“I thought she just dyed your hair blue when you weren’t looking, or put stuff in your coffee that made you pee green,” Zack said. “I didn’t think she yelled at people.”
“She yells at me,” Adam told them.
“Probably because you wouldn’t care if she dyed your hair blue,” Kyle answered. “She gets mad when she’s scared. What’s scaring her?”
Adam got into the SUV eventually without answering that question because he didn’t know the answer to it yet. He gave me an opportunity to say something, but when I didn’t, he started the engine and we headed home.
“Bran taught me how to use the pack bonds to break the ties that vampires use on their prey,” he said into the silence. “That’s how I knew what to do for Warren. I asked about you and Stefan, but Bran said a consensual bond was a different matter.”
I nodded. My newfound and unwelcome understanding of the way the bonds worked with souls allowed me to visualize the problem. Consensual bonds were like two-ply rope instead of string. Just like I understood how blood made those ties possible and stronger.
I knew all of that because the connection between the Soul Taker and me was stronger now that it had tasted my blood. The cut along my shoulder blades burned. I was pretty sure it was just a normal cut, but the significance of feeding my blood to the Soul Taker made it feel as if it was the worst damage I’d taken in that fight. Maybe it was.
I wanted to run, but I was trapped in the SUV, bouncing the heel of one foot. The problem was that right now there was nowhere to run from or run to, but my adrenaline-infused body didn’t know that.
“Bran says if it becomes a problem, killing Stefan is the easiest way to break it,” Adam said. “I could do that.”
I wasn’t as sure of that as Adam sounded, but I nodded again. I knew Adam wouldn’t kill Stefan without a good reason—I wasn’t going to get upset with Adam for suggesting it, because I was pretty sure he wanted me to react. It was kind of him to try to distract me, but manipulation was a bit much. Maybe I should dye his hair blue. I rubbed my eyes because I didn’t want to cry. That would send the wrong message.
“Mercy?” Adam asked, his voice low.
“I’m thinking,” I told him. “Let me get it straight in my head first.”
He nodded, “Can do, darlin’.”
After a while I asked, “Did you take Warren home and send the rest with Honey to keep me away from Zee?”
“Yes,” he said. “If I had taken you straight to the garage and he asked you about the Soul Taker, what would you have done?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure of the answer. “What could I have told him that he doesn’t already know?”
“That you’d call him in when you found out where it is,” Adam said. “I thought you should have some time before you deliver a powerful, ancient, and cursed artifact into a powerful, ancient, iron-kissed fae’s hands. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do just that—but we should only do it after due consideration.”
I didn’t say anything to that, either. He wasn’t wrong.
“Did you blow up at Kyle because you are scared of the Soul Taker?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And Wulfe.”
Adam didn’t respond because he knew I wasn’t telling him all of it.
“I’m scared of what will happen if Zee has the Soul Taker,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I’d been all that worried until Adam had made sure I didn’t see him until I had time to think it over.
I’d known Zee for ten years. I loved him as if he were my family. He’d saved my life more than once. But I agreed with Tad when he worried about Zee’s interactions with Izzy. Adam was not wrong that we should be wary of Zee’s interest in the Soul Taker. I thought about that bead of sweat on my old friend’s face as he spoke of the artifact. I couldn’t think of anything I lusted after enough to make me sweat—except for Adam. I understood the way the Soul Taker worked on the people around it—not just its wielder. Zee and the Soul Taker sounded, now that I really thought about it, like a very bad idea. I just wasn’t sure we were going to have a choice in the matter.
“And?” Adam asked. “You’re scared of something else, because none of that is anything that would make you yell at Kyle.”
Me. I thought. I’m scared of me.
“Vampires have souls,” I said abruptly. It was not the change of subject that Adam probably thought it was.
I could feel him looking at me, but I kept my face turned away. “Old souls are—not bigger, exactly, than newer, younger souls. They just have more twists and turns.”
“Did you have a philosophical discussion with the Soul Taker while you were fighting?” Adam asked dryly.
“Wulfe was always screwed up,” I said, picking at the fabric of my jeans. “Some sort of experiment, maybe.” I had a fleeting impression of vague faces that told me not much. Had they been his parents? They didn’t feel parental. “He was a pet, maybe,” I heard myself say. This wasn’t the important part. I sorted through what was important and got back on track.
“Witch and wizard and mage and vampire and something fae that’s mostly gone now.” It had been a wisp I could sense but not put my finger on. “Riding all of those magics was a balancing act, but he managed, mostly.” He’d killed his progenitors and wandered the world haphazardly for longer than I’d realized. He might be as old as or older than Bran. “He found Marsilia first, then Stefan, and finally Bonarata. They took care of him. He knew so much, understood so much, and was so lost. Bonarata persuaded Wulfe to turn him. Wulfe was old even then, but Bonarata was his first—the first vampire he made.”