“You have a phone call,” she said, her voice subdued.

“Ah,” he said, “I’ve been expecting this call. You’ll have to excuse me.” He wrapped his hand around the werewolf’s upper arm and escorted her out. He paused and looked back at me. “I will leave Lenka to guard the door. I assume that you, mate to an Alpha werewolf, understand that without me present, she will be quite unable to stop herself from attacking and killing you. As a favor to me, who values her, I ask that you not make me put her down for spoiling my plans.”

He shut the door behind him and did not lock it.

I knew only two things for certain. First, Bonarata had lied about a lot of what he told me. Second, he very much wanted me to run through that carefully unlocked door.

I stared at the door thoughtfully and glanced around.

I generally don’t give megalomaniacal monsters what they want. But that unlocked door was an opportunity I could not pass up. I smiled grimly, ignoring the burn the expression caused in the muscles of my much-abused face. Then I stood and started stripping off my bloodstained clothes in preparation to run for my life.

2

Adam

For Adam, it began during that game of The Dread Pirate’s Booty. You can decide for yourself if he handled my unexpected involuntary absence well or not.

ADAM FELT A FLASH OF PAIN THAT HAD HIM STAGGERING to his feet, heedless of the monitor that crashed to the ground, because it wasn’t his pain—it was Mercy’s. As the echo of that flash hit the pack bonds a breath later than it had hit his mating bond, he sensed the readiness that shivered through the pack as they also rose, alarmed, alert, and awaiting his orders.

“What happened? Is it an accident?” Darryl asked. “Is she okay?”

His Mercy was fragile in body if not in spirit. Fragile by werewolf standards, anyway. The whole pack was aware of her vulnerability and driven to protect her to a degree that would infuriate his wife if she knew about it.

“Not good,” Adam said decisively, used to covering terror with logic and action. He started for the stairs. “I’ll—”

Then silence fell in place of the pain.

The next thing he knew, Adam’s shoulder hit the front door, knocking the sturdy (and expensive) steel door out of its frame and sending it flying out of his way. The wolf wouldn’t allow him to stop for a car, instinctively knowing that he’d be faster on his own feet.

Adam braced himself to fight off the change—because that, too, would slow him down until he was finished shifting completely. But the wolf didn’t try to do anything but give his feet more speed as he sprinted down the driveway and onto the road toward the last place they’d felt Mercy. Dimly, he sensed the pack running flat out behind him, heard the sound of engines—some of the more practical-minded figuring that a car or two might come in handy.

Cold sweat that had nothing to do with the effort of his muscles and everything to do with the way his mate bond ended in nothingness slid down his back as he pushed his body for another ounce of swiftness. His heart beat so hard that he could barely hear the footsteps of his pack.

He smelled the accident before he could see it. Diesel fuel, air bag, her blood—

There was a moment of time that was forever blank after he smelled her blood.

He came to himself standing on the hood of the remains of his SUV, staring into the empty cab. A semi tractor had entwined itself in the glossy black body of the SUV. The glass of the SUV was shattered, and something very strong had torn out the steering wheel to get to Mercy. Her seat belt was cut, and there was too much blood in the seat. Blood, broken eggs, and chocolate chips.

His human half fumbled a second, wondering if the person who had freed Mercy had been him, because he couldn’t remember. But Mercy was gone, and his wolf knew better.

Someone had been here ahead of them.

Someone had hit Mercy with a semitruck, then stolen her away from them.

They had left her purse, small and tidy because Mercy didn’t like to be weighed down by anything big. It lay unopened on the passenger seat.

Adam leaned forward until his head was through the broken window and inhaled deeply. Along with the scent of Mercy’s blood, raw eggs, and himself, he found the scents of four vampires. Vampires. Three of them were strangers. The fourth . . .

He turned his attention to the semi that had T-boned the SUV Mercy had been driving. He jumped easily from the SUV to the semi-tractor door, finding hand- and footholds in the damaged metal side that allowed him to open the door to examine the interior. When the door proved too bent to open, he simply drove his fist through the glass, gripped the door, and ripped it off. The sting of pain as the glass sliced his hand was oddly seductive—so much less painful than what was going on in his heart and his head at the moment.

His first find was that the tractor was new despite a very bad paint job. He took a better look at the outside and saw that someone had painted the whole tractor matte black, including surfaces that had probably originally been chromed and shiny. This vehicle had been painted so that it could be used to take Mercy totally by surprise. She might have heard the engine—though since she was driving his own diesel SUV, maybe not.

He could smell the vampire who’d driven the tractor over the leather and the new-car scent. That vampire had been hurt in the crash; there was a bit of blood somewhere. But he had not been killed or seriously injured. There was no smell of stress—fear, anger, excitement. Even vampires left the scents of their emotions behind. Most of them. That meant that this vampire had done such things before.