“Someone has an old list of who is in the pack,” I said. “And maybe they missed me because I’m not a werewolf; I shouldn’t be pack, except in an auxiliary sense.” Something chilled in my veins, foreboding maybe. “The group of rogue Cantrip agents that kidnapped the pack in order to make you go assassinate their target had a list, didn’t they?” Last November, at the same time that Frost had been trying to take over Marsilia’s territory.
Adam put a hand on my shoulder and let it rest there. “I think that it’s the same list. I don’t know if they got it from the rogue group, the rogue group got it from them, or someone gave it to both parties.”
“I was,” I said slowly, “under the impression that it was Frost who gave the rogue agents that list.”
Adam gave me a quick nod. “That’s what I thought, too.”
“Is it important where their information came from?” asked Sherwood.
“Not to the immediate discussion,” Adam agreed. “But maybe for later investigation. I’ll see to it that Charles gets word—maybe he can figure it out.”
“Okay,” said Sherwood. “So why is it important that Mercy and I aren’t on this list?”
Adam gave me a very apologetic look. “Because the rest of the pack is going to be playing bodyguards for the governmental delegation.”
I twisted so I could look up into Adam’s face. “Can we do that? In a meeting between the government and the fae. Aren’t we supposed to be . . . I don’t know . . . neutral?”
“Yes,” said Adam. “At least if we are to keep to the spirit of the bargain. But the pack isn’t attacking the fae, just trying to keep the humans safe—from all threats.” He didn’t sound happy. “If the fae don’t attack us, we won’t attack them—and that is the essence of our agreement.”
“How did you get maneuvered into splitting hairs that fine?” Sherwood asked.
“How did the pack get wrangled into Hauptman Security business?” I asked. Because it had been HS business that had kept him in late-night meetings recently, not pack business. There were pack members who worked for Adam’s company and more who could be called in to substitute if needed. But most of the pack had their own careers elsewhere, and that was how Adam liked it.
“Remind me to fire the head of my contracts department in New Mexico,” Adam told me. There was heat in his voice that made firing the better of two options for the person in question.
“Okay,” I said.
Adam shook off his anger and continued briskly. “A contract with a small government project gave the US government access, not to Hauptman Security, but to ‘Hauptman Security and all of its adjunct personnel’—which is a phrase that snuck into our government contracts about two years ago so it didn’t raise any flags.”
“The pack isn’t adjunct to Hauptman Security,” I said.
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Adam agreed. “But on this ten-thousand-dollar contract, on page forty-eight, ‘adjunct personnel’ was defined as anyone under my aegis.”
Sherwood rocked back in his chair. “The pack.”
“So the rest of the pack is on guard duty?” I said.
“Protection,” Adam agreed. “This will be pretty high-level. The secretary of state, the vice president, the Senate majority leader, and a few other key people are all coming here with their staff to meet with a triumvirate of Gray Lords. They are trying to put together an agreement that will define the relationship of the fae to the human government of the United States that won’t lead to genocide.”
“Genocide of fae or humans?” asked Sherwood.
“Both,” I told him, because I could do that math. “Or either.”
“And they had to blackmail you into playing bodyguard?” Sherwood asked.
Adam gave him a wolf smile. “Funny that you noticed right off that it is a bad idea. It took me two days and a call to a friend who was fishing in Alaska at the time to convince the general of that.”
The friend was probably the retired military man—someone who’d known what Adam was—who had been in charge of hiring Adam (not Adam’s company, which was strictly security) over the years. I knew that Adam had done a lot of contract work for the government during the Cold War era. I was pretty sure that had included some assassinations, but Adam never talked about what he’d done. All of that had stopped by the time Adam and I had become more than acquaintances, so I didn’t know who his “friend” was.
Sherwood grunted. “That little contractual nudge took a lot of planning.” He said it with regrettable admiration.
“Why didn’t they just hire Hauptman Security?” I asked. “And ask if you could pull the pack into it?”
Adam grunted. “Some of the people in the government want a better guarantee than my word and a paycheck. Because I’m a monster.”
“Wow,” said Sherwood. “A blackmailed monster is just what I’d want guarding my back.”
“Insulting,” I said.
Adam gave me a wry grin. “Exactly. At any rate, we have ironed out a deal. Mercy, you will be in charge of orchestrating the meeting—where and when.” I gave him a horrified look, which he ignored. “I give you Sherwood and Zack as your muscle. The pack will do guard duty for the government and get paid royally for it. When this is done, I’ll get a better contracts lawyer.” He sighed. “Or go back to reading every damned contract myself, which is how I used to do it.”
“What are you thinking?” I asked. “What idiot would put me in charge of a government meeting? I can’t organize a pack barbecue without Kyle. Why isn’t someone else doing it? Marsilia? Or one of the fae? Or one of the government people? I bet they do this all the time.”
“Kyle is a good idea,” said Adam, ignoring my objections. “I’ll see if he will consent to help us out. I can bill the government for him.” It sounded as though that last would make Adam very happy.
“Adam,” I said. “Why am I elected?”
“Because,” said Adam patiently, “you put us in charge of the Tri-Cities, Mercy. Our pack. That means the fae will only meet with the government if our pack hosts the meeting. We need a representative of our pack to be an intermediary between the government and the fae. It’s lucky that the fae are willing to accept you.”
Sherwood, watching me, laughed. “Don’t worry, Mercy. We won’t actually have to do anything difficult. We’re just glorified messengers. All the decisions will be made by the government and the fae.”
I swallowed. It didn’t sound like an easy job. Adam’s hand cupped the back of my head.
“I believe in you, little coyote,” he whispered into my ear.
I gave him an annoyed huff. “I’m not going to start reciting ‘I think I can, I think I can’ anytime real soon now.”
Adam laughed and straightened back up. This time, his hand came off my shoulder. I missed it.
“I have every confidence that you could do just fine if we put you in charge of everything,” he told me. “But Sherwood is right. It is mostly a ceremonial position with a lot of running around. The government will make their own arrangements for lodging and”—he grimaced—“security. As will the fae. Mostly you will be in charge of finding a venue that’s acceptable to everyone. And, once we have the dates, you’ll reserve the meeting place, show up on time, and give a very short speech that probably both the fae and the government will insist on editing.”
“How will this play with the fae?” I asked. “Not my bit in this. I mean, really, how will they think about the pack playing security for the government? Not just how we’re going to spin it. We are supposed to be a neutral party, right?”
“I checked with Beauclaire,” Adam said. “Not all of my meetings have been with the government. He thinks we can squeak by.”
Beauclaire was a Gray Lord, one we had a working relationship with. As close to a working relationship as you could have with someone who, I had reason to believe, could raise the sea and bring down mountains.
“Whatever the public thinks,” I said, “the fae know that the only reason our compact works is because the fae want it to work. We don’t have the horsepower to make a real stand against the whole might of the fae. Or, probably, even one of the Gray Lords. Not without the support of the Marrok.”
“Which they don’t know that we have,” said Sherwood.
“Which we don’t have,” I said gently.
“He loves you,” Sherwood said, his voice certain.
I nodded. “He does.” Bran had more than demonstrated that he thought of me as a daughter. “But he loves the werewolves more. He has fought for centuries for them.” I sought for words and found them in an unexpected place. “To give them ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ He can’t help us without risking that.”
“He would risk the werewolves for you,” Adam said.
He had risked everything for me. That knowledge had healed a wound going back to when he had driven me from his pack, from the only home I’d ever known, when I was sixteen. Bran had not abandoned me.
But that was a dangerous secret. Only a few people knew what Bran had done, and we needed to keep it that way. The fae especially couldn’t know that Bran still felt responsible for me. They were a feudal society, for the most part. If they thought that our ties with Bran were still in place, then they would look upon our treaty with them as a treaty with all of the werewolves.
Our treaty with the fae had to stay small, only our territory, only our pack. That meant that Sherwood and the rest of the pack needed to believe we were on our own, too.
“Bran won’t help us,” I said firmly, believing it. Bran wouldn’t help us because he wouldn’t need to. “And that keeps him, and us, out of a power struggle between werewolf and fae that could escalate into a war that everyone loses. If we screw up here, the fae won’t go after the rest of the werewolves on the planet for it. Our separation from the other packs in North America makes everyone safer.”