Page 43 of Junk Magic

“Something like that,” he said, and hugged me.

I didn’t know if it was part of his wolf nature, or just a facet of the man, but he had a wonderful stillness about him. I felt it slowly seep into my bones as we stood there. The room helped, too, being dim except for a little light leaking through crappy plastic blinds, and was colder than usual even for Vegas air conditioning.

Weres ran hot and loved the AC. It left the room an oasis of tranquility that served as an added balm on my frazzled nerves. It seemed to be doing Cyrus some good, too, because after a moment he rested his chin on my head and sighed deeply, beathing in my scent.

“You need anything?”

Just this, I thought, and hugged him tighter.

He smelled wonderful. He usually did, although he rarely wore cologne. Most clan wolves didn’t, as it was considered rude and somewhat suspicious to mask their scent. It made other Weres think that they had something to hide. That didn’t matter anymore, but I could still only detect suntan lotion, soap, a light coating of sweat from the ride over—

And the breakfast burrito he’d had, hours ago, the peppers a spicy bite in my nose; and the exhaust from his bike, still clinging in microscopic particles to his clothing; and the smell of the cigar another rider had been holding, the smoke from which had drifted over to us when we paused side by side at a traffic light . . .

“Lia?”

“It’s okay.”

I buried my face in his shirt and shoved everything away, concentrating only on the trace of wolf musk underneath it all. He smelled like home; he smelled like clan. But today, it was stronger, sweeter . . . more. It reminded me of Jace’s terror, back at HQ, being less a scent than an emotion given form. As if I could breathe in Cyrus’s love, support, and concern with every breath.

It was intoxicating.

He must have agreed, because he held me for a long time, his arms tight. “I know you hate when I ask this,” he finally murmured.

“Don’t.”

“I just want to know that you’re all right.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? That would have rattled anybody. There’s no shame in admitting—”

I released him and stepped back.

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand while regarding me from under his bangs. They were too long and fell in his eyes, making him look boyishly handsome. He appeared harder, older, and fiercer whenever he got tired of messing with the thick mane nature had given him and did a buzz cut, which lasted all of a week at the rate that Weres’ hair grew.

But he hadn’t done that in a while, and the dark strands in front of the concerned brown eyes made me want to brush them back, to smooth away the lines on his forehead and to tell him that I was good. That I just had to wait for the drug to finish working its way through my system and everything would be fine. But I didn’t.

I didn’t trust my voice not to crack.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. One moment I was gripping Cyrus’s shirt, feeling his love for me like a tangible thing. The next, I was pushing him away, all but gasping in confusion and pain. My emotions were all over the place and I couldn’t seem to rein them in or even parse exactly what they were.

It left me feeling off balance and vulnerable, not to mention furious with myself. I was a war mage; I dealt with next level shit all the time. I should be better at this!

But the things I shrugged off didn’t matter, whereas that scene today had hit every button I had.

“Lia?” I looked up to find that Cyrus’s look of concern had grown. I realized that I was hugging my arms around myself hard enough to bruise. I wanted to hug him instead, but I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to let go. And I didn’t want any questions I couldn’t answer, or for him to worry about me even more.

Cyrus worried a lot. It came with dating a war mage, especially a prickly one with enough baggage for ten people. I sometimes wondered if he was a secret masochist.

“You know,” he said, after a pause. “When young Weres first change, their clan takes them into the wilderness. Sometimes for a week, sometimes two. It’s usually phrased as a camping trip—”

“I know what they do.”

“—and it is, I suppose. But it’s mostly to let them run and sniff and play to their heart’s content, until the built-up energy from all those days since the bite, when they couldn’t yet turn, when they felt like they were coming out of their skins all the time, is finally expended. I wonder . . . how much energy would twenty-seven years cause?”

“I didn’t Change!” I made my fingers release my arms. They did so slowly, awkwardly, as if they were made out of wood instead of flesh. Only to be immediately captured in Cyrus’s grip.

“But something happened today. We both know that. I don’t pretend to know what it was, but we need to—”

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