The first one was the incident at Uncle Mike's, but she wasn't angry enough about it.
Which left me with the second--I'd hit her with that when it would do me more good.
"But," I told her, "if I accept the blame, I'd like to point out that I'm also the reason you are still standing here.
The Gray Lord healed you because she thought she owed me a favor." She sneered.
"I hope to God that someone does you that kind of favor someday.
It hurt .
.
.
It still hurts.
Some days I can't feel different body parts." I'd known about that, and it worried me though the fae had given her word that Mary Jo would be back to normal.
I expect that she'd left out the word "eventually" because Mary Jo's suffering didn't really matter to the fae.
"Next time, I'll tell her not to bother bringing 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.