Captive Mate - Eliot Grayson Page 0,34

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 person anyone who’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. Damn Matthew 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.