Marsilia’s dark blue Mercedes, an S 65 AMG, was parked inside my garage lest anyone walk by the parking lot and decide to key the paint or toss a rock. It was three months old, here to get its first oil change, and I could have bought a second shop for less than its sticker price.

“The AMG?” Gabriel said, though he retrieved the keys as he spoke. “You’re going to let Ben bleed all over a Mercedes AMG?”

“He’s already bleeding all over a Mercedes,” Jesse said dryly. Then she turned to me. “Wait a minute. The AMG? That AMG? Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, what are you thinking of? You can’t let Ben bleed all over Marsilia’s Mercedes.”

“Marsilia the vampire queen?” Gabriel choked. “Mercy, that’s just stupid. Take my car.”

“She’s not a queen, she’s the Mistress of the seethe,” I corrected him. “That car seats four and doesn’t scream VW mechanic on the run with wounded werewolf.” What I didn’t say, because I didn’t want to panic anyone, was that because the vampires were a lot like the CIA crossed with the Mob, the Mercedes also had bulletproof glass. More importantly, if we were really dealing with an attack by a government agency, this car was clean of tracking devices. Between me and Wulfe—the magic-using vampire who served Marsilia—all the tracking gadgets that were routinely attached to new cars all the way down to the RFID tags on the tires had been disabled.

And right now I had bigger things to worry about than offending Marsilia, scary though she was.

Get Ben to Samuel, who could treat what was wrong with him.

Take Jesse and Gabriel to someplace safe.

Find whoever had taken my mate and get him back.

Adam’s pain was a roar in my heart, and I was going to make everyone who hurt him pay and pay.

It was like triage. Decision one—preserve those who were safe. Decision two—retrieve the rest. Decision three—make the ones who took them regret it.

On that thought, I ran back into the office. At Adam’s request, I’d taken to keeping my 9mm Sig in the safe. Being married to the local pack Alpha gained me some notoriety, and it made Adam feel better knowing I was armed. I shoved two spare (loaded) magazines into my purse and grabbed the extra box of silver ammunition. If I’d had a nuclear bomb, I’d have grabbed it, too—but I would make do with what I had.