Page 8 of Blood and Magic
The alpha drummed his fingers on the table before tilting his head. “How’s your temper these days?”’
“Between you and Morwyn, I can’t catch a Goddamned break.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “If I say fine, are you gonna believe me?”
“A year ago, you woulda come into my office, laughing about some stupid thing Fenris did or complaining about your idiot little brother.” Kodiak stood and walked around his desk, leaning against the front of it before crossing his arms. “Now, I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen you smile.”
“A year ago, I didn’t die and come back to life,” I cut in.
“Are you suggesting that changed you so fundamentally that you’ve become unrecognizable?”
I didn’t know, and I had no good answers, so I stayed silent.
“I’m worried about you,” he said. “Fenris, Morwyn, we all are.”
This interrogation, alongside this morning’s appointment with my sister, had tested my patience to the breaking point.
Can’t a guy deal with his own shit?
“I’m—”
“If you say fine one more time, so help me...” Kodiak growled, and I lifted my gaze to his, holding it for only a moment before dropping it again.
“What do you want me to say?”
“How you really feel,” he said. “Fuck, brother. You died. You were brought back to life with magic. You’re not an idiot. You know what that sounds like.”
Vampire.
It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to me. The Bloody Scorpions were so vile because their magic had been polluted, warped, and mutated by necromancy. It wasn’t natural. Shifters, on the other hand, our magic came from the earth. It was part of the reason we lived in rural Montana, out in Big Sky country. We were so deeply connected to nature that separating from it would stifle our wild sides until they turned feral.
The last alpha had gone rabid after losing his mate during the raid. Kodiak had to put him down for the sake of the pack. I had no desire to relive that experience.
“Let me ask a different way.” Kodiak cleared his throat and leaned closer to me. “Are you sucking blood?”
“Man, fuck off,” I snapped. “I’m not a Scorpion.”
“No?” He raised his eyebrows, seemingly surprised. “Then stop pulling away from the people who love you. Morwyn wants to help you. I want to help you.”
I didn’t like to be reprimanded, not by my sister and not by the alpha. Both were humiliating in their own ways.
“If you won’t talk to me or our trained healer, then talk to Fenris. Talk to Caelum or Moose or a fucking therapist; I don’t care. Bottling it up is only going to make you explode.”
I nodded once, and in the deafening silence afterward, I scrambled for a way to get out of there. “When do you need me at Vanderbilt?”
Kodiak sighed and straightened, moving back behind his desk again to sit before shuffling through some papers. “The day after the wedding.”
Two days.
“Okay,” I agreed, pushing to my feet. “Is that all?”
He shifted his shoulders. “Give me an update on the Scorpions.”
I ran through the latest status on Marx and whoever he’d been able to salvage from the wreckage of his nest. We’d wiped out a lot of them, but even more got away.
“I’ve got facial recognition running nationwide,” I said. “It’s a lot of ground to cover. He set off a ping out near Crow Res three weeks ago, but he’s been quiet after that.”
Kodiak nodded. “You think he’s regrouping?”
“He’d be stupid not to. He still thinks of Sol as his.” Even though she wasn’t my mate, she was pack, and I didn’t like the thought of some undead fucker laying claim to her. She belonged to Orion. She belonged to us. “We never found her brother’s body.”
