But someone else didn’t care.
Someone else was pushing me, hard enough to physically make me stumble if I’d been on my feet, which would have been disturbing except that it felt so normal.As if I was arguing with the other half of my brain, which maybe I was for all I knew.I didn’t get how this three-people-in-a-body thing worked, because my wolf was a lot less active.
My Relic, on the other hand…
“Some things can be taught,” I finally said.“Even most things.The right people can learn on the job, but they have tobethe right people.And one way you know that is how they act when things are hardest.
“Noah, you got hurt the other night because you did something stupid.But you know what you didn’t do?You didn’t run.
“You saw that monster of a creature and threw yourself at it to help your clan.Yeah, it was dumb; it was epically, unbelievably, almost staggeringly—”
“You’ve made your point,” he muttered.
“—stupid, like one-for-the-record-books—”
“Okay!”
“But it was brave, too.It was self-sacrificing.It was… interesting.The kind of thing we look for in Corps recruits when we’re choosing squad leaders.Of course, being brave, or a good person who loves their clan, doesn’t mean you have leadership chops, but…”
“It’s interesting,” he repeated.
I nodded.“It’s the kind of thing that makes you stand out and makes us want to see what else you may have to offer.And the way we usually do that in the Corps is with a trial run.I don’t see any reason not to copy that practice here.”
“And me?”Lee asked, his jaw tight.
I glanced at him, information flowing now from someone who thought I needed to know it.And suddenly, keeping my temper became more of a problem.A lot more.
A silky black arm grabbed Lee’s t-shirt and jerked him down to me.“Chay went to look for a Reaper,who was specifically targeting Weres, and he wentalone?”
“I thought you didn’t know about that!”he said, which was not smart.
“Thefuck?”I glared at him, but he was made of sterner stuff, and I only got defiant eyes back.Or maybe he’d had far worse from his old clan, I thought, and the idea sobered me slightly.So I turned on Noah.
“I wasn’t there,” the blond protested.
“Because Jason had to ‘practically sit on’ you, right?”
He didn’t deny it.“But, uh, the guys went after Chay and caught up with him partway there.And, um…” he petered off.
“And dragged him right back here so they didn’t all end up injars?”
He licked his lips.“Well, you know...”
“I assume that’s a no!”
“Well, yeah.I mean, that’s a no, but it turned out all right.Well, not all right, but—”
“How?How was that inany wayall right?”
Noah sighed and gave up.“They didn’t end up in jars?”
“Noah!”
“They’re not gonna do it again, okay?I yelled at them, Sophie yelled at them, even Kimmie—”
“Iyelled at them,” Lee put in, and I realized that I hadn’t let go of his shirt.
I didn’t do so then, either, because I wanted to glare straight into those big brown eyes.“You’re even dumber than he is,” I said flatly.“At least Noah had a slight chance of winning his fight!Throwing yourself at an entire squad of dark mages—”
