Page 23 of Captive Mate
Down the Drain
It was quite a while later, going by the dark window and the glow of the lamp on the nightstand, when I crawled out of a groggy sleep to the sound of quiet voices. Long practice with waking up in strange places had given me the ability to come to consciousness without stirring or making a sound, so I lay there perfectly still, figuring out who was there before I let them know I was awake.
“…saved my life,” Matthew was saying. “He’s a little shit, but he’s obviously not a total psycho.”
Ah, they were talking about me. How nice. I’d have gotten that just from the ‘little shit’ descriptor, but good to know I wasn’t the worst person Matthew had ever met.
That was probably Jonathan Hawthorne. Jonathan Hawthorne had probably been the worst personanyonewho’d met him had ever met. Not for the first time, I wondered if Nate had actually had it worse than I had, growing up with that for a father. I mean, I’d been totally without parents — my long-lost adoptive brother, only an adolescent himself at the time, had found me hiding behind a dumpster when I was a kitten, and I’d never known what happened to them — and I’d always thought maybe parents were more trouble than they were worth. Meeting Nate and his sire had only reinforced that opinion.
Speaking of Nate. “He wanted those manacles off. He would’ve done anything to get free, even something decent. I wouldn’t give him too much credit.” Nate didn’t sound completely sold, though; there was a little hesitation there, a touch of doubt. Solidarity among magic-users? Possible. Also possible: he was kind of a soft touch, and I ought to use it against him.
“He could have bargained for more,” Matthew replied, wearily, as if they’d already been over this ground. “He could’ve demanded that we let him go. Had all of you wait out of easy range with a running car parked right next to him, to give him a chance to actually get away.”
Huh. Not the worst idea, and I kind of wished I’d thought of it. Not that Dor’s freaky subatomic passages through spacetime would’ve made a car particularly viable as an escape plan.
“You were too close to dying. There wasn’t time for a bunch of bargaining. He had to save you and take his chances, or not save you and take his chances. And if you’d died, Ian would’ve ripped his head off either way. So saving your life was his only shot.”
Matthew just sighed in answer to that, and there was silence for a minute. I used the time to evaluate my condition. My magic hadn’t regenerated much, which was worrying. I felt nearly as drained as I had right after healing him. And — shit, I could also feel the effects of my spell again. Not as strongly as before, but without enough magic to use to balance it out, the pull to Matthew was back.
I was probably drained, I realized as I reached out with my magical senses, because of the draining spell someone had put on me while I was asleep.
Well,fuck.
I reached out a little more, trying to explore its contours. It wasn’t terribly subtle, and it felt like normal human magic — that is, I was sure it wasn’t Dor’s work, because his magic was bizarre. If human, or human-like, magic was plain white bread, Dor’s was some kind of fruitcake with sardine-flavored jelly beans in it.
Nate, then. Which meant I had to be able to break it. Except that with my magic at a minimum, that would be difficult…ugh. It definitely wasn’t as strong or as inescapable as Dor’s manacles, and I would be able to work on it eventually, but it was going to do the job for now.
A throat cleared loudly. “I can feel you fucking with my spell,” Nate said. “I know you’re awake. Stop playing possum.”
I opened my eyes and rolled onto my side. Matthew was sitting up propped against the headboard on the other side of the bed, with Nate straddling a backwards chair a couple of feet away. Matthew looked like himself again, his color normal and his wounds completely healed, and he’d changed his tattered shirt. He still had a few redwood needles in his hair, though.
Which reminded me of how gritty and filthy I was, stinking of sour sweat and blood. Was there any chance of a real bath in this place? The Armitage pack house was like the roach motel of places to be held prisoner.
“Where’s your worse half?” I asked Nate. “Off grunting at small animals?”
“Ian prefers to grunt at large animals,” Matthew said blandly. “More of a challenge when they grunt back.”
I forced a yawn, trying to cover my helpless choke of laughter.DamnMatthew for getting under my guard like that.
Nate frowned, but his eyes were alight. “He’s trying to play catch-up on that asshole Parker’s pack, figure out how many of them are in the neighborhood, and decide what to do next. You’re welcome, by the way. Since, you know, they’re only here because of you.”
I pushed up on my elbows so I could glare at Nate more effectively. “AndI’monly here instead of bleeding on Parker’s knot because you have a use for me, so don’t act like you’re some big hero. You wouldn’t give a fuck what happened to me otherwise. And if you’d just let me go in the first place, he never would’ve come here at all!”
“Wouldyougive a fuck what happened to you if you were us?” Nate had gone bright red, and his dark eyes flashed with anger. “What part ofI’m not joining your fan clubis so fucking hard for you to understand?”
I’d spent as little time as possible near Hawthorne Senior, just like anyone else with a functioning brain and sense of self-preservation, but I’d picked up a few things. The night he’d kidnapped his own son and planned to suck all his magic out of him had been particularly illuminating.
“I don’t have a fan club. Fan clubs are for teenage losers.” I batted my eyelashes at him and, with malicious pleasure, watched him turn even redder. “But either way, you don’t have to put posters of me on your wall with hearts drawn on them with your favorite pink glitter pen to, I don’t know, not drain my magic for your own purposes? Isn’t this a little bit like father, like son?”
The color vanished from Nate’s face so quickly I could practically hear the blood whooshing south. “How do you know about that?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
But he had a secure, rock-solid place in a pack that would protect him, no questions asked — and yeah, they were the Kroger store-brand of packs. But they still had fighters like Ian, or Matthew. A council. Allies like Fenwick and Dor.
He wasn’t alone in the world, and he could go fuck himself with his self-pity. I was sure it was big enough to give him a good ride.
