Adam Alexander Hauptman is one of the main characters in the "Mercy Thompson" book series by Patricia Briggs, and also a central one of the Aspen Creek series. Adam is Mercy's neighbor and Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack. There is romantic tension between the two over the first three books. They become mated in Bone Crossed, and married in River Marked. He became a werewolf during the Vietnam War, and now runs a private security firm. Adam is very dominant; in fact, he is the fourth-most dominant wolf in North America, after Bran, Charles, and Samuel (Moon Called). He is driven to protect anyone he considers his, even if they don't agree. This has led to conflicts between him and Mercy on multiple occasions. His wolf is extremely violent and hard to control. He warns Mercy that if his wolf ever takes control (as Samuel's did in Silver Borne), she should get away and call Bran to come kill him, or just shoot him herself. Adam was a teen and young man in the 1950s. He joined the United States Army Special Forces (long-range recon) in Vietnam, where his team was sent to take out a particularly nasty warlord who turned out to be a werewolf. Most of his men were slaughtered, and only Adam and David Christiansen survived as werewolves. One of the werewolf's own men beheaded him as he was eating poor old McCue, whose screams still feature in Adam's nightmares. He married Christy, and Jesse was born, among several miscarriages for which Christy blames Adam. He was sent by Bran to the Tri-Cities both to take out a rogue werewolf pack and to keep an eye on Mercy, and it turned out to be a great opportunity for his security business, due to the nuclear power plant and several governmental agencies in the area. Christy divorced Adam when Jesse was around ten and took her to Eugene, OR. Even though she disliked him at the time, Mercy brought him cookies and he realized she was a pretty nice person. At some point several of the wolves began harassing Mercy and he claimed her as his mate in front of his pack, so they would not harm her - a coyote living next to wolves.