Page 45 of Junk Magic

I knew that scent, too, flooding the air abruptly as my senses refocused closer in. I drew it into my lungs, reveling in the strong, masculine heat of it, and the knowledge that it brought. Home, pack, mate.

Yes, I knew him. I felt the tension leave my body, and I slumped slightly against the dresser. And then turned and scrabbled at it, because part of me knew that I was acting weird. “I, uh, was looking for some clothes. I thought I left some here.”

“You did.” Cyrus’s voice was almost wary. “We moved things around somewhat. A few of the boys were rousted out of their digs and had to bunk with me for a while, and there’s not much room.”

He approached, his footsteps silent on the soft carpeting, even to my ears. But I didn’t need extra senses right now. He was being careful, telegraphing his movements, keeping them slow and elegant and easy.

I didn’t know why, but it reassured me.

“I put them in here.” He opened a drawer of the dresser and I retrieved a pair of jeans, an old t-shirt, and some underwear. And then just stood there, torn between taking a shower and going to rip an old woman’s throat out.

Cyrus didn’t say anything, and thanks to the low light, I couldn’t see much of his face. But he didn’t move, and I’d have to get past him to make it out the door. I wondered if that was deliberate, if he was aware of how on the brink I was.

Or if he was just waiting for a response, because that was how normal people acted when someone helped them out, Lia!

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“Sure.”

The expression, what I could see of it, was casual, the stance loose limbed and relaxed. We might have been talking about the weather—or about the clothes I’d left here after a recent trip to Zion National Park. He’d laundered them for me; I could smell the detergent, the supposedly unscented kind that Weres preferred, because anything else was overpowering.

I might have imagined that eerie tenseness a moment ago, when I thought he was blocking my path.

“I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything,” he told me steadily.

Or maybe not.

I went into the bathroom.

The door closed behind me and I sank against it, hearing it creak under my weight and not caring. For a moment, I just stayed there, breathing deeply and trembling, trying to separate the sticky strands of that other mind from my own. It wasn’t easy.

Possibly because there were people—prey—all over the building. Vegas was not a city of early risers, and most were sleeping—vulnerable, off guard—snoring through last night’s binge and today’s hangover. I could hear the creak of a mattress down the hall, as an overweight body repositioned itself—too out of shape to run, an easy take down—and someone else yawning, having just gotten up—disoriented, oblivious. I heard a child coming up the stairs, singing the jingle from some cartoon, blissfully unaware—

Stop it!

I froze there, panting and afraid—of myself, which was so weird that it broke my brain to even think it. But my stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten today. And something hungered.

I needed to go back to HQ, I thought shakily. I shouldn’t be out here now, running around the city with a monster clawing in my veins. Cyrus should have left me there—

For what? So that Sedgewick could rip me open, as he was probably doing to Colin right now? So he could figure out what made us tick, when he would never understand that, any more than norms understood his magic?

We were magical creatures, too, mystical, strange, wonderful and terrible, and never had I felt that more. But I was something else, as well. I was Lia de Croissets, a war mage daughter of a war mage father, the scion of a distinguished line going back hundreds of years, and I was better than this. I didn’t stalk people in their apartments or attack children in stairwells, like a monster out of a fairy tale. I didn’t care what I’d ingested, I was in control.

But I stayed there for a while longer anyway, having slid down to my haunches, the tile cool under my butt. And waited, to see which side would win. It was a tense few minutes, with my senses feeling like Sedgewick’s nose had briefly looked, back in the infirmary.

One would spear out into the world, becoming hugely sensitive for a moment before shrinking back down to let another have a go. Like when the tile wall opposite suddenly rushed at me, going ninety miles an hour, and causing me to flinch back and rattle the door, because I thought it was going to hit me in the face. And I hadn’t recovered from that before sight gave way to sound and I could hear everything, for what had to be a mile around.

“Lia?”

The single word sounded like it had been spoken through a bullhorn, deafeningly loud and echoing. Cyrus, damn him! He was back in the bedroom and he couldn’t see me like this! Something in me panicked at the thought, knew this wasn’t normal, not even for the wolf I wasn’t.

So, what did that make me?

Crazy, I thought, but couldn’t say, any more than I could answer my boyfriend. I couldn’t even think with a dozen car horns suddenly blaring in my ears. And that wasn't all.

A couple was arguing, their words loud and cutting, before a vase hit a wall, shattering in a tinkling of tiny fragments; another was making love, the woman soft and groaning, but getting steadily louder and louder; slots were ringing as some gamblers hit them early; people were talking; ice was dropping from an ice maker in a crash like a glacier cleaving; a police helicopter was flying overhead, the chop, chop, chop of its blades like hammer blows against my senses; some children were crying, others were laughing, and the boy on the stairs was singing his little song at what sounded like operatic levels. And I couldn’t do anything but lay on the floor and writhe while it all cascaded over me.

And then cut out, just as fast as it had come, leaving my ears ringing and my mouth gaping open in shock.

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