Look beside you.
I took up my green ball and glanced at the people next to us. Like Adam, they were too involved in their game to notice the growing murmuring. The young boy was crawling under the chairs, and his parents were bickering over something on the score-board. Their too-cute toddlerwith her pink dress and little pink lions in the two-inch ponytails that stuck out from the back of her headhad climbed up on the bowling platform and was playing with the ball return blowers designed to dry sweaty palms. She wiggled her little hands over the cool air and laughed.
Adam will feel bad when he notices that people are leaving because hes here.
Sweat gathered on my forehead, which was ridiculous because it was cool inside. I paused halfway to the throw line (or whatever it was called) and, imitating Adam, I brought the ball up and held it in the middle of my chest.
Perhaps theres a way to show everyone that hes not a monster, hes a hero.
I glanced over my shoulder and watched the toddler bang on the air vent. Her brother had wandered back through the seating area and was playing with the balls on the racks. His mother had just noticed hed gotten away from her and had gotten up to go get him.
I turned my attention back to the pins.
Are you watching? I asked Adam. The urge to do something for Adam was so strong it made my hands clench.
My eyes are peeled, he said. Are you going to do something amazing?
I swung the ball awkwardly, as if Id never bowled before, missed the release, and sent it zipping backward toward the little girl playing with the air.
As soon as it left my fingers, I couldnt believe what Id done. Sweating, shaking, and horrified, I turned. But as quick as I was, Id missed the action.
Adam had caught the ball a good two feet short of the toddler.
She looked up at Adam, whose noisy fall to the ground had disturbed her play. When she saw that there was a strange man so close, her eyes got big, and her bottom lip stuck out.
Adam is mostly uninterested in children (other than his own) until they are teenagers or older and, as he told me once, capable of interesting conversation.
Hey, he said, looking very uncomfortable.
She considered him a moment. But she was female and Adam was . . . well, Adam. So she put her hands in front of her mouth and giggled.
It was adorable. Darling cute. He was a goner, and everyone who was watching could see it.
The miniature conqueror squealed as her father grabbed her up and her mother, little boy in tow behind her, babbled out thanks.
And you are the villain of the piece. Poor Mercy.
Of course I was the bad guy; Id nearly smooshed a toddler. What had I been thinking? If shed taken a step back, or if Adam hadnt been fast enough, she could have been killed.
She wasnt in any danger. You didnt throw it at her, just rolled it past her. It wouldnt have hit her. You saved him, and he didnt even notice.
He frowned at me after we moved over a lane (for the safety of everyone, though the anxious manager didnt actually come out and say that). We restarted the game, and he let me bowl first.
I carefully rolled the first ball down the gutter, where it wouldnt be likely to hit anyone. I dont know if I did it for my own sake or to reassure anyone watching me.
All you were trying to do was keep Adam happy. And this is the thanks you get.
Almost squishing babies wasnt exactly an act I expected thanks for. I rubbed my forehead as if it would help clear my thoughts.
It wouldnt have hit her. You made sure of it. Even if Adam had missed, it would have rolled harmlessly past.
Adam watched me thoughtfully, but he didnt say anything to me as I engineered my loss by a hundred bazillion points. I could hardly bowl well after my spectacular failure, or someone would figure out Id done it on purpose.
I had done it on purpose, hadnt I?
I couldnt believe Id done something like that. What was wrong with me? If Adam had looked more approachable, I might have talked to him about it.
He doesnt want to hear what you have to say. Best just keep quiet. Hed never understand anyway.
I didnt mind, didnt object anyhow, to the way Adam made sure to stand where he could field my ball if I lost control again. After all, his rescue of the baby looked better if he seemed to think I was an idiot, right?
Four turns in, Adam stepped in front of me, and said in a low voice that wouldnt carry beyond us, You did it on purpose, didnt you? What in the hell were you thinking?
And for some reason, even though I agreed with him, his question made me mad. Or maybe that was the voice in my head.
He should have understood sooner. He should understand his mate better than anyone. You shouldnt have to defend yourself to him. Best not to say anything at all.
I raised an eyebrow and stalked past him to pick up my ball. Hurt fed anger. I was so mad I forgot myself enough to get a strike. I made sure it was the last point I made in the gameand I didnt say a word to him.
Adam won with a score over two hundred. When he finished bowling the last frame, he took both our balls back to the rack while I changed my shoes.
The teenage boys (by then five lanes away) stopped him and had him sign an autograph for them. I took my shoes back to the desk and turned them inand paid for the game, too.
Is he really the Alpha? asked the teenage girl behind the counter.
Yep, I said through clenched lips.
Wow.
Yep.
I left the bowling alley and waited for him by the side of his shiny new truck, which was locked. The temperature had dropped by twenty degrees as soon as the sun went down, and it was cold enough to make me, in my heels and dress, uncomfortable. Or it would have been if my temper hadnt kept me nice and warm.
I stood by the passenger door, and he didnt see me at first. I saw him lift his head and sniff the air. I leaned my hip against the side of the truck, and the movement caught his attention. He kept his eyes on me as he walked from the building to the truck.
Hed thought youd deliberately endanger a child to make him look good. He doesnt understand that youd never do such a thing. She wouldnt have gotten hurt; the ball would have rolled past her harmlessly. He owes you an apology.
I didnt say anything to him. I could hardly tell him that the little voices made me do it, could I?
His eyes narrowed, but he kept his mouth shut, too. He popped the locks and let me get myself in the truck. I paid attention to the buckle, then settled back in the seat and closed my eyes. My hands clenched in my lap, then loosened as a familiar shape inserted itself and my hands closed on the old wood and silver of the fae-made walking stick.
Id gotten so used to its showing up unexpectedly, I wasnt even surprised, though this was the first time Id actually felt it appear where it hadnt been. I was more preoccupied with the disaster of our date.
With the walking stick in my hands, it felt as if my head cleared at last. Abruptly I wasnt angry anymore. I was just tired and I wanted to go home.
Mercy.
Adam was angry enough for the both of us: I could hear the grinding of his teeth. He thought I would throw a bowling ball at a little girl.
I couldnt blame him for his anger. I moved the walking stick until the base was on the floor, then rubbed my thumb on the silver head. There was nothing I could say to defend myselfI didnt want to defend myself. Id been recklessly stupid. What if Adam had been slower? I felt sick.
I dont understand women, he bit out, starting the car up and gunning the gas a little harder than necessary.
I gripped the fairy stick with all my might and kept my eyes closed all the way home. My stomach hurt. He was right to be angry, right to be upset.
I had the desperate feeling something was wrong, wrong, wrong. I couldnt talk to him because I was afraid Id make everything worse. I needed to understand why Id done what Id done before I could make him understand.
We pulled into my driveway in silence. Samuels car was gone, so he must have headed into work earlier than he meant to. I needed to talk to him because I had a very nasty suspicion about tonight. I couldnt talk to Adambecause it would sound like I was trying to find excuses for myself. I needed Samuel, and he wasnt here.
I released my seat belt and unlocked my doorAdams arm shot in front of me and held the door closed.
We need to talk, he said, and this time he didnt sound angry.
But he was too close. I couldnt breathe with him this close. And right then, when I could least afford it, I had another panic attack.
With a desperate sound I couldnt help, I jerked my feet to the seat and propelled myself up and over the front seat and into the back. The back door was locked, too, but even as I started to struggle with the latch, Adam popped the lock, and I was free.
I stumbled back away from the truck, shaking and sweating in the night air, the fae stick in one hand like a cudgel or a sword that could protect me from . . . being stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Damn Tim and all that hed done for leaving me stupidly shaking while I stood perfectly safely in the middle of my own stupid driveway.
I wanted to be myself again instead of this stranger who was afraid of being touchedand who had little voices in her head that made her throw bowling balls at children.
Mercy, Adam said. Hed gotten out of the truck and come around the back of it. His voice was gentle, and the sound of it . . . Abruptly I could feel his sorrow and bewildermentsomething had happened, and he didnt know what it was. He just knew hed screwed up somehow. He had no idea how it had gone so badly wrong.
I didnt want to know what he was feeling because it only made me stupiderand more vulnerable.
I have to go in, I told the stick in my hand because I couldnt look up at Adams face just then. If Id looked at him, I think I would have run, and hed have chased me. Some other day, that might have been fun. Tonight, it would be disastrous. So I moved slowly.
He didnt follow me as I walked to my door but said from where he stood, Ill send someone over to stand guard.
Because I was the Alphas mate. Because he worried about me. Because of Tim. Because of guilt.
No, he said, taking a step closer to me, telling me the bond was stronger on his side at that moment. Because I love you.
I shut the door gently between us and leaned my forehead against it.
My stomach hurt; my throat was tight. I wanted to scream or punch someone, but instead I clenched the walking stick until my fingers hurt and listened to Adam get in his truck and back out of my driveway.
I looked down at the walking stick. Oncemaybe stillit made all the sheep its bearer owned have twins. But it had been fashioned a long time ago, and old magic sometimes grew and developed in strange ways. It had become more than just a walking stick with agricultural applications. Exactly what that meant, no one really knewother than it followed me around.
Maybe it was a coincidence that the first time Id felt like myself since walking into the bowling alley was when Id grabbed it in Adams truck. And maybe it wasnt.
Ive had a lot of fights with Adam over the years. Probably inevitable given who we werethe literal as well as figurative Alpha male and . . . me, who was raised among lots of dominant-type males and had chosen not to let them control me (no matter how benign that control might have been). Id never felt like this after a fight, though. Usually, I feel energized and cheerful, not sick and scared out of my skin.
Of course, usually the fight is my idea and not someone using the pack bonds to play with my head.
I could be wrong, I thought. Maybe it had been some new kind of nifty reaction to my run-in with the not-so-dearly-departed Timas if panic attacks and flashbacks werent enough.
But, now that it was over, the voices tasted like the pack to me. Id never heard of pack being able to influence someone through the bonds, but there was a lot I didnt understand about pack magic.
I needed to shed my skin, free myself for a little while of the pack and mate bonds that left too many people with access to my head. I could do that: maybe I couldnt get rid of everything, but I could shed my human skin and run alone, clear my head for just a little bit.
I needed to figure out for certain what had happened tonight. Distance didnt always provide me with solitude, but it usually worked to weaken the bonds between Adam and meand also between the pack and me. I needed to leave before whoever he decided to send over to guard me arrived, because they certainly wouldnt let me run off on my own.
Without bothering to go to my bedroom, I stripped. Setting down the walking stick took more effort, which told me that Id already convinced myself that it had served to block whoever had been influencing me.
I waited, ready to pick up the walking stick again, but there were no more voices in my head. Either they had lost interest because Adam was gone and theyd succeeded in their efforts. Or else distance was as much of a factor as I believed. Either way, I would leave the stick behind because a coyote carrying such a thing would draw too much attention.
So I slid into my coyote-self with a sigh of relief. I felt instantly safer, more centered, in my four-pawed form. Stupid, because Id never noticed that changing shape interfered with either my mate bond or pack bond in the least. But I was willing to grab onto anything that made me feel better at this point.
I hopped through the dog door Samuel had installed in my back door and out into the night.
Outside smelled different, better, clearer to me. In my coyote skin, I took in more information than the human me. I could scent the marmot in her nearby den and the bats who nested in the rafters of my garage. The month was half-gone, and the moon was a wide slice that was orangeeven to my coyote color-impaired eyes. The dust of the last of harvest was in the air.
And a werewolf in lupine form was approaching.
It was Ben, I thought, which was good. Darryl would have sensed my coyote, but Ben had been raised in London and had lived there until a year and a half ago. He would be easier to fool.