Page 76 of Junk Magic

“I can be feisty,” I said, wondering what his problem was tonight.

Not that he was ever warm and cuddly, but provoking me wasn’t his usual style. He typically sent me a lip curl whenever we met and then ignored me, as if I was beneath his notice. Which as a rogue, I probably was.

So, the fact that he was being this open in his dislike meant that I was already in trouble.

And then he confirmed it.

“You can be stupid,” he growled. “Not the same thing!”

He’d held his comment until we’d passed through the entrance and left it behind, entering the twists and turns of a maze of high, narrow stone passages that branched through this place like a warren. Some were artificially straight, having been cut into the rock, while others had the dips and ripples of natural formations, carved by the wind and rain over millennia. All were dark, being only occasionally lit up by a smoking torch.

Very occasionally, since Weres see a lot better at night than I do.

That left the passageways dim, and even worse, any sound soon hit walls or dead ends and bounced back, causing a strange echoing void that few voices managed to escape. Cry for help in here and even a Were was unlikely to hear you. That thought didn’t help the itch at the bottom of my spine, which was getting higher and making my legs jittery, probably because they wanted to run back out of here.

Instead, I looked up at some strips of buff-colored cloth that had been stretched over the passage to provide protection from the sun. They were dark orange tonight, reflecting the light off the stones, and hadn’t been changed in a while, which had left them pretty ragged. As a result, the effect was less modern sail shades and more laundry left out on a line. They were flapping in a slight breeze, enhancing the effect of somebody’s long johns, but through the gaps the stars peered down.

I decided to stop being a pussy and came to a halt, wanting to know what I was getting into. Ulmer stopped with me, as if delighted to elaborate. Only maybe delighted wasn’t quite the right word.

“Alright, what is the problem?” I asked.

“You! You are the problem!”

“For what? Not being able to Change?”

“For being part of the ruling clan, but acting like a fool over a damned vargulf, and in public! How do you think that makes Sebastian look? Did you stop to think, for one second, what would have happened if you’d killed Gonzago?”

“Gonzago?”

This simple question seemed to enrage him even more. He snarled, the sound echoing ominously up and down the corridor. “This! This is what I mean, you stupid girl! You didn’t even know that you took down the head of the Brightwater clan. He couldn’t back down once you challenged—he’s a clan leader. He had to fight, and you damned near killed him in the process! What do you think would have happened if he’d died, hm? What do you fucking think?”

I started to answer, then paused, because there were none that he’d like or even understand. To a clan wolf, especially one whose honor was now tied to that of the leader of the Were world, the sooner a vargulf died the better. A dead outcaste caused no problems, and that was all Jace was anymore: not a person, much less a boy in need of protection. Just a source of trouble and potential embarrassment.

It made risking myself for him looked like the height of folly, and arguing the point would get me nowhere.

So, of course, I did it anyway.

“May as well let Jace die, and decrease the surplus population, is that it?”

The words surprised me as much as they seemed to Ulmer, maybe because they came out in wolf speak, a smooth, silky growl, instead of my human voice. Or maybe because there had been no conscious thought behind them. At least not my conscious thought.

Shit.

Ulmer had transformed back to his human state, or as close to it as he ever got, while we talked. That left him naked, but it was honestly hard to tell, with a shaggy head of gray/black hair that almost reached the small of his back, a massive beard, and enough wiry gray body hair to count as a pelt. His human eyes were brown, but occasionally flashed the gold of his alter ego. And the scar across his face was the same, only deeper, almost bisecting his nose and lifting his lip in a perpetual snarl.

He was just as fierce in this guise as the other, although at the moment, he looked more puzzled than anything else.

“What? Who the hell is Jace?”

“This! This is what I mean, old man.”

I heard myself paraphrase his own insulting words back at him and tried to stop, but something didn’t want to stop. Something wanted to provoke him, and was doing a damned good job, judging by the expression in the suddenly narrowed eyes. But that only seemed to make me louder.

“You didn’t even know you were talking about a child, one who had just lost his brother, who had seen him die. He was traumatized and helpless, and couldn’t back down once a much larger wolf challenged him, because was a child. What do you think would have happened if he’d died? That I wouldn’t have savaged all of them? That I would have left a wolf alive who had happily watched a cub be torn apart and done nothing? What do you fucking think?”

I had backed him into a wall, not realizing it until my fist punched the stone beside his head and I watched the massive block crack halfway up the cliff face. Pieces of it rained down onto the burly man, who was looking at me with another expression, but it wasn’t anger this time. More like someone who suddenly realizes he’s alone with a psycho.

“You’re mad,” he said.

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