Marsilia turned her great dark eyes on Stefan. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He told me, the night we left for the New World, that if I became your lover, he would hunt me to the ends of the earth,” Stefan said.
“If Iacopo were a dog in a manger,” Wulfe said, “he would urinate and defecate in the hay. And before he would allow anyone to spread the hay on the ground to at least get use of it as fertilizer, Iacopo would light the hay on fire. And then he would sing about how wonderful the hay was and how tragic its loss.”
“You carry that analogy a little too far,” said Marsilia.
“It is accurate,” Wulfe defended himself. “The song was in a minor key—and the painting he did, I am told, was nearly as stunning as you actually are.”
“So why did he take Mercy?” Adam asked Marsilia. If someone didn’t distract Wulfe, he was likely to lead the conversation all around the mulberry bush until there was no time left.
“Because I told him that she was the most powerful person in the supernatural community of the TriCities,” said Wulfe. “I think.”
Adam’s wolf lunged forward without warning, and he would have killed the vampire if Darryl and Stefan hadn’t pulled him back. No one had grabbed for Marsilia.
“Oh, don’t hold him back,” Marsilia hissed. She had, Adam noted, lost her usual composure. She was out of her chair and had Wulfe’s throat in one hand. “Much easier to explain why the werewolf killed him than if I did it.”
Wulfe dangled from her hand, though he was taller than she was. He managed it by bending his knees. He had a wide, sappy grin on his face until Marsilia looked at him, then his grin fell away, and he watched her soberly, apparently not discomforted by his position at all.
“Why did you talk to Iacopo without telling me?” she asked.
“I talk to him all the time,” Wulfe replied, his voice strained. “You know that. That’s why he let me go with you.”
Adam saw from her face that Wulfe was right. He took a step backward and shook Darryl off. Stefan let go more slowly. Marsilia would get more out of Wulfe than he could—and she might be able to restrain herself from killing him in the process. Adam wasn’t sure he could manage it.
“What did he want when he asked you who the strongest of us was?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Wulfe said. “Not exactly. I answer his questions; he doesn’t answer mine.”
“You Made him,” she said.
Wulfe snorted. “I haven’t been his Master for a very, very long time. Any more than he is yours.”
“Why did you put Mercy forth as the most powerful of us?” asked Adam tersely.
Wulfe’s silly grin returned. “Because it was funny.” He sobered. “Because it was true.” He looked at Marsilia. “Because if I’d answered the question the way he meant it, he’d have taken Adam. And he would have killed Adam, he couldn’t have helped himself. Mercy . . . he won’t see the threat Mercy is until she has his head on a pike. He doesn’t understand that kind of strength. He cannot use his most powerful weapons on her because of what she is, and he has no experience to understand what she is.”
Marsilia looked at Adam. “Are you satisfied? Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
It could, Adam knew, all be a play for his benefit, but he didn’t read it that way. Wulfe was as twisty as a carousel pole, but Marsilia was scared. She was also brave and smart, so she was facing the situation head-on, but she was scared of Iacopo Bonarata.
“You didn’t warn any of us,” Adam said softly, addressing Wulfe.
“Where would the fun be in that?” Wulfe answered. But then he said soberly, “You don’t know Iacopo the way I know Iacopo. If I had warned you . . .”
“The Lord of Night,” said Stefan reluctantly, “is the reason Wulfe is the way he is, Adam. He wasn’t always . . .”
“Crazy?” suggested Darryl.
“No,” said Marsilia with a sigh, letting go of Wulfe. He settled semigracefully onto the grass at her feet. “He was always strange. But he didn’t used to enjoy pulling wings off butterflies.”
“He wasn’t sadistic,” clarified Stefan. “Bonarata inspires loyalty by using various methods, and some of them are damaging.”
Marsilia opened her mouth, glanced down at Wulfe, then closed it again.
“Especially to those of us who loved him,” said Stefan insistently.
Darryl looked at Adam for permission and got it. He said, “Not that we don’t appreciate learning more about our enemy. But what we need to know is how are we to get Mercy back? Where did he take her? Why he took her matters only in that it will allow us to use that knowledge to get her back.”
As Darryl took the lead, Adam fought his wolf to a brutal standstill. He had to think. He had to think in order to see and plan the best way to help Mercy, to get her back. And in order to do that, his wolf spirit was going to have to . . . He had been trying to restrain the wolf, and it had put them at odds.
“I don’t know where he took her,” Marsilia answered Darryl. “He has homes in New York, Florida, and Arizona as well as South America. I don’t know why he took her—other than to catch our attention.”
We have to hunt, Adam whispered to the wild spirit who shared his body, the wild spirit he both despised and gloried in. We have to hunt, find Mercy, and destroy the one who took her from us. And teach them that Mercy is ours.
Inside him, the wolf paused, considering Adam’s argument. After a moment, the beast agreed.
Freed of that battle, though he remained wary, aware that the wolf was only biding his time, Adam turned to the more important situation. First, to make certain his allies would shoot his enemies before they would shoot him.
“Compared to Bonarata,” said Adam slowly, “Mercy matters not at all to you, Marsilia. So why did you approach us?”
She raised her chin. “I did not know it was one of yours he took at first. But even so, let us be honest, yes? Had he taken one of mine, I still would have come to you for help. I am myself a power in the vampire hierarchy. But when I was exiled . . . I quit trying. I existed, but for all intents and purposes, I did not direct my seethe other than to see to it that my people were safe and behaved themselves in such a manner as not to attract human attention. The result of my inattention is that outside of me and Wulfe, my seethe holds no individually powerful vampire. Wulfe . . .” She glanced down at the vampire, who, still sitting on the grass, had leaned his head against her knee. “I cannot in all fairness ask Wulfe to face Bonarata in person again.”
“She is kind,” murmured Wulfe. He smiled a hard, cruel smile directed at her. “But the reality is that she doesn’t know whom I serve, her or my scion who re-created me as he pleased for his own purposes before he sent me with her. To bring me under such a circumstance would be stupid.”
“Even so,” she said evenly. “My seethe is stronger than it has been in years. We have had some new-made vampires and some who have come here, drawn by your declaration. It is not only the fae who are tired of fighting. But there are only three Master Vampires—those of us who do not need to obey our maker or the Mistress of the seethe. I am the first. Stefan is the second. And Wulfe is third. I know Iacopo.”
“Jacob,” murmured Wulfe. “He goes mostly by Jacob now.”
“Jacob,” she said. “I don’t know why he took Mercy, or where he took her. But he will send us another e-mail or have a minion call and issue an invitation to come fetch our missing one. My strength is all in numbers right now, and he will not allow me to use that. I will need you and your wolves.”
“To get Mercy back,” Adam said.