Page 28 of The Alpha's Warlock
“Ian! For fuck’s sake, calm down, you can’t get through the —”
“The fuck I can’t!” Ian shouted. “This motherfucker thinks my own brother would —”
“I saw them together!” Charlie yelled over us both. “On Sunday night. Isawthem.”
Ian froze, the claws of his right hand pressed to the shield, a faint sizzling coming from the points of contact. His fangs had dropped — and so, I noticed, had Charlie’s. I didn’t like the vampire’s way of doing things, but in this case, yeah. Good call. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Ian’s crosshairs right now.
“Bullshit,” Ian said, his face sheet-white. “Fucking bullshit. There’s no way. Matt would’ve told me if he had an in-person meet with Kimball. He said they talked on the phone that night, so that’s what fucking happened.”
A heavy silence fell. I knew damn well it was my job to back Ian up in front of almost certainly hostile strangers. I was his mate, and he was Matthew’s second in the pack, and that made me…actually I had no fucking clue, because pack hierarchies had never interested me all that much beyond the basics. Since I was a warlock and not a werewolf, it probably put me somewhere between the pack-house janitor and whoever changed the oil in Matthew’s car. Still. We were both in the Armitage pack, and we had to keep a united front when something serious was going on, petty arguments aside. There was nothing more serious than an accusation of betrayal by Ian’s pack leader and older brother.
But. How weird and cagey had Matthew been that morning? Super weird and cagey. And he hadn’t brought up talking to Sam Kimball until we asked about it, and then had been maddeningly vague, almost as if — my heart sank. Almost as if he’d been making it up on the spot to put us off.
“Would he, though?” I asked quietly, wishing I didn’t have to. “Ian. Seriously. This morning —”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Ian spat at me, turning from Charlie to look at me. Not just look at me; stare me down like I was something stuck to the bottom of his boot. The chill intensity of his eyes froze me where I sat. “You brought us into this. Matt took you in, put his pack on the line for you. And you have the fucking nerve to —” He cut off, panting, his jaw working, and swung his arm in a sudden arc. I flinched, flinging myself back into the corner of the seat, and Charlie shouted something — and Ian’s hand slammed into Dor’s barrier with a shower of sparks and a crack like shattering ice.
My heart hammered away, pounding at my ribcage and making my whole body vibrate with it. Ian could have killed me. I’d almost rather he’d hit me than said what he said, though. His words rang in my ears over and over again, proof — like I fucking needed it — that I was nothing but an inconvenience in his eyes. That all I was to him was another threat to his pack, to his brother.
“Are you quite finished?” Charlie sounded as dry as my mouth felt. He held something up in front of the barrier. His phone, with a photo on the screen — a photo of two men standing under a tree, with two cars parked off to the side in a patch of dirt. One of the men was facing the camera: Sam Kimball. The other had his back turned, but his build and stance looked really fucking familiar.
Ian let out a horrible, gut-punched sound that almost made me want to put my arms around him. Almost, since he’d figuratively, and nearly literally, gutted me a minute before.
“That’s Matt’s car,” Ian whispered.
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Because that’s Matthew.” Theyou idiotwas understood.
“Of course Matt talked to Kimball,” Ian said, sounding desperate. “Of course he’d have to check in. He said he’d checked in. Nate said there were Kimball pack-members involved in the kidnapping, and of course he’d have to...” Ian trailed off into a miserable silence and dropped his head into his hands, heedless of the claws that still protruded from his fingers.
“We don’t know what’s going on yet.” The strength of my own voice was a welcome surprise. “We know Matthew lied to us, or at least didn’t tell us everything. But.” I turned to Charlie and fixed him with my best glare. It wasn’t likely to have much effect, but vampires could tell a lot from looking into someone’s eyes. At least he’d see the sincerity in mine, and maybe it would give him pause. “Matthew didn’t have me kidnapped. And he didn’t commit murder. I’d stake my life on that. Maybe Kimball’s blackmailing him or threatening him somehow, or there’s something else we don’t know about. But he wouldnotfucking risk his pack.”
Charlie shrugged. “I’m not going to kill him on sight, if that’s what you’re worried about. On the other hand, I don’t trust him even the smallest bit. And neither should you.”
With that, he turned away and settled in with his phone, texting or researching or playing fucking Candy Crush for all I knew.
I stared at the back of his seat, seeing nothing at all.
“Nate.” Ian spoke so quietly I could barely hear him. “I wouldn’t have hurt you. No matter what you say or do, I won’t ever hurt you.”
I believed him, actually; he was the kind of guy to pick on people twice his size, not half. On a good day, that made him noble, and on a bad day, just dumb. Either way, it had been reflex that had me dodging him, not true fear.
Still. I’d still rather he had clawed me.
“Aww,” Charlie cooed. “Twue wuv.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Ian and I yelled in unison.
Dor shook his head and kept driving.
Fucking hell. This pack war was off to a fabulous start.
Chapter 17
…And into the Fire
“Why here?” Ian muttered.
Dor had crossed over the northeastern edge of the Kimball territory, passing through the Kimball wards without even a ripple. I forced down the envy that rose up to choke me. I’d be capable of that kind of magic, I knew it — if I’d ever had anyone to teach me. Which made me sound like that bitch of an aunt fromPride and Prejudice, with herI’d have been a proficient if I’d ever learnedbullshit, but I kind of got where she was coming from. How were you supposed to reach your potential if you didn’t even know what steps to take to get there?
