Junk magic, p.16
Junk Magic, page 16
I didn’t know. I just knew that I was about to come out of my skin suddenly, and that I wanted them gone. I wanted them all gone!
“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said, sensing something from me. “Some of the guys had started a load before I noticed—”
“It’s okay,” I told him, and turned toward the bedroom again, but he pulled me back.
“We shouldn’t have come back here,” he said, his voice rough. “I should have kept you at my place.”
“The funeral is tonight. They need you—”
“You need me. But I thought . . . maybe it would help you, too, to be around people.”
“I’m around people all the time.”
“No, you work all the time. You don’t go anywhere, Lia. You come over to my place or we come here, but otherwise—”
“We went to Zion a month ago.”
“Because I practically kidnapped you. I thought it would do you good.”
“It did. It was fun.”
He took my face between his hands, and they were so big that they cradled my whole head in warmth. Like looking up into brown eyes that were suddenly heartbreakingly sad. “I wish I knew how to take the pain away. Knew what to say to make it better.”
“You don’t have to say anything. This,” I covered one of his hands with my own. “This is good.”
“I can have them hit up a laundromat,” he whispered, his forehead coming down to rest against mine. “I didn’t before because the clothes were already wet—”
“And because you didn’t know how to tell them that you live with a crazy woman?”
He enveloped me in a hug then, holding my head against his chest. “You’re not crazy, and I don’t know too many women who wouldn’t be on my ass right now, for dropping a couple dozen houseguests on her unannounced.”
“It’s clan custom,” I said looking up. “Did you really think I’d say no?”
“No, but I’d planned to clear it with you first. But nobody at the damned Corps called me until this morning, and then all they said was that you needed a ride. I thought you’d left your bike somewhere, not that—”
“I was drugged off my ass?”
He nodded. “That’s why I took Jace, to kill two birds with one stone. I didn’t realize there was a problem until I saw the condition of your bike, right before all hell broke loose.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. Those bastards should have called me as soon as you were brought in. I’m supposed to be on the contact list for emergencies—”
“You are on the list. In fact, you are the list.”
“Then why the hell—”
“Sedgewick. Maybe Hargroves, too. They didn’t know what they were dealing with, and didn’t want anybody causing trouble until they figured it out.”
I stopped there, because I’m not a fool.
But Cyrus’s jaw clenched anyway. I felt it against my head. “And what, exactly, would I be causing trouble about, if they were just trying to help you?”
Damn. Sometimes I really wished I had a dumber boyfriend. “Cyrus—”
He pulled away so that he could see my eyes. “What was the plan, Lia, if you’d turned into something like Colin? What were they prepared to do?”
“I liked it better when you were tiptoeing around my feelings back at the apartment,” I told him honestly.
“Answer the question.”
Yeah, only I didn’t want to do that, because the atmosphere in here was already getting hard to breathe. Cyrus was shedding power, trying to avoid a Change, but he was losing because he’d already figured out the answer and his beast didn’t like it. No, scratch that, his beast was furious, I thought, as the broken light bulb came back on and then abruptly shattered, raining down shards of glass everywhere.
And shit.
Chapter Sixteen
“They don’t get to decide that,” Cyrus growled, his voice so full of wolf speak that I could barely understand him. “They don’t get to decide anything to do with you!”
I put a hand on his arm, a light touch because his beast would not appreciate restraint right now. He accepted it, although the muscles under my palm were bunched and tense. But not Changing.
Not yet.
“You saw what Colin could do, and that was without magic,” I said softly, trying to diffuse things. “They couldn’t risk the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off downtown—”
“And did they think about what they risked from Arnou if something happened to you? What they risked from me?”
I gazed up at him. The hall was dark, but his face was fierce. He hadn’t Changed, yet I could see the wolf, and I didn’t need extra senses to do it.
But right then, I had them, and my beast liked what she saw. Liked the lean lines of his face, both that of the human and of the hulking predator who hovered just out of reach. Liked the bared teeth, the very non-human expression that called to her, that showed his ferocity. Liked his anger.
Liked it so much that she slid against him, not the man but the wolf, twining her body around his and calling him out, drawing him forth. For a moment, I could almost see the two of them, the dark, red eyed female, sleek and savage, and the massive, black and tan Alpha male. They were circling each other, taking the other’s scent, curious but cautious.
Because they’d never met, had they?
The idea floored me for a moment. Cyrus and I had been lovers, off and on, for years now, starting out in Jersey shortly after he broke with Arnou, and continuing on for most of my time in Vegas. Our wolves should have met long ago, only they couldn’t have, could they?
Not until now, when whatever I'd taken had brought mine closer to the surface.
And they were taking full advantage.
He was larger than her, by a good deal. Cyrus’s family were big men and they made big wolves, dwarfing the punier clans. Such things shouldn’t matter when choosing a leader, but Weres were no less superficial than humans, and Sebastian’s stature had definitely helped his chances.
As Cyrus’s was doing now.
But my wolf was holding her own, undisturbed by his size. Maybe because whatever she lacked in bulk she made up for in speed, easily evading his attempts to get closer. But then circling around and coming back, almost as if she was teasing him.
She was dark lightning, and he was quickly confused. And then intrigued, unsure why he couldn’t catch her. I had the impression that she was laughing at him, or maybe with him, because his befuddlement quickly changed into something else.
He liked this one.
And apparently, she liked him back, too, because the next moment, I felt the two heavily muscled bodies come into contact once more, this time pushing against each other, testing the other out. Their claws were sheathed, but that could change in an instant and they both knew it. Yet they apparently thought the reward was worth the risk.
She liked how big he was, how solid. Liked that she wasn’t sure she could take him. Wanted to try.
For his part, he seemed fascinated by her scent, butting his head against her, dragging it along her fur. She snarled a warning when he got too close to her neck, and he bared his teeth in return. Yet he backed off, unwilling to allow this to descend into a fight.
He liked her. He wanted her. He tried to mount her, but she growled and slipped out from under. She wasn’t having it, yet she looked at him over her shoulder, a come-hither look that could have been playful or a trap.
Or possibly both.
I wasn’t even sure, and he was just as confused, with the great face displaying an almost human-like puzzlement as he stared after her. Not that it lasted for long. Because Cyrus in either guise was a take-charge type of guy, in the habit of going straight after what he wanted.
And he wanted her.
He bounded after her, in whatever metaphysical plane they were occupying, and she evaded again—but halfheartedly this time. More as if she was putting up a show than genuinely trying to avoid him. But then, she didn’t have to.
“Lia—” Cyrus said, half strangled. And then stopped, as if he didn’t know what he was asking.
I did, but I couldn’t give him what he wanted, couldn’t release her, couldn’t manifest my alter ego and set us both free. Couldn’t do anything but shiver and shake against him, feeling his beast’s frustration as if it were my own. It wanted, it hungered, it liked this one, the darkly dangerous predator at its side. And that was rare among Weres, who often found that their beasts were not compatible even though the humans were.
It led to all kinds of trouble, including married couples breaking up because their beasts couldn’t get along. Or resulted in strange, blended families when the original couple wasn’t willing to part, and had to invite their beast’s preferred partners to join them, something that rarely worked out. It was why some clans required both prospective pairs to be compatible before a marriage was allowed, as there was often at least some disconnect that needed to be resolved.
But not here.
And it was tragic, because our alter egos didn’t understand. They weren’t human and didn’t think as humans do. They saw, they approved, they wanted . . .
And discovered that they couldn’t have.
I heard Cyrus’s wolf howl in my mind, a cry of pain-filled yearning. She was the one he’d waited for, hungered for, ached for; why wouldn’t she come to him? Why wouldn’t she Change?
And she didn’t understand any more than he did. Syndromes meant nothing to her, just human words for the cage she had never been able to escape. But she tried suddenly, as she hadn’t in years, throwing herself against the bars, battering them with her anger, her loneliness, her pain. Gouging them with claws she’d never used, because they weren’t real, any more than she was.
Just a phantom . . .
“She’s real enough,” Cyrus whispered against my hair, but it didn’t help, wasn’t true.
Neuri was an evil, wicked thing, destroying my other half before she was even born, but leaving her spirit to haunt me. And now she would haunt him as well, with the knowledge of what we could have had. A perfectly matched pair, so rare, so prized, and so not to be.
“You deserve better,” I told him shakily, because it was true. Better than a fucked-up war mage with PTSD who didn’t even know who—or what—she was.
A finger tilted up my face. “There is no one better,” he said savagely. “There never has been. There never will be.”
I searched the strange, whiskey-colored eyes. In sunlight, they were simply brown, with a bit of variation near the pupil with a brighter color that was almost, but not quite, gold. But here in the darkened hallway, where they made their own light as his power rose, they were burnt umber and deep copper, blending into an almost sherry-red, and appeared completely sincere.
Hell, they probably were sincere; he probably believed that this could work, as I once had. But it couldn’t. This was worse than when another Were’s wolf didn’t like you—far worse.
Because ours did, and now they knew it and so did we. And, suddenly, that half of a life didn’t feel like enough anymore. Not even close.
How could I say I loved him and condemn him to this? Our beasts were part of us in a way I hadn’t understood before, because how could I? I couldn’t share it.
But he could, and with another like him—
“There is no other!” Cyrus’s eyes flashed because I must have whispered that aloud. “There never will be!”
“So, you’ll live like this? A half life—”
“It’s not half!”
“It is! I just never realized before. How much you gave up to be with me. How much you lost—”
“I lost nothing.” I suddenly found myself backed into the wall, a furious Were in my face. He still hadn’t Changed, that iron control holding, but it was by a thread. I could feel his power circling me, a staticky cloud of it, but I wasn’t afraid.
Like my wolf, I reveled in it, drew it closer, wrapped it around me like a cloak and saw his eyes flare, neon bright for a second. He loved my courage, had told me that once, although this wasn’t that. I didn’t need courage with him. I was safer like this, with him standing as a bulwark between me and the world than I ever could be anywhere else.
I loved it here, but I didn’t deserve it.
And, for once, we had to face that.
But Cyrus beat me to the punch. “Your mother chose to be with your father,” he said harshly. “A human war mage who never accepted the bite; never Changed. Do you think she felt that she lost out? Do you think she resented him?”
“No, but—”
“Then am I so much weaker than she was? So much less willing to sacrifice—”
“You shouldn’t have to sacrifice! That’s the point—”
“Is it?” His head tilted. “But she did, didn’t she? A high-ranking member of one of the chief clans, yet her position was destroyed by her marriage, and her status in the clan eroded. She could have gotten it all back by repudiating him, by saying she’d made a mistake, by turning her back . . . yet she didn’t. I wonder why that was?”
I had a sudden flash of the two of them, with mom sitting on dad’s lap like they were newlyweds although they’d been married close to two decades at that point. They’d been pouring over an app they’d found that added dog ears and a snout to any photo. And scrolling through their phones’ memories, putting the new “accessories” on everything and giggling like children.
“She loved him,” I whispered, because she had. And he’d loved her, to the day she died. Hell, to this day. He’d never dated again, although it had been years.
I wasn’t sure he ever would.
“Strange how that works,” Cyrus said, as if that changed anything. But our situations weren’t the same and he knew it.
Dad hadn’t Changed because it would have cost him his career, there being rules about deliberately taking on a transformation and thereby splitting your loyalties. Not to mention that the Were strain can often override anything else, potentially costing him his magic. And because it wouldn’t have helped.
Mother was a noble of the great house of Lobizon, one of the twelve clans who had first founded the ruling council. She was expected to make an illustrious marriage, maybe even to birth a new clan leader, not to lower herself to couple with a nobody. Even had father accepted the bite, her status would have been in the gutter anyway, as a newly turned Were from none of the old bloodlines wasn’t viewed as much better than a human.
They hadn’t seen the point.
But Cyrus and I weren’t facing that choice. I couldn’t take the bite and join him, not at any price; the truth of that throbbed on my thigh even now. And there was another consideration as well.
“It’s not just about what you’ll miss,” I said. “It’s about what you risk. Had things gone differently today, had something happened and you went berserk at HQ—”
“Then there would be a lot of dead war mages on the ground.”
The flat assurance in his tone frightened me as nothing else had.
I felt my nails dig into his arms. “No, there wouldn’t be! You don’t understand the power of the Corps, Cyrus—”
“Or you the power of Arnou. You grew up in Lobizon, but you were never treated as part of it. You think more like a war mage—even when you shouldn’t.”
“And you more like a wolf!” I wanted to shake him, to make him understand. The Corpsmen might look puny to Weres, some of whom when transformed were three times their size. But they weren’t. And the thought of what might have happened today sent a shard of pure ice down my spine. I gripped his arms harder, made him hear me. “Sebastian is a diplomat; he’s not going to risk the alliance for me, nor should he! And you’re only one man—”
“He’s not, though,” someone said, and I looked up to find Noah standing there, backed up by several more Weres from the camping trip whose names I couldn't recall. “He has us now. And so do you.”
Damn! I’d forgotten that I was currently surrounded by creatures with way better hearing than average. And that I needed to watch my mouth.
But it was too late now, and the three of them must have heard enough, because they were looking pretty worked up.
“You saved us the other night,” one of the other Weres added, a guy with skin so dark that it blended into the dim light of the hallway. He’d solved the problem of quick growing Were hair with dreads wrapped at intervals with different colored thread, which reached past his shoulder blades. “You put your life on the line, yet you think we wouldn’t come after you? That we wouldn’t tear that place up?”
“We ought to do it anyway,” the third Were said. He was a tall redhead named Jason, with a prominent Adam’s apple, a skinny, lanky build, and hair in a Carrot Top-like snarl. He should have looked more than a little goofy, but his voice was halfway to wolf speak and there was nothing funny about it.
“After what happened to Jace,” Noah agreed. “I mean, what more can they do to us?”
“They can kill you,” I said, gripping his arm before I thought. It wasn’t a great idea to touch a wolf you barely knew, but he didn’t react.
“They can try.” The bright blue eyes were steady on mine. “Let’s see how well that goes for them.”
The other two were nodding along, and I felt something rising in me, threatening to stop my throat. Fear, but not for myself. For a moment, I couldn’t even speak.
Luckily, Cyrus could.
“No.” He didn’t raise his voice or offer any explanations, but he didn’t have to. An Alpha’s word was law.
But I wanted to make sure they understood, that they got this. “Nothing happened, so there’s nothing to avenge. And the Corps is a lot more formidable than you’re giving them credit for, not to mention that there are all kinds of wards throughout that facility that make it into a death trap. And there are Weres on duty now—”
