Page 39 of Captive Mate
Nate lit up like a Christmas tree, his cheeks flushing from pleasure this time, not embarrassment. And I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.
A warlock, not a shaman. They didn’t need a shaman if they had Nate. Yes, shamans had some talents warlocks didn’t, like the ability to use magic while shifted into animal form — and the ability to shift into animal form in the first place. And we had an affinity for bonding magic and other were-specific things.
But a warlock could set wards, do some healing, create illusions, and use magic in a fight; Nate had the pack covered.
And Matthew appreciated him for it.
It shouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t plan to stick around. But my gut still ached like I’d taken a physical blow.
“It wouldn’t be working without Arik,” Nate said. And sounded — chiding? I glanced up, startled. Was hedefendingme?
The back of my neck prickled. I knew Matthew was looking at me. “That’s why he’s here,” Matthew said gruffly.
Oh, so Nate got gratitude, but I wasexpectedto turn up and help? What the fuck sense did that make? It was his pack. Not mine.
But Matthew was his brother-in-law. And Matthew was nothing to me. And maybe that explained it.
I stood slowly, gathering my courage, and finally turned. Matthew had been right behind me, just as I’d thought. Now he was right in front of me, his wide shoulders and looming six-feet-plus of alphaness making me feel small and insignificant.
I lifted my chin. It didn’t make me any taller, but at least I looked like I was going to stand my ground.
The look on his face defied interpretation. I’d noticed when he was coming around the Kimball territory before I’d put my spell on him — and after, too, when he wasn’t focused on me — that he had an uncanny ability to be neutral, unreadable. Not blank. Just — pleasantly not expressive. It had served him well with Sam Kimball, who’d complained a lot about Matthew’s lack of tells.
Much as I hated to agree with that asshole Sam, may he rest in not-peace, in that moment I shared his frustration.
Was Matthew angry with me? Murderous? Bored? Who could tell?
Whatever he was, I couldn’t begin to deal with it now. “Have you talked to Colin? How far away are they? And I assume you’re sure they’ll be crossing the boundary here?”
The faintest trace of…something…passed across Matthew’s face, and one of his hands twitched at his side. “They’re on their way. And yes. Kimball said this was the point they’d chosen. This is one of the less obvious places. They were planning to take us by surprise.”
You’re welcomewas on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back. No, fuck it. “Well, you’re welcome,” I snapped.
Both of Matthew’s fists were clenched now. “Kimball would’ve called me anyway,” he gritted out.
“Nope,” I said, popping thepas obnoxiously as possible. “He wouldn’t have.” I could feel my own claws pricking at my fingertips as my anger started to mount. Why was I so determined to get credit for something I barely cared about anyway? I should’ve just waited it out at the Kimballs’, assassinated Parker, and made a run for it. “That was my idea.”
“I guess I’m lucky you and Colin Kimball are so close.” If the sarcasm had been any heavier it would’ve crushed us both like a landslide.
Matthew turned away abruptly, snagging Ian’s attention and leading him off to talk to a group of councilors on the other side of the clearing — and dismissing me completely in the process.
Fuck. Alphas. Fuck Matthew.Fuck.
I turned and quickly knelt back down again, adjusting the position of a candle that didn’t need to be adjusted so that I could pretend that was what I meant to do all along.
“We should create the salt circle now,” I said, my voice a little too rough.
To my surprise, Nate just nodded without comment, and we each took one of the big bags of rock salt that had been sitting off to the side and headed closer to the territory boundary.
It was a beautiful night. The rain was still holding off, though the air was getting damper and chillier by the hour. I hoped it kept holding off until we were done with the salt; dissolved salt circles were a fucking bitch. They could still hold power temporarily, but the amount of magic that needed to be fed into them increased exponentially the soggier they got. There was some nerdy chemistry researcher up in Oregon who’d been studying the relationship between magical force and chemical bonds as expressed in equilibrium equations; I’d read one of his papers online one time when I was bored. All I knew was that it sucked when it happened.
Nate looked up at what could be seen of the moon and the stars through the gathering clouds and the feathery branches above us as we crossed the clearing and headed a few yards north. He tripped over his own feet, and I reached out without thinking and caught him by the arm, keeping him from face-planting. He glanced around himself a little shiftily, but Ian was still engaged with Matthew and the council, planning what to do once we trapped the attackers, from what I could tell — or how to deal with it if trapping them failed.
“Would he really get pissed at you just for letting me touch your arm?” Typical controlling alpha bullshit. Not that I cared about Nate, but…yeah, all right, I cared if another mage was stuck with an overbearing dickhead mate with nowhere to go. Fine. I could admit it.
Nate laughed a little. “No. He’d be pissed at you and assume you were trying to hurt me, and then he’d get all worried, and then we’d end up not setting the salt circle until the Kimballs were already here. I don’t think asking them to wait would go down so well, you know?”
That startled out a laugh of my own. “Yeah, ‘Excuse me, Bill, stand still for a second? No, a couple feet to the left. Perfect.’”
