Bone Crossed

The fourth installment in the Mercy Thompson series opens in the aftermath of its predecessor's central trauma. Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson, a coyote shapeshifter and auto mechanic living in the Tri-Cities of Washington State, is grappling with the psychological fallout of killing Tim, the man who raped her. Adam Hauptman, the Alpha werewolf of the local Columbia Basin Pack and Mercy's would-be mate, has been waiting for her answer to a long-standing question: Will she accept him as her mate? The unresolved status is destabilizing his pack's hierarchy. Mercy internally agrees, though she misunderstands the mating process and has a panic attack when Adam kisses her goodnight, one of several that recur daily.

That same evening, Stefan, a centuries-old vampire and Mercy's longtime friend, teleports into her living room as a charred, barely recognizable figure. He manages two urgent messages before hunger overtakes him: Marsilia, the Mistress of the Tri-Cities vampire seethe (a local vampire court), knows that Mercy killed Andre, one of her powerful lieutenants, and Mercy must run. Mercy's mother, Margi, who has arrived unannounced from Portland, draws a pistol on the feral vampire. Adam intervenes by offering his own wrist as a blood source and calls in pack members to feed Stefan until he stabilizes. Marsilia tortured and starved Stefan, then dumped him in Mercy's home hoping he would kill her in his frenzy. Andre had created a demon-possessed vampire that terrorized the region; when Mercy destroyed both the creature and its maker, Stefan and another vampire named Wulfe covered up her involvement. Marsilia has now discovered the truth.

The next morning, Mercy finds her garage vandalized with spray-painted slurs and, more ominously, a pair of crossed bones painted on the door: a vampire death mark declaring her a traitor. Meanwhile, an old college acquaintance named Amber asks Mercy to investigate a haunted house in Spokane where Amber's deaf 10-year-old son, Chad, is bearing the brunt of the haunting. The timing feels suspicious, but Amber's distress seems genuine.

When Stefan, awake and psychically anguished over the deaths of his human dependents (people vampires keep to feed from, whom Marsilia killed as punishment), accidentally invades Mercy's mind through their prior blood connection, Adam responds by formally inducting Mercy into his pack through an emergency bonding ceremony. He places a scrap of his own flesh and blood in her mouth and speaks the traditional pack-bonding vows. The move is unprecedented, as no non-werewolf has ever joined a pack, and it generates friction among pack members.

During a date at Uncle Mike's, a fae tavern, a hidden magic bag drives the werewolves inside berserk. Mercy, in coyote form, snatches the bag from the rafters and escapes the building. Inside, a pack wolf named Mary Jo has her throat ripped out by a packmate driven mad by the spell. A powerful fae healer restores Mary Jo's body, and Adam performs CPR to restart her heart. The bag's vampire scent confirms Marsilia orchestrated the attack.

Bran, the Marrok (the supreme leader of all North American werewolves) and Mercy's foster father, arrives and advises that leaving the Tri-Cities could draw Marsilia's fire while Adam negotiates. Stefan volunteers as a hidden bodyguard, and Mercy drives to Spokane. At a formal dinner in Amber's home, she is horrified to discover that Amber's husband Corban Wharton's most important client, Jim Blackwood, is the vampire known as "the Monster," who controls all of Spokane as his sole territory.

Over the following days, the ghost grows increasingly violent. Mercy wakes to find vampire bite marks on her neck. When the ghost attacks Chad with lethal force, encasing his room in frost and stopping his breathing, Stefan appears and helps rescue the boy. Examining the bites, Stefan confirms they are not his. Mercy also discovers that Amber has been fed on by Blackwood during daylight hours, an ability no ordinary vampire possesses, and has no memory of it. The family evacuates to a hotel. On the drive home, Stefan explains that repeated blood exchanges between a vampire and a human can create a master-slave bond. To block Blackwood's hold, Stefan offers to exchange blood with Mercy himself, arguing his existing tie would override Blackwood's claim. Mercy agrees, and they complete the exchange at a rest stop. She briefly hears Blackwood's voice in her mind, confirming the Spokane vampire had been performing full exchanges.

Back in the Tri-Cities, Adam patiently works through Mercy's trauma responses until they consummate their relationship. When Adam then attempts to fully open Mercy to the pack bond, the mate bond (a distinct magical connection) settles simultaneously, and the resulting overload sends Mercy's consciousness flooding through every wolf in the pack. The assembled wolves link together to contain her, but both bonds go temporarily offline.

While the bonds are down, Corban arrives under Blackwood's compulsion and kidnaps Mercy with a military-grade stun gun. Blackwood is holding Chad hostage. Mercy shifts to coyote to escape her restraints but chooses not to flee, knowing Blackwood will kill Chad. She rides in the trunk all the way to Spokane.

Inside Blackwood's compound, Mercy discovers he feeds on supernatural creatures to steal their powers. He has imprisoned an oakman (a tree fae) named Donnell Greenleaf for 93 years, gaining immunity to sunlight. Amber is dead, reanimated as a zombie. Mercy discovers a walker ability to command ghosts through authoritative speech, learning that Blackwood previously imprisoned another walker for decades to harness this same power. She uses this ability to free Amber's spirit, weakening Blackwood, and calls Stefan through their blood bond. Stefan teleports Chad to safety.

When Blackwood retaliates, Mercy shifts to coyote and attacks. The oakman hurls the walking stick, a fae artifact that has been following Mercy throughout the novel, like a spear into Blackwood's back. Mercy decapitates the vampire with a kitchen knife, and the oakman blasts open the basement wall with the stick's magic, flooding the room with sunlight and destroying the remains. Mercy calls Adam, who is already en route, guided by Chad.

In the climactic scene, Marsilia summons the wolves and Mercy to a formal tribunal, using an ancient truth-testing chair to expose two vampires, Bernard and Estelle, as traitors. The proceedings reveal that Stefan's entire ordeal was engineered to flush out the conspirators: Marsilia faked the deaths of Stefan's dependents, tortured him, and expelled him, knowing his genuine grief and refusal to join the rebels would delegitimize their cause. Stefan, devastated, vanishes.

Marsilia lifts the death sentence against Mercy, orders the crossed bones removed, and provides a sealed letter for Stefan revealing his people are alive. When Marsilia later appears on Mercy's porch asking why Stefan has not returned, he materializes behind Mercy and tells Marsilia he will come back, but not tonight. The novel closes with Mercy and Adam attending a light opera. Through the restored mate bond, Mercy senses Adam's thoughts. The pack bond is settled, the vampire threat is neutralized, and Mercy's relationship with Adam is fully realized, though the tensions with Marsilia and the complexities of Stefan's loyalties remain unresolved.