Page 36 of Captive Mate
Matthew laughed, an ugly, bitter sound that echoed in that same place inside me. “Right. I’m sure this call is totally altruistic. Fine. Tell me what you called to tell me.”
I drew a deep breath — a shaky deep breath, but close enough. I hadn’t really expected another reaction, had I? Like, say, relief that I was all right and Parker hadn’t caught up to me? Or even a hello. I’d have taken it.
“Parker and the Kimballs are planning an assault tonight, before dawn. Apparently Jonathan Hawthorne was involved in something. Some kind of supernatural group that’s trying to — I don’t know what, because Colin doesn’t know more than that Hawthorne had a larger agenda. But he got Sam Kimball on board with the idea that taking your territory would give him a place in that. And now Bill’s convinced he wants to carry on, plus now he wants revenge for Sam’s death.”
There was a short silence; I waited it out this time. Matthew was probably having the same WTF reaction I’d had a few minutes before.
“That piece of shit motherfucker,” were the first words out of Matthew’s mouth. He blew out a breath loudly enough to make a rushing sound on the phone. “He diestwice, and still manages to cause trouble afterwards.”
At least he believed me about that part. “I’m not involved, Matthew,” I said, trying to forget how he’d told me he liked the way I said his name. “I don’t want some new world order created by Jonathan Hawthorne’s fucked-up allies any more than anyone else who’s not batshit insane.” Matthew huffed a laugh, which I chose to take as him believing me. “And I want Parker dead. That’s why I came to the Kimball territory in the first place. Then I talked to Colin, and I found out about this.”
“And Colin Kimball’s just — ready to betray his own father. Just like that.” His skepticism was nearly tangible, floating out of the phone. “I didn’t know you andColinwere close.”
Matthew spat Colin’s name like it was something disgusting that he wanted out of his mouth. What the fuck was his problem? He’d been trying to make peace with the Kimballs from the get-go. He wasn’t the type to hold grudges if it was more practical, or more politic, to let them go. And Colin hadn’t been the driving force behind anything that had happened. Matthew had to know that.
“Colin’s ready to help his father avoid doing something really fucking stupid. Even if that means going against Bill’s plans.” I glanced up at Colin and raised my eyebrows; he nodded emphatically. Good. I wasn’t just putting words in his mouth. “He’s not your enemy, Matthew.”
“Right. And he lets you speak for him?” There was that tone again, like he was accusing me of something I didn’t understand.
I bit my lip, hard, and then released it, letting the sting ground me before I answered. Carefully. I had to choose my words carefully. “He thought you might not listen to anything a Kimball had to say right now.”
“Yeah. Listening to him is tied with how little I think I should listen toyou. Fine,” he went on before I could argue, “let’s say I believe you that you’re not setting me up somehow, even though we both know how that went last time. I need to talk to Colin directly. Hand him the phone, please.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it in disbelief for a second. That was it? NoThanks for warning me, noAre you sure you’re all right, noThanks for taking that fucking spell off me before you left instead of killing me, which you totally could’ve done and no one would’ve been able to stop you? Fucking seriously? A curt dismissal. Hand the phone to the alpha present, please, so I can talk to an equal.
My cheeks burned with humiliation, and I swallowed down a lump in my throat. I always felt like this when I was angry, dammit. It had nothing to do with longing for something I wasn’t going to get.
I held the phone out to Colin. “He wants to talk to you.”
Colin took the phone, and I crouched down by my bag of magic tools, listening with half an ear. I sorted through, making sure I’d have everything I needed for…well, honestly, I was stalling and making myself look busy.
But it was good to be prepared.
“I don’t want any more deaths,” Colin was saying, his tone uncharacteristically serious. “Except Taft. That fucker can burn as far as I’m concerned.” A pause. “Yeah, that too. But you should’ve heard the way he was talking about Jonah.” He sounded royally pissed, and in spite of everything, it made me smile. The smile fell away when he said, “Fine, fuck, I won’t kill him. I just don’t want anyone else to die.”
Matthew was telling Colinnotto kill Parker? Fuck him. Fuck him sideways. My eyes burned, and I shoved a coil of string back in my bag with more force than necessary, breaking a piece of chalk in the process.
Fuck. I tidied up the pieces, my hands trembling too much to fish the smaller bits out of the bottom of the backpack.
I’d missed a bit of the conversation, and it sounded like it was winding down. “Yeah,” Colin said. “Okay.” He nodded and paced in a small circle. “That works for me. I’ll tell Jonah. Maybe he should get there sooner to help with the magic shit. No one but me knows he’s here, so he can leave without being noticed. Uh-huh. I need to go, dude. They’re going to wonder where the fuck I am. Yeah. Text me.”
He hung up and then stood there, holding the phone and looking at me oddly.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” I snapped. “And where did you just volunteer me to go?”
“Back to the Armitage territory,” he said. “To help them prep. Matthew thinks Hawthorne Junior can set up some kind of magical trap. Catch our pack as we step over the Armitage wards and pin us all down while we, and I quote, ‘deescalate the confrontation.’ Where the fuck did he learn to talk, anyway? Like, he went to the same high school I did.” Colin shook his head. “You’d better get going. Do you have a car?”
I stood, resignedly stripping off my shirt again and rolling it up to go in the backpack. Not for the first time, I wished there was a way to shift and keep my clothes somehow.
“It’s parked in the old campground.”
“We’re supposed to leave here at three AM.” He lit up his phone’s screen and glanced at it. “It’s one-thirty now. So you have that much of a head start.”
That wasn’t much, especially if I was going to have to try to set up some kind of magical booby-trap, with no planning, and with Nate as my partner in crime, gods help me.
But I had to know. Matthew did like to solve problems peacefully, if possible. Of course he wouldn’t want another potential pack war on his hands, this time with Parker’s pack and possibly half of the rest of Nevada.
Which was obviously more important than what Parker had done to me. Of course it was. To Matthew, there wouldn’t even be a comparison. Objectively, even, given the lives at stake, it wasn’t a comparison. Not that I was all that objective.
