bruises made it more difficult than normal.
It landed on the floor halfway between us.
But as I stared at it in dismay, it rolled back toward me, not stopping until it was against the cage bars.
The third time I threw it, the oakman caught it out of the air.
"Ah, Lugh, you did such fine work," he crooned, petting the thing.
He rested a cheek against it.
"It follows you because it owes you service, Mercy." He smiled, awakening lines and wrinkles in the dark-wood- colored face and brightening his black eyes to purple.
"And because it likes you." I started to say something to him, but a surge of magic interrupted me.
The oakman's smile drained away.
"Brownie magic," he told me.
"He seeks to lock the other vampire out.
The brownie was His before me, and she found her release just this past spring.
His use of her power is still nearly complete." He looked over at Corban.
"The magic he works will leave him hungry." I had one thing I could do--and it meant abandoning my word to Stefan.
But I couldn't let Blackwood kill Corban without making any attempt to defend him.
I stripped out of my clothes and shifted.
The bars in my cage were set close together.
But, I hoped, not too close.
Coyotes are narrow side to side.
Very narrow.
Anything I can get my head through, I can get everything else through, too.
When I stood on the other side of my cage, I shook my fur straight and watched the door open.
Blackwood wasn't watching for me, he was looking at Corban.
So I got in the first strike.
Speed is the one physical power I have.
I'm as fast as most werewolves--and from what I've seen, most vampires, too.
I should have been weakened and a little slow because of the damage Blackwood had dealt me--and the lack of real food and because I'd been feeding the vampire.
Except that exchanging blood with a vampire can have other effects.
I'd forgotten that.
It made me strong.