Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs Page A

prisoner,” I said, more worried about Adam, who was in our mini-clinic getting checked out, than whether or not our guest liked his accommodations. “This is the last private room in the house. If you’d rather, you can sleep in the rec room, which is set up as a bunk room, too. But I’ll warn you that there are a number of pack who view those rooms as public property.”
    â€œNo,” he said after a moment, as if he was trying to figure out how to react. “This is fine. I was just warning you.”
    â€œYou gave your word,” I said. “And we gave ours.”
    â€œYes,” he agreed. Then he relaxed, as if we’d stepped back into something he knew. “So we did. Twenty-four hours.” He gave me an enigmatic smile that did not belong on the face of a child.
    The safe room was next door to the clinic. We both heard the crack of breaking bones. I froze, my stomach clenched. Adam’s control was back in place because I had felt nothing through our link.
    Aiden jumped like a startled cat and showed the whites of his eyes.
    â€œOur Alpha’s shoulder healed wrong,” I told him, feeling sick. “They had to rebreak it.”
    We both listened to the silence. “Tough man,” he said, finally.
    â€œOh, yes,” I agreed. “If you’ll excuse me?”
    â€œOf course.”
    But Warren stopped me as I headed to the clinic. Before I could say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” I found myself choppingvegetables while Warren and his very-human partner, Kyle, barbecued hamburgers outside. We were setting up a barbecue dinner because, evidently, in between sadistic-but-necessary medical procedures, Adam had called for a meeting of the pack.
    â€”
    In the front of the meeting room, the only spot of the room clear of chairs, Adam settled one hip on the library table that usually held whatever notes he’d brought with him. Tonight there weren’t any notes. If we were going to talk about Aiden and my offer of sanctuary to anyone who came to us for help, I guess he wouldn’t need notes, would he? My stomach was clenched. I was causing trouble for him again.
    Medea hopped on the table and stropped her stub-tailed body against Adam, claiming him in front of the room of werewolves. He rubbed her under her chin absently, his attention elsewhere.
    The meeting room was upstairs, adjacent to the family bedrooms. I’d asked Adam why he hadn’t put it downstairs with the rest of the public rooms.
    â€œA pack needs to be family,” he’d said simply. “If I don’t welcome them into my life, into my home, there will always be a distance between us. They need to trust me, to trust that I will take care of them—how can they do that if I treat them like business associates?”
    The meeting room was packed with chairs, the kind you see in a high school band room or at a hotel banquet. More or less comfortable to sit in and strong enough to hold a heavy person, but stackable so we could get them out of the way if we needed to.
    Adam glanced at his watch, so I knew he was waiting for a few latecomers. He looked almost normal except for the grim tint to his mouth that I blamed on his shoulder. He moved both armsfreely, but I knew it must still hurt. As Alpha, he could draw upon the whole pack for power, so he healed faster than any of the rest of the werewolves. But he’d been hurt pretty badly.
    I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him, though. If I were a paranoid person, I’d have said he had been avoiding me. I worried that he resented me for making him have this meeting.
    Next time I felt the urge to make pronouncements, I’d set down the stupid walking stick before I opened my mouth. I wasn’t sure, even now, that it had been the walking stick’s fault. I wasn’t certain I’d been wrong—but I did know I’d been overly theatric.
    Beside me, Warren patted my leg. Warren, bless