Asil stopped where he was. "Very well. Let's release your wolf from his predicament before we say those things that cannot be said in front of the government man." He looked at me and pointed back at the door. "Go stand in the hall so we avoid the situation where he is torn between what his instincts say and his need to protect you."
It sounded okay, so I did it, standing in the doorway so I could keep my eyes on them. That left Ben and about ten feet between me and Asil. Had he meant me any harm, the distance wasn't enough, but because he did not, it was enough to assuage Ben's need to see me safe.
Asil put his hand on Ben's nose and pushed down until the red werewolf's head was all the way on the floor. Ben gave a half groan, half growl.
"I pledge to you," Asil said, meeting Ben's eyes, "that I mean you and yours no harm. I recognize that you belong to Adam Hauptman, and I have no need for you to belong to me. I am an ally while Adam cannot be here, standing in for the Marrok, who has sent me to serve in his stead as lord over all the wolves as we are all his vassals. Do you accept me as such?"
Ben pulled his nose out from under Asil's hand and stood up without crouching for the first time since he'd laid eyes on the other wolf. His tail and ears were up for a moment until he deliberately ducked his head and dropped his tail to a more neutral position.
Asil smiled at him. "Good. We understand each other. Now Mercedes Thompson de Hauptman, I need you to tell me exactly what has happened and what you know. Quickly, please, we haven't much time."
So I told him everything I knew.
When I was done, he got up off the bed where he'd been sitting and looked at the metal on the floor again. It had lost its bright color while we were talking, and now had a faint patina of black.
"How is your stomach feeling now?" he asked after a moment.
"Raw," I admitted. "But it's been that way since I wrecked my car and Adam and our pack were taken. I have no idea if it is from the silver or not."
Asil crouched on his heels in silence of thought, and I considered reminding him that he'd been in a hurry. At last he said, "You are certain that Peter is the only fatality?"
"So far," I said.
"I find that very interesting in light of the murders of your attackers." His eyes were bright and merry as he looked at me. Apparently, murders were good fun. "The one who killed the hired men would not bother keeping all of the pack alive. Such a man would say, 'One werewolf is enough to keep Adam on the hook, and this many hostages are expensive and dangerous to keep.' Which would be right. They were bloody stupid to take down a whole pack - any commander who ever had charge of a host of enemy soldiers would have been happy to explain it to them." He lost himself for a moment, presumably in happy contemplation of the troubles our enemies had gotten themselves into.
"Two different people?" I said.
Asil nodded. "So it seems to me. Moreover, a man who knew to hire these men, a man they would work for, would not have killed these mercenaries out of fear of what they know. These are very well-trained, sought-after mercenaries often hired by governments friendly to the US, Charles tells me. The kind of men who stay bought and don't take kindly to being betrayed."
"The Cantrip agents had the contacts but not the money to hire them," I said slowly. "Federal agents are well paid - but not that well paid."
"Can you contact Adam right now?"
"I can try."
"Please do so. We need to let him know what we know - and see if there is any new information he can offer us about his location or the people who have taken him."
I sat down on the floor and closed my eyes - reached down the rough golden rope that tied my mate and I together and - "Ow, ow, ow," I said, my eyes watering. "Owie, owie, owie. Damn. Damn."
Asil looked from me to the silver on the floor. "That will teach you not to use your bonds for things they were never intended," he told me. "Especially not silver. Werewolves and silver do not mix."
"Shut up," I said fiercely and very quietly because the sound of his voice sent sharp, arcing lightning rods of pain from my eyes all the way through my skull.
"That is quite a lot of silver," he observed. Then, sounding intrigued, he said, "And it is pure silver, though the substance that the tranquilizer dart uses is silver nitrate - which is a white powder."
Asil got up and moved around. Ben came close - I could smell him - but he didn't get close enough to touch. Werewolves are different when they are in their wolf shape, less human and less caught up in human manners. It would be wrong. But wolves are gregarious, far more so than humans or coyotes, for that matter. Normally, Ben would be pressing against me if I was in distress. Asil must still have been worrying him.
When my head quit feeling quite so breakable, I looked up - and Asil handed me a glass of water from the bathroom. I drank the whole thing and felt better.
"Don't worry," he told me when I handed him the empty glass. "I expect the effect is temporary. It'll probably go away once the silver is out of your system entirely." He touched my lips, a light, quick touch that didn't allow me time to react.
He showed me his fingertips - which were red, as if he'd put his fingers in a flame. I touched my lips, too, remembering how black they were.
"They used to use colloidal silver in nose drops for people with asthma or bad allergies," he told me. "People who used them regularly sometimes had their skin turn blue - there is a man who ran for the Montana Senate who is blue-skinned. I thought your lips were from lipstick - though you are a little older than most of the young ladies wearing black makeup."
I stared at him in horror. "It won't go away," I told him. "I'm not a werewolf, my body won't reject silver the same way yours does." Gabriel's little sister, Rosa, had done a report in school about a girl whose skin had turned gray when she was a teenager back in the fifties and nothing anyone had tried had made any improvement. I'd proofread it for her.
I scrambled to my feet and went into the bathroom to look at the mirror again. I took a washcloth and scrubbed at my lips, but they stayed black.