#patricia briggs

[bonemarble]

leah's position within the family unit as a daughter-wife, rather than just a wife (whether this is acknowledged or not) makes her hate for mercy much more sensible than people give her credit for. the violent and excessive nature of her reactions towards mercy since she was a child could have other explanations (who knows, i'm all for alternative interpretations), but i think it works fine when taking into account that being jealous of mercy being cherished as a daughter is part and parcel with being jealous of her as a potential lover. which is not to say this was leah's conscious thought process. i don't think she sees herself as bran's daughter. i just think by nature of how she was brought into the fold, a young girl being raised under bran's tutelage reads as someone filling her exact role. and doing it better! mercy is loved! being bran's wife and bran's "daughter" are not discrete issues for leah, as someone that was raised to be his wife. in this sense, i think she would have projected sexual jealousy and expected that bran would develop a sexual attachment to mercy regardless of his actual feelings, simply because it fits the framework she was given for his behaviour. the fact no one apart from her and bran knew the truth of her turning and that they likely were the only ones having an inkling of the scope of bran's feelings for mercy when she was still a teenager does not seem incidental. leah knows for certain that bran has both the capacity and the inclination to blur the lines between charge and lover and take advantage of someone dependent on him to extract what he needs out of them. or at least the only one that knows this exploitation can entail a sexual component when directed at a female subject.

leah has no one else in the world and her role as bran's mate is her only claim to economic stability and a measure of acceptance and respect, if not love, in life. additionally, she was (re-)created by bran in such a way that her identity, abilities, and whole existence have a use only in relation to him. if she loses him, she does not have anything, not even herself. and since bran does not love her (or so he has made her believe), she cannot try to influence him in order to keep her position. i am not saying her treatment of mercy was right, especially as i am not particularly interested in analysing characters from a moralising standpoint. but i do think it was rational, insofar as in her view the removal of mercy from bran's life was actually the only thing she had the power to affect to ensure she was not abandoned. the only option over which she could exert some control.

what is extremely sad to me is that however much leah may be relieved that bran doesn't finally act on his attraction to mercy (and justly so! it would be the ultimate cruelty for bran to create her, use her, and then also leave her!), the fact he sees the harm he would inflict on mercy by pursuing her and decides to spare her, while he had no problem inflicting that same harm on leah, works as a further confirmation that mercy is in some way better loved. that she is allowed to be seen as a whole person, to grow as an independent being without being crushed under bran's weight. as we have very little of leah's pov, i am not sure whether this thought has ever crossed her mind, but it has certainly crossed mine very often.

[emelinepommery]

Last  Friday, Patricia Briggs was at a signing session and I had the opportunity to meet her !✨

She's been so kind to sign this illustration which is a gift for my mother who's also a big fan of the Mercy Thompson saga (like me)

Check out my Patreon and my free Newsletter for detailed tutorials, behind the scenes as a bookish illustrator, digital goodies and more !

[aucoba]

Starting s7 of supernatural and watching Dean fix the Impala and saying "I should do this professionally" makes me think he and Mercy Thomson would have some great conversations

[mercy-thompson-fanfiction]

POV: this stupid social media trend is in your head and some of the videos are wildly unhinged and make you worry for people’s sanity

All: We listen and we don’t judge

Mercy: Sometimes, when you say something, I ignore you and do the exact opposite because it’s the right thing to do.

Bran: I am aware of that. It’s inte—

*video cut*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Adam: The parts car never bothered me. Sometimes I intentionally riled Mercy up just so she would have to think about me while she was doing whatever it was she decided to do to the car.

Mercy: Wait, what?

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Anna: I started casually reinstating music evenings so that my father-in-law could address his inappropriate feelings about Mercy.

Mercy: His what?

Bran: We listen and we don’t—

Anna: No, you can’t judge me, but we are all allowed to judge you for that one.

*video cuts*

Bran: I’m not doing this.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Charles: I intentionally never let Leah be alone with Mercy and that’s why sometimes, during her childhood, I went missing.

Adam: I can’t think anyone would judge you for that.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Bran: …I was not exceptionally confident that I wouldn’t kill Charles if the witch told me to. I didn’t want to panic Anna.

Anna: You can’t pick something that is easily judged. We are all going to judge you for that.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Jesse: I pretend to be on phone calls so that people hear where I am and I don’t walk in on things I’d rather not.

All: We know.

Jesse: I’m just owning up to it.

*video cuts*

Anna: Remember. Something we can’t judge you for.

*video cuts*

All: We listen and we don’t judge.

Samuel: I—

Anna: Never mind I think we should end this here.

[slowlysointernet]

A long time ago i read an interview in which Patricia Briggs answered a question from the interviewer about Mercy's lack of female friends.

''The men in her life tend to be stable'' is bullshit. C'mon.

She gets groomed by Samuel. She gets raped by Tim. Adam declared her his mate in front of his pack without her knowing or even agreeing. Bran semi kicked her out of Aspen Creek as a teenager.

It's just another case of women holding other women to a different standard.

In hignsight this peice of infomation about her sisters and her college friend (i'm assuming Char?) is funny.

14 books in and Mercy's half sisters whom she's supposedly very close to, only appear in River Marked for a brief while and they never get mentioned again. No appearances. No sisterly phone calls. Nothing.

Apparently she's 'very tight' with her college roommate Char which is funny because we never see her at all. She didn't attend Mercy's wedding. There's no girl to girl chit chat over the phone or text. Nothing.

😂🤨😐😒 I don't want to be harsh or mean but i have to be honest.

I belive this interview was in 2014? Here is the link for the full interview:

[leahsupportgroupmember]

On Leah Cornick - Ramblings Part 1

Leah and Bran have been married for 200 years, they have history prior to Mercy and their issues didnt start with her. Its a bit over blown to think shes at the center of their issues. Since Leah literally killed her own child BECAUSE he was a walker. I think she hated Mercy from moment 0 because she knew Mercy was a walker instinctively and to her that spelled doom and danger and unspeakable horrors. She wanted her out of her life/pack even when she was a baby.

It is AFTER when Bran and Sam etc started showing inappropriate behaviour that it turned worse. We get the story from many pov (Mercy, Charles) and I think Mercy is an unreliable narrator whilst Charles is shown to have character growth and be able to look back at his past with new eyes thanks to Anna’s probing.

Also Leah is obviously deeply insecure in her position as Bran’s mate and from that her position in the pack. He made her that way. Shes only tolerated as long as she is useful. Thats all she knows. For 200 years, he never cared to ask of her past. Probably following his brother’s directive to not speak of the Singer and also to not drudge her non consensual change and mating. But he knew nothing of her life prior?! He never cared, he never asked. It makes me wonder, did he care to know her feelings, her mindset, her perspective on things at all?! When she reacted badly towards baby Mercy and wanted her away from their pack, did he wonder why? Did he bother asking her why? Did he fucking hear her out??

He just assumed a traumatized amnesiac woman was stupid and dumb and bigoted. He never got to know her. He never even bothered.

[lecoindecachou]

The werewolves in the Mercyverse are like <3 lycanthropy is a metaphor for having periods but we're misogynists <333 we call revealing our existence to the world our Coming Out but we're homophobes <333

[sondrawr]

Mercy: You’re one of those awful people who’s good at everything, aren’t you?

Darryl: Not at all, I’m terrible at…

Darryl: …

Mercy: …Humility?

Darryl: No. I excel at humility.

[theimaginauts]

MERCY THOMPSON

Art by DAN DOS SANTOS

[seiya234]

why adam is basically going to be the next marrock

spoilers for Winter Lost under the cut

I don't think it's going to come up any time soon (or maybe it will lol patty) but this book really, for the first time, seems to be setting up Adam as a future Marrock.

the constant mentions of Adam as a good leader

the multiple mentions in this book that Adam and Mercy are beginning to tangle with weirder and weirder shit, and have to have both an awareness of and are active players in politics outside of the werewolf world

the entire fucking conversation Adam has with Darryl early in the book

where it's brought up that there are both multiple super Alpha wolves in Adam's pack who butt heads occasionally but ultimately are chill with being in Adam's pack.

also there's multiple wolves with Old Wolf Drama in Adam's pack; both of these things are just like Bran's pack.

this fucking quote like

patricia come on

obviously werewolves in patty's world aren't like a monarchy, but Adam has not only married Bran's daughter, but now Bran's brother is in his pack like

Bran may no longer be the leader that the werewolf world needs. Patty makes a point of mentioning in the past few books that since going public the werewolves are under a lot of stress, and in this book she mentions that "the average life expectancy of a werewolf who survived the initial Change was now around eight years." Like Bran has to take care of business but maybe there's another way? there's clearly some tension building there

patricia.

patricia plz.

okay but part of Bran's Deal is that he has a Superpowered Evil Side that is his wolf but also isn't his wolf and it's because of his witch blood.

and huh last few books Adam has been dealing with the Beast, which is kind of like his wolf but also is distinct from it and was caused by a witch and

oh my god i went back to that paragraph and he literally says that the Beast can do magic shit that he and his wolf cant jesus fucking christ patty.

Finally, eventually all old wolves need to get put down.

And Bran is a very, very old wolf.

update i forgot about this one

[bonemarble]

love your thoughts on Leah! how do you think her relationship could develop or what direction would it go in regards to Anna and Charles after wild sign?

interesting question! i don't think i have a very good answer for a "direction" these relationships could take, mainly because that depends on the larger story pb wants to tell: is this a story where people deconstruct the social order that has generated them or one where they try to find some measure of peace in it? i'll explain better under the cut.

charles and leah, i think, are at a point where they are starting to come to terms with their rivalry and identify its true cause: they were two lonely children starved for affection fighting each other because they couldn't fight bran for it. at the same time i don't know that this modicum of understanding is enough to build a relationship. even seeing the situation with a bit more clarity, the material causes that pit them against each other are not going to disappear, they have centuries of ill feelings between them, and i think at this point they simply don't like each other very much. even more importantly, i think there's a very good reason they are so repelled by each other and it took them so long to see the other's distress: they are very good mirrors. they both spent formative years of their lives with bran as the only (if imperfect) parental (or quasi) figure in their lives and attached the majority of their sense of self to their usefulness to him. to fully recognise the pain of this in the other would come very close to recognising this in themselves. they both know bran doesn't treat them well but they have become accustomed to it, i think. they grow some thick skin over it, shrug it off and get on with things (that's how bran wants them after all). seeing the other's wounds would make their own much more difficult to ignore. there's also an even more convoluted contortion in place: if they each believe bran is somehow unfair only towards them while he is right when he mistreats others, they never need to really question bran's judgement. feeling isolated in this unfairness is preferable compared to confronting the life-shaking truth that the person that moves the sun in your world may be doing it wrong. many other thoughts along these lines but this is already long.

leah and anna also have a mildly antagonistic relationship but of course there's less history there. my main issue with anna is that the only way to give her some true tridimensionality would be to acknowledge with some seriousness the difficulty of her circumstances. she was turned against her will, abused for years, and then latched onto her only saviour. he is a man she knows little when they basically marry and he is violent and possessive. her new life revolves around him and his complex family, with which she lives and has to deal all the time. at the same time, her survival depends on their support and protection, as we have seen how much her 'omega specialness' doesn't really ensure safety without material power to prevent her exploitation. there's no need to turn this into a grimdark novel, but if this context is not always waved away, suddenly she is not an unrealistic fairy always untouched by events: she is someone making strategic decisions to craft the best life possible out of her circumstances, finding love where she can and fighting for it. she has no true interest in anyone besides charles bc she is rightly guarded and balancing her new relationship with him already requires a lot of her energies. + he is the only person she can trust to be in her corner, without which she should be as lost as when they met (she also truly loves him ofc but this hardly explains her isolationist behaviour). she manipulates others not bc she is some quirky genius: it's the only way she sees to obtain what she needs when she is surrounded by aggressive impulsive people that are more powerful than her and feels the need to forestall their worst reactions. when bran and charles start giving her some latitude, she relaxes around them, especially as she realises she has things she can leverage (charles's love and her omega powers) to ensure a better condition for herself. but she is still wary of their flaws and recognises how they impact leah. yet leah is unpleasant. she sometimes makes her life more difficult but not really with the gravity and frequency people seem to assign her. even on good days however anna, so so smart and crafty and sneaky in navigating her circumstances, is almost annoyed by her: how has she not learned to do this better? how has she not learned to make herself likeable and dance around people and avoid confrontation to better obtain what she wants? but there's something else behind it, imo: leah might be brash and crude but she is real. how liberating that must be, to not always feel like your well-being depends on how quickly you past on a smile! the reason anna doesn't like leah, is the reason most people don't: to acknowledge leah's reactions as sensible is to eliminate the displacement of blame that allows life under unfair circumstances. to see leah's anger is justified means asking herself: why is she not angry? leah is a great mirror for her too. she can recognise her pain if she imagines her to be in a much more difficult position, someone to help from a higher standing. to confront her from a position of parity would mean to confront that position of parity: that she doesn't have any more material power than leah and her current better treatment stems from a momentary lucky alignment of events over which she has little control. bran and charles are, in their own ways, as unpleasant as leah is, only 1) anna needs them to survive; 2) since they also need her + they are not threatened by her they generally choose to treat her better. i am not saying anna should roll over and let leah treat her however she wants: leah enacts a similar mechanism with anna after all. disliking anna for being treated better is the only valve available to release her anger: it's not like she can accomplish much by going against bran and charles.

necessary prelude for me to say i don't care if leah and anna become fast friends. much as i don't care if leah and charles do. i think this dynamic is interesting even if it remains antagonistic, as long as either immobilism or change follow some logical exploration of this setting. it can truly go either way i would be ok with both.

[ridasart]

In her dream, Buffalo Singer had told her that this was her battle. Watching the great fae sword in Charles’s hands, she finally understood what those words meant. Bitterness engulfed her and gave her the power to get to her feet.

Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs

[browsingaround2]

Books/Series in the Mercy Thompson universe that I am respectfully (desperately) asking Patricia Briggs to write asap:

(Some spoilers.)

1. More. Bran. Lore. I am insatiable for it. Wild Sign and the short story Silver are everything. How I both love and hate this man. I’m in awe of Patty’s ability with this character.

2. Stephen deserves happiness. Please a spin off where he finds reciprocated love. 🥹

3. More Samuel and Ariana content! What were they doing in Africa?! How did Samuel react to that baby news?!

4. More stories about Ben. He deserves happiness too! (If you want to read my WIP where I’m attempting to do this, check out my ao3 story “Soul Flight”. My page is linked in the pinned post.)

5. The next Alpha & Omega book because oh my goodness Charles Cornick as a daddy 🥹

6. What happened to Tad at college?!?!

7. Will Mercy ever get pregnant? What will that baby BE?!

Please and thank you, Patty.

Sincerely,

Your devoted reader

[mercy-thompson-fanfiction]

Hey! I really like your Alpha and Omega fics. You said that you take requests so if you ever have time could you write an alternate universe fic where Charles gets to spend some time courting Anna instead of immediately taking her to Montana (which is something he mentioned wanting to do in On The Prowl)

“No, you definitely cannot do that.”

Samuel’s voice was boiling over with amusement on the other end of the phone call as Charles described his predicament.

“And da said what?”

“Send her to Adam.” Charles closed his eyes, thoroughly defeated by the sound of his brother’s cackling laughter and his own predicament.

Over the moon infatuated, that’s what he was. He couldn’t get the look in her eyes out of his mind when he told her that he would be back. It was killing him not to already be back, but there were things to sort out and paperwork to handle now that Leo and Isabella were dead.

Anna. Brother Wolf reminded him of her name, as if he could forget any piece of her that she’d share. Mate.

“What does my sister-in-law want?” Samuel was laying this on thick for his benefit.

And yet, was good to hear him laughing. It put Charles at ease just as much as it put him on edge.

What did Anna want? He had only asked her a million times. She didn’t want to stay in Chicago, even with Boyd she was—not broken. Anna wasn’t broken.

She was hurting.

A pang of guilt struck him for having left her, but it was just as much for her benefit. The Omega settled the wolf, but Charles was finding the man a problem which was not something he was used to dealing with.

Gut instinct told him to take her with him. Anna was hurting and anxious in a pack that had caused her harm before. When he ran the idea by his da, he’d received a goofy grin—he could hear it in his voice—and a reminder that creating a situation where she was entirely dependent on him was manipulative and, given the circumstances, cruel. Same issue caused the next best thing (furnishing her apartment and putting food on the table) to be shot down. He got by with getting her a better job, but that had been against his father’s advice as well.

Because somehow being the reason she got the job was also detrimental to her mental health and general well-being. His brother had only just agreed with everything he had already had thrown back in his face by their shared parent.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t ask her?”

Charles had asked, and that was part of the dilemma, too. She hadn’t been in a good mind space when he’d suggested coming to Montana and then she had felt guilted into it. When she felt confident enough a few hours later, she brought it up again and said she might like to stick around a little longer.

Take a trip out to her family now that her nightmare was over.

That she didn’t want to stay in Boyd’s pack longer than she had to, but that following blindly just because he told her how he felt didn’t put her any more at ease.

“I don’t think, at this time, that she is of sound enough mind to make a decision like that.” Charles said finally. “And she feels she would like to learn a little more about it all before she jumps headfirst again. They kept many secrets from her. And that’s how it stands.”

“You mean to do this properly then,” His brother was definitely still grinning. “Da is right. Adam’s would be safest.”

Adam would be safest. Of course, there were still plenty of downsides. Adam was relatively recently divorced and unmated, so he was entirely unspoken for. Charles didn’t think Anna would find that to be a problem, but he certainly felt it was going to be a problem. Adam Hauptman was, as he understood it, not at all unattractive.

There was also the matter of that wolf there who had unsavory problems, Charles thought his name might have been Ben. Ben lived there, that was one to look out for.

Then there was his brother who Charles suspected wasn’t quite well, though his energy in this conversation suggested otherwise.

The image was already forefront on his mind of Samuel sitting far too close to Anna for Charles’ own comfort. He bit his tongue to keep from growling at the thought of Samuel’s arm around her in a vision that hadn’t even happened.

There was rustling on the other end of the line.

“Everything ok?” Charles came back down to earth for the moment.

“Can’t ever find anything in Mercy’s place. I’m not sure how she survived before I started putting forks back in their proper utensil slots.” Samuel snorted.

That explained the metallic clinking he was hearing, then.

And it also reminded him of another precarious detail about Adam’s and what sending Anna there entailed.

Mercy. Aptly named, if you looked at those whose lives she had touched, except maybe his brother’s.

“Where would she live?” Charles sighed finally, giving in.

They were both right. Adam’s would be safest short term, even if he wanted Aspen Creek to be best for her. He did hope it would be short term.

Samuel hummed some tune that Charles recognized innately but blocked out with his own thoughts.

“She could bunk with Mercy. Small room, but it might do her good to have a female roommate.”

“Mercy doesn’t do well with female wolves,” Rather, most female wolves didn’t do well with Mercy. “It would be impolite to ask her to put one up in her home.”

Charles suspected that might have been Leah’s doing and not Mercy’s own ability to get under everyone’s skin in a lovably, very-coyote fashion. Nonetheless, it would make Mercy uncomfortable.

And this was of course forgetting that Mercy was already sharing in more ways than one. Samuel had stolen her spare room and Adam shared her back fence.

Asking for more of her was in poor taste.

“Adam’s is out of the question even for a little?” Samuel tried. “He has a daughter she might like, you said she’s young. Adam would give her plenty of space and he wouldn’t step on toes.”

It didn’t matter if he wouldn’t “step on toes” so to speak. Charles would feel like his toes were being stepped on, regardless.

“If she was ok with it, maybe.” That was a lie and even over the phone his brother knew it and laughed, but this time it didn’t sound quite right.

Charles would circle back to that later when he had time to consider it.

“If you’re worried she can be stolen, maybe try wooing her a little better, brother.”

“Isabelle liked Adam.” Because his brain supplied the information.

Samuel laughed again, but this time for real.

“Isabelle would have taken any wolf with a heartbeat to her bed.” That was true, too. “If she hadn’t tried to sleep with him, I understand that she and Christy may have gotten along.”

Apparently, Samuel was calling to mind the same incident.

He was stuck at square one again.

“What do you want me to suggest?” Samuel sighed, but then he added, “Adam has a wolf who calls herself Honey. Her mate, Peter, is submissive. She could feel safe there.”

Charles knew Honey. She and Peter both were old, submissive wolves tended to live long lives, and they’d crossed paths a few times.

“Would Adam suggest it?” Charles questioned, thinking about the possibility very seriously.

There were boxes to check before they could even get that far. The Tri-Cities weren’t the perfect spot as far as location accessibility, but he could pull off the commute. He would happily pull off the commute for Anna’s sake.

Samuel said something along the lines of “probably” while Charles was lost momentarily in thought. Somewhere on the other end of the call was the distinct sound of a key scraping into a lock and the familiar “click” of said lock releasing before a door opened.

“Do you always lock Mercy out of her own home?” Charles asked just as Samuel was greeting his roommate.

Mercy stilled, he could tell without being in the room because he suddenly didn’t hear her. Any phone call he had with his brother was done intentionally when Samuel was either in the car or Mercy wasn’t home. She was prone to be a little skittish, their coyote.

Or, if he were being honest, she was more prone to being angry.

“Charles called to tell me some great news,” For all intents and purposes, Samuel sounded incredibly casual and unbothered by Mercy’s clear discomfort.

“Which is?” Mercy sounded not the least bit interested, but at least she took the bait.

“Family reunion, Mercy,” His brother told her. “Charles wants us to meet the new sister-in-law.”

Closing his eyes, Charles tried not to wonder if the kiss he had just heard was on the lips or on the forehead. It could go either way with Samuel and it wasn’t a relationship he needed all the information on in this moment. In fact, he was actively trying to stay out of it and hoped his father knew what he was doing.

They’d almost lost him already. Mercy might be a death sentence.

“Oh, Mercy, it’ll be like the good old days!”

Mercy had groaned.

Were there any good old days? Charles thought wryly about the crashed car and the peanut butter. There was the time she’d forgotten to close the pasture gate. Couldn’t forget the mystery of the missing left shoes. The disaster that was his father discovering Samuel and Mercy’s plot to run away—Charles still wondered where Samuel thought he would be able to disappear to that they couldn’t find him fast enough. Once upon a time, she had numbered no less than thirty-four toy ducks. There might have been more than thirty-four—they were currently numbered up to 1076, but they doubted there were that many. Only thirty-four were discovered.

Charles had been almost disappointed in Mercy at the time when he learned that they hadn’t been real ducks.

There was, of course, the Watergate Scandal. That might’ve been a “good old day”, he supposed with a small smile. The three of them had laughed, at the very least. Hundreds of tiny cups of water peppered the floor like little landmines. Mercy had started the trail at the front door and meticulously covered the entire home, including the basement stairs. They were pretty sure she exited over the garage and hopped down off the roof there, but Charles himself had never asked.

Leah’s scream of frustration could have been heard for miles when she came home the following morning. His father had come straight home from his business trip to see what the fuss was and to make Mercy clean it up. The Marrok then proceeded in through an upper story window thinking the water was only blocking the door.

He was wrong.

Charles and Samuel had helped Mercy clean up that prank. They might have indirectly been involved with the acquisition (and storage) of the millions of cups.

Memories of Mercedes were a strange combination of fond recollections of innocent pranks and then reminders of her delicate mortality and trusting nature. Those that fell into the latter category made him grit his teeth and wonder how none of them had succumbed to heart attacks or aneurysms. Surely, the frequency at which they’d had them should be deadly even to werewolves.

“Are the good old days in the room with us?”

Charles found himself hiding a smile from no one. He was alone in his home after all.

“We’ve had plenty of good times.” Was that an intentional double entendre or was Charles reading too deeply into a circumstance he still didn’t understand?

He couldn’t decide and thought maybe it would be best if he didn’t try and work that one out. He would come to learn more than he necessarily wanted to know if this all came to fruition.

“Wait, did you say ‘sister-in-law?’”

***

Very little went according to plan, as was typical with Mercedes Thompson. It was only a few weeks later that Charles found himself in the car with Anna on their way to Mercy’s trailer home.

Apparently, years of emotional abuse from the Marrok’s mate had not dampened her desire to help when someone needed it—even when that someone was a female werewolf.

“Oh, so she’s your sister!” Anna smiled brightly.

Charles’ heart warmed. He loved it when she smiled, the way her eyes seemed to sparkle and the edges crinkled upwards. She stuck her tongue between her front teeth sometimes, when she was trying not to laugh, and it was so obvious she was laughing anyways. It made him want to laugh aloud just from watching her.

“She might not like that comparison,” He shouldn’t have been smiling, but hers was so contagious. “Mercy didn’t have an easy time in Aspen Creek.”

That was maybe saying the least. He was sure Anna, of all people, would be able to get the story out of Mercy. Charles was an adult watching Mercy grow up, fairly complicit in how she was being raised. With Bryan and Evelyn, it had been ok, Mercy had grown up as normally as a coyote in a wolf pack could.

But then things had happened. Circumstances had changed. Lives were lost and Mercy was left stranded somewhere in the middle.

“And your brother doesn’t think of her the same way?”

“I don’t know what he thinks.” Charles admitted as honestly as he could. “Theirs is a unique history.”

Maybe not that unique, Charles thought while casting a sideways glance at her. Anna herself was little more than a child when she had undergone the Change against her will under horrifically traumatic circumstances. That was only a few short years ago and the years hadn’t proven kind to her in the least bit.

It was partly that reason, he supposed, that they were doing this—that he had even agreed to this. It wasn’t the age gap that upset him, theirs was tame by the standard of some others. It was the dynamic.

Charles didn’t consider himself a saviour by any stretch of the imagination and, truth be told, Anna had entirely saved herself from her biggest monsters. But she was fresh out of a situation where she had been intentionally made to feel weaker, to feel dependent on someone’s kindness, to cater to someone because of the dependency. He would be playing a dangerous game keeping her fed with a roof over her head, most especially in a town off the beaten path where she knew no one but him.

Safe. Mine.

Yes, he thought, very dangerous.

“And Mercy is a coyote, but you don’t know really how she is?” Anna recapped.

Not entirely, and he explained as much. Charles knew there used to be plenty of people like Mercy. He had met, he thought, at least one. Although, they hadn’t been a coyote.

He definitely would have known.

But he didn’t know what she was beyond the idea that others had once existed. Seemingly, the knowledge had disappeared with the people who would have held it.

There was a wave of sadness at the thought, one that Anna washed away with her own tsunami of peace.

“You said at home the spirits sometimes speak to you,” Anna began. “That they like you? They didn’t tell you what she is?”

“It would seem,” Charles smiled a little fondly at a memory of a coyote pup disappearing into the surrounding woods for a disastrously long and successful (for Mercy) game of hide-and-seek. “That they like her more.”

They turned, finally, upon the road Mercy’s home was on according to the address Samuel had sent.

It was one Charles already knew like the back of his hand. He had Mercy’s number memorized, too, if you asked him to recite it—both her shop and her cell.

And he’d throw in Margi’s for good measure if Anna were asking.

It wasn’t until they had parked that Charles realized that Anna had been the only person he had ever confided in about Mercy. It was possible even the coyote herself didn’t know how he felt about her. Samuel had always been the one to love kids. As he grew older, certainly as decades turned into centuries, Charles had come to assume that key part of his brother’s nature was why he’d taken to him despite all their centuries difference in age. Mercy, knowing her from practically-birth to sixteen and then even longer from afar…

He had come to realize sometimes the age difference in a family didn’t matter. Mercy was as much his sister as Samuel was a brother, even if she weren’t blood.

And—maybe most importantly—Anna wasn’t jealous.

Charles knew Anna was able to feel that way about him, and it had been incredibly satisfying to come to know it even if he discovered it at possibly the most inopportune time.

“Does Mercy know anything about me?” Anna asked him before they cut the engine.

She didn’t sound nervous, but her pulse had quickened and the adrenaline kicked in giving away her fear.

“She knows you’re important to me.” Charles tried to veil his frustration with the way his own brother had introduced the concept of Anna without ever speaking of her as a person by name. “And, through no fault of my own, she believes us to be dating.”

Or married.

“Well,” And she at least sounded amused now as her freckles nearly blended into her undeniably blushing cheeks. “We did go on one date, so I guess it could qualify us as dating.”

One date which had ended incredibly poorly with an attempt on his life which had fortunately missed but caused them to quickly return to her home and regroup before meeting Leo and his poor-shot of a mate.

“We could try again,” Charles suggested, “While I’m here.”

Anna smiled, tongue between her teeth because he himself had made her heart skip a beat.

“Yeah? I’d like that, I think.”

Even over the engine and outside the home, he could hear his brother’s cackle.

[slowlysointernet]

I may or may not have posted this before, i can't remember. Anyway here's another little treasure that i found.

👇

[leahsupportgroupmember]

Grovel Fiend

For fucks sake, Patricia Briggs created the perfect climatic conditions for the ultimate grovel scenario (TM) and we are instead forced to listen to Mercy’s whining instead! This is a crime!!

the perfect climatic conditions for the ultimate grovel scenario:

Compelling couple.

Leah is a brash difficult woman. But shes competent and loyal to a fault. Also we know she wont believe he suddenly loves her

Bran is a compelling male character. Nuanced. Scheming. Is the strongest man in that world but very rarely decides to physically throw that around. Prefers to manipulate his way.

Ironically hes the sentimental one out of the too. Shes the more practical one.

He spent the last 200 years convincing her shes unloveable and he cant stand her. Inadvertently tapping into her worst fears and trauma.

He has a solid explanation for why he held at her arms length (mommy trauma, her power over his wolf)

He thought shes the one who did the ultimate betrayal. But turns out hes the one who betrayed her and wanted to kill her! (Chefs kiss angst)

Spent the last 200 years of his marriage, believing the worst of her and finding fault in her.

the mastermind extraordinaire now has a blind spot on his mate and turns out hes doesnt actually know her inner workings

Leah is a brash bitch. She’s difficult. Anrgy etc. Shes not a woe is me Mary Sue. Wont turn the story into a melodrama because shes a proactive character

There is 200 years of (valid) misunderstandings and resentment to unravel.

The sacred mating bond was forced shut for 200 years. The shock. The drama. The possibilities and repercussions!

Could go on and on. But I am not a literary expert. Just a Leah Mega fan.