"Not him," Wulfe said. "He told me you would never forgive him if he did. It was a clean death, they weren't frightened--but they had to die. They couldn't be allowed to run free crying, `vampire.' And we need culprits to give to the Mistress." He smiled at me and I took a step closer to Stefan. "I came to find the house on fire," he said, "and two humans, Andre's current menagerie, outside of his house. I always told Andre that the way he kept his sheep would be the death of him someday." He laughed.
"Come on," Stefan said. "If we get you out of here in the next ten minutes or so, no one will know you were ever here."
I let him urge me away from Wulfe, still not looking at him.
"You knew I was hunting Andre."
"I knew. There was nothing else you would have done, being you."
"She'll question you with the chair," I said. "She'll know I did this."
"She won't question me because I've been locked up in the cells under the seethe for the past week because of my `unfortunate attitude' about the Mistress's plans to create another monster. No one can escape from the cells because Wulfe's magic ensures what is locked there stays locked there."
"What if she questions Wulfe?"
"The chair is Wulfe's creation," said Stefan, opening my door. "He'll tell her that no vampire, werewolf, or walker is responsible for Andre's death and the chair will verify it--because Andre caused his own death."
I looked up at him then, because I couldn't help it. He looked just as he always did, except for a pair of impenetrable black sunglasses that hid his eyes.
He leaned over and kissed me full on the mouth, a quick gentle kiss that told me I hadn't imagined the passionate words he'd murmured as I'd drunk his blood the night I'd killed Littleton. I'd really hoped they had been my imagination.
"I gave you my word of honor you would not take harm," he said. "I was not able to redeem my word completely, but at least you will not suffer to lose your life because I chose to involve you in this." He smiled at me. "Don't fret, Little Wolf," he said, and shut the door.
I started the car and zipped out of Andre's driveway, running from Stefan more than Marsilia's wrath.
Andre's house burned to the ground before the fire department could get to it. The reporter interviewed the fire marshall as rain pounded down. The rain, the fire marshall said, kept the fire from spreading to the dry grass. They'd found two bodies inside the house. The owners of the house had been contacted, they were spending the summer at their cabin in Coeur d'Alene. The bodies probably belonged to vagrants who had discovered the house was empty.
I was watching the special report on the ten o'clock news when someone pounded on my door.
"If you put dents in it," I said, knowing Adam could hear me, despite the closed door, "I'll make you replace it."
I turned off the TV and opened the door.
"I have chocolate chip cookies," I told him. "Or brownies, but they're still pretty hot to eat." He was shaking with rage, his eyes brilliant yellow wolf's eyes. His cheeks had white marks from the force he was using to clench his jaws.
I took another bite out of my cookie.
"Where have you been?" he asked in a softly menacing voice. The weight of his power enveloped me and compelled me to answer.
So much for his promise not to exert undue influence.
Fortunately, having been terrified and traumatized well beyond my limits, there was nothing left to answer the Alpha's demand. I finished my cookie, licked the warm chocolate off my fingers and waved him inside.
He caught my hand and pulled back my sleeve. I'd doctored myself out of Samuel's first aid kit, which was much better stocked than mine. I'd cleaned the wound Andre had left in my wrist with hydrogen peroxide--I owed Samuel a new bottle. In a fresh, clean bandage the wound didn't look as bad. It felt as though he'd all but chewed my arm off.
"Ben said you found Andre," Adam told me while he looked at my wrist. A muscle vibrated in his cheek. "He was waiting for me in human form. But you didn't tell him where you found him so we went out hunting, Ben and I--until Jesse called to tell me your car was back."
"Andre is gone," I told him. "He won't be coming back."
He held my wrist in one hand and cupped my face in the other, his thumb resting just over the pulse in my throat. "If I killed you, it would at least be quick and clean. The Mistress will take a lot more time if she gets her hands on you."
"Why would she?" I said softly. "Two of Andre's flock burned down the house while he was asleep."
"She'll never believe it," he told me. "Stefan thinks she will."
He stared at me until I dropped my eyes. Then he pulled me against him and just held me.
I didn't tell him I was still scared--because he knew. I didn't tell him that I'd thrown up four times since I'd gotten home. I didn't tell him that I'd had to turn on every light in the house, that I couldn't get the faces of the two poor souls the Wizard had killed because Stefan wanted to protect me out of my head. I didn't tell him that I kept thinking about how the stake felt as it slid through flesh, or that I was never going to sleep again. I didn't tell him that Stefan had kissed me--Stefan who had killed two people to save me. He'd been right that I wouldn't have forgiven him for doing it--he just hadn't realized that I still held him responsible no matter who had done it. Wulfe didn't care whether I lived or died. If he was at Andre's house, it was some kind of favor exchange with Stefan.