“When we got to the moron who was sitting in the only path to the stairway, Adam caught my waist and lifted me over before stepping over the man himself.“Scott?” Adam said as we headed upstairs. “Yeah?”“Unless someone shoots you, skins you, and throws the results on the floor, I don’t want to see you lying in the walkway again.”“Yessir!”

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Adam asked as we went back upstairs.“Sometime,” I told him. “When we're telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you.”

“For Adam, screwed-up bonding thing or not, I’d wait forever.“Really?” he asked in a tone I’d never heard from him before. Softer. Vulnerable. Adam didn’t do vulnerable.“Really what?” I asked.“Despite the way our bond scares you, despite the way someone in the pack played you, you’d still have me?”He'd been listening to my thoughts. This time it didn't bother me.“Adam,” I told him, “I’d walk barefoot over hot coals for you.”

“I woke in the morning to the sound of Adam's stomach growling under my ear."Sorry," he said. "Too many changes and not enough food."I patted his hard belly and kissed it. "Poor thing," I told it. "Doesn't Adam treat you right? No worries, I'll go feed you."My head bounced when Adam laughed.”

“You okay now ?" he asked."Okay."He tightened his arms and lifted me off my feet. "Mercy?" he growled into my ear. I wrapped my legs around his waist. " Yeah" , I said. "Me too.”

“She gave Samuel a stern look. "Now, I don't know what's going on between you and my daughter and Adam Hauptman—”“Neither do we,” I muttered.Samuel grinned. “We have it pretty well worked out as far as the sex goes—Adam gets it—someday—and I don’t. But the rest is still up for negotiation.”“Samuel Cornick,” I sputtered in disbelief. “That is my mother.”

“Then again, maybe you couldn't have killed me," he said, crawling out of the stairway. He moved very slowly, like a lizard who had gotten too cold.I heard a whimper from behind one of the closed doors next to the bathroom, and sympathized. I wanted to whimper, too."I'm not hunting you," I told him firmly, though I stepped backward until I stood in a circle of light at the end of the hallway.He stopped halfway out of the stairway, his eyes were filmed over like a dead man's."Good," he said. "If you kill Andre, I won't tell-and no one will ask."And he was gone, withdrawing from the hallway and down the stairs so fast that I barely caught the motion, though I was staring right at him.I walked out of his home because if I'd moved any faster, I'd have run screaming.”