I set the phone down and glared at it. "Fine. I'll just deal with her."
* * *
When I got home from work the next day, I grimly put on my gi and called him again. "You win," I said.
"I'll meet you in my garage." To his credit, he didn't sound smug-proof that Adam is a man of tremendous self-control.
As I trudged across my back field, I told myself it was stupid to be so worried about talking to him. He was hardly likely to jump my bones without permission. All I had to do is keep this on a business setting.
I found Adam practicing high kicks on a sandbag in the dojo he'd made out of half of his garage, complete with a wall of mirrors, padded floor, and air-conditioning. His kicks were picture perfect-mine would be too if I'd been practicing them for thirty or forty years. Maybe.
He finished his reps, then came up to me and touched the side of my face. His scent, stronger for his exercise, enveloped me; I had to fight not to press my head against his hand.
"How's the head?" he asked. The bruises had faded a bit, enough that customers didn't look embarrassed when they saw me.
"Fine." This morning was the first time I'd woken up without a splitting headache.
"All right." He walked away from me, out to the middle of the padded floor. "Spar with me a bit."
I'd been taking karate at the dojo just over the railroad tracks from my shop for a few years, but even so, I was doubtful. I am nowhere near as strong as a werewolf. But, as it turned out, he was the perfect sparring partner.
My teacher, Sensei Johanson, doesn't teach the "pretty" karate most Americans learn for exhibition and tournament. Shisei kai kan is an oddball form of karate Sensei likes to call "reach out and break someone." It was originally designed for soldiers who were facing more than one opponent. The idea is to get your attackers out of the fight as soon as possible and make sure they don't come back. I was the only woman in my class.
The biggest problem I've had is slowing down enough not to raise questions, but not so much as to allow myself to get hurt. That wasn't a problem when sparring with Adam. For the first time ever, I got to fight at full speed and I loved it.
"You're using aikido?" I asked, backing away after a brisk exchange.
Aikido is a kinder, gentler method of fighting. It can be used to break people, too, but most of the moves have a milder version. So you can lock the elbow and immobilize your opponent, or put a little more force behind it and break the joint instead.
"Running a security business with a bunch of ex-soldiers, I've found it necessary to do a little sparring once in a while. Clears the air," he said. "Aikido lets me take them down without hurting them or-before this year-advertising that I'm not exactly human anymore."
He closed with me again, grinning as he caught my strike and guided it past his shoulder. I dropped down and swept his leg, forcing him to roll away from me before he could do anything nasty. When he regained his feet, I noticed he was panting, too. I took it for the compliment it was.
Though we fought at full speed, we were both still careful about how much force we used. Werewolves heal fast, but their bones still break and a punch still hurts. If Adam hit me full force, I suspected I wouldn't get up soon, if ever.
"You wanted me to pull the guards I set on you?" Adam asked in the middle of a quick exchange of soft-blocked punches.
"Yes."
"No."
"The sorcerer thinks I am a coyote," I explained impatiently. "He's not going to come looking for me."
"No."
I landed a blow that forced him off balance, but didn't fall into the trap of getting too close to him. Grappling with a werewolf is really stupid-particularly one trained in aikido.
"Look, I didn't mind Warren or Mary Jo. Mary Jo even knows one end of a wrench from another and helped out. But Honey... doesn't her mate desperately need her to sit and be pretty for his customers?"
Honey's mate-and-husband was a plumbing contractor, Peter Jorgenson. He was a wiry, homely, quiet man who did more work in an hour than most people did in their entire lives. Despite being a bimbo with no appreciation for anything except what she could see in a mirror, Honey loved her husband. Though when she said so, she always prefaced it with how she didn't care that-unlike herself-he wasn't a dominant wolf. Not that she ever talked to me: she didn't like me any more than I liked her.
"Peter follows my orders," Adam told me.
Adam was Alpha, so Peter followed his orders. Honey was Peter's wife, so Peter gave her orders-which she followed. Male werewolves treat their mates like beloved slaves. The thought set my back up.
It wasn't Adam's or Peter's fault that werewolves had yet to come out of the Stone Age. Really. It was just a good thing I wasn't a werewolf or there would be a slave rebellion.
I aimed a kick at Adam's knee that he caught and used to drag me forward and off balance. Then he did something complicated and I ended up face down on the mat twisted like a pretzel while he held me there with one hand and a knee.
He smelled like the forest at night.
I slapped the mat quickly and he let me up.
"Adam. Close your eyes and envision Honey in my shop. She wore three-inch heels today." The thought of her was like a dash of cold water in my face-which I needed.
He laughed. "Out of place, was she?"
"She spent the whole day standing up because she didn't want to risk staining her skirt on any of my chairs. Gabriel has a crush on her." I frowned at him when he laughed again. "Gabriel is a sixteen-and-a-half-year-old male. If his mother finds out he's flirting with a werewolf, she'll quit letting him work at the shop."
"She won't find out Honey is a werewolf. Honey isn't out yet. And Honey's used to male attention, she won't take Gabriel seriously," Adam said, as if that was the point.
" I know that, Gabriel knows that-his mother won't care. And she will find out. That's just the way my luck runs. If Gabriel leaves, I'll have to do my own paperwork." I hadn't meant to whine, but I hated paperwork and it hated me back.
Sylvia, Gabriel's mother, had just found out that Zee was fae. She'd been okay with that, because she already knew and liked Zee when she found out. But I doubted she'd be so accommodating about werewolves, especially pretty female werewolves who might be after her boy.
"I don't want to lose Gabriel just because you're paranoid. No more guards, Adam. It's not like Honey would be much of a defense anyway."
He sighed unhappily. "Stefan is hunting out this sorcerer full-time. With Warren, Ben, and a few other wolves helping him, it shouldn't be too much longer before they take care of him and you're free. As far as Honey's suitability as a guard goes-she fights mean. She's taken Darryl down a time or two in training." Most packs don't have "training." Sometimes Adam's background as a soldier really shows. "If Honey weren't a woman she'd be someone's second or third."
I wasn't surprised that Honey fought mean. I was a little surprised she fought well enough to take down Darryl, even a time or two. As second, he'd have had plenty of experience in real fights, not just training.
I knew why Adam was only sending female guards-for the same reason he sent Warren and Ben to accompany me to the seethe. Warren wouldn't make sexual overtures toward me because he wasn't interested-and Adam knew how much I disliked Ben.
Werewolves are very territorial. Since, supposedly for my protection, Adam had claimed me as his mate before the pack, I was his territory. As far as the pack was concerned, Adam's word was law. Just because I hadn't agreed, didn't change what the pack took as truth. Adam had managed to come to some agreement about it with Samuel. I didn't really want to know what it was because it would only tick me off.
So I got Honey because Mary Jo was working twenty-four hour shifts at the fire department and Darryl's mate
Auriele, the only other female in Adam's pack, was in Ellensburg taking a class to keep up her teaching certification. Complaining about Honey wasn't going to get me a different guard-there wasn't anyone else Adam could send.
" Littleton is a vampire," I said, trying to infuse a little logic into the situation. "He's not going to attack during the daytime. I could make sure to be home before dark until he's caught. He can't get into my home unless I invite him. Not that he would, since he has no reason to think I was anything but a prop for Stefan's costume."
"I had a talk with the Marrok about sorcerers," said Adam gently. "He's the one who told me to put a guard on you, day and night. No one knows what kind of monster a demon-ridden vampire is going to be, he said."
"I know that," I snapped-if Bran had ordered me guarded, I was doomed. Adam knew it, too.
" Elizaveta told me you called her and asked about sorcerers," he said.
"Yeah, well, you should be happy. All she told me was that you had given her orders not to tell me anything." Which wasn't exactly true.
What the witch had said was, " Adamya says you are to leave it alone. He is a smart man, that one. Let the wolves hunt this sorcerer, Mercedes Thompson. A coyote is no match for a demon."
"Warren and Stefan will take care of Littleton," Adam said. There was sympathy in his voice. He could afford to be sympathetic because he knew he'd robbed me of any chance of argument.
"Stefan and Warren are both out hunting tigers with slingshots," I told him. "Maybe they'll get a lucky hit, and maybe the tiger will turn and kill them both-while Honey wears white slacks and watches me tune up cars."
I walked over to one of the hanging sandbags and began practicing punches. I hadn't intended to say that, hadn't realized how worried I was. Adam could be confident, but he hadn't been in the same room with that thing.
"Mercy," Adam said after watching me a while.
I switched to sidekicks.
"A screwdriver is a very useful tool, but you don't use it when what you need is a blowtorch," he said. "I know you are frustrated. I know you want to be in on the kill after what you saw Littleton do. But if you went out with them, someone would get killed trying to protect you."