Page 39 of Lost and Bound
“It’s safe, Calder,” Arik said. “I promise you.”
Calder nodded. “I believe you,” he said, more gently than his usual rasp. “But that’s not exactly what I meant.” He fixed his eerie gaze on Matt again. “I only lead a pack of two. But I expect a formal issuance of safe-conduct. Jared is my responsibility, not yours. If he consents to whatever magical examination you want to do, he can revoke that permission at any time.”
I blinked at him, and noticed Matt looked just as nonplussed. A pack of two? And had he gone to pack-leader negotiation school or something when I wasn’t looking? How old was he, anyway? Not much more than a few years older than me, I wouldn’t have thought. And I wouldn’t have been able to pull all that out of my ass.
“He’s not under your authority,” Calder went on. “Not in any way. If Arik trusts you, we’ll come with you in good faith. But we’re another pack, and the instant you overstep that, I won’t give you a second chance.”
“Jared Armitage is the responsibility of the Armitage pack,” Matt said, annoyance giving his words a snap to them that I knew would raise Calder’s hackles.
I was right. “You’re saying he isn’t Jared Armitage,” Calder shot back. “Until you admit that he is, stuff it up your ass.” And he stood, turning back to Arik, dismissing Matt from his attention completely. Matt looked like someone had smacked him across the face and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. “I need to talk to you alone,” Calder went on, speaking to Arik—and not Matt. Very clearly not asking Matt’s permission.
Arik stood, and Matt with him, pressing close to his side, even looming a little.
Matt didnotlook happy about the idea. I wasn’t either. That meant leaving me with the other three. The people I should’ve been able to think of as my family, the people I should have wanted to be left alone with.
I tensed up as Calder and Matt squared off, with Ian starting to rise in the background. Fuck, I didn’t want them to fight. Especially not over Arik, when none of them had seemed all that interested in fighting over me. Calder had claimed me as his pack, but…maybe that was as much for him as for me. Leverage. Authority. Having someone under him, no pun intended, gave him more of a place in the shifter world than a lone alpha could claim. If he had a pack, he had the right to negotiate as a pack leader.
But it was Arik, not any of the alphas, who spoke first. He lifted his chin, a gleam in those poison-green eyes that told me clearly it wouldn’t be wise to fuck with him. “We’ll be out in the back yard,” he said. “Maybe the rest of you should bring the van up to the house and get ready to leave. Come on, Calder.”
And he tugged his arm out of Matt’s grasp and sailed out of the room, every inch a pack leader’s mate who made his own goddamn decisions.
No one stopped him, because obviously no one would dare. I kind of wished it didn’t make me like him a whole lot more.
Calder looked down at me, his face completely blank. “I won’t be far,” he said. “One shout from you, and I’ll be back. Immediately,” he growled at Matt.
And then he followed Arik through the kitchen and out.
The back door shut, and I was alone with my family.
Matt stared after Arik and Calder for a minute. “They’re adopted brothers,” he growled. “Not blood.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Matthew,” Nate said with a sigh. “He’syourmate. And people are allowed to love more than one person. You love Ian, right? And the pack, too. You have all kinds of people you love, in addition to Arik. Don’t be a fucking hypocrite. If you can’t take the idea of not having Arik all to yourself, then resign as pack leader, never see your brother again, and move up to the mountains like your parents did.”
Matt flinched, visibly, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“Jesus, Nate,” he muttered. “Tell me how you really feel. But you’re right. Obviously, you’re right. I’m being an asshole. I just don’t trust him. There’s something not right there. And if he’s Arik’s brother, then where’s he been for the last—I think it’s been like fifteen years since they’ve seen each other? And Arik hasn’t told me very much about him. Not very much, as in less than a few sentences.”
Hello? I was right here, their best possible source—and in fact only possible source—of information about Calder. His fellow-prisoner. His fucking mate. Not that I knew much about him, but more than they did.
But they trusted me even less than they trusted him, this total stranger—this very menacing, stone-cold killer who’d already threatened them a couple of times.
I stared down at my bare feet, my uneven toenails, the hem of the sweatpants I’d stolen because I didn’t have anything in the whole fucking world.
“Nate, why don’t you come with me to get the van,” Matt said. “Ian, stay here? Keep an eye on things?”
On me, he meant. And maybe on Arik, too, although I had to give Matt credit for leaving the house and not hovering himself.
I kept staring down as they all agreed, and as Matt and Nate went out the front door, Nate already starting some kind of argument about who was sitting where on the drive home. I suspected the basis of it would be, ‘who has to sit next to Jared, because it’s sure as fuck not going to be me.’
All the air felt like it’d been sucked out of the room, replaced with a heavy, ominous silence. Ian didn’t say a word for a long time. I couldn’t look up at him. I’d lose it completely. We’d been like brothers, born only a few weeks apart, inseparable since birth. Matt, a few years older, had always been groomed as a future pack leader. Ian and I had run wild together. We’d been our pack’s enforcers together, since the council thought that was the best use of our tendency to get in stupid fights; we might as well get in stupid fights when they told us to, instead of randomly. Also, we were really damn good at getting in stupid fightstogether. We were a seamless unit, and no one could ever take us down.
Until Nate. Until my ambitions got the better of me. Until I got delusions of grandeur, and decided that boring, serious Matt wouldn’t be the pack leader we needed—and why shouldn’t it be me? My father was Matt and Ian’s dad’s older brother. I had just as much of a right. I had better ideas. I’d deal with the Kimball pack and their posturing once and for all, like a boss. Everyone would look up to me.
I’d been young, to be fair, but that didn’t excuse selfishness and arrogance and stupidity and betrayal.
“Can you stand up for a second?” Ian asked abruptly. “I want to—can you just stand up? Look at you. I want to look at you.”
No, I couldn’t stand up, dammit, and it was weird that he wanted to look at me, but I found myself rising anyway, still not able to actually look back at him. I stuck my hands in my pockets and stared down at the floor. Ian didn’t say anything else, and curiosity finally won out.
