Before Sherwood could answer me, I met the eyes of the wolf who quite possibly would kill my mate tonight, and babbled another question off the top of my head—one that I blamed on my earlier internal sound bite from Richard III.
“Are you Shakespeare?”
Sherwood went still. Almost carefully, he turned his head toward the approaching waiter. I was pretty sure that it was to hide his expression from me.
Because there was only one reason for me to ask him that.
Adam had told me, in the aftermath of our shower this evening, that the pack bonds had informed him Sherwood’s memory was back. Sherwood’s reaction told me that he was right. Adam had no idea why it had happened, but that wasn’t the important thing just now. We had in our pack a wolf who was suddenly very, very dominant.
I’d been told that Adam was the fourth most dominant wolf in the New World. It went Bran, his two sons, then Adam. But Adam thought the new, improved version of Sherwood was more dominant than Adam was. That was a problem, especially under our current circumstances.
“Four glasses and a pitcher of water,” I told the waiter before he could ask us anything. “And when there are only four of us left here, could you close the door and give us privacy until we leave?”
“Right you are,” he said, with a nod and a touch of his finger to his forehead and a bare glance at Sherwood. This waiter was a new one to me and he looked human. He didn’t smell like it, though.
“I wonder why Uncle Mike gets along with the goblins better than most of the fae do?” I mused when the waiter had gone, giving Sherwood the opportunity to ignore my last question.
I didn’t really think he had been Shakespeare. But the pack had a betting pool about who Sherwood had been. When he’d found out about it, he’d bet that he was—or rather had been—William Shakespeare. I was pretty sure that had been a joke. Iambic pentameter was not something anyone would expect from Sherwood, who seldom spoke five syllables when one syllable would do.
“Don’t know,” Sherwood told me shortly.
I took my cue from him and quit talking. He leaned back in the chair, head canted to watch Adam talk to the last few lingering pack members.
Adam looked relaxed, the smile on his face genuine. Adam had been in a lot of battles. Unlike me, he tended not to fret about them in advance, not if it was “only” his life on the line. Next to Adam, Zack leaned casually against a wall as if he had tried to find a place where he might not be noticed. But no wolf would overlook a submissive. I saw him smile and nod at something one of the exiting wolves said.
“Do you think Zack is necessary to keep my temper under control?” asked Sherwood, his voice a rumble that carried right over the music.
The last few wolves were gathered around Adam, and I watched as they all turned to look at us. I doubt they’d been able to understand what Sherwood had said, but they probably hadn’t missed the ugly tone in his voice.
I saw some alarmed faces. Zack glanced over and away. Adam didn’t react in any way I could see. Honey frowned and started toward us, but Adam said something quietly enough that I couldn’t catch it. She aimed her frown at Sherwood.
Adam raised a brow at me, then hustled Honey and the last of the now obviously worried wolves out, following them through the door. Presumably he would reassure them—or tell them the truth. He’d do what he thought best. Zack glanced at Sherwood and me, hesitated, then trailed after Adam.
“Is Adam worried I’m unstable?” Sherwood persisted.
How to redirect an angry werewolf. I was experienced at this, having grown up in the Marrok’s pack of too-unstable-to-inflict-on-anyone-else werewolves. I just had to pick my weapon. Make him madder? Or make him think? One was certainly easier than the other, but I picked option two because it was less likely to end in disaster.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said evenly. “Why do you think I should answer yours?”
I smiled my thanks to the waiter, who’d brought a clear pitcher foggy with the condensation clinging to its cold sides and set it down in front of me. The waiter smiled back, displaying sharp yellow teeth as he cleared away my empty limeade glasses. He stayed as far away from Sherwood as he could.
“It is not like you to play games,” Sherwood said, after the waiter had left us via the door leading directly to the kitchen.
“Adam asked that I not start any serious discussion until we were alone,” I answered, pouring myself some water. And in case he didn’t know which question I was talking about, I continued, “I shouldn’t have asked about Shakespeare, but I couldn’t help myself. That betting pool has taken on a life of its own.”
He looked at me a moment. Then he heaved a sigh and said, “No, I’m not Shakespeare.”
“No,” I replied to his previous question. “We don’t think you need Zack to keep your temper under control.”
“Then why do you need him?” he asked.
“Because having a submissive wolf in the room makes conversations between two dominant wolves easier,” said my mate, striding through the doorway with Zack trailing behind him.
Adam offered the empty chair Ben had used to Zack in a way that reminded me, as Adam’s manners sometimes did, that he was a product of another time. There was something protective and gallant in the old-fashioned action. It didn’t have the air of a man pulling a chair out for a lady, but it wasn’t far off.
Once Zack was seated beside Sherwood, Adam brought another chair over to sit beside me. He was close enough that his leg pressed against mine. In no way, shape, or form did his touch make me safer, but I felt like it did.
A movement by the exit door caught my attention as Uncle Mike looked in.