Page 38 of Lost and Bound
Ian started to say something, but Matt put his hand up, a sharp, quelling gesture that Ian actually obeyed. Matt’s eyes never wavered from my face, dark-blue gaze sharp. He wasn’t quite as tall and broad as his massive younger brother, and his dark brown hair didn’t stand out as much as Ian’s flaming red. He shouldn’t have had as much presence. But he’d grown into the alpha he’d always been meant to be. I couldn’t look away. Whether he acknowledged me or not, he was my pack leader, and I couldn’t deny his authority over me. I craved it, actually, because maybe it’d mean they’d accept me again.
“You think we think you’re working for Jonathan Hawthorne?”
I blinked at him. “Well, yeah. I mean, I used to be. Sort of. Workingwith,” I said, stressing the word. “Notfor. Not that it’s a lot better. So I understand your suspicion. Seriously, I get that part. What I don’t get is—” I swallowed hard. “I don’t understand how there were…two of me. I don’t understand any of it.”
“Why Hawthorne, specifically?” Matt pressed. He’d gone even more rigid, leaning forward a little. I glanced at Ian and Nate out of the corner of my eye. Nate’s face had gone white, and Ian looked like he might explode with tension. “When was the last time you saw him?”
All my hackles went up. This question was massively important to them, but I had no idea why. “Well, I mean, Hawthorne was the warlock holding me captive who we all know, so that’s why. I honestly don’t know for sure how long ago I saw him last,” I said slowly. “Time kind of—I didn’t have any way to keep track, and I was unconscious or drugged at intervals, which made it even harder. But it was a long time ago. I think maybe a year? Or even more. He spent a lot of time with me when I was first there, but then he wasn’t around anymore. And one of the other warlocks took over. I figured he was off doing something horrible to someone else.”
“He was,” Nate said, sounding choked. “He was trying to kill us. But we killed him instead. Ian killed him.” Nate shifted a little in Ian’s lap, looking like he was trying to burrow into him.
“We killed him,” Ian confirmed, and pulled Nate closer. “About a year ago.”
I looked back and forth from Ian and Nate to Matt. Some of the tension had gone out of Matt—finally. He sighed, a long, gusty breath of relief. “Which means we already know you’re not working for Hawthorne,” he said. “And you’re unlikely to be working for his associates, either.”
“How does that follow?” Ian demanded.
Nate rolled his eyes, but I noticed he had his face turned so Ian couldn’t see it. I frowned. Was their relationship one-sided? Nate had always seemed to dislike Ian, snapping at him when they spoke, ignoring him when he could. Had he hooked up with Ian out of some kind of expedience? If Nate was doing to Ian what I’d done to Nate…that would be the worst, most fucked-up kind of karma.
Nate stopped making faces and answered Ian’s question. “Because if they were, then they’d know—he—was dead. And they’d know we knew. They’d have come up with some other story that accounted for it. But they didn’t know, so whatever my fath—um,hisassociates knew, they don’t.”
Ian digested that for a second, and Matt shook his head and laughed a little. “Thanks for the super convoluted explanation, Nate, but yeah, that’s what I meant. If you were working for them, I’d have expected you to show up trying to tell us how happy you were he was dead, or something along those lines, to gain our trust. Not thinking we still suspected you of working for him.”
“Withhim, temporarily,” I gritted out. Even through my relief that a little of their mistrust had maybe been done away with, that rankled.
“You haven’t answered Jared’s question,” Calder said. “And I was sketchy about our escape because it’s none of your fucking business how I killed them. You weren’t there in that place. That was my revenge. Mine, and Jared’s. Not yours. Don’t ask again.”
“Fine,” Matt said. “Fine. The details don’t matter that much, as long as the outline’s true.” He sighed again. “And I haven’t answered Ja—his question because I don’t have any fucking idea.” He looked up at me, meeting my eyes steadily. Because he was a good pack leader, even if I wasn’t his pack anymore. Because he always faced things head-on. Gods, if I could’ve gone back in time, given him the loyalty he deserved, that he’d earned from me…but I couldn’t. “We buried a body that I’m sure belonged to Jared Armitage. I’d swear to it. And I wish I could tell you what that means for you, but I can’t.”
“We could exhume the body,” Arik put in, sounding pretty damn cheerful about it. “I could cut him open—”
“No!” The word burst out of me, nearly bringing what was left of my guts up with it. “No, fuck, no.”
“Ignore him,” Nate snapped. “He’s a necromancer, of course he always wants to dig up bodies. It’s like fuckingChristmasfor him.”
I looked up, panting through the last of my nausea, to see Arik had gone bright hot-pink from his neck up to his hairline. Matt was rubbing a hand over his lips. Hiding a smile? What the fuck was funny about that? Ian didn’t even try to hide it, letting out a bark of laughter that almost brought tears to my eyes, it was so damn familiar, and I’d thought I’d never hear it again. “Low blow,” Ian muttered.
“Screw you,” Arik said weakly.
Gods, what had I missed in two years? For one thing, Hawthorne was dead.
That really sank in. Ian had killed him. He was fucking dead, and even if I hadn’t gotten to do it myself, an Armitage had. That was nearly as good.
Apparently there was something about Christmas I’d missed.
I’d missed two Christmases, with all the little wolf pups running around and yipping for pie.
Matt said, “Arik, can you let the zombies go for a sec—”
“Revenants!” Arik snapped, his face still flushed.
“Revenants,” Matt said soothingly, although the effect was a little spoiled by how he still sounded like he was trying not to laugh. I really, really wanted that story. I doubted I’d ever get it, though. “Anyway, look. We do need to figure this out. And it seems like it’d be better taken care of at home. We can’t stay here for long—am I right in thinking you two appropriated this house without asking the owners?”
Home. Matt had said we’d gohome. A little sound came out of me that almost bordered on a sob. Home.
“I broke in, yeah,” Calder said bluntly. “Not much choice. You’re suggesting we go back to your pack lands. What are the terms?”
“The terms?” Matt repeated, his eyebrows going up. “We’ll figure out what’s going on with…Jared.” Damn him, for the way he seemed so reluctant to call me by my name. Itwasmy name, even if there had been another one of me. It wasn’t like I had any other to claim. “Arik and Nate’s magic ought to be up to the job of figuring this out.”
