you back," I promised. I tapped my foot and wondered how far I really wanted to push this. Some of it depended upon what role I wanted to take in the pack. Just then I was channeling my inner Bran, using the techniques I'd grown up watching the Marrok use, techniques that came so easily to me it made me a little uncomfortable - I don't see myself as a manipulative person. For the moment, though, I set that aside and considered the case at hand.
"Figure out the results you want and do what you can to get them" was one of Bran's favorite sayings. Well, then, exactly what results did I want?
Part of that really depended upon how much of her recent activities were directed at me and how much at Adam. I found that I could excuse her actions against me, but I was less inclined to be forgiving about Adam.
I remembered that look she'd given me when I was sitting on the floor of the hospital with Adam changing in my lap - Adam, who'd damn near burned to death trying to rescue me because she hadn't told him I was safe. The look that said she'd have been happier with him dead than with him on my lap.
Had that been a momentary thing, or had her anger that Adam was mine become a force driving her past the point of no return?
"Mary Jo," I said pleasantly, "you and I know all of that is garbage. It is all true, or mostly, but it isn't why you are so angry with me."
Her chin jerked up.
"Adam is mine," I told her. "And you can't handle it. Does it bother you that I'm a coyote? That we have sort of an extreme case of an interracial - in our case maybe even cross-species - mating? Darryl is African and Chinese, and Auriele is Hispanic, and they don't seem to bother you." It wasn't that I was a coyote shifter that bothered her. I knew it. I just wondered if she knew it. It did bother some of the pack; maybe Auriele and Darryl bothered some of them, too. If so, those pack members were smart enough to keep it to themselves.
Mary Jo tightened her lips but didn't say anything.
"How long have you wanted him?" I asked her. "You had all these years since Jesse's mother left."
Bran's methods sucked. I watched her eyes darken with pain and wanted to kick myself. But she'd been at least partially responsible for Adam's wounds. And I agreed with Warren about fire after watching Samuel scrub dead flesh from live. Mary Jo had been stupid. I was betting she hadn't hurt Adam on purpose, but I had to know.
I observed the anger that followed pain rise in her face and just watched her.
"You are nothing," she spit. "I'm nothing, too. That's how I know. Adam deserves the best. A wolf strong and beautiful, a woman who is - "
"More?" I suggested. "Smart, well-bred?"
"Not a half-breed coyote," she snapped. Her wolf was in her eyes, and her voice was raw. "Not a stupid mechanic or a freaking fireman. There isn't even a proper word for what I am. Fireman. He needs someone soft, someone feminine."
"He deserves so much," I said slowly. I had her, even though it made me sick. Coyotes aren't cats; we don't play with our prey. "I think he deserves a pack who has his back."
"I have his back," she said. I couldn't see her hands. Through all this she'd held to parade rest, and her hands were hidden behind her back. From the flex of her biceps I would bet that they were clenched in fists, and her voice wasn't as hard and certain as she meant it to be. But her words told me what I'd been watching for, told me that she hadn't wanted him dead. That made the rest of this both harder and easier. Harder because she was going to be hurting even more before this was over - easier because she would survive it.
"You have his back, do you?" I kept my voice soft, my body relaxed. "Funny, I could have sworn that you just set him up to be killed."
"I got him out," she said. "I ran in after him with Darryl and pulled him out."
"Not soon enough, Mary Jo," I said. "He could have easily died in there." I had to take a breath so I could maintain my relaxed posture. He could have