He checked his bond, and Mercy was still there. He could breathe again without his chest hurting. The URGENT didn’t go away—it just became more manageable.
So he could breathe, but worry still hung on. A host of possibly urgent things popped into his mind. Maybe something had happened to the children. And when had Aiden become one of his children? Aiden, who was older than . . . well, probably older than Bran for all that he looked like he belonged in elementary school.
Speaking of Aiden, maybe he’d finally succeeded in burning the house down. It was bound to happen one of these days.
Change with speed, then, he decided. It hurt more when he forced it—especially without the pack to draw upon. Honey whined, and he realized that he was automatically pulling energy from her. He stopped that, and his change slowed. Growling, he redoubled his efforts, and in something under ten minutes by his phone’s reckoning, he was in human form: naked, covered in sweat, shivering from pain and shock that made the warmish room feel chilly, but human.
He picked up the phone without bothering to dress and called Ben. “Yes?”
“Hey,” Ben said cheerfully. “We are sodding and shagging in honey, Adam. Mercy stole an e-book reader from the Dark Ages and used it to contact me via Gmail. She’s in the Czech Republic. I think they call it Czechia for short now. Prague.”
And it took a moment for Adam to breathe again, but when he did, the air was sweet. He collected himself, aware of Ben waiting patiently on the other side of the phone connection.
“Prague?” He did a quick check of his mental map of Europe and blinked. “That’s what, five hundred miles from here?” That was some bus ride, Mercy. No wonder his bond was so weak. Without the pack, he was surprised he could touch her at all.
“About that,” agreed Ben blandly. “I contacted Charles, and he told me to put her in touch with Libor of the Vltava Pack. I haven’t heard back from her, but the e-reader was out of juice, and she apparently didn’t steal the charger when she took the reader.”
Prague. Adam took a deep breath. He’d have to wait for Marsilia and Stefan to wake up; he couldn’t abandon them in Bonarata’s care. He took another breath and tried to subdue the wolf, who wanted to go right-the-hell-yesterday.
“She’s okay?” he asked.
“She’s okay,” Ben assured him. “I told her you were hot on her ass to Europe. She’ll hunker down with Libor for a couple of days.”
Adam pinched his nose—a habit he’d gotten from watching Bran do it one too many times. “Tell me about Libor.”
“Alpha of the Vltava Pack. Been around since the Middle fucking Ages. Apparently a baker—of all the sodding things for a fearsome Alpha to be. We are all glad we don’t have to tell people our Alpha is a motherhumping baker.”
Adam made an encouraging sound and waited for Ben to quit distracting himself. As the other wolf got back to matters at hand, Adam filtered out the expletives that were Ben’s attempt to shrug off an upper-crust but hellish upbringing—Adam was able to assume from Ben’s casual attitude that various people weren’t really pedophiles nor did they do interesting and unlikely things with animals and/or machinery. When Ben was finished, he left Adam with something worth worrying about.
“Libor has a legendary grudge against Bran,” Adam said slowly. “Charles doesn’t know what it was about. Did you try Samuel?” Surely one of the two would have the story.
“Sorry,” Ben said regretfully. “I did try. Since it was I sending Mercy into the mouth of the monster, I decided I was on the need-to-know list. Took an act of God to get in touch. Samuel doesn’t know. Charles says he doesn’t know what it was. All he has is a couple of comments Bran made once upon a time—and Bran won’t say anything more. Apparently there was an oath involved, and you know how Bran is about that.”
Adam cursed under his breath.
“How many years in the army, and that’s all you’ve got?” Ben said. “I thought the army guys really know how to swear.”
Despite everything, Adam grinned at the phone. “We didn’t swear in my day,” he lied. “We just killed people.”
“There is that,” said Ben. “What can I do? Samuel says he can head to Prague, but it will take him a couple of days to get there. Apparently he’s in Africa.”
“I thought he and Ariana were in the UK?” Adam said.
“He said he was doing a favor for an old friend,” Ben said. “Medical, I think, and not werewolf or fae business. They’re not in a civilized area, and it will take a day to hike out.”
Adam thought about that. “Tell Samuel no. It sounds like the crisis is mostly over. Does Charles have a way for me to contact Libor?” Trouble between the Prague Alpha and Bran or not, the vampires were a real threat. Though he, like Larry, thought he’d convinced Bonarata that killing Mercy would be a mistake. Still, he’d be happier to put Mercy with allies just in case.
“I can get that,” Ben promised. “I’ll text it to you in the next fifteen minutes. That work?”
“That works,” he said.
He ended the call and paced restlessly, waiting for Ben’s text message. Eventually, he put clothes on.
As soon as Ben sent over the information, Adam called the Alpha of the Vltava Pack, the Alpha of Prague. It took a few minutes to get Libor on the phone, which was only to be expected. Adam happened to pace by a mirror as he was waiting and stopped when he noticed that his eyes were bright gold.
It would be a mistake to let his wolf do the negotiations with another Alpha. He practiced the breathing exercises he’d learned to help his control. By the time Libor came to the phone, he was under control.
It took a while to negotiate a language to speak in. Libor pretended not to speak English because English was Adam’s native tongue. They both spoke Russian, but Libor still held a grudge against the Russians. German was out of the question for the same reason—for which Adam was grateful because his German wasn’t good enough for delicate negotiations.
Finally, Adam said, in English, “Look. I’m an American; you’re lucky I have two languages I’m fluent in. We can do this in English or Russian, or I can find a translator. That will complicate things worse than they already are, especially since, where I am, the most likely translator I can find will be a vampire.” He could do basic Vietnamese and Mandarin, but he bet that neither of those were in Libor’s repertoire. And Adam hadn’t used either language in several decades.
“Russian,” conceded Libor without pause. He’d probably already come to the same conclusion Adam had voiced, but he’d waited for Adam to point out his inadequacies.
That was fair, because it was Adam who was going to ask for a favor.
Ben had said that Libor was a man of his word, but he was as slippery as a Gray Lord. Adam preferred to work with straightforward people, even if they were enemies, instead of subtle, slippery allies. But that wasn’t his choice to make at this point. Bonarata and Mercy between them had brought him to this pass.
That didn’t mean Adam needed to follow Libor’s game. Instead of working up to what he wanted, he just said, “My mate is in Prague by herself on the run from Bonarata, with whom I am currently in negotiations. She needs a safe place to await help. I should be able to be there—”
An hour, said the wolf. Probably two. We could fly to her in a couple of hours.
Adam closed his eyes and forced himself to remember that two of his people were currently vulnerable until nightfall. That he was in negotiations with Bonarata, which were not going to benefit from a hasty departure. Those negotiations were necessary to keep his family and his people safe. Bonarata and Adam still hadn’t come to any kind of agreement about the situation, whatever it really was, that had made Bonarata decide to take a shot over the bow at Mercy.
He wasn’t going to see Mercy today. Not today.
“Early tomorrow morning at the latest,” he said.
“You lost your mate?” said Libor in an amused voice.