“You don’t ever do that.” My voice, my whole body shook from the shock of the magic breaking, from my momentary inability to stop hurting Adam. “I just got you back.” The coyote inside me wanted to take a bite out of something, anything in a frenzy of … in a frenzy. “I can’t touch you without hurting you. Don’t let me hurt you.” The last sentence came out as a whine, and I realized I was babbling. I shut up.

Instinctively, I backed away, so I was in no danger of touching anyone. I didn’t want to contaminate anyone with the remnants of that magic—filthy magic—on me. Didn’t want to hurt Adam again. Didn’t want to touch him with my filthy skin, I was dirty, dirty. That was wrong.

I knew that was wrong. An echo of trauma that never quite left me, though its hold was not as vicious as it had been. I tried to collect myself and center on the real issue here. On Adam.

A trace of blood trickled down Adam’s chin, but the red flush on his skin was disappearing as I watched. Silver burns. I touched my lips. It was from the silver and not some weird taint of the magic that had robbed me of my will, or a taint that lingered from that long-ago rape. I knew that, but it still felt like the two were entwined—the fae magic and the marks on my mate’s face.

“That silver,” said Zee, “is something I can help you with, Mercy.”

I looked at him, my heart still pounding—with anger at Adam, with the release of a magical spell I hadn’t really believed in until it left, and with a shadow of memory. I remembered listening to Tad tell us that I’d had my will stolen away, and I had been … uninterested. I’d felt that way before.

“The silver,” Zee told me, his eyes sad as if he knew where my thoughts were dwelling. “Just the silver. The rest is over and done.”

“Okay.” My throat was tight, and I didn’t want him to touch me. Didn’t want anyone to touch me ever again, but I knew that made no sense.

“Mercy.”

Adam waited until I looked over and met his eyes. “You broke the spell the minute something happened that you didn’t want. You were never really in its power. Not once you didn’t want to be.”

His voice gave me an anchor, and I drew my unruly thoughts back in line. He’d be okay. His lips were healing a lot more slowly than usual, but as I’d yelled at him, he’d had a rough few days. He needed to eat something soon.

“Mercy.”