Page 20 of The Alpha's Warlock
“I guess I did,” I said, shifting around and ending up with my arms crossed, as if that would keep me safe from either Ian's werewolfery or his bizarro-world compliments. “Anyway. What you need to be asking is, who would benefit from you and the Kimballs getting into all-out hostilities? It could be the Kimball shaman. It could be Sam Kimball. It could be another pack. It could be someone else who hired weres to kidnap me. But that's the real point of this, I'm pretty sure.”
Matthew slumped back against the sink with a long, weary sigh. “I was really hoping this could be simple. But yeah. I'm having trouble arguing with that. And now I'm back to square one on figuring out what the fuck is going on.”
“First step is setting wards and letting me get my laptop and some research books from my place,” I put in hopefully. “And clothes. I needclothes. So...someone want to give me a ride?”
Matthew waved his hand wearily in Ian's direction. “Best bodyguard in the state. Not the best driver, but beggars can't be —”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ian cut in — luckily, because he took the words right out of my mouth. “Nate, I'll be in the car.” And he stomped out of the kitchen, brushing past us both. The thumps of his boots got fainter through the big front room of the pack house, and then I jumped as the front door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows.
“Please stay out of trouble,” Matthew said. He sounded a lot less optimistic, not that I could blame him, given my track record — not to mention Ian's.
“Groceries, laptop, low body count,” I promised him. He smiled weakly in return, all that my feeble attempt at humor deserved, and I pushed off the table and went to follow Ian to the car.
Chapter 13
Out on the Town
“I’m not actually a bad driver.” I jumped, startled out of my funk, as Ian spoke for the first time since we’d gotten in the car — I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten minutes ago.
“What?”
Ian pressed his lips together, hit the gas so hard I jolted back in my seat, and shifted gears with a force that would have cracked the shifter in a car that wasn’t as sturdily built as this one. Figured that Ian would have some muscle-car nightmare. He’d probably restored it himself, since he had more time than money.
“You’re white-knuckling your seatbelt,” he said. “You don’t need to. I drive just fine. Matt drives like someone’s grandma. I mean, he drives ahybrid.” There was enough contempt dripping from that last word to qualify him for a bit part in a BBC costume drama.
I started to laugh, and then I pictured Ian in a waistcoat and my brain shorted out for a minute.
“Hello? Nate? Anybody home?” he asked irritably. I came back to reality again, a little disturbed at how easily I seemed to be phasing in and out.
“Yeah. Sorry. Just a lot on my mind. You know, your driving isn’t really at the top of my list of problems.”
“Huh,” he grunted, and hit the gas again. I discreetly changed my grip from the seatbelt to the edge of the passenger seat by the door, where hopefully he couldn’t see the color of my knuckles.
“Unless I don’t survive long enough to be killed by the Kimballs, in which case I guess your driving moves up the list. Jesus, Ian! Watch out!”
I pressed back in my seat and slammed my foot down on an imaginary brake pedal as he swerved around a pickup truck and back into the left lane, tires screeching right at the edge of the twisty road, and jerked the wheel back the other way to barrel around the curve.
“We had inches to spare,” he said dismissively.
“Yeah, exactly!” I glared at him, and he stared out the windshield. Whatever. I didn’t own a car at the moment. My last one had given up the ghost and I hadn’t had the money to replace it. But maybe Matthew would let me borrow his hybrid, and I could avoid being in Ian’s car ever again.
The forest flashed by at lightning speed, patches of dappled sunlight blending into rows of gnarled trunks and distant glimpses of higher mountain peaks gilded in rivulets of gleaming snow.
Trees gave way to fields, and then we were in town. Laceyville’s population hovered around twenty thousand, although it was hard to get an accurate census when at least half the inhabitants were supernatural in some way, and either dodged the census-takers out of paranoia (vampires and ghouls) or lived in caves without official mailing addresses (gnomes, trolls, and some particularly crusty fairies). This part of California was a hotbed for magic. The mountains were attractive territory for anyone who wanted to stay the hell away from normal and the forests drew shifters of all kinds. The William Lacey the town was named after had himself been a werewolf of legendary ferocity, though his direct male bloodline had died out in the two hundred years since he himself died in a single-handed fight with a dragon. A fight he almost won. There was a reason he was a legend. The Armitages were supposedly descended from his bloodthirsty sister, one of the only female alphas in the region’s history. I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Ian finally slowed down enough to take a left into the strip mall with the town’s one superstore, and I let out a long breath of relief as the car jerked to a stop. Did being the ‘dominant mate’ mean he expected to drive all the time? Fuck, I hoped not, because he had a big surprise coming if he did.
I slid out of the car on shaky legs, feeling more like I’d been at sea for a few days than in a wheeled vehicle for twenty minutes.
“Hardware section first,” I said. “That’s where they’ll have the big bags of rock salt. Then produce.”
Ian grabbed a cart and followed me in. Okay, so he could be moderately useful. Maybe ‘dominant mate’ meant he drove anything with wheels, including grocery carts — and I wasn’t really sure what gender norm that was supposed to support, but whatever. Maybe Ian didn’t think about it that deeply.
“Oh, hey, they have jellybeans on clearance,” he said, and veered off with the cart toward a freestanding display.
I was going to have to go with ‘didn’t think that deeply.’ I sighed and followed him, dragging him away only after he’d tossed three giant bags of crappy candy into the cart. No wonder he didn’t have any goddamn money if this was how he spent it, 80% off or not.
We were halfway down the center walkway of the store, glancing down the side aisles to see the signs as we went, when the weird vibe I’d started to get when we came through the doors really sank in.
