"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 hadn't kept me nice and warm.
I stood by the passenger door, and he didn't 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.
He'd thought you'd deliberately endanger a child to make him look good. He doesn't understand that you'd never do such a thing. She wouldn't have gotten hurt; the ball would have rolled past her harmlessly. He owes you an apology.
I didn't 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.
I'd gotten so used to its showing up unexpectedly, I wasn't even surprised, though this was the first time I'd actually felt it appear where it hadn't 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 wasn't 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 couldn't 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 myself - I didn't want to defend myself. I'd been recklessly stupid. What if Adam had been slower? I felt sick.
"I don't 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 couldn't talk to him because I was afraid I'd make everything worse. I needed to understand why I'd done what I'd done before I could make him understand.
We pulled into my driveway in silence. Samuel's 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 couldn't talk to Adam - because it would sound like I was trying to find excuses for myself. I needed Samuel, and he wasn't here.
I released my seat belt and unlocked my door - Adam's arm shot in front of me and held the door closed.
"We need to talk," he said, and this time he didn't sound angry.
But he was too close. I couldn't breathe with him this close. And right then, when I could least afford it, I had another panic attack.
With a desperate sound I couldn't 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 he'd 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 touched - and who had little voices in her head that made her throw bowling balls at children.
"Mercy," Adam said. He'd 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 bewilderment - something had happened, and he didn't know what it was. He just knew he'd screwed up somehow. He had no idea how it had gone so badly wrong.
I didn't want to know what he was feeling because it only made me stupider - and more vulnerable.
"I have to go in," I told the stick in my hand because I couldn't look up at Adam's face just then. If I'd looked at him, I think I would have run, and he'd have chased me. Some other day, that might have been fun. Tonight, it would be disastrous. So I moved slowly.
He didn't follow me as I walked to my door but said from where he stood, "I'll send someone over to stand guard."
Because I was the Alpha's 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. Once - maybe still - it 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 knew - other than it followed me around.
Maybe it was a coincidence that the first time I'd felt like myself since walking into the bowling alley was when I'd grabbed it in Adam's truck. And maybe it wasn't.
I've had a lot of fights with Adam over the years. Probably inevitable given who we were - the 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). I'd 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 Tim - as if panic attacks and flashbacks weren't enough.
But, now that it was over, the voices tasted like the pack to me. I'd never heard of pack being able to influence someone through the bonds, but there was a lot I didn't understand about pack magic.