“A bus,” murmured Marsilia. “At least she never hit one of mine with a bus. I wonder if it was a mark of respect—or the opposite. It doesn’t do to underestimate Mercedes, Jacob, something that I had to learn, too. Did she give you the spiel she likes to bring out now and again about how she’s mostly no more powerful than the average human? It is a most effective speech, because I think she actually believes it.”

Bonarata frowned at Marsilia. “She is weak,” he said. “She is easily broken, easily killed.” He frowned at Adam. “You cannot afford a weak mate if you seek out power. A plaything can be weak, because such a one is disposable. But a mate must be an asset.”

Mercy, weak? Adam thought. “And yet,” he said coolly, “Mercy is not here. And the werewolf you sent after her is still recovering.”

“I have news for you, Jacob.” Marsilia placed a little more emphasis than necessary on the vampire’s name. “There have been a lot of people, monsters, and other things who have tried to kill Mercedes Thompson Hauptman, and most of them died in the attempt. She is not helpless, nor is she weak.”

“I didn’t try to kill her,” said Bonarata.

Adam stared at the vampire, hearing the lie clearly. Did the vampire not know he could hear the lie? Adam couldn’t trust himself to speak.

“I never said you did,” Marsilia said diplomatically. “Nor have I. But I have seen her at work. Your wolf is lucky it was only a bus.”

“Do you know where she is?” asked Adam. “I trust you have been looking.”

On the plane, Marsilia had told Adam that Bonarata would not rest until he found Mercy. She had made him look incompetent, and his ego would not allow him to let her escape without consequences.

Bonarata spread his hands, sighed, and said, “I have my people looking for her. It appears that she has left Italy entirely, probably by bus. We tracked her to a bus stop in Austria, where she either traded buses or changed her mode of transportation. I have some information that makes it apparent that she has made her way to either Prague or Berlin or possibly Munich.”

“Who did you send after her?” asked Marsilia.

“You would not know them,” Bonarata told her. “But they are good hunters. They will find her and bring her back.”

Adam said slowly, “You were given misleading information that inspired you to take my wife. I think it is only fair to give you information that will keep you from making a bigger mistake.”

“Yes?” Bonarata said.

“Bran raised Mercy.”

“She was raised in his pack,” said Bonarata. “Foster parents, of which one was a wolf.” He smiled. “You are correct, I started with too little information. I have made up for it.”

“Very good,” Adam said. “You already know that if my wife dies, I will not rest until you are no longer walking the earth. You don’t fear that, though you should. But what you don’t know is that Bran feels the same—and only an idiot would not fear Bran.”

“Bran has cut his ties to your pack,” said Bonarata.

Adam nodded. “See? I thought you’d gotten the wrong information. That part is true enough. But that is politics—family is different. Bran could not love Mercy more if she were his own daughter. He’s funny about family. His own mother tried to hurt one of his children, and that tale is still told. You do know the story of Beowulf?”

And, from the vampire’s carefully blank face, he was fully aware of how Bran’s descent into madness, when his witchborn mother had tried to force Bran to hurt Samuel, Bran’s son, was tied to the myth of Beowulf.

“Bran is very practical,” Adam said. “He is a zealot whose cause is the survival of the werewolves. He will sacrifice almost anything to that cause. He believes that he would sacrifice either or both of his sons—and they believe it, too. But whenever that seems to be a necessity, somehow matters work out differently. And Bran is nowhere near as protective of his sons as he is of Mercy. You need to listen to me as I tell you the absolute truth.” He ate another piece of steak and resisted the need to meet the vampire’s gaze, because Mercy’s magic had rescued him once, and even for Mercy, that only worked some of the time. “If Mercy dies because of you, there is not a hole deep enough for you to hide from him.”

“If Bran behaves aggressively toward me without cause, he will force a war between the vampires and the werewolves,” Bonarata said.

“He won’t care,” Adam said, his voice sure and certain. Not all vampires could tell the difference between the truth and a lie when they heard it. But he was willing to bet that a vampire of Bonarata’s age could. “He might care afterward. He might care that you didn’t intend her death. But that will be afterward. Please don’t push him into it.”

8

Mercy

Running from vampires, again. Still. Go me!

I DIDN’T HAVE A WRISTWATCH, AND, SINCE IT WAS nighttime, there was no sun to help tell the time. It felt like we’d been riding the motorcycle less than an hour, but I had no way to be sure. We sped our way out of Prague proper and into a more rural area, where the road seemed to weave in and out of one tiny village after another.

We turned off the main road onto a blue-railed modern bridge that crossed a river and into the labyrinthian streets of yet another village. We drove past a castle—because it was the Czech Republic, and apparently castles were required by all the best villages.