Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

room? You didn’t think I did it myself, did you?”
    I nodded. “So she thought she’d get it all without cost to her or the seethe? If you’d killed me, she could have claimed you’d escaped while she was punishing you. Too bad you showed up in my house and killed me. But she underestimated you.”
    “She did not underestimate me,” said Stefan. “She knows me.” He gave me a look that let me know that my earlier dig about not knowing him had stung. “She just did not plan on you having the Alpha werewolf in your home to spoil her plans.”
    I’d been there—and I didn’t think he would have done it.
    Stefan sneered at me when he saw my face. “Don’t waste your time on romantic notions about me. I am vampire, and I would have killed you.”
    “He’s cute when he’s mad,” observed Warren dryly.
    Stefan turned his back on us both.
    “She’s all by herself, and she doesn’t even know it,” he said in soft anguish.
    He wasn’t talking about me.
    He’d been hurt a lot recently, and I thought he deserved a rest. So I turned to Warren, and asked, “Why aren’t you upstairs at the meeting?”
    Warren shrugged, his eyes veiled. “The boss will do better without me to rock the boat.”
    “Paul hates me more than he hates you,” I told him smugly.
    He threw his head back and laughed—which is what I’d intended. “Wanna bet? I kicked his ass from here to Seattle and back. He’s not happy with me.”
    “You’re a wolf. I’m a coyote—there’s no comparison.”
    “Hey,” said Warren in mock offense. “You’re no threat to his masculinity.”
    “I’m polluting the pack,” I told him. “You’re just an aberration.”
    “That’s because you called him a ... Stefan?”
    I looked around, but the vampire was gone. I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask him about the crossed bones on my door.
    “Shee-it,” exclaimed Warren. “Shee-it.”
     
     
     
    “DID YOU CALL BRAN?” I ASKED ADAM THE NEXT EVENING , tugging down the short skirt of my favorite green-blue dress until it was as good a barrier between Adam’s SUV’s leather seats and my naked skin as it was going to be.
    He hadn’t told me where we were going on our date, but Jesse had called me as soon as he left and described what he was wearing—so I knew I’d need the big guns. Though we share a back fence, the distance by car is significantly longer, and I’d had time to skim into the correct dress before he pulled up at my door.
    Adam does suits. He wears suits to work, to pack meetings, to political meetings. Since his hours are about the same as mine, that means six days a week. Still there was a difference between his usual work suits and the one he was wearing tonight. The first were made to announce that this was the man in charge. This one said, “And he’s sexy, too.” And he was.
    “There’s no need to call Bran,” he told me irritably as he swung the big vehicle onto the highway. “Half the pack probably called Bran as soon as they got home. He’ll call me when he’s ready.”
    He was probably right. I hadn’t asked, but his grim face when Warren and I emerged from the basement last night—after everyone had left except for Samuel—had told its own story.
    Samuel had kissed me on the lips to irritate Adam and ruffled my hair, “There you are, Little Wolf. Still naturally talented at causing trouble, I see.”
    That was unfair. It had been Stefan and Adam who’d caused this. I informed Samuel of that, but only after he’d escorted me back home.
    Adam called me once, earlier in the afternoon, to make sure I remembered he was taking me out. I’d promptly called Jesse with orders to let me know what her father was wearing. I owed her five bucks, but it was worth it to see Adam smiling when I hopped into his SUV.
    But my mouth had soon taken care of that. His Explorer still had a heck of a dent on the fender from where one of the wolves had hit it—after being thrown by an angry fae. My fault. So I’d asked