Page 37 of Captive Mate
That lump in my throat had only grown bigger, but I forced out, “Why didn’t Matthew want you to kill Parker? Does he want to ‘deescalate’ with him, too?”
Colin laughed, shaking his head. “No, dude. He told me he’d killmeif I got to Taft before he could. Something about, like, beating him to death with his own spinal column? I guess the way Taft cheated in the fight the other day must’ve really fucking pissed him off, or something.” My mouth dropped open, and the pants I’d just pulled off my hips fluttered out of my fingers to the ground. Colin didn’t seem to notice. “I’m heading back to the house. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Good luck.”
With a mock-salute of a couple of fingers at his temple, Colin turned and jogged back up the hill, through the pines and out of sight.
The way Parker cheated in the fight…or something. I stuffed the pants in the backpack, arranged the straps, and shifted.
I didn’t want to hope thatsomethingwas me. But I ran a little faster on my way back to the car.
Chapter 14
Break on Through to the Other Side
Getting out of the Kimball territory was as easy as getting in. By two I was on the highway heading east, straight for the Armitage territory. I knew I needed to conserve my strength for later, but I put a little burst of magic into the car. Not exactly an illusion, like the one I’d used to obscure the license plates, but a little something to confuse any cops with a radar gun into thinking I was going the speed limit.
Not that speed limits were much of a thing out here in the boonies, but the Kimballs owned half the police around here. And I was short on time.
At least I wasn’t getting tired yet. I’d slept most of the day, and I was still wide awake.
More than wide awake, since my brain was running in circles like a meth-addled hamster. Somehow I’d gone from working with Jonathan Hawthorne, to being the Armitages’ prisoner they wanted to kill, to escaping, to now going back to the Armitages voluntarily.
And somehow I’d also gone from enchanting Matthew with the intent to help kill him, to being stuck to him like superglue, to saving his life, to letting him put his tongue in my ass, to escaping, to going back to him as…what? An ally, I guessed? A temporary ally, and I didn’t need to guess about the temporary part.
The spell wasn’t in effect anymore. I was useful right now, and then they wouldn’t be able to see the back of me fast enough.
I’d been on the move since I was fourteen years old. Thirteen years, now, even longer than I’d had a semi-stable life in the first place — since I’d already been about two when my brother rescued me.
The woods rushed by in a blur, and the highway wound away in front of me, empty but for the glare of my headlights. I had the window rolled down, and cold air blasted my cheeks into numbness and whipped my hair around in a wild tangle.
How many days, months, years had I spent like this, alone in a car on a deserted road, going anywhere I thought I could eke out a living and avoid becoming prey?
A lot of those days I’d convinced myself I was an old-school American nomad, enjoying the freedom of the open road. No commitments. Nothing tying me down. Nothing to do but please myself.
Most of the nights, it hadn’t felt so classic-movie glamorous. Getting fucked in a dive-bar bathroom. Having to use magic to defend myself when the guy with his dick up my ass decided he didn’t like my long hair, or my tattoos, or my attitude. Sleeping curled up alone on a lumpy roadside motel mattress with springs poking me in the hip, with one eye open in case someone who could get through my wards tried to force the door, listening to the shouts and hollers of the drunken assholes in the other rooms.
I’d been running, not living the life of a carefree vagabond. Only problem was, I hadn’t been runningtoanything — just away from the possibility that if I tried to find a place for myself in the world, I’d lose it. Again. The way I’d lost my brother, or the way I’d never even known my parents. I had nothing to show for those thirteen years. I might as well have curled up in a hollow tree and hibernated it away; if it’d all been erased from my memory overnight, there wouldn’t have been much to miss.
And I was tired of it. The car’s headlights flicked over a sign forLaceyville: 9 miles. Almost there. Another place I’d be leaving in the morning, once I’d done my part to bring peace to the galaxy.
The miles flew by, and in no time at all — definitely before I’d managed to get my shit together — I was turning onto the access road into the Armitage territory. Gravel and chunks of dried mud left over from the rains the week before flew up from the tires and spattered the tree trunks on the side of the road. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Two-thirty. The Kimballs would be loading up and heading this way all too soon. I wondered if Matthew was getting updates from Colin.
I drove as far as the pack house and was met by one of the pack, someone I didn’t recognize, who jogged up to the car and bent down to the window. “Keep going along that little road north,” he said without preamble. “They’re waiting for you up there.”
He stepped back, and I hit the gas and followed his directions. The ‘road’ was generously named, even with the ‘little’ qualifier, and the Honda jolted and jounced over more potholes than I could count. Tree branches scraped the sides of the car.
Oh well. It was stolen anyway. I could’ve probably made it faster on foot — on four feet, certainly — but I wasn’t planning on shifting in front of the Armitages. Werewolves tended to be assholes about any other breed of shifter, since they were the most numerous and were often super arrogant about how much better they were. I’d once seen a weretiger fully shift in front of a group of werewolves. Their petulant, sullen, impotent irritation remained one of the few treasured memories Iwouldmiss if I got sudden amnesia.
Anyway, I wasn’t a tiger, and that wouldn’t work for me.
About two miles down the ‘road,’ Nate popped out of the trees and flagged me down. Ian appeared right behind him, looming and scowling with his arms crossed over his massive chest.
Fucking alphas.
I pulled over and parked, cutting the engine. Deep breath. I could deal with them. I had my magic under my own full control now, and I could handle any of them — any of them besides Nate, maybe, and he had his hands full with preparing a reception for the Kimballs.
Gathering up my backpack, I stepped out of the car.
Nate trotted over to me, his cheeks pink and his hair flying every which way. He had on a giant sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, one sleeve starting to slide down his arm. He shoved it up impatiently as he came to a stop, the flashlight in his other hand blinding me for a second as he waved it around. Nate looked like what you’d find in a dictionary to illustrate the wordflustered.
