maybe. She was similarly surprising and just as overpowering. Mercy was the much needed and refreshing life force of water in a drought.
The wolf blinked pale golden eyes and turned his head towards the scent of prey. The hunt was more pressing.
***
Bran perched on the butcher block counter top that desperately needed to be oiled. A teenager, he supposed, wouldn’t necessarily know that sort of thing. But the house was otherwise surprisingly well-kept for who Mercy was.
Untidy. Disorganized. Chaotic. A general anarchist.
“How is school?”
“I have to be at work in an hour.” She told him, gesturing to her book. “And I need to finish homework.”
Right.
“I have sent Charles on an errand to stock your refrigerator. You should be eating more.” It had been empty when he let himself in.
Mercy’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t need your help.”
Bran considered this, considered her. She was fifteen. In his time, she might have been married already—it was very dependent on who you were. Certainly, tied to him, there would have been suitors. And she might have had children, of all things.
He tried to imagine it, the girl in front of him minding a house of one, maybe two babes, her belly swollen with another. For a fraction of a moment, he saw a different woman, another time. A toddler with Samuel’s smile and pale eyes—
He stopped thinking. Bran actively tried not to remember the past and he couldn’t recall Samuel’s mother very well at all. Mostly, she was faceless, nothing but a passing scent and a muscle memory of her touch.
“It isn’t my help.” He slid from the counter and tapped on it twice with his middle finger. “Oil these or else they will crack or worse.”
He straightened his shirt and stepped towards the entry to the living room. “Might I use the bathroom?”
Mercy muttered something about him being able to “go outside and pee just fine” but he ignored her and made his way down the familiar hallway anyways. Bryan’s house had changed in scent—no longer was there a lingering memory of Bryan or his Evelyn and it had merely been a few months since their demise.
He minded his business and washed his hands before returning to the hall with the intention to leave. He opened his mouth to say “goodbye” and then closed it, nose wrinkling. Of course, he’d recognized Samuel’s scent in the kitchen and in the living room. That he noticed it in the bathroom wasn’t shocking.
But that he caught it very strongly at the door to Mercy’s bedroom had him surprised. He peeked his head in to check. The room was tiny, very clearly a child’s rather than an adult’s. It barely fit a twin bed.
And there was nowhere to hide an adult man, which wasn’t shocking. The scent wasn’t so fresh that Bran was concerned his son was on the premises.
“Have you been staying in Bryan’s room?” Bran asked, rather than invite the wrath of a teenage girl by directly asking who she had in her bedroom.
He leaned against the entry to the kitchen on his way out as he asked.
Even though it was his right to know as her alpha—formally pack or not.
There was a flash of pain, a flush of embarrassment that gave her away, and then the spark of anger and fire that was distinctly her style.
“Get out of my house.”
***
Bran had caught them before. The first time, Mercy had still been fifteen. He had been on a run and had settled to watch the house curiously for a bit. His wolf had yawned and lazily laid in the snow only interested in watching to make sure Mercy got up for work. She had an early day today at the motel because they’d had some out of town guests coming in-and-out. It was actually the same reason Bran was on an early hunt alone. He needed to run off some steam before another day of meetings.
What he hadn’t expected was to watch her let Samuel out of the house. He had to consciously recognize that he was still downwind, that neither Samuel nor Mercy would catch him where he crouched. And he had to hold his breath when the white wolf she had released into the wilderness took off towards their houses. Bran, thankfully, had not rounded Mercy’s from that direction.
He caught them again, pretending not to hear as Samuel slipped out a back window of the ranch-style house that Bryan had kept. He played stupid, unsure if Mercy knew that he could smell Samuel on her. It was harmless, still, he thought. No more than necking like children because that’s what Mercy was and because his son should know better. Her scent didn’t betray anything more than a lack of definitively sexual activity and that was just about the behaviour he expected.
And he was fine. He smiled tightly, eyes flashing when he thought about what would happen if Samuel didn’t keep her honor in the front of his mind.
Fifteen.
Had he married younger? Bran couldn’t remember.
He came upon them again. Mercy had been severely lacking in clothing and the air, despite being outdoors, had been thick with arousal. The fact of the matter was, he only looked because he’d smelled them first. In the woods in the summer—where anyone could stumble upon them. He sat as far away as he could, but he almost hoped he’d be spotted.
Samuel’s charm could be described easily as disarming. He squeezed her hand as he kissed down her neck. It made Bran’s hackles rise in the worst way to witness and it wasn’t until he remembered he was out with Charles that he realized he had to disappear quickly and redirect his younger son.
He’d made it a point to stop by Samuel’s home later to check that he’d returned. Then he made the effort to bring dinner to Mercy because she wouldn’t have the awareness needed to get rid of all of the evidence on her.
His son had sucked bruises into her skin, the edges were purple and peeked out above the low-neck of her tank top. It wasn’t what she had been wearing earlier, he didn’t think, but she had also been topless and he hadn’t exactly taken into account the dropped article of clothing.
But she didn’t smell like his and that was a marked difference he was satisfied to be sure of.
Yet again, when Mercy had pressed herself up against his son on Bran’s own property. They were behind the shed and should have known better. He spotted them from the window of his house, two nearly-dots on the horizon. But they weren’t far enough to miss the fact Samuel was missing his shirt this time, Mercy’s arms around his neck, legs around his waist as he lifted her closer to him.
The pen in his hand snapped, spilling ink all over his fist and the note pad he had been writing on. She was almost sixteen.
Samuel caught Bran stalking the next time. In the brisk November evening, only the night before the full moon and a week before her birthday. The two of them were laying on a blanket, Mercy straddling him playfully. Samuel had shaken his coat off and placed it around her to keep her warm. The ground was frozen and they’d already had snow, but for some reason this patch was suspiciously clear.
Bran didn’t think about that too much.
They’d been laughing more than anything and the noise was how he’d found them at all. Mercy wasn’t a singer, but her laughter was still somehow almost musical like a melody that stuck in your brain.
“Mercy, don’t do that.” Samuel said, breathless from it all.
“Do what?” She asked innocently and for the coat in the way, Bran couldn’t see what it was she did but he knew his son was at least fully clothed and that he’d never let Mercy be out underdressed in this temperature—thus the coat.
She must have done it again, though, because Samuel fell nearly-silent except for the faintest hum of pleasure.
“Mercy,” He warned again. “All things in their proper order.”
“Marriage. House. Babies.”
Bran could almost hear her eyes roll and Samuel let out a more audible groan this time. The sound made Bran’s stomach twist and his lip twitch into a silent snarl.
“I want to.” She leaned down just then and Bran didn’t hear what she said, but Samuel rolled quickly and carefully so that they were both on their sides and facing each other.
“Don’t you trust me, Mercy?” Good. Samuel had kept his head, had put an end to her nonsense. “We can take our time.”
It had been at least a year of this now. Bran wasn’t surprised when Mercy complained that they were taking perhaps too much time for her personal timeline. She made a comment about this which Bran intentionally didn’t hear because Samuel had clearly spotted him over Mercy’s shoulder. Maybe it was his eyes. Maybe it was the glint of his teeth caught at the ready to rip into one of them—probably Samuel for his poor choices.
“Take her home.” He told Samuel clearly in his mind and stalked silently away.
They didn’t speak about it.
But the next time was the final straw. It was winter, to cold. Samuel was half-dressed himself and he was going to succumb to the temperature. Even werewolves weren’t warm enough to stay alive in this temperature at midnight—not as humans at least. Her made Mercy change and had brought her a pair of boots, forgoing his own. But apparently he’d had the foresight to pre-place a large thermal blanket that he could wrap them in.
Trust Samuel to think ahead for something so foolish as a midnight rendezvous.
“Marry me, Mercy.”
He’s been planning this. Bran realized it in the moment. He’d waited until she was actually sixteen. Mercy had emergency papers—several sets—all courtesy of Charles and Samuel. She was not her true age in all of them.
In some, she was legally old enough to marry without permission. But the age with permission was merely sixteen. She was of age no matter how he tried to spin it.
“We can leave tomorrow.” He dropped his voice as he bent to kiss her cheek and then her lips. “Just you and me.”
Mercy looked so hopeful.
He should have stayed to listen to more, but he had to sneak away to change. He couldn’t speak to both of them like this and Samuel was very crafty with not-lying. Centuries of practice could give that gift. Bran didn’t want to chance being mis-translated to Mercy.
Not here.
Not right now.
It was faster than he thought that he managed to change and come back. Unlike Mercy and Samuel, he’d not had the foresight to bring clothing with him and, unlike Charles, he had no talent to lend him a shirt.
“I assume you thought to pack extra.” He looked to his son, who had definitely picked up on his approach before Mercy.
But then, Samuel had known him a long time and Mercy still didn’t entirely trust her own senses in a wood that often made its own noises.
Samuel hesitated, but removed himself from the blanket’s embrace to wrap Mercy tighter and reach into a pack he’d no-doubt hidden.
Bran stepped forward to catch the sweatpants before they hit the snow.
“Take her home, Samuel. The woods in winter aren’t safe for her.“
Neither of them moved.
“Should I repeat myself?”
He’d send Charles to mind Mercy’s home until he’d calmed enough to speak to her.
***
Samuel was leaned in a very intentionally relaxed manner against one of the built-ins across the study. He wasn’t looking at him. It wasn’t to play submissive. It wasn’t to admit his wrong doing.
It was because he was equally angry and trying very hard not to express it. Bran knew. Samuel had always been his. What memories he lacked due to time, he still remembered in the lines of Samuel’s face and the depth of his eyes.
“Bryan is dead. Margi is uninvolved. She’s sixteen, a judge can grant her the right to marry whoever she pleases.” Samuel told him through a deceptive smile that didn’t reach his eyes from what Bran could tell.
And that was it. That was all it took. He lost it when everything he’d suspected from the moment he had heard the words “marry me” leave his son’s mouth was confirmed.
“You absolutely had to ask my permission!” Bran roared.
His son, the same man who had dragged him from the figurative depths of Hell by himself, didn’t flinch. He had seen worse than this type of explosion. He had seen Bran after the witch. He had seen Bran after Charles’ mother.
It was difficult to determine which was worse.
“She is not pack,” Samuel maintained coolly. “You made sure of that. Not pack, not yours.”
“Mercedes has been mine since she was dropped on my doorstep, lest you forget.” Bran grit his teeth, falling close to silent after the outburst that had only just rattled the house moments before. “Pack or no, she was mine. She is mine. You will not forget that again.”
***
Samuel wasn’t speaking to him. The last time this had happened, save for the last time Samuel had caught Bran watching, was when Charles was born. His son had no concept of how badly Bran could possibly want to kill a baby.
But he had.
Sometimes still do.
He fought down the brewing rage at the current circumstance. He hadn’t realized how far gone Samuel had been before Mercy. He only just realized now as he fell apart at the seams.
Mourning.
Charles had realized first and said nothing for fear of setting off another argument. Bran had been short with everyone in the days since Mercy had left for Margi’s. It had been her decision at the root of it.
Even if he’d been to blame for it.
***
Everyone knew of Mercy. Bran didn’t think he had an alpha who hadn’t at least heard one Mercy story.
So it wasn’t shocking when he heard from Adam before Charles managed to find out that Mercy was on the move. Adam was honest and he was sharp. He would have pinned Mercy’s scent quickly and put it all together.
Except, if Bran as had been anxious about her before, he was very worried now. Adam had informed him the Tri-Cities had a seethe and they were already very close to the Fae Reservation. And, of course, there were also the rogues she had already managed to find that Adam was currently supposed to be handling.
Trust Mercy to jump out of the frying pan that was Aspen Creek and into the fire the Tri-Cities was shaping up to be.
“I will very literally write you a check to convince her to move. Both of you. I don’t care who I’m paying, she cannot stay there.” He told Adam on the phone while pinching the bridge of his nose.
He hung up the phone and glared at Charles. They were going to have to worry about this now.
There was a second phone call not long after. Bran had known it was coming because he knew Mercy. He thought it was going to be Adam telling him she played some stupid prank like she used to when she was young and liked causing trouble.
“She’s a hostage?”
Charles had relayed the message since Bran had been out when Hauptman called.
“Did he say why no one was keeping an eye on her?” Bran snapped. “I gave him one job.”
Two jobs. Maybe three. Get rid of the rogues, make Mercy move (no surprise that didn’t happen), keep her safe.
Bran, with Adam Hauptman’s name still open in the Rolodex by his office phone, dialed immediately without hesitation. Charles didn’t stop him, though it was obvious from his expression that he wasn’t amused by the behaviour.
“Tell me you know where she is.” Bran snapped before Adam had the chance to even give his name.
“At work.” Adam assured. “You asked for my word that we would keep her out of it, and I will keep that. Though, she seems pretty intent on getting into my business anyways.”
Bran looked at Charles.
“He gave them Zao.” Charles supplied stiffly. “But you didn’t let me finish.”
Right. Well. That was ok then. Adam continued with all of the rest of the story that he’d failed to listen to from Charles—the bit about the boy and the meeting. He covered that he’d requested the hostages be there and alive at the designated time.
Very normal, very standard negotiations. Bran was content at the least.
“Is there anything else I need to know about her before she inevitably manages to get in the way again?” Adam asked, sounding at least a little amused. “Especially if, as you said, she will feel some sort of duty to protect the boy?”
Charles gave him a knowing look and Bran felt a smile tug at the corner of his own lips.
“Yes.” He raised both eyebrows at his son. “She’s no match for a werewolf. But, Adam?”
Adam made a noise to let him know that he was listening.
“She’s a good shot.”
***
Bran mailed the necklace to Adam. It had been sitting on his desk since Mercy left. They’d all been through her things, but Bran was the only one to notice the little piece of jewelry. The chain it used to be on—the one which had still been with it while it sat in the corner of his desk—had been delicate. It was silly of him, in hindsight, to not go for something hardier when she was going to be rough and tumble.
But it was clear, sitting there by her bedside, that she had yanked it off intentionally.
Because she isn’t coming back.
She wouldn’t need it anymore.
Adam assured him that Mercy had gotten it. He had hand-delivered it himself and Mercy had, apparently, recognized it. She had even remembered that Bran had gifted it to her himself.
But he didn’t know if she had put it back on or if she wore it again now that she had it. Bran wasn’t sure how to ask him to find out without getting Adam punched in the face for looking down her shirt.
And the idea of asking him to unsettled him anyways.
She accepted it.
She’s still mine.
His eyes focused on the now-empty corner of his desk with a small frown.
Because Mercy hadn’t called.
And she still hadn’t come home.
***
The scene he stumbled upon was not unfamiliar. Mercy, cowering between Samuel’s legs.
Leah, Bran’s own mate, at arms.
She’s come home to us.
And straight back into Samuel’s embrace. His wolf still recognized her, clearly, he’d covered her with himself.
He told Charles to send her back. She smelled of blood and death and Adam Hauptman.
Damn.
***
Time had treated Mercy well. She was no longer the spindly-legged, fragile teenager who had tried to run away with his son. She had filled out in the healthy sort of way—the way that made her stronger, less gaunt-looking. Her skin was paler than usual, but he imagined she wasn’t spending an absurd amount of time outdoors these days as an adult with a job.
Plus, she was exhausted. He figured she was running on fumes at this point, if the bags under her eyes were anything to go by.
Still. This was an extenuating circumstance. She seemed, overall, much healthier. And, he noted with interest, she was wearing the necklace.
The way he stood up was too fast because he hadn’t meant to. His brain had suggested kissing the top of her head like she was a child he was putting to sleep and he was decidedly not going to do that.
“Don’t worry about it now.” He told her, again looking at the dark circles. “I just thought you ought to know. Sleep in tomorrow.”
And he left.
***
Mercy, after their conversation last night, was no longer interested in Samuel. Not, at least, in the way Bran had first thought when he saw her underneath his wolf for the first time in years.
It was relieving in some ways.
Adam, however…
Bran wasn’t sure what Mercy thought of him or felt for him. It was obvious there was something there. So many centuries and you knew these things. Bran couldn’t know for sure what it was between them, he might have a better sense if he investigated the Columbia Basin pack further. He had his own way of learning these things, since all of his alphas ultimately were connected to him.
But Bran didn’t think he could do it without alerting Adam and then he would have to explain why he was looking for Mercy in Adam’s pack when the both of them knew that petitions even just to transfer packs were reported directly to Aspen Creek.
And he wasn’t sure what possessed him to send Mercy off with his card. He should never have given her his personal number, let alone specified that Leah would never answer.
He watched as they eventually left—all three of them. He had sent Samuel. Everything in him told him it was the best situation. Samuel could help where Charles couldn’t. Most of Adam’s pack was unfamiliar with Samuel who walked amongst humans with relative frequency and had gone missing more than once.
“Was that wise?” Charles asked before Bran even had a chance to explain his logic or where Charles himself was going.
“Samuel knows better than to pursue her without her permission.” Without Bran’s permission. “And he will help Adam more than you can.”
Charles didn’t look very much as if he believed the words.
“Adam and Mercy…” Charles paused.
“Have you heard something that I haven’t?”
His son didn’t expand on it, but redirected the train of thought instead. “You’ll destabilize Adam if there is something there. Mercy being hesitant undermines him.”
Bran snorted.
“Adam can manage tactic change.”
***
Bran hadn’t felt a blinding rage like this one in a very long time. It’s always because of her. No one could keep her safe enough. Last time, it was vampires. Now it was a human man that Samuel had met. Samuel had met him and he hadn’t ripped him to shreds. Mercy had killed him herself after…
“Do you want to see the video before they show it to the police?” Charles asked quietly from where he’d settled to his knees on the floor, laptop still in front of him.
“I’m going to kill one of them.” Maybe his son. Maybe Adam Hauptman.
Anna, unlike her husband, was seated across the office in a chair looking tired, emotional, and angry. The anger was relieving to see on someone other than himself. Charles wasn’t reacting enough.
“Killing them won’t help.” She told him. “And seeing you like this will make her worse.”
Her tone gentled again as she sighed.
“She’s already going to feel so guilty for it.”
Charles’ head turned too, now, to look at his mate.
“Anna,” Bran forced himself to release the tension in his shoulders. “I should not have put this on you. Go find a bed to rest in.”
***
“Let me get this straight.” Bran had his phone on speaker. Samuel and Adam both were on the other line.
Without Mercy. Go figure.
“You left Mercy in Underhill.” That was it. Full stop. “Samuel, I want you to tell me exactly what you were thinking.”
Samuel, hesitantly, gave a more detailed recap of everything that had taken place. Adam, Bran knew, was not in any ways safely sitting still in the background. Adam sounded like he was in a rage that Bran himself was all too familiar with.
“And Adam can’t find her?” He snarled.
What is the point of them being mates if he can’t even do it right?
“Would you come and help us find her?” Samuel’s voice was the false bright that he sometimes did to keep the situation calm. He’d learned it probably because of Bran but it suited his line of work just as well.
“I will be there tomorrow.”
***
Bran wouldn’t admit that maybe he had helped Margi and Jesse. Neither of them had quite worked out the kinks on how to make sure Mercy did exactly what you wanted her to despite telling her the opposite.
But Bran was very good. He’d had over thirty years of practice now.
Leah had been, somehow, invited to the wedding even though she refused outright. He would face that specific fire when he returned.
But he traveled with Charles and Anna as his company. Anna was especially important.
The closer they came to the Tri-Cities, the more the Beast within him stirred to an awful degree. Charles noticed, certainly, and said nothing.
Anna rested a hand on his thigh.
“It’s a wedding.” She told him lowly. “It’s a happy occasion.”
It didn’t feel happy. There was dread in his stomach. There had been dread in his stomach since Jesse had called, tasked with mailing out invites since Adam’s pack found it amusing that she didn’t know how to use the postal system.
“And—wait—so do I need a zip code?” She asked over the phone and Bran rubbed his face with his hands, exhausted by her exuberance.
“Yes.” He told her. “You will need that for everyone.”
***
Samuel had kissed her. It was only on the forehead, but it made Bran’s jaw clench so tightly that he was worried he’d break teeth. He saw it even though Anna had tried to drag him away to hide. Her reasoning was that he’d already nearly started a war with the Fae on the day of a wedding and that he really needed to take a breather.
He let her drag him out then.
Bran gave her away. To Adam. He tried to make it intimidating, but even with the flood of power he personally felt that it came out as a half-hearted threat at best.
“I’ll do that.” Adam responded in a way that echoed Bran’s personal sentiment of him being a pup yet.
He had not. He had yet to manage to take care of Mercy on a singular occasion, in Bran’s humble opinion.
Adam Hauptman was a fine man and a wonderful alpha. Any day of the week, he’d trust the man with his life.
When it came to Mercy, however, the man had lost her, had failed to protect her, and had left her to her own devices on more than one occasion.
Adam did, to his credit, make it future tense.
Bran might respect him.
But something within hated him just as much.
“You still haven’t recovered from the argument with Zee?” Samuel asked in a hushed tone at the reception.
Bran thought it might be a joke, from the smile on his face, but he wasn’t positive until Samuel continued.
“Da, lighten up. It’s a wedding, not a funeral. Anna says you’ve been off since the betting started.”
Had she? He spared a glance in the direction of Charles and Anna who were talking to Adam of all people. Though, Bran supposed, he was the man of the hour.
“You being off is almost as bad as Anna being off.” His eldest reminded him. “Relax.”
***
Asil came home from his stint in the Tri-Cities with a curious new version of the peanut butter story and an expression that told Bran he knew too much.
“She wears his dog tags now.” Asil informed him as he left the study after reporting on all that had happened. “I thought you might like to know his name is very literally stamped across her chest in that manner.”
Bran’s lip twitched and Asil gave him a very disappointed and very knowing look.
His blood ran cold.