“And that’s why you became a police officer, is it, George?” I couldn’t help myself, though I knew I should hold my peace. “Not to protect and serve all the citizens of Pasco, but to take care of the pack.”
He flushed angrily. “That’s got nothing to do with it.”
I met his gaze and held it. “Okay,” I said mildly.
“I do my job,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed. He did.
George worked for the Pasco Police Department. From what I’d overheard during the barbecue, he’d been in among the police on the Pasco side of the bridge today. Pasco had lost two police officers and had another three in the hospital in various states of non-life-threatening injuries, one of whom he’d dragged off the bridge—right out from under the nose of the troll. Which was why I thought he was being pretty hypocritical.
“Mercy, quit playing games with the grumpy werewolf,” murmured Warren. When I glanced at him, he was staring at George. “You might start a fight. Remember, werewolves look out for pack.” He bit off the last word.
George sat down and stared away from me—away from Warren, too.
“He’s right,” Paul said earnestly, standing up but not waiting for an invitation from Adam to talk. “George, I mean, not Warren. We cannot be responsible for everyone in the Tri-Cities, like Mercy said. Like she tried to make us be.” Paul had been on the bridge for my grand declaration. Paul was not one of my staunchest supporters. “Some of you think this meeting is to discuss the boy she brought home. But she did more than that. Mercy offered sanctuary to anyone who came to the pack for help.”
“Point of fact.” I stood up, though there wasn’t supposed to be more than one person standing (other than Adam). I wasn’t going to talk to Paul from a position of weakness. “I reserved the right of the pack to offer sanctuary to anyone we chose to help. A small but important distinction.” I sat down again.
“You challenged the Gray Lords,” Paul said. His short reddish beard tended to hide anything but strong emotions, but there was a tone of entreaty in his voice. “We can’t take on the Gray Lords, Mercy.”
He had a point. But he was looking at what I had done from the wrong point of view. I stood up again. And then hesitated, waiting for Adam to ask me to sit down until it was my turn to speak. Adam was a stickler for order and proper procedure in the pack meetings. But he simply watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. So I decided to go ahead and answer Paul’s statement.
“I grew up in the Marrok’s pack,” I said.
“Good for you,” said Mary Jo.
I pulled out as much patience as I could manage and ignored her. Getting in a snark fest with Mary Jo would not be useful. Instead, I looked around the room at everyone else. “Can any of you imagine the fae sending a troll into the Marrok’s territory? Into Aspen Creek—or, say, Missoula?” I let them think about it. “Can you imagine what the Marrok would do if they did?”
I saw a few appreciative grins. No. Bran would not allow a rampaging troll in his territory.
“What’s your point?” asked Auriele, Darryl’s mate. She wasn’t one of Mary Jo’s crowd, and recently, we’d been cautiously cordial.
“The fae in Walla Walla either do not respect us, or they did not think that we would come to the aid of the human inhabitants in this city,” I told her, told them. “Maybe both. As a result, people died, and wolves got hurt. If they know that we will defend our territory against them, maybe they’ll think twice before sending in another troll. Or something worse. My point is that right now we cannot afford not to take on the Gray Lords.”
“But the Marrok isn’t here,” Paul, still standing, said.
Paul wasn’t the smartest person in most rooms, but he was just saying what I saw in other people’s faces.
“No,” I agreed. “Do you think Bran would go kill the troll himself? He has more critical work to do.” Facing the troll himself would give it too much importance, would acknowledge that it was a real threat.
“He’d send Charles,” said Paul. “Or Colin Taggart, or the Moor.” He grinned suddenly. “I’d like to see a fight between the Moor and a troll.”
“Or he’d send Leah,” someone muttered. Bran’s mate could take care of business—I didn’t have to like her to acknowledge that.
“And then he’d go after whoever sent it and make sure they didn’t make that mistake again,” said Alec.
“Right,” I agreed soberly. “The point is that the fae would never send a troll into Bran’s territory because they’d go through exactly the same thought process that we just did.”
“This is not the Marrok’s pack,” said Paul. “We don’t have Tag or Charles.”
“No,” I agreed. “We have Adam, Darryl, Warren, and Honey. We have you, Paul. We have Auriele, George, and Mary Jo. And we did take down that troll, with only a fraction of our pack: Adam, Darryl, Zack, and Joel. We had no casualties.”
“They didn’t do it alone,” said Mary Jo. “They needed Tad.”
I held my hands palm up. “We have friends and allies,” I said. “Good. Those are assets, too. Right now, we are in a position of power. We’ve killed their troll and drawn a line in the sand. It’s up to them to cross that line—and maybe they won’t.”
“Maybe they will,” said George. “And before this, we weren’t an enemy of the fae.”