Here in my dream, safe with it just between us, I could tell him. “Zee told me that Tad could keep Jesse safe.” Not in those words, but that was what the grumpy old fae had meant. Truths that you can read between the lines in a fae who is your friend are as far from a lie as a fae can get.

Adam’s body softened, turning warm and melting into mine, the distance between us blurring into nothing. Then she is safe.

His mouth sought mine. He tasted of heat and love. But he tasted also of illness born of silver, and I was crying before he was finished. They were killing him, I could feel it. Much more silver, and he would no longer be able to link with the pack and he would die while the bastards who had him were still waiting for signs of weakness.

His chest rose and fell, and his heart stuttered against mine. I could feel how close his death hovered—too much silver, too much of the drug that slowed his reflexes.

Jesse is safe. You are safe. It’s all right, Mercy. You didn’t think I was going to die of old age, did you?

It was a joke, graveyard humor. Werewolves never died of old age because they didn’t age. But he had no business making a joke like that. Not now, not ever.

Anger roared through me and carried with it a tidal wave of terror because Adam had given up.

No. He told me. I haven’t given up anything. But the pack comes first. While they concentrate on me, the pack is working to free themselves. When I die, I can take the poison with me, and our pack will be strong enough to protect themselves. I love you, Mercy.

I absorbed what he said. He’d found something he could do. I’d seen him draw upon the pack to force silver out of his body. Apparently it worked in reverse. He was drawing the silver from that damned concoction Doc Wallace’s son had created. When he was finished, he’d be dead—but the pack would be free.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t respond. Adam intended to die.

Are you not my daughter, whispered another voice, Coyote’s voice, so quiet I almost missed it. Had I not been caught in that first moment of shock when everything goes quiet before the pain begins, I would not have heard it.

Coyote never loses, Coyote told me. Because I change the rules of the games my enemies play. What are the rules of your game?

Adam hadn’t heard that other voice. I knew because he still hovered over me, his mouth soft with our kiss, a terrible good-bye in his eyes. He’d found a solution to the game that his enemies played, found a way to win, because Adam was competent like that. The cost was too high.