Page 62 of Junk Magic

“He’s got a point; you know he does—”

“Who has?” I asked, confused.

“Guy in Tartarus, another vargulf,” Noah said tersely. “Always shouting a bunch of nonsense—”

“It’s not nonsense!” Jason chimed in, and then started to look a little uncomfortable as Noah stared him down. “Not all of it.”

“What guy?” I asked again.

“Name’s Lyall,” Noah said. “Don’t know where he stays, but he shows up at the market under Decatur pretty regularly.” He paused, and then came out with it. “He’s getting attention. Getting a following. People want some payback and think the war might be the right time—”

“Shut up!” Lee told him. “What are you doing? She’s a war mage!”

“She’s also Lupa and she asked. What was I supposed to do? Lie?”

I just stood there for a moment as the boys argued, caught completely off guard. Lupa was the official term for the Alpha female of a clan, either the Alpha’s mate or a female leader in her own right. Lupa was not what I was, because this was not a clan and I did not have responsibility for these boys.

But according to clan custom, if I didn’t challenge it now then I accepted it, and became den mother to a bunch of vargulfs.

Cyrus, what the hell?

“I’m not Lupa,” I told them clearly. “I’m sorry; I don’t know what Cyrus told you—”

“Nothing. He didn’t have to,” Noah said, regarding me strangely.

“Then I don’t know where you got the idea—”

“From you.”

I frowned. “From me? I never said—”

“You didn’t have to,” Jason broke in. “You and Cyrus are a thing, and you fought for us. You damned near died for us. And then again for Jace. If that doesn’t make you Lupa, what does?”

I just looked at him for a moment, caught flat footed yet again. But we were interrupted before I could figure out a reply. Sophie poked her head out of the door to my bedroom, looking cross.

“Hey, can you guys keep it down? I just got Kimmie off to sleep.”

I started to ask why she’d put her in my bed, instead of one of the many others available, but frankly, I had bigger problems right now.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll just be another few—” I turned back around but didn’t finish the sentence. Because just that fast, the boys were gone.

Chapter Seventeen

I vacuumed up glass from the shattered lightbulb and tried to do it quietly. Then I rescued my sim card from Caleb, who’d just returned from a pot run—of the metal kind—and called in a query for everything that the Corps had on some guy named Lyall from Decatur. I also phoned the clan archive, asking about Cloud-Leaper, because they weren’t going to give the Corps a damned thing.

Both queries would take a while, the Corps’ because they were overworked and the clans because they didn’t like me. And I could probably double that after this morning. But I’d get answers eventually or I’d get nasty, and in the meantime, I needed a break.

Even by war mage standards, it had been a shitty week. So, instead of checking on Kimmie, who was asleep anyway, I decided to take a few hours off. Maybe have a late lunch and hope that it dissipated some of the effects of the drug.

Of course, that would have been easier if Caleb had gotten out of the way. But when I reentered the kitchen, I found him parked by the stove with the air of a man who had no intention of moving until somebody fed him. Something that would have worked better if he wasn’t dealing with an Alpha Were.

“That’s your secret?” he asked Cyrus, looking at the four large cans of baked beans on the kitchen counter. “Opening cans?”

“No, the secret is the onions, peppers, homemade barbeque sauce and bacon that you dress them up with,” Cyrus said mildly.

I doubted that he was any happier than I was after our abortive talk, but he gave no sign of it. A clan’s Alpha was required to be stoic, calm and controlled at all times, because the clan took their cues from him. A worked-up Alpha was a sign for the rest of the family to go into battle mode, and that was the last thing we needed here.

But he wasn’t in the mood to put up with any shit.

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