She staggered, and for a moment Adam was sure that the only thing keeping her on her feet was his hold. She reached up and grabbed one of his hands with her cold one and held on tight.
“No,” she said quickly, her voice soothing. “I see. I see. I understand. You can’t go yet. No. Don’t panic. We’ll fix it. Calm down.” That last she put another push of pack magic into.
“Okay,” she said. “I understand. But I won’t take you into that building because it’s not a good place for you. Could you wait by the SUV?”
She waited, then released Adam’s hand to stride off toward the coroner’s office, muttering, “If I’m going to be haunted for the rest of my life, at least it will be by a sweet boy who takes orders.”
“Do you think that’s likely?” he asked, keeping his voice down. Whatever had happened had scared her, and she needed to distract herself. It scared him, too, because it hadn’t felt like anything a big bad wolf could protect Mercy from.
Mercy started to shrug and then said, “I think that if we can find the killer, we might be able to break whatever is keeping Aubrey here. It’s not what Frost did to Peter, but it’s the same effect.”
Frost had been a vampire who fed off the souls of the dead, keeping his victims tied to their bodies, including one of Adam’s wolves. Frost had been a nasty piece of work.
“Okay,” he said, putting confidence in his voice. They’d handled every other damned thing that had come their way, including Frost. They’d handle this one, too. Hopefully.
“I don’t know what I’m talking about,” she reminded him. “I wish there were a Haynes or Chilton repair manual on how I work.”
“You’ll figure it out,” he assured her earnestly.
She turned to him, eyes alight with ire—and then frowned. “Quit baiting me.”
He grinned. Unable to help himself. What a gift she was.
* * *
—
Mercy sniffed again. Like Zee had been, she was careful not to touch the boy’s body. Her brows were drawn in puzzlement, and she tilted her head as if trying to catch some faint sound. Abruptly, she stiffened and closed her eyes, and Adam felt her draw upon the pack—not for power but as an anchor. Instinctively, he stepped forward and reached out to touch her.
Zee got in his way. Had it been anyone else in the room, Adam would have knocked them aside. But Zee was protective of Mercy, and he knew magic. If he didn’t think Adam should touch her, Adam had to trust his judgment. He didn’t have to like it, though.
“You know something of their deaths,” said Amin, watching Mercy. “Is there anything that I should tell Dimitri to be careful of during the autopsy?”
Mercy straightened, shivered, and looked at the coroner. “I think that you should put off the autopsies as long as possible. You aren’t going to learn anything helpful that points to this killer,” she said. “And . . .” She glanced at Zee.
The fae’s anger had not eased at all while Adam was gone. It gathered around Zee like the moment before lightning struck and felt a lot bigger than it had when Adam went to get Mercy. The awareness of the danger slid down Adam’s spine, and the smell of iron-rich battle fury brushed his nose like a future memory.
Adam was pretty sure Mercy could feel it—she just wasn’t moved by it. Growing up in the Marrok’s pack of crazies had left Mercy pretty unimpressed by temper.
George had put himself between the fae and the other two, which told Adam that George knew what was going on. But Tony and the coroner weren’t plastered against the wall and shaking with fear, so he figured they had no clue. That was probably just as well.
“Probably it would be safe enough,” Zee said, sounding cool as a cucumber. “But only probably.”
“It’s our job,” Amin said. He waved a hand at the refrigeration unit. “They are our charges. Dimitri’s and mine.”
“Could you give us a week?” Mercy asked. “We don’t really know what’s going on yet. If you could give us some time, we will know more.”
“Do you know who the killer is?” he asked.
“We know what killed them,” answered Zee. “The other question may be less interesting than you think.”
Amin shook his head. “We take care of them,” he told them. “？‘Probably safe’ is good enough. Let me know if you find out ‘definitely not safe’; otherwise, we will follow procedure.”
* * *