Page 19 of Junk Magic

It was not shaped like a cat.

I went very still, but Cyrus didn’t even seem to notice. “Fine! Then adopt them into Arnou, so they’ll have clan protection—”

“And explain it how?” Sebastian looked at his brother as if he thought he might be mad, and I couldn’t blame him. To an outsider, what Cyrus had asked might make sense. The boys needed protection; Arnou could afford it. Get them out of the city and away from the new version of the drug until we could run it to earth. Easy, right?

Only no, not easy. Sebastian had already taken flack for adopting me, to keep me safe from my mother’s old clan who . . . weren’t my biggest fans. But it had been a controversial move, even for a woman with a high-status mother and no baggage. For kids like these . . .

It might be enough for someone to challenge him.

And if Sebastian fell, the alliance fell with him.

“I am supposed to tell the clan,” Sebastian hissed, “that they are now responsible to defend, to the death if necessary, a group of outcasts? People disowned by their own families, shunned by those who know them best?”

“They didn’t do anything,” Cyrus said heatedly. “Not enough to warrant the punishment—”

“I don’t care what they did!”

“But you should!” Cyrus’s eyes flashed wolf bright in the low light. “You told me that you wanted this title to right the wrongs in our community, to bring order, to defend the helpless! But when you get the chance—”

“We are at war,” Sebastian roared, his hand slamming down on the tabletop, hard enough to make the coffee mugs dance. “Every day that I keep us in this fight I defend the helpless—as well as the rest of us! But you would have me endanger that for a group of—”

“Careful,” Cyrus warned.

And shit. I did not need a knock-down-drag-out in my kitchen. It hadn’t yet recovered from the last one.

I bumped the coffee pot off the table, and because it was a cheap replacement for my beloved old one, it shattered in a very satisfying way. Brown liquid went everywhere, including onto Sebastian’s nice suit and Cyrus’s jeans. The brothers paused to look at me.

“Oops,” I said, and grabbed a dishtowel. “Let me help you with that,” I said to Sebastian, dabbing at the coffee stains on his trousers and making them even worse.

Oh. I guessed the rag had coffee on it, too. My bad.

“Thank you, Lia,” he said heavily. “But I believe I can manage.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I get clumsy when I’m tired—”

“I find it difficult to believe that Laurentia of Lobizon’s daughter could ever be clumsy.”

“—and I’m completely whipped tonight.”

It was not a subtle hint, and Sebastian—ever the gentleman—didn’t need to be nudged twice.

“My apologies,” he told me, and stood up. He looked at his brother. “Stay out of this. The clan will look into it; you have my word on that. And you will honor yours and stay out of sight, or I will take steps to see that you do.”

Chapter Six

Sebastian left and I finally got that shower. Which turned out to be better than expected when Cyrus joined me halfway through. “You’re already clean,” I pointed out.

“Not here for the wash,” he said, as his arms went around me.

It wasn’t sensual, strangely enough, despite the hard hands roaming over my soapy form. Cyrus had every bit of the libido that Weres were famous for, but that wasn’t what this was. He wanted touch, the feel of another warm body next to his, the assurance that we’d come through this, that we were both all right, that we were alive.

It always surprised me when he did something like this. He’d seemed perfectly fine in front of Sebastian. Troubled, yes; angry, certainly; but fine, strong, in control. It was only here, with me, in the dark of night and with the boys all soundly sleeping, that he’d let himself be vulnerable.

He didn’t cry, although I wouldn’t have minded if he had. He had a right to mourn, to grieve, for two he considered to be his own. But he didn’t.

He just stood there while I turned and held onto the big body, marveling again that he needed me. That I could calm him with a touch, so light, so whisper soft, that it could have been the water streaming over us both. But it wasn’t and he knew it wasn’t.

The chest, surprisingly lightly furred considering the thickness of the beard, rose and fell against mine as my fingernails got into the act, scratching up and down his spine. There was tension there, so much that I didn’t need to ask if he’d been arguing with Sebastian before I came home. The two brothers had always been close, clinging to each other after their mother died when they were young, but this vargulf business had put a strain on their relationship.

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