Honey followed his example without a word. When the whole painful business was over, he curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace, checked that somewhere Mercy was still tethered to him, and settled in to wait. Honey hopped on the couch and put her head on the arm with a deep sigh.

He drifted into the light doze that would leave the wolf on alert to any changes but still allow him to rest. It was something that he’d learned to do in Vietnam, when he had been a soldier and not a werewolf. The wolf just made it more effective.

It was late morning when his phone rang. Grumbling, he rose to his feet and stalked to the table where his satellite phone rested. He knocked it to the floor where it would be easier to see and looked at the display.

Ben.

The phone quit ringing, and a few moments later, a text message popped up. URGENT.

He checked his bond, and Mercy was still there. He could breathe again without his chest hurting. The URGENT didn’t go away—it just became more manageable.

So he could breathe, but worry still hung on. A host of possibly urgent things popped into his mind. Maybe something had happened to the children. And when had Aiden become one of his children? Aiden, who was older than . . . well, probably older than Bran for all that he looked like he belonged in elementary school.

Speaking of Aiden, maybe he’d finally succeeded in burning the house down. It was bound to happen one of these days.

Change with speed, then, he decided. It hurt more when he forced it—especially without the pack to draw upon. Honey whined, and he realized that he was automatically pulling energy from her. He stopped that, and his change slowed. Growling, he redoubled his efforts, and in something under ten minutes by his phone’s reckoning, he was in human form: naked, covered in sweat, shivering from pain and shock that made the warmish room feel chilly, but human.

He picked up the phone without bothering to dress and called Ben. “Yes?”

“Hey,” Ben said cheerfully. “We are sodding and shagging in honey, Adam. Mercy stole an e-book reader from the Dark Ages and used it to contact me via Gmail. She’s in the Czech Republic. I think they call it Czechia for short now. Prague.”

And it took a moment for Adam to breathe again, but when he did, the air was sweet. He collected himself, aware of Ben waiting patiently on the other side of the phone connection.

“Prague?” He did a quick check of his mental map of Europe and blinked. “That’s what, five hundred miles from here?” That was some bus ride, Mercy. No wonder his bond was so weak. Without the pack, he was surprised he could touch her at all.

“About that,” agreed Ben blandly. “I contacted Charles, and he told me to put her in touch with Libor of the Vltava Pack. I haven’t heard back from her, but the e-reader was out of juice, and she apparently didn’t steal the charger when she took the reader.”