Captive Mate - Eliot Grayson Page 0,45

but I did it carefully and ran some calculations.

I could do it. I was sure I could do it. And if I failed at this, after all the failures I’d stacked on top of each other over the past weeks, well — I might as well just give up and go climb on Parker’s knot, since it would prove I wasn’t any fucking good for anything else.

Unraveling the spell between us wasn’t too difficult, though it took a little while. I tried not to remember that Nate or Ian could walk through the door at any moment; I couldn’t let my concentration slip. Once the untwisting was done, I started to gently detach the strands from me and from Matthew, one at a time, and alternating so that the remains of the spell wouldn’t go out of balance and snap in one direction or the other. First me, then Matthew. Then me, then — not Matthew, because the strand linking his emotions to mine was fucking stuck. I tugged a little harder. Matthew stirred and let out a small pained sound. Fuck. I fed a little more of my rapidly dwindling magic into him to keep him quiet. Sweat beaded on my hairline and gathered in the small of my back. My clammy hand was leaving a damp patch on his shirt.

At last it came free, and then the rest followed in quick succession. The spell withered in my inner sight, shriveled, and blew away like dirt on the wind, vanishing into nothingness.

I slumped back, breathing hard. I’d done it. I’d actually done it. I wasn’t tied to Matthew anymore, and Matthew — the realization hit hard, and I flinched. When Matthew woke up, he’d hate me. Not love me and hate me, want me and hate himself, but hate me, with no qualifications.

I had to get the fuck out of there.

Since I was going to shift, I pulled off Matthew’s clothes and dropped them on the floor. He’d probably want to burn them since I’d touched them, anyway — although what he’d do about his dick in that case was worrying. And also his fucking problem.

I stood by the window and let the shift come. It flowed through me, as naturally as breathing, from my head — now fuzzy — down to my toes — now small and clawed. The room appeared to expand around me as I shrank down, compressing into my feline body. Shades of red and pink morphed into greens, and the room was brighter, the one lamp nearly a beacon in my lynx’s sight.

The scents of sweat and sex sharpened, becoming almost unbearably thick. I wrinkled my nose and forced myself not to pad over to the bed and take a sniff of Matthew where the scent was strongest, a disgusting impulse for which I hated myself.

I took a last look at him. I’d probably never see him again, and that was for the best. At least I’d gotten my cock sucked.

Fuck.

I hopped up onto the windowsill and peered down. It was a long drop, but it wasn’t just a myth that cats always landed on their feet. It was true for me, anyway. I bunched my legs, made sure my toes had traction, and leapt down, landing with a soft but jarring thump on the grass two stories below.

There wasn’t much magic left to me, but what there was I deployed to cover my trail and make me even harder to see than I already was, slinking through the darkness.

And then I ran.

***

Leaving the Armitage territory felt momentous. It’d taken me nearly an hour to reach the boundary, since I’d had to pause a few times and wait silently for one of the pack to pass by ahead of me. There were bobcats in this part of California, although they’d often avoid a wolf pack’s land, so if they caught a faint trace of my scent it wouldn’t be too unusual.

And I didn’t smell like a shifter — I just smelled like your forest-variety bobcat. I’d made sure of it. It had led to a couple of awkward encounters with real bobcats — the female who thought I’d make a nice father for a litter of kittens stood out, though luckily I’d convinced her otherwise — but in general, it worked.

Finally I stood poised right inside the wards. I could see them, a faint glow of magic in a long, looping strand. Nate had done a good job.

I could admit that in the privacy