Page 23 of The Alpha's Warlock
“I’m getting to Matt. Get down and walk somewhere else if you want.”
I flinched. Thankfully he couldn’t see me, and I hoped he couldn’t feel it. I didn’t want him to know how much that hurt.
“Fine. Put me down.”
Ian’s hands tightened around my legs. “Shut up, Nate.”
“Seriously! You said I should get down and walk somewhere else if I want, and I want to. We’re heading into a trap. How do you not see that?” Because we had to be. Where else would Ian go, pursued by the police? And where else would I go, but with my mate and protector? “Let me down or I’ll —”
“I’m not scared of your stupid finger lightning —”
“Oh like fuck you’re not, I saw the look on your face —”
“That wassurprise, and by the way, your sleeves made you look like a total toolbag —”
“Oh, gofuckyourse—”
“And here I thought it might be hard to find you,” a light, cheerful voice cut in. Ian tossed me off his back into a bush, spinning and snarling, his claws and fangs already out. “But all we had to do was follow the juvenile insults.”
I struggled to my feet, my hoodie catching in every single grasping branch. Since Ian had placed himself right between me and whoever was there, I sidled over a little and peered around his shoulder, ignoring him when he tried to push me back.
Standing about ten yards up the hill from us was the least intimidating guy I’d ever set eyes on. He was short — like, really short, maybe an inch or two over five feet — and had a mess of soft light-brown hair waving around a cute freckled face, with pink lips and limpidly wide blue eyes adding to the overall impression of youthful innocence. He wore jeans and a pale green Henley, like any college kid out for a stroll.
He was also completely unfazed by the alpha were about to try to rip his throat out.
“Who the fuck are you?” Ian growled. “I’ll fucking kill you if you —”
“Ian, don’t,” I whispered urgently. “I don’t think he’s exactly what he looks like.”
“Bullshit, he doesn’t smell like a supe.”
Maybe he didn’t, and he wasn’t pinging my magical senses either. But…I had a bad, bad feeling about it.
“Okay. Whatdoeshe smell like?”
Ian paused, and then I felt his body tense beside me. “Nothing,” he said, and he sounded more than a little wigged out. “Nothing at all. Fuck. Stay behind me, Nate.”
“Won’t help much,” said a new voice, this one deep and clipped. “Since I’m also behind you.”
Ian spun so fast he knocked me over, and I went right back into the same fucking bush. I landed on my back. There, a few feet away from where my very vulnerable ass had been, was a guy just as big as Ian. Just as tall, anyway, though where Ian was bulky, this guy was lean, like a fencer or a swimmer. The sword strapped to his back made up the difference, though. Black hair, black eyes, and a weird long split robe thing, also black. Apparently Freckles had a good, six-foot-plus and terrifying reason for not being scared by Ian’s claws and fangs.
Watching Ian jolt back and forth, trying to keep an eye on both threats while keeping himself between me and both of them simultaneously, might’ve been funny if I hadn’t expected imminent death. It was a little touching, though, not gonna lie. At least I’d die feeling less alone.
On the other hand, maybe we could avoid dying at all. “What do you want?” I called out, working to get out of the prickly bush for the second time in three minutes. This was getting old. “We’re not dead or fighting for our lives yet, so I’m guessing there’s room for negotiation here? And how the fuck did you find us?” I couldn’t help sounding a little aggrieved on that last question. My spell had worked, dammit.
Freckles chuckled. “Well, the aforementioned bickering helped. And your magic’s very good for a human,” he said patronizingly. I gritted my teeth. “But not good enough to throw off my tracker, here.” He nodded at tall, dark, deadly and anachronistic. Seriously, had the guy gotten his fashion sense from a line of Magic Ninja dolls?
“You’ll have to get to him through me,” Ian said, very low. “And I fucking promise you at least one of you won’t live to do it.”
A shiver went down my spine as I finally crawled out of the bush and came to stand beside Ian. Maybe that was the prickles embedded in the back of my hoodie, and maybe it was having someone willing to die for me. A little from columns A and B, probably.
At least Ian impressedme, because Freckles was chuckling and Magic Ninja was rolling his eyes, an expression I hadn’t thought his hard, serious face could make.
“Good thing we’re not trying to kill him, then,” Freckles said with perfect bonhomie. “Your claws are very…long. Wouldn’t want to tangle with those, would we, Dor?” He sounded just as patronizing talking about Ian as he had about me, which soothed my pride a little and got all my hackles up at the same time. How dare he! Ian’s claws were amazing.
Dor shrugged. “My sword’s longer.”
Aaaand that was enough of that. “Okay, is this my cue to tell you my schwartz is bigger than either one of yours? You think one of you could tell us what you actually want?”
