Page 75 of Junk Magic

“He just likes to put on a show—”

“Like you did this morning?” Ulmer grated.

I ignored that, too.

“—and after I deal with whatever this is, I’ll catch a ride back.”

“You’ll catch a ride with us,” Caleb said stubbornly.

“Caleb—”

“We’ll stay in the truck,” he said. “But I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Yeah. Look at him,” Jen piped up, surprising me.

Until I glanced behind, and saw Ulmer bearing his fangs, with thick lines of mucous, spit and God knew what dropping down to wet the desert sand. He looked like a slavering beast out of a nightmare, the kind that would have had Red Riding Hood shitting herself and running for home, grandma be damned. I sighed and turned back around.

“Outsiders aren’t allowed in Wolf's Head—on pain of death—when the clan council is in session,” I told them. “It isn’t right now, or it isn’t supposed to be, but it still wouldn’t be good if you went in there. Like really wouldn’t.”

Sophie, of course, started to say something, but I skewered her with a look. “But it won’t come down on you if something goes wrong, it’ll come down on me. I’m the only clan member here and I brought you. That means I’m responsible for you. You screw up and I’ll have to answer for it.”

And it looked like I was going to be answering for enough as it was.

“Do you get it?” I asked her, to be sure.

She looked mulish, but Jen shot her a look. And then proved that she wasn’t as beta as I’d thought. “We get it. We’ll stay here, waiting for you.”

“I don’t see why,” Sophie said stubbornly. “If the damned council or whatever isn’t meeting right now, then why does it matter—”

“For God’s sake, Soph, it’s like sacred ground or something. You remember Uluru?”

“What?”

“That big red rock in the Australian outback?”

Sophie looked understandably confused. “What about it?”

“You know that show we watched, where all those tourists were climbing all over it? The tour companies had hammered rope ladders into it, to make it easier for them, even though the Aborigines consider it sacred and had asked them not to touch it. You remember what you said?”

Sophie looked uncomfortable. “It’s not the same—”

“It’s exactly the same. It’s their stuff. They say who goes in and who doesn’t, and if they don’t want us there, then we stay here. Right here.”

Sophie glared at her, and then at me.

“A human with a brain. Will wonders never cease?” Ulmer growled from behind me.

I continued ignoring him, because that seemed to be working.

“If they hurt you, and we’re out here and don’t even know—” Sophie said stubbornly.

“The only way I get hurt tonight is if you come in after me,” I told her. “They can’t touch me without Sebastian’s approval, and don’t have any reason to anyway. Unless you give them one by trespassing on council ground. Then all the clans that use this place will be demanding recompense—from me. You get it?”

She glared some more, because Sophie was not a young woman who liked being told what to do. But she didn’t appear to like the idea of getting me into trouble, either, because she finally sat back against the seat. “Fine. But if you don’t come out—in one piece—there will be hell to pay.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Little one is feisty,” Ulmer growled, as we approached the entrance. “Should have been a Were. Unlike some.”

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