Still, the other vampire had hit pretty high on my coyote's "get me out of here" scale.
There had been something in his face ...
"Makes me glad I'm a werewolf," said Darryl.
"All I have to worry about is when Warren will lose his self-control and challenge me." "Warren's self-control is very good," said Adam.
"I wouldn't wait dinner on his losing it." "Better Warren as second than a coyote in the pack," said Aurielle tightly.
The atmosphere in the car changed.
Adam's voice was soft, "Do you think so?" "`Rielle," Darryl warned.
"I think so." Her voice brooked no argument.
She was a high school teacher, Darryl's mate, which made her ...
not precisely third in the pack--that was Warren.
But second and a half, just below Darryl.
If she had been a man, I didn't think she would have ranked much lower.
"Unlike vampires, wolves tend to be straightforward critters," I murmured, trying not to feel hurt.
Rejection, for a coyote raised by wolves, was nothing new.
I'd spent most of my adulthood running from it.
I wouldn't have thought that exhaustion and hurt was a recipe for epiphany, but there it was.
I'd left my mother and Portland before she could tell me to go.
I'd lived alone, stood on my own two feet, because I didn't want to learn to lean on anyone else.
I'd seen my resistance to Adam as a fight for survival, for the right to control my own actions instead of a life spent following orders ...
because I wanted to obey.
The duty that Stefan clung to with awful stubbornness was the life I'd rejected.
What I hadn't seen was that I had been unwilling to put myself in a place where I could be rejected again.
My mother had given me to Bran when I was a baby.
A gift he returned when I became ...
inconvenient.
At sixteen, I'd moved back in with my mother, who was married to a man I'd never met and had two daughters who hadn't known of my existence until Bran had called my mother to tell her he was sending me home.
They had been all that was loving and gracious--but I was a hard person to lie to.
"Mercy?" "Just a minute," I told Adam, "I'm in the middle of a revelation." No wonder I hadn't just rolled over at Adam's feet like any sensible person would when courted by a sexy, lovable, reliable man who loved me.
If Adam ever rejected me ...
I felt a low growl rise in my throat.