"Look, this stuff isn't going to work," I said for the millionth time.
Maybe only the fifth or sixth time. But still.
Lucian and Jace were both leveling identical glowers at me, their brows furrowed and their arms crossed over their broad chests.
I turned a laugh into a cough, and they frowned in unison.
I choked down another laugh and leaned back against the kitchen table of the pack house, taking a load off, since it looked like we'd be here arguing for a bit.
My ass ached, and the boots I'd found in the pack house's hall closet to cover my stolen super-socks didn't fit quite right.
I needed the boots, though, if only to keep Lucian from ripping
the socks off my feet. He'd actually growled when he saw them on me that morning.
I was finally caffeianated enough to deal with it, though.
Lucian and I had slept all night tangled up in each other's arms, and he'd slipped out of bed at the crack of dawn, taken a shower, and set a hot cup of coffee down beside the bed without comment a few minutes later.
I might have mumbled a thank-you, but...maybe not. Shit.
Who was the asshole now?
I wasn't much of a morning person, but still. Probably too late at this point, after we'd already gotten a call from Jace about setting the territory wards, hiked over to the pack house in awkward silence, and rummaged through the pantry.
"I need rock salt. Lots of it. You have what, thirty miles of territory perimeter to cover? I already calculated how many warding sites I'll need to set, allowing for working around obstacles, and it'll be at least twenty. Maybe as many as twenty-five. Does this..."
And I held up the little cardboard can with the yellow umbrella girl on it they'd offered me because they were idiots.
"...appear to be approximately twenty pounds? Didn't think so. I also need fresh rosemary, not that dried crap you have in that jar that's been in the cabinet for a billion years. And other things, too, not to mention —"
"You'll just need to make do —"
"Not to mention!" I shouted over Lucian's interruption, and stared him down. "Not to mention," I went on after he'd subsided into peevish silence, "I need some of my own stuff.
My laptop. Clothes."
I waved my arms around a little, the too-long sleeves of Lucian's borrowed sweatshirt trailing like pennants. "I need to head into town for a couple of hours."
"It's not safe," Lucian said, at the same time as Jace said, "I don't think that's such a great idea."
I let them start to smirk, thinking they'd won.
"Yeah? And who the fuck said I was asking your permission?" Both their mouths opened, and Lucian let out a low growl, and — fuck it.
I pulled on my reservoir of magic, nicely topped up after a night of wild sex and a whole pot of coffee, and put up my right hand. I had to quickly tug the sweatshirt sleeve up over my wrist, which yeah, sort of ruined the smoothness of it, but the crackles of blue lightning that shot out of my fingers and dissipated in wreaths of smoke in the center of the kitchen made up for it.
They both rocked back on their heels and then went utterly still. I knew how impressive it looked.
Honestly, if that lightning had hit either of them, it wouldn't have done jack shit; it would've been about half the shock of sticking a fork in an outlet, a big nothing-burger to an alpha werewolf.
But it really did make me look like a younger, more moisturized, and I kind of loved it.
"Guys. Listen to me. I'm not your prisoner, and I'm not a fucking child, and if I want to go to my own apartment and get my laptop, and go to the grocery store, I will. I was weak as hell when I turned up, too weak to argue, but I'm not now. And you want wards. Which means I need to go into town. So don't try to stop me."
It was a great speech, I thought, and I certainly had their full attention.
I was on a roll! Kicking alpha ass and taking names.
Until they exchanged a look, the kind you can only have between siblings or people who know each other so damn well they don't even need to say a word.
I bit my lip and stood my ground, even though I could already feel control of the conversation being yanked away.
And then Jace shrugged and said, "Okay. Let's see." He lifted his wrist and glanced pointedly at his watch. "It's ten minutes after nine. It's about five miles to the edge of the pack territory, and another, what? Seven to downtown through the woods? Nine if you take the road. Not a very good shoulder for walking along most of that road, but I understand you have some tricked-out socks, so maybe it won't be so bad, right? You'll make it well before dark."
It took me a second to realize that grinding, crunching noise was my own molars gritting against each other.
With an effort, I forced my jaw to loosen.
"Okay, fine," I ground out. "Point made and taken. But if you want wards, some shopping isn't negotiable, and I need to pick the stuff out myself, which means I need to go into town.
And once I'm in town, stopping by my place isn't negotiable either. Besides. What the hell is going on out there in the world? The Kimballs kidnapped me, tried to use me against you. Shouldn't we be, you know, out there figuring out what happened, now that I'm well enough to do it?"
Jace leaned back in his turn, propping himself against the edge of the sink and rubbing one hand over his stubbled chin. He looked rough, now that I really took a minute to examine him.
Lucian was always scruffy, but Jace usually kept himself groomed.
"I talked to Sam Kimball," he said finally. "Last night."
Lucian and I stared at him with matching expressions of horror and shock. Yay us, finally agreeing on something.
"You what?" Lucian demanded. "And you didn't think to say something?"
"I'm saying something right now."
Lucian threw his hands up in the air. "I give up on you. I'm supposed to be your right hand."
Jace shot him a quelling look. "You were busy. Freshly mated. And this was a talk between pack leaders, you weren't needed. Actually, you'd have been counterproductive."
Ouch.
Still, I saw Jace's point. Lucian wasn't the type for tactful negotiation, although when shit hit the fan he was the guy you'd want.
When Lucian was about nineteen, shortly after his and Jace's dad got thrown out as pack leader, a pack from just across the Oregon border came sniffing around looking to expand their reach, figuring the Reeses were weak and must be desperate if their new leader was only twenty-four.
When the other pack leader, sneering all the way, offered to fight any challenger from the Reese pack one- on-one, Lucian stepped forward.
The other guy laughed his ass off right up until Lucian handed it to him in three minutes of unmitigated one-sided brutality.
That story made the rounds of the area's supernatural gossip mill, and even got some play among the normal humans who lived around here.
There was a reason for Lucian's reputation, and his reputation was in turn one of the reasons why Jace still had a pack and a territory.
But a glad-hander Lucian was not.
"Okay," I said, clearing my throat. "So the pack leaders had a confab. Care to fill us lowly peons in?"
Jace looked incredibly uncomfortable, shifting his feet a bit and frowning. Not a good sign. "Kimball says no one in his pack was involved in your kidnapping."
I stood bolt upright, annoyance snapping my spine into rigidity. "Well, no shit he says that! It was either behind his back or he has good reasons for denying it, so —"
"Or no one in his pack was involved, Landon! It's possible he wasn't lying. I have to consider that."
I gaped at him, hurt and betrayal welling up to the point that I was afraid they might overflow as actual tears. Of manly rage, of course, but still.
It felt like being stabbed in the stomach.
Lucian had doubts about my story to begin with, but now they were both going to believe I'd what, made it all up in order to worm my way into their pack? That I had some agenda. That I was just like my father —
"Well, someone kidnapped Landon," Lucian put in firmly. "And he says it was werewolves, and he says he recognized the Kimball shaman. Not to mention, I smelled weres on him when I found him, and the scents were familiar. So maybe you should 'consider' that Kimball's full of shit or that he's getting played by his own pack council, because those look like the only two real possibilities to me."
Lucian shot me the quickest look, just a darting glance before he fixed his eyes on his brother again.
And he took one small step, away from Jace and toward me.