This chapter contains spoilers for Night Broken, the 8th book in the Mercy Thompson series. If you like the series, but haven't read it yet, don't read this story. My writing can't compare to Mss. Briggs or Mr. Riordan's.

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Note, I'm skipping a lot of flavor text and background info, I figure if you're reading a fan fiction about a book, then chances are you've read the book and know, at least in part, that information.

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Also, I own none of the characters, not even the OC I made as she is part of the PJaO books and anyone is free to duplicate her for their own stories. Writing a story using characters from published books, I certainly can't complain if someone likes my idea enough to run it in a different direction, but please, no slash.

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An Interesting Breakfast

Mercy

I was doing dishes. My husband and mate was on the phone with a travel agent making plans to get his ex-wife here. Long story short, she picked up a stalker, and was on the run. She figured, probably correctly, that a werewolf pack would scare him off.

Christy isn't a werewolf, neither am I for that matter, but I am a walker, which is close enough that pack magic will recognize me as part of it and accept me as Adam's mate, something, as a human, Christy could never do.

What she could do however, was disrupt pack politics. She wasn't even here yet and she was already doing that. Which is why I was having a not argument with two of the three female members of the pack, Darryl, Auriele's husband was smart enough to stay out of it. Not so much because he disagreed with his wife, but because he felt it made more sense to have Christy stay someplace everyone knew was a werewolf hangout then at their house, which they were trying to remain discreet, Auriele was after all, a high school teacher. Non-discrimination laws aside, if she was outed as a werewolf, they'd find a reason to fire her. Kind of stupid really, her school was probably the safest one in the nation. She wouldn't hesitate to rip a gunman in half.

"Auriele, Christy will be staying here. No, I do not like it, but, I'll deal with it. She'll be safer here then at your house." Not mentioning pack cohesion will be safer, nope not going to mention that. "Besides, if she does stay anywhere else, it'll be at Warren and Kyle's place." I put a little more emphasis on Kyle's name then I normally would, Auriele was one of the ones who didn't like having a gay packmate, especially not one so close in rank to her mate, "Being openly gay, there would be a blatant lack of interest on their part, plus, since Kyle is human, she'd be better able to connect with him. Also, being a divorce attorney, him and Warren have had to deal with a few more stalkers then you or Darryl. When was the last time anyone else in that pack had to deal with that?" Trying, really I'm trying not to say that Christy practically IS a stalker herself.

To my surprise, Mary Jo raised her hands at my question, "Not me personally, but one of the other firemen, she had to deal with it. I was about to ask Adam if I could deal with it when the rest of the squad took care of it for us. No, they didn't kill the guy."

Everyone was looking at Mary Jo when Adam hung up the phone; "Christy will be staying here." All the wolves looked down at that, his teenage daughter, Jesse, pouted. She was torn between a dislike for her mother, the shame that came from that dislike, and love for her as well. Adam was just telling all the other werewolves to go home when Jesse suddenly gave shriek of fear and surprise. Werewolves react fast, as a group, they are the second fastest creatures I've ever seen. Some vampires and fey are much faster, but as a group they're not much faster than humans, though admittedly it's the fast ones who rise to the top, only walkers, are, as a group, as fast or faster than werewolves.

With that in mind, it shouldn't be a surprise that there was almost instantly, a large group of wolves in the kitchen staring at what Jesse had seen. Right smack dab of the middle of the table, about a foot over it was a ghostly image. I could tell right away that I was seeing more than anyone else, they were talking about outlines and heat mirages. I'm a walker, in addition to being a tinsey bit faster than most of them, I can see ghosts, and some spirits. Evidently, whatever was going on here qualified. I could tell that Adam realized this because instead of insisting that I leave, he started asking me to describe what I saw, and boy was it a doozy.

"There is a large dog, I mean really large dog, Clydesdale horse size dog gripping in her jaws some sort of membrane in the open air right above the table, holding on to its collar is a group of kids about Jesse's age, a little younger to a little older. They are struggling to hold on, it looks like they're falling, or that they were falling and the dog managed to stop them. Wait, it looks… Uh, for a second it looked like they split, like a worm does, the new group fell away, but the original group is still there. At least I think it's the original, maybe when they split the new ones took the other groups place…." Ok, starting to babble, need to stop.

Ben looked over at Adam, "Do we help them?"

Adam looked in control, like he was just making a plan, but he's my mate, I could tell he was completely baffled. I was about to ask Ben how we might do that when I noticed that they split again. OK, even if they're ghosts, I need to do something. "Adam, I can see them better then you guys can, maybe I can help them." Not really sure why that popped into my head, but before I could backtrack, a weird idea came to me. "Here, hold my hand really tight, and no matter what, don't lose me." Adam looked at me, and I got the impression he knew what I was about to do. Which is kind of funny, because I didn't, "Everyone else, hold on to each other, like an ice rescue."

When everyone complied, still holding on to Adams hand, I climbed up onto the table and willed myself to be seen by the group. I could hear a collective gasp from the pack, but was to distracted by what I was seeing now to pay attention. I was standing on the edge of a cliff, leaning over the edge, looking at infinity. There really is no way to describe it. It was utter silence, yet roaring with the most mind boggling noise I've ever heard, I was falling down, going up, and standing motionless in midair all at the same time. It was utter darkness, except that the group was perfectly lit, and at the same time, I could see a kaleidoscope of colors and vistas to make me cry with delight, terror and horror. In short, I was on the verge of insanity, and I knew it.

The entire group except one boy had their eyes closed, wonder why, the noise was just as freaky, and he was looking at me in complete surprise, but managed to hold on tight. Right, helping them, that's why I'm here, wonder how long before I noticed that, seconds, minutes, years. Ok, probably not years, I grabbed the dog's collar and tried to pull it to me. Instead, it felt like I was falling out. I could feel the pack magic flowing through me as a constant hum, but when I started to fall thru, I felt a surge and not just from the Columbia basin pack either, but from the Marrock and through him, all the packs of North America. I also got a glimpse of his surprise at the sudden drain on his power. Ooops. Of course, If Adam hadn't done that, then I'm not sure I would have survived.

With the surge of magic, I gave a huge tug and collapsed back on to Adam, who immediately embraced me. Piled in a heap on the now collapsed table were 3 girls, one about 11 or 12, and 2 about 15 or 16, 2 boys, one about 15 or 16, and one 13 or 14, as well as a monstrously huge dog that smelled of flame, earth and death. All of the human appearing (they weren't normal humans for damn sure) were dressed up for a formal function of some sort, though they were in something of a disarray. And all of them, dog included looked very happy to be on solid ground. The dog actually bent down and appeared to kiss the ground.

We looking at the kids, when Adams phone started to ring, gee, wonder who that is?

"Hi Bran." Adam said, "I think I can explain that."

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