"So if I don't feel it, it shouldn't matter if they don't want me?"
He gave me a neutral look. "Of course it matters - but it won't be shoved down your throat every minute of the day. Mostly, I expect you'll know the ones who don't want a coyote in the pack. As Warren knows the wolves who hate what he is more than what he does." Briefly, sorrow lit his eyes for Warren's trials, but he kept speaking. "Just as Darryl knows the wolves who resent being given orders by a black man made uppity by a good education." He smiled, just a little. "You aren't alone, most people are prejudiced about something. But you know, after a while the edges wear down. You know who hated Darryl the most when he joined us, way back when we were still in New Mexico?"
I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.
"Aurielle. She thought he was an arrogant, self-important snob."
"Which he is," I observed. "But he's also smart, quick, and given to small kindnesses when no one is watching."
"So," he nodded. "We are none of us perfect, and as pack, we learn to take these imperfections and make them only a small part of who we are. Let us bring you truly into our shelter, Mercedes. And the wolves who resent you will deal with it as you will deal with the ones you don't like, for whatever reason.
I think, with the healing you have already done on your own, the pack can help stop your panic attacks."
"Ben's rude," I said, considering it.
"See, you already know most of us," Adam said. "And Ben adores you. He doesn't quite know how to deal with it yet. He's not used to liking anyone... and liking a woman..."
"Ish," I said, deadpan.
"Let's try again," he suggested, and put out his hand.
This time when I touched him, all I felt was skin and calluses, no warmth, no magic.
He tilted his head and evaluated me sternly. "It's hard to argue with instinct, even with reason and logic, isn't it? May I knock?"
"What?"
"May I see if I can touch you first? Maybe that'll allow you to open to the pack."
It sounded harmless enough. Warily, I nodded... and I felt him, felt his spirit or something, touch me. It wasn't like when I'd called Stefan. That had been as intimate as talking was - not very much. Adam's touch reminded me more of the presence I felt sometimes in church - but this was unmistakably Adam and not God.
And because it was Adam, I let him in, accepting him into my secret heart. Something settled into place with a rightness that rang in my soul. Then the floodgates opened.
THE NEXT TIME I WAS CONSCIOUS OF ANYTHING REAL, I was back in Adam's lap but on his bedroom floor instead of in the bathroom. A number of the pack surrounded us and stood with their hands linked. My head hurt like the one and only time I'd gotten truly drunk, only much worse.
"We're going to have to work on your filtering skills, Mercy," said Adam, his voice sounding a little rough.
As if that was a signal, the pack broke apart and became individuals again - though I hadn't been aware they were anything else until it was gone. Something stopped, and my head didn't hurt so much.
Uncomfortable at being on the floor when everyone else was on their feet, I rolled forward and tried to use my hands to get leverage so I could stand.
"Not so fast," Samuel murmured. He hadn't been one of the circle, I'd have noticed him, but he pushed his way through to the front of the line. He gave me a hand and pulled until I was on my feet.
"I'm sorry," I told Adam, knowing something bad had happened, but I couldn't quite focus on what it had been.
"Nothing to be sorry for, Mercy," Samuel assured me with a little edge to his voice. "Adam is old enough to know better than to draw his mate into the pack at the same time as he seals your mate bond. Sort of like someone teaching a baby to swim in the ocean. During a tsunami."
Adam hadn't gotten up when I did, and when I looked at him, his face was grayish underneath his tan. He had his eyes closed, and he was sitting as if moving would be very painful. "Not your fault, Mercy. I asked you to open up to me."
"What happened?" I asked him.
Adam opened his eyes, and they were as yellow as I'd ever seen them. "Full-throttle overload," he said.
"Someone probably should call Darryl and Warren and make sure they're all right. They stepped in without notice and helped tuck you back into your own skin."
"I don't remember," I said warily.
"Good," said Samuel. "Fortunately for us all, the mind has a way of protecting itself."
"You went from fully closed to fully open," Adam said. "And when you opened yourself up to me, the mate bond settled in, too. Before I realized what happened you..." He waved his hands. "Sort of spread out through the pack bonds."
"Like Napoleon trying to take over Russia," said Samuel "There just wasn't enough of you to go around."
I remembered a bit then. I'd been swimming, drowning in memories and thoughts that weren't mine. They'd flowed over me, around me, and through me like a river of ice - stripping me raw as the shards passed by. It had been cold and dark; I couldn't breathe. I'd heard Adam calling my name...
"Aurielle answered," reported Ben from the hallway. "She says Darryl is fine. Warren's not picking up, so I called his boy toy's cell. Boy will check up and call me back."
"I bet you didn't call him a boy toy to his face," I said.
"You can effing believe I did," answered Ben with injured dignity. "You should have heard what he called me."
Kyle, Warren's human boyfriend, who in his day job was a barracuda divorce lawyer, had a tongue that could be as razor-sharp as his mind. I'd bet money on the outcome of any verbal skirmish between Kyle and Ben, and it wouldn't be on Ben.
"Is Dad all right?" asked Jesse. The wolves moved aside almost sheepishly to let her through - and I realized they must have kept her away while the matter was still in doubt. Judging by Adam's eyes, he held on to control by a gnat's hair - so keeping his vulnerable human daughter away had been a good idea. But I knew Jesse - I wouldn't have wanted to have been the one keeping her back.
Adam got hastily to his feet and almost didn't lean on Mary Jo - who'd put her hand out when he swayed.
"I'm just fine," he told his daughter, and gave her a quick hug.
"Jesse's the one who called Samuel," Mary Jo told him. "We didn't even think of it. He told us what to do."
"Jesse's the bomb," I said with conviction. She gave me a shaky grin.
"The trick," Samuel said to me, "is to join with the pack and with Adam - without losing yourself in them. It's instinctive for the werewolves, but I expect you're going to have to work on it."