With a mock-salute of a couple of fingers at his temple, Colin turned and jogged back up the hill, through the pines and out of sight.
The way Parker cheated in the fight…or something. I stuffed the pants in the backpack, arranged the straps, and shifted.
I didn’t want to hope that something was me. But I ran a little faster on my way back to the car.
Chapter 14
Break on Through to the Other Side
Getting out of the Kimball territory was as easy as getting in. By two I was on the highway heading east, straight for the Armitage territory. I knew I needed to conserve my strength for later, but I put a little burst of magic into the car. Not exactly an illusion, like the one I’d used to obscure the license plates, but a little something to confuse any cops with a radar gun into thinking I was going the speed limit.
Not that speed limits were much of a thing out here in the boonies, but the Kimballs owned half the police around here. And I was short on time.
At least I wasn’t getting tired yet. I’d slept most of the day, and I was still wide awake.
More than wide awake, since my brain was running in circles like a meth-addled hamster. Somehow I’d gone from working with Jonathan Hawthorne, to being the Armitages’ prisoner they wanted to kill, to escaping, to now going back to the Armitages voluntarily.
And somehow I’d also gone from enchanting Matthew with the intent to help kill him, to being stuck to him like superglue, to saving his life, to letting him put his tongue in my ass, to escaping, to going back to him as…what? An ally, I guessed? A temporary ally, and I didn’t need to guess about the temporary part.
The spell wasn’t in effect anymore. I was useful right now, and then they wouldn’t be able to see the back of me fast enough.
I’d been on the move since I was fourteen years old. Thirteen years, now, even longer than I’d had a semi-stable life in the first place — since I’d already been about two when my brother rescued me.
The woods rushed by in a blur, and the highway wound away in front of me, empty but for the glare of my headlights. I had the window rolled down, and cold air blasted my cheeks into numbness and whipped my hair around in a wild tangle.
How many days, months, years had I spent like this, alone in a car on a deserted road, going anywhere I thought I could eke out a living and avoid becoming prey?
A lot of those days I’d convinced myself I was an old-school American nomad, enjoying the freedom of the open road. No commitments. Nothing tying me down. Nothing to do but please myself.
Most of the nights, it hadn’t felt so classic-movie glamorous. Getting fucked in a dive-bar bathroom. Having to use magic to defend myself when the guy with his dick up my ass decided he didn’t like my long hair, or my tattoos, or my attitude. Sleeping curled up alone on a lumpy roadside motel mattress with springs poking me in the hip, with one eye open in case someone who could get through my wards tried to force the door, listening to the shouts and hollers of the drunken assholes in the other rooms.
I’d been running, not living the life of a carefree vagabond. Only problem was, I hadn’t been running to anything — just away from the possibility that if I tried to find a place for myself in the world, I’d lose it. Again. The way I’d lost my brother, or the way I’d never even known my parents. I had nothing to show for those thirteen years. I might as well have curled up in a hollow tree and hibernated it away; if it’d all been erased from my memory overnight, there wouldn’t have been much to miss.
And I was tired of it. The car’s headlights flicked over a sign for Laceyville: 9 miles. Almost there. Another place I’d be leaving in the morning, once I’d done my part to bring peace to the galaxy.
The miles flew by, and in no time at all — definitely before I’d managed to get my shit together — I was turning onto the access road into the Armitage territory. Gravel and chunks of dried mud left over from the rains the week before flew up from the tires and spattered the tree trunks on the side of the road. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Two-thirty. The Kimballs would be loading up and heading this way all too soon. I wondered if Matthew was getting updates from Colin.
I drove as far as the pack house and was met by one of the pack, someone I didn’t recognize, who jogged up to the car and bent down to the window. “Keep going along that little road north,” he said without preamble. “They’re waiting for you up there.”
He stepped back, and I hit the gas and followed his directions. The ‘road’ was generously named, even with the ‘little’ qualifier, and the Honda jolted and jounced over more potholes than I could count. Tree branches scraped the sides of the car.
Oh well. It was stolen anyway. I could’ve probably made it faster on foot — on four feet, certainly — but I wasn’t planning on shifting in front of the Armitages. Werewolves tended to be assholes about any other breed of shifter, since they were the most numerous and were often super arrogant about how much better they were. I’d once seen a weretiger fully shift in front of a group of werewolves. Their petulant, sullen, impotent irritation remained one of the few treasured memories I would miss if I got sudden amnesia.
Anyway, I wasn’t a tiger, and that wouldn’t work for me.
About two miles down the ‘road,’ Nate popped out of the trees and flagged me down. Ian appeared right behind him, looming and scowling with his arms crossed over his massive chest.
Fucking alphas.
I pulled over and parked, cutting the engine. Deep breath. I could deal with them. I had my magic under my own full control now, and I could handle any of them — any of them besides Nate, maybe, and he had his hands full with preparing a reception for the Kimballs.
Gathering up my backpack, I stepped out of the car.
Nate trotted over to me, his cheeks pink and his hair flying every which way. He had on a giant sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, one sleeve starting to slide down his arm. He shoved it up impatiently as he came to a stop, the flashlight in his other hand blinding me for a second as he waved it around. Nate looked like what you’d find in a dictionary to illustrate the word flustered.
“I’ve gotten the wards set up to trigger a barrier spell to hold them, but the barrier spell isn’t fucking working,” he said in a rush. “Seriously, this is bullshit. I know I need the components arranged in a circle to match the salt circle that’ll form the barrier itself, but the order in the book doesn’t seem to be working and —”
“Don’t tell him that,” Ian put in, pacing over to take up his usual position at Nate’s shoulder. “He’s not here to help us. He’s probably spying.”
I lifted my chin and stared him down. I was done taking Ian’s crap. “What did Matthew tell you?” They probably wouldn’t notice that my voice shook a little when I said Matthew’s name. “You’re not the Armitage pack leader, last I checked.”
Ian’s scowl deepened. Good. Asshole. “Neither is Matthew while he’s not back to normal.”
What? “But he is back —” I broke off, shaking my head. Ian probably didn’t trust Matthew’s state of mind even after the spell was broken, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to convince him. “Whatever. You’re not the pack leader, and if the council’s letting Matthew call the shots tonight, that ought to be good enough for you. Are they?”
A pause. “Yes, they are,” Nate said, sounding thoroughly exasperated. He punched Ian in the arm, and Ian winced and rubbed at the spot. I covered my mouth to hide my smile. Right. Like Nate had hurt him. “Matthew is in charge, and he said Arik’s helping us. I’m not happy about it either.” He paused to glare at me. “But I need a second set of magical hands, and you sure as fuck aren’t going to be useful, Ian.”
“I’ll be useful once we start fighting,” Ian grumbled.
“If this works there won’t be any fighting,” Nate said. “Hence, you know, the treacherous shaman who was trying to kill us a couple weeks ago and may or may not sabotage us.”
“Thanks for the introduction,” I
said. “Really. I’m blushing. Also, could we maybe stop with the pleasantries and get to setting up the spell? Because the Kimballs are supposed to be here in less than an hour.”
Nate gestured with his arm, turned, and set off into the woods. I followed, with Ian lurking between us and baring his teeth at me.
We ended up in a small clearing about a hundred yards into the forest, off the path and closer to the territory boundary.
I stood, hands on hips, and surveyed Nate’s preparations where they were set out in the center of a small dirt circle. To the side was a battery-powered lantern with a tattered volume of spells set out beside it, a couple of pebbles weighing the pages down so they didn’t flap in the mild breeze.
His candles were the wrong width, but I chose not to comment on that. They’d do. That was just nit-picking.
On the other hand…
“That’s common mallow, not marshmallow root.” I set down my backpack and crouched to dig through it. “That’s not going to work for you.”
“What?” Nate snatched up the herb, peering at it and turning red. “I picked it myself!”
“Yeah, and it looks really similar. Easy mistake to make.” I mentally patted myself on the back. I could be tactful! I could get along! “I can tell by the smell.” I set aside a few baggies, rummaged a little more, and pulled out a sack of marshmallow root. Thank the gods I’d grabbed some. I hadn’t been planning on doing this type of spell, but you never knew.
“I don’t have a shifter’s nose,” Nate muttered, sounding somehow sulky, apologetic, and defiant all at once. “I thought it was the right thing.”
“We’ll just replace it.” It took real effort, but I forced myself to hand him the bag rather than doing it myself. If I simply took over, Ian would assume it really was sabotage, and Nate would get even sulkier. “Here, you do that, and I’ll look at the book for a minute.”
Nate nodded, his cheeks still burning red, and took the bag.
We worked mostly in silence for a while, with me examining the spell to see what precisely it was supposed to do while Nate fiddled with the herbs. As I’d expected, it was a spell for containment: a large salt circle set closer to the wards, activated through our incantations here, that would be strong enough to hold a whole gang of angry alphas and keep them from crossing the line. It looked good in theory; all I had to do was figure out where Nate had gone wrong other than the mallow, and watch as he carefully adjusted the placement of the components.
Ian paced the clearing, making unhappy noises whenever Nate and I were close enough to touch, and sending and receiving the occasional text on his phone.
I bit my lip a dozen times when my mouth tried to start talking without my brain’s permission and ask who he was texting, what the rest of the plan was, and where the fuck Matthew was.
But by the time Nate and I had everything set up, I didn’t need to ask.
My nose tingled. I could smell Matthew’s unique pheromones. He was on his way. My cock stirred in my thankfully loose track pants. Fuck that little — well, not so little — traitor, anyway. A minute later, I heard quiet voices and footsteps crunching on the forest mould.
I kept my head down. The last time I’d met Matthew’s eyes, he’d just had his mouth on me, his big hand wrapped around my cock. Both our cocks. We’d been covered in each other’s come.
And then when he’d woken up, I’d been gone.
What would I see in his face when I looked at him again? I wanted to wait as long as possible before finding out.
It wasn’t that long. I was facing away from the approaching group, but I knew they’d stepped into the clearing when Nate glanced up and smiled. “We’re almost done!” he said, sounding like a kid looking for a pat on the head.
I wanted to sneer, but the low rumble of Matthew’s voice from behind me wiped the nasty smile right off my face. “I knew you could do it, Nate. We’re lucky we have a warlock in the pack.”
Nate lit up like a Christmas tree, his cheeks flushing from pleasure this time, not embarrassment. And I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.
A warlock, not a shaman. They didn’t need a shaman if they had Nate. Yes, shamans had some talents warlocks didn’t, like the ability to use magic while shifted into animal form — and the ability to shift into animal form in the first place. And we had an affinity for bonding magic and other were-specific things.
But a warlock could set wards, do some healing, create illusions, and use magic in a fight; Nate had the pack covered.
And Matthew appreciated him for it.
It shouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t plan to stick around. But my gut still ached like I’d taken a physical blow.
“It wouldn’t be working without Arik,” Nate said. And sounded — chiding? I glanced up, startled. Was he defending me?
The back of my neck prickled. I knew Matthew was looking at me. “That’s why he’s here,” Matthew said gruffly.
Oh, so Nate got gratitude, but I was expected to turn up and help? What the fuck sense did that make? It was his pack. Not mine.
But Matthew was his brother-in-law. And Matthew was nothing to me. And maybe that explained it.
I stood slowly, gathering my courage, and finally turned. Matthew had been right behind me, just as I’d thought. Now he was right in front of me, his wide shoulders and looming six-feet-plus of alphaness making me feel small and insignificant.
I lifted my chin. It didn’t make me any taller, but at least I looked like I was going to stand my ground.
The look on his face defied interpretation. I’d noticed when he was coming around the Kimball territory before I’d put my spell on him — and after, too, when he wasn’t focused on me — that he had an uncanny ability to be neutral, unreadable. Not blank. Just — pleasantly not expressive. It had served him well with Sam Kimball, who’d complained a lot about Matthew’s lack of tells.
Much as I hated to agree with that asshole Sam, may he rest in not-peace, in that moment I shared his frustration.
Was Matthew angry with me? Murderous? Bored? Who could tell?
Whatever he was, I couldn’t begin to deal with it now. “Have you talked to Colin? How far away are they? And I assume you’re sure they’ll be crossing the boundary here?”
The faintest trace of…something…passed across Matthew’s face, and one of his hands twitched at his side. “They’re on their way. And yes. Kimball said this was the point they’d chosen. This is one of the less obvious places. They were planning to take us by surprise.”
You’re welcome was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back. No, fuck it. “Well, you’re welcome,” I snapped.
Both of Matthew’s fists were clenched now. “Kimball would’ve called me anyway,” he gritted out.
“Nope,” I said, popping the p as obnoxiously as possible. “He wouldn’t have.” I could feel my own claws pricking at my fingertips as my anger started to mount. Why was I so determined to get credit for something I barely cared about anyway? I should’ve just waited it out at the Kimballs’, assassinated Parker, and made a run for it. “That was my idea.”
“I guess I’m lucky you and Colin Kimball are so close.” If the sarcasm had been any heavier it would’ve crushed us both like a landslide.
Matthew turned away abruptly, snagging Ian’s attention and leading him off to talk to a group of councilors on the other side of the clearing — and dismissing me completely in the process.
Fuck. Alphas. Fuck Matthew. Fuck.
I turned and quickly knelt back down again, adjusting the position of a candle that didn’t need to be adjusted so that I could pretend that was what I meant to do all along.
“We should create the salt circle now,” I said, my voice a little too rough.
To my surprise, Nate just nodded without comment, and we each took one of the big bags of rock salt that had been sitting off to the side and headed closer to the territory boundary.
It was a beautiful night. The rain was still holding off,
though the air was getting damper and chillier by the hour. I hoped it kept holding off until we were done with the salt; dissolved salt circles were a fucking bitch. They could still hold power temporarily, but the amount of magic that needed to be fed into them increased exponentially the soggier they got. There was some nerdy chemistry researcher up in Oregon who’d been studying the relationship between magical force and chemical bonds as expressed in equilibrium equations; I’d read one of his papers online one time when I was bored. All I knew was that it sucked when it happened.
Nate looked up at what could be seen of the moon and the stars through the gathering clouds and the feathery branches above us as we crossed the clearing and headed a few yards north. He tripped over his own feet, and I reached out without thinking and caught him by the arm, keeping him from face-planting. He glanced around himself a little shiftily, but Ian was still engaged with Matthew and the council, planning what to do once we trapped the attackers, from what I could tell — or how to deal with it if trapping them failed.
“Would he really get pissed at you just for letting me touch your arm?” Typical controlling alpha bullshit. Not that I cared about Nate, but…yeah, all right, I cared if another mage was stuck with an overbearing dickhead mate with nowhere to go. Fine. I could admit it.
Nate laughed a little. “No. He’d be pissed at you and assume you were trying to hurt me, and then he’d get all worried, and then we’d end up not setting the salt circle until the Kimballs were already here. I don’t think asking them to wait would go down so well, you know?”
That startled out a laugh of my own. “Yeah, ‘Excuse me, Bill, stand still for a second? No, a couple feet to the left. Perfect.’”
The silence that fell after Nate’s answering chuckle was almost…companionable.
We started at the same point on the circle, back to back, and went around in opposite directions. I used a little flare of magic to create an illusion of a perfect circle drawn in a pale glow on the ground so we could follow the line, and then funneled a bit more magic into the stream of salt I was pouring out of my bag to keep it neat.
Captive Mate (Mismatched Mates Book 2) Page 14