Darryl gave me a look. Adam did, too. It was probably a very good thing that Aiden looked like a ten-year-old.
“Are you hurt, Darryl?” I asked.
He rubbed his hands together. “Not anymore,” he said.
“Darryl’s job is to make sure people are safe,” I said. “Did you disobey him?”
Aiden screwed up his face. “You are very strange,” he said. “I insulted your . . . stepdaughter, yes? Then I hurt the man who stood up for her honor.”
Jesse made a growling noise. “I stood up for myself, you little perv.”
Aiden looked at her.
She glared back.
“Okay, then,” I said. “Aiden, it is good manners to apologize when you offend someone. In your case, it means that you can continue to enjoy the protection of the pack for a few more hours.”
He turned to Adam, and said, sincerely, “Please accept my apologies for importuning your daughter.”
He turned to Jesse’s mother. “I am also sorry that I distressed you in any manner.” He bowed to Darryl. “I sincerely apologize for burning you. You weren’t hurting me, just scaring me. There was no cause.”
Jesse cleared her throat. He looked at her, and they eyed each other with mutual loathing. His lip curled. “I’m very sorry you don’t appreciate the honor I did you,” he said. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
He was lucky she didn’t hit him a second time, I thought.
“I’m very sorry,” Jesse said sincerely, “that I didn’t have a kitchen knife in my hand instead of a spatula. Next time, maybe I’ll be more careful.”
“Jesse,” I said, “your eggs are burning.”
I looked at Adam. “You take Aiden, and I’ll take Christy?” I mouthed.
“I’d like to speak to Adam,” Christy said, her tone making it clear she’d seen me. No help for it once she asked.
I shrugged. “Aiden, step outside with me.”
Darryl smiled. “I’ll go check the perimeter. It’ll let me keep an eye on you.”
“You could stay with Jesse,” I said because I didn’t trust that smile: it was a little too eager. “Help her with breakfast or something.”
“I can cook eggs,” said Jesse, scraping the blackened remnants into the garbage disposal, “assuming I don’t have to teach some ancient punk kid how to keep his hands to himself. Yuck.” She left it to her audience to decide where that last word was directed.
Aiden turned back and narrowed his eyes at her.
“Aiden,” I said.
He stiffened but followed me out to the backyard, where he stood, his arms wrapped around himself in hostile rejection . . . or possibly fear. Darryl trailed after us, then broke into a jog and headed for the river side of the property.
“What happened in there was all about power,” I said thoughtfully after Darryl was a sufficient distance away.
Aiden didn’t say anything.
I thought about power, about how Adam had sat in the soft hotel sofa to make Thomas Hao feel more at ease. So I sat down on the grass. The seat of my pants was immediately wet and cold—evidently the lawn had just been watered. At least my slacks wouldn’t show the water stain the way my usual jeans would have. Aiden looked at me, frowned, then took a seat on the nearest lawn chair.
“You felt it was dangerous for us to consider you a child,” I said, “because in your world, children are vulnerable, and the fae like to prey upon them.” I pushed my fingers into the soil. “Werewolves are not fae. For the pack, children are fragile, and the wolves, most of them anyway, see them as a charge, someone to be protected from all harm.”
“I would be safer, here, pretending to be the age that my body appears?” he asked warily.
I sighed and shook my head. For all that we both spoke English, we were alien, weren’t we?
“No,” I said. “Pretending is a lie—and wolves can tell if you lie. But you didn’t have to make a big deal of your real age in order to be safe. But I was talking about power, not specifically about you.” I looked up at the sky and thought about how to explain twenty-first-century manners and morals to someone who had last been human before Europeans had set foot on this continent.
“Touch,” I said, “is basic to the human condition. Mothers touch their babies to bond with them. Touch brings comfort or pain. Touch is important. The most powerful person in a room is the one who can touch anyone else—and no one can touch him back without permission.” The Romans would have substituted “sex” for “touch,” but I thought I didn’t have to go that crude. Sometimes, when dealing with very old creatures, my history degree was unexpectedly useful.
“Lady,” Aiden said sincerely, “you are strange. You are saying that I am less powerful than the girl.” He held out his hand and showed me the fire he held. “I do not think so.”
“Think about what happened in there,” I said. “Who ended up winning that encounter?”
“She hit me,” he said, “but I could have killed her—or hurt her so she never would have tried to hit me again.”
“But Darryl stopped you,” I told him. “Because he is more powerful, and his job is to take care of Jesse. To make sure no one touches her without permission.”
“I could have killed him, too,” said Aiden.
I shrugged. “Yes. But he has those who protect him, too. And you are not stronger than Zee—the Dark Smith.”
Silence.