Kyle had bought a very nice wedding ring for Warren, too. I’d picked it out with him a few months ago. He’d come with me to get my lamb necklace fixed at the jewelers and seen the perfect ring.
Kyle had told me that it was too soon. Warren had been alone a very long time and he had trouble trusting anyone. Kyle was a smart man; no doubt he was right. But he’d bought the ring anyway in happy anticipation.
“That’s a new thing for you,” I said. “And I don’t mean the car.”
“My truck is too noticeable,” said Warren, his mouth tight with something that might have been embarrassment. It also might not have been.
I frowned at him.
“Kyle has me trailing people around,” Warren said too quickly. Warren was a private detective who did work for Kyle’s law firm. “He decided I needed something that blended in with all the other cars.”
It sounded like Kyle might have made that decision over Warren’s objections, though that was a little unlike him. That might explain the extra tension that Warren was wearing tonight.
“I’d have gone Honda or Toyota for blending,” I said, leaving that evidential sore spot for Kyle and Warren to work out. “But Subaru makes a good car, too.”
No one asked me about Volkswagen. I was bitter about the new Volkswagens ever since the turbo-diesel incident.
“I’d buy Mercy a new car to replace the one she used to squish her enemy against a dumpster,” Adam said, “but she’d have my hide.”
“I’m a mechanic,” I told him with mock coolness. “I have to drive an old car. It’s the rules.”
He smiled at me, and my breath caught in my chest at the warmth in his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “As long as it’s the rules.”
* * *
—
About twenty minutes later, the pack began drifting out singly or in small groups. Adam stood by the door, touching each one as they left. Sometimes he’d hug them, sometimes it was a brush of his fingers on their cheeks or a pat on the shoulder. A good pack leader knew what his wolves needed.
I retreated to our table, sipping my third glass of icy limeade. I should be with Adam, but I wouldn’t be able to hide my tension. It was important to let the pack be happy tonight. A few of them looked at me, and I rubbed my cheek in answer. My headache was real enough, even if it wasn’t my problem.
Adam said something to Darryl, his second-in-command, that made the big man laugh. Auriele, Darryl’s mate, reached up and smacked Darryl on the top of his head, but she was laughing, too. Darryl hadn’t competed because he and Adam had set up the stations around the maze, but Auriele had. Her team had made it out in time but hadn’t found two of the ribbons.
Sherwood got up to leave. He limped a little on his way to the exit, proving that he’d given his all to the games in the maze. Usually, he was so graceful that most people wouldn’t notice that he had a prosthetic leg.
Rather than interrupt Adam’s conversation, Sherwood started past. Adam, without taking his attention off the other two wolves, caught Sherwood’s arm, holding him where he was. Sherwood stiffened, drawing back—and Adam didn’t let him go.
Nor, despite the quick, almost worried glance Darryl gave Sherwood, did Adam allow their good-byes to be hurried. When they left, Auriele was frowning.
Adam said something to Sherwood, and Five Finger Death Punch’s “A Little Bit Off” belting through the overhead speakers made sure no one else heard what it was. The big man stared at Adam with unfriendly eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath. He made a deliberate effort to relax his posture, gave Adam a quick nod, and turned back to stride toward me.
Showtime, I thought, taking a deep breath. I needed to be calm.
Sherwood’s limp was not in evidence as he prowled toward me. I did not think that was a good sign. Wolves don’t show weakness before their enemies. Not that anyone who knew him would think that having only one leg made Sherwood vulnerable in the slightest.
I’d never heard of a werewolf missing a limb before. Werewolves either die from injuries, or they heal them. If a leg gets severed, it should regrow.
In the case of a human who was crippled or missing a limb prior to becoming a werewolf, there are ways to fix that. Those ways are horrible and involve reinjuring the damaged but healed body part. I’d heard that those methods had been tried unsuccessfully on Sherwood.
Sherwood had been found in the laboratory of a collection of black witches who had been taken down by werewolves a few years ago. No one knew how long he’d been there or what had been done to him, but I’d been confined in such a place for a bit, and I still had nightmares.