But it wasn't my temper I should have been worried about.
Samuel's hand turned until his fingers spanned the top of my thigh, and he squeezed. It wasn't hard enough to hurt. I'm not certain Adam would have even noticed except that Samuel accompanied it by a throaty half growl of challenge.
I didn't wait to see what Adam would do. I yanked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes as soon as the van was on the shoulder of the road. I unsnapped my seat belt and twisted around to meet Adam's yellow gaze. He was breathing heavily, his reaction to Samuel's taunt tempered by the pain my jerky driving had caused.
"You," I said firmly, pointing at him. "Stay right there." Sometimes, if you tell them firmly enough, even Alphas will listen to commands. Especially if you tell them to sit still while they're too hurt to move.
"You"-I turned my attention to Samuel-"outside, right now."
Then I jerked my leg out from under Samuel's hand and jumped out of the van, narrowly avoiding getting the door taken off as a truck passed by.
I wasn't certain either of them would listen to me, but at least I wouldn't have to try to drive with a pair of wolves trying to tear each other apart. However, Samuel opened his door as I stalked around the front of the van. By the time I walked a half dozen steps away from the van, he was beside me, and the van's doors were closed.
"Just what did you think you were doing?" I yelled at him, raising my voice over the passing cars. Okay, I was mad, too. "I thought you were here to make sure no one challenged Adam until he was well-not challenge him yourself."
"You don't belong to him," he snapped back, his white teeth clicking together sharply.
"Of course not!" I huffed in exasperation-and a little in desperation. "But I don't belong to you either! For Pete's sake, Sam, he wasn't telling you that I belonged to him-just that he felt like you were invading his territory. He was asking you for help." Someone should have awarded me a Ph. D. in werewolf psychology and counseling-surely I deserved something for putting up with this garbage. "It wasn't a challenge, stupid. He's trying to control his wolf after nearly being killed. Two unmated male werewolves always get territorial in the presence of a female-you know that better than I do. You're supposed to be the one with all this control, and you're behaving worse than he is." I sucked in air tainted by the traffic.
Samuel paused, then settled his weight on his heels-a sign that he was considering backing off from this fight. "You called me Sam," he said in an odd voice that frightened me as much as the violence I could still smell on him, because I didn't know what was causing him to act like this. The Samuel I knew had been easygoing-especially for a werewolf. I was beginning to think that I wasn't the only one who'd changed over the years.
I didn't know how to respond to his comment. I couldn't see what my calling him Sam had to do with anything, so I ignored it. "How can you help him control himself if your control isn't better than this? What is wrong with you?" I was honestly bewildered.
Samuel was good at calming the dangerous waters. One of his jobs had been teaching the new wolves control so they could be allowed to live. It is not an accident that most werewolves are control freaks like Adam. I didn't know what to do with Samuel-except that he wasn't getting back into that van until he had a handle on whatever was bothering him.
"It isn't just that you are female," he muttered at last, though I almost didn't hear him because two motorcycles blew past us.
"What is it then?" I asked.
He gave me an unhappy look, and I realized that he hadn't intended for me to hear what he'd said.
"Mercedes... Mercy." He looked away from me, staring down the slope of the mountain as if the meadows below held some secret he was looking for. "I'm as unsettled as a new pup. You eat my control."
"This is all my fault?" I asked incredulously. It was outside of enough that he was scaring the bejeebers out of me-I certainly wasn't about to accept the blame for it.
Unexpectedly, he laughed. And as easily as that the smoldering anger, the bright violence, and the dominant power that had been making the air around us feel heavier than it could possibly be floated away. It was just the two of us and the warm scent of Samuel, who smelled of home and the woods.
"Stay out here and enjoy the diesel fumes, Mercy," he said as a delivery van in need of a new engine chugged past us in a cloud of black smoke. "Give me a few minutes to clear the air with Adam before you come back in." He turned and took two steps back to the van. "I'll wave to you."
"No violence?" I said.
He put his hand over his heart and bowed. "I swear."
It took long enough that I got worried, but finally he opened the door and called me over. He hadn't rolled down the window because I had the keys and the windows were electric. For some reason I still hadn't tracked down, the windows only worked one at a time even with the car running.
I scooted in the driver's seat and gave Adam a cautious look-but his eyes were closed.
Chapter 8
As soon as "roaming" quit appearing on my phone, I called Zee.
"Who's this?" he answered.
"Mercy," I told him.
"Didn't tell me the part was for the vampire's bus," he said shortly.
I rubbed my face. "I couldn't afford to pay them the percentage you were," I explained, not for the first time.
In the Columbia Basin, which included Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco as well as the smaller surrounding towns like Burbank and West Richland, every business the vampires considered under their jurisdiction (meaning anyone touched by the supernatural who was too powerless to stand against them) paid them protection money. And yes, just like the mob, the vampires only protect you from themselves.