Captive Mate - Eliot Grayson Page 0,53
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?
Well. Sort of different. It wasn’t like I was going to start baring my soul or anything.
I sighed. “Look, Colin. You’ve been spending a little time with Parker Taft, yeah?” He nodded, looking grim. “So you know a little bit about our history?”
“I know he thinks you’re his mate even though you obviously aren’t and don’t want to be. And I know he wants to ‘violate both your holes until you can’t scream anymore.’ And there was a lot more where that came from, but I tried to tune it out. So yeah. I may not know the details, but I know enough.” Colin sounded as grim as he looked. “And in case you were wondering, if you want to — what were you going to do to me? Light him on fire or flay his skin or some shit like that? I won’t be stopping you.”
Had Colin had some personal experience with an alpha like Parker? Not likely, not when he was an alpha too and a member of a fairly prosperous pack. But someone he knew? Either way, his tone was uncompromising and sincere in a way I couldn’t doubt.
My tension eased, just a tiny bit. Gods, but it said a lot about how fucked-up the world was, or how fucked-up the part of it I’d known had been, that an alpha shifter actually condemning another alpha for rape seemed like a stroke of luck, rather than the standard it ought to have been.
“So you get it,” I said, my voice a little too hoarse. My throat felt thick, and I swallowed hard to clear it. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t want you and the Armitages to kill each other, and I think it’s fucking stupid, but I’m not really on their side any more than I’m on yours.” Lie. My heart skipped a beat. “But I want Parker dead. And if you can help me make that happen, I’ll help you end this fight however you think it needs to be ended.” I drew a deep breath. “And I think the first step in that is to call Matthew Armitage and warn him what’s about to happen.”
Colin snorted and shook his head. “Right. Yeah. You and me, I bet we’re really high up on his list of people to trust when they call with shit like that. And if you are working with him, then me calling him is part of your plan.” He stopped and frowned. “Although I’m having trouble seeing how calling him is a trick.”
“Because it’s not,” I said, pressing the advantage while I had it.
The moon was sinking behind the treetops, and the night wasn’t getting any younger. I couldn’t smell the rain yet, but I could feel the clouds rushing in from the east, teasing the edges of my magic with their pregnant shadows. It was going to be an ugly, bloody, muddy morning if we didn’t do something soon.
“Colin. Sam brought what happened to him on himself,” I said, praying he’d listen, agree, and gloss over the passive-voice construction that left out my having done it to Sam directly. “The Armitages didn’t attack him. Matthew was trying to make peace, you know that. Why was he so fucking dead-set on taking over the Armitage territory in the first place, anyway? There’s nothing there. And the pack’s hardly worth absorbing. There’s no point in this pack war. Your father has to see that.”
“He doesn’t see anything right now,” Colin said bluntly, shoving his now unclawed hands into his pockets. That was a good sign. If he didn’t see me as an immediate threat, maybe we were getting somewhere. “Sam had this fucked-up plan. He was stupid enough to listen to that maniac Hawthorne.” I nodded emphatically. We were on the same page there. “And Hawthorne convinced him and my dad that the way to get a leg up in the new supernatural organization that was coming was to take over any other local packs. Become one of the big players in California.”
New supernatural organization that was coming? The hair on the back of my neck lifted until it felt like it ought to be waving above my head.
What. The. Fuck. I hadn’t heard anything about that while I was with the Kimball pack — and that had obviously been on purpose, because I’d been around