Page 34 of Captive Mate
And I couldn’t kill Parker and escape, either, because the Kimballs wouldn’t stop. They didn’t give a fuck about me one way or the other. They were going to take this fight back to the Armitages no matter what; as worked up as they were, there was no stopping them now.
Icertainly couldn’t stop them, not on my own. All I could do was warn Matthew, hope he believed me, and maybe sabotage the Kimballs a little bit from behind the lines.
And then kill Parker. That was non-negotiable.
Fuck. I had to take a chance; I had to talk to Colin. He might be loyal enough to his father not to betray him, but he sure as fuck wasn’t loyal to Parker. And it didn’t sound like he believed stopping this fight would be betraying his father, either, necessarily. If I could convince him I wanted to help the Kimballs stay out of Parker’s bullshit and avoid a fight with the Armitages that would just result in more pointless deaths, Colin would be on my side.
But my window for that was closing, because Colin was heading back toward the meeting room.
I popped up out of the shadow of the bush I’d been crouching under and let out a soft meow. Colin froze, then turned and stared. I lifted one front paw and waved it in a clearly beckoning gesture.
Colin peered at me through the gloom. “What the ever-loving fuck?”
I meowed again, beckoned again, and trotted down the hill away from the meeting room.
“Either that’s a cat wearing a backpack, or someone drugged me,” Colin muttered, and set off after me.
I might’ve laughed if I hadn’t been, well, a cat. As it was, I led him away into the woods, counting on his curiosity to keep him following. He was an alpha werewolf, and those assholes were always overconfident. He was ten times my size. Hell, even if I’d been shifted into human form, he would’ve been twice my size.
Still, he extended his claws, and his eyes glowed faintly. At least he wasn’t a complete moron. That was reassuring, considering I meant to try to form at least a temporary alliance with the guy.
Once we reached the trees at the bottom of the hill, I slipped between the trunks, squirmed my way out of the backpack’s straps, and sat on my haunches to wait for him. A moment later he cautiously followed me into the woods.
I took a deep breath. I never let anyone see my animal form, and I hated having to do it now. Not to mention that he might try to kill me, he might howl for his pack to come running, and he might laugh. Either way, I had to take a chance.
I shifted.
Chapter 13
Keep Your Enemies Closer
After a stunned pause, Colin’s eyes widened, and he let out a sharp crack of laughter. “Shamans are so fucking weird, dude. Really? A fuckingbobcat?”
Now, I’d never found Colin particularly attractive; he wasn’t quite tall enough, and his muscles were overdeveloped, and he had light hair and brown eyes, and he didn’t hold a candle to — other people. Even so. He was looking at me as I stood in front of him naked, and laughing. And calling me weird.
“Do you want me to burn you alive or flay your skin from your bones, or would you rather try again?” I glared him down, my nose in the air. How dare he? And then I crouched down to dig my clothes out of my backpack, because he didn’t deserve to see me naked.
He made a choking sound that was probably another stifled burst of laughter. “I apologize,” he said completely insincerely, holding up his hands in a ‘come on now, calm down’ gesture that only infuriated me more. “Just — I didn’t expect it. What the hell are you doing here, Jonah? You’re supposed to be Matthew’s prisoner right about now.”
The sound of Matthew’s name sent an unpleasant jolt through me. Why couldn’t he have just referred to the Armitage pack? “I escaped,” I said tersely, letting theobviously, you idiothang in the air unspoken. I tugged the track pants up my legs and unrolled the t-shirt. “And I’m here to help you. Just maybe not the way you expect.”
Colin tilted his head and examined me through narrowed eyes. “That sounds like the kind of shit a mage says when they’re about to turn you into a diseased frog and then explain how it’s actually for your own good.”
I choked down a laugh of my own. Now there was an idea. I could get behind Parker living out the rest of his life as a diseased frog. It wouldn’t be a long one, since I’d stomp him into diseased green slime. But still. Not a bad idea.
“No frogs. Probably,” I amended. “Not you, anyway. Look. I overheard your phone call.” He startled, his face going red, and started to protest. “No, I don’t know who you were talking to, and I also don’t care,” I said before he could really get going. “But I know you think your pack’s making a wrong move. And I agree with you.”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah. That’s super fucking convincing, dude. You don’t have any attachment to my pack. How do I know you didn’t make a deal with Matthew Armitage? You could be playing everyone against the middle. That sounds like the Jonah I know.”
I paused in the act of straightening my shirt. The thing was, thatwasthe Jonah he knew. It was also the Jonah I knew, and the whatever-pseudonym-of-the-week I and everyone else had always known.
But it apparently wasn’t Arik, which probably came as even more of a surprise to me than it would to anyone else.
And it was disheartening as fuck, because if I couldn’t convince Colin, who didn’t have any particular reason to hate me, how in the hell was I supposed to convince Matthew?
I could spin a story. I could lie to, manipulate, and even enchant Colin if I needed to.
But what if this Arik, the one who was starting to feel something uncomfortably close to partisanship, or even, perish the thought,loyalty, for the first time in thirteen years, wanted to try something different?
