“Arnou’s forces were supposed to arrive by plane this morning,” I explained.
“—and I thought that was the problem, that he’d gotten spooked.You know how he is around clan wolves—”
“We’reclan wolves,” Noah said.
“Sure.Keep telling yourself that.”That was Lee.
“—or that maybe there’d been an incident,” Chayton said, forging ahead.“I caught his arm to ask what was up, but he shrugged me off.And when I asked where he was going, he said nowhere and to leave him alone.So, of course, I didn’t—”
“Like hell!”That was Lee.
“Ididn’t,” Chayton snapped.“But a couple of the guards started forward, and Jace was pulling on me, and then he hit me and ran off.I started after him, but one of the guards wanted to know what I thought I was doing, so I had to suffer twenty questions before he’d let me go, and by then I’d lost the scent.You know how it is in a city, with all the cars and shit—”
“Oh,hell, no!”Sophie said as soon as I walked back in.I thought she was talking about my rumpled cowgirl ensemble, which was the least dressy thing they’d bought, but apparently not.“I’ll go get Cyrus, I swear to God!”
“You’re not planning to go after him?”Jen said, staring at me.
“You can’t go anywhere,” Kimmie agreed.“You look like death.”
“Maybe some makeup will help,” I said dryly, and she made a face at me.
“You know what we mean!”Sophie said, coming around the couch.She had another cute outfit on today, which I strongly suspected had put a dent in a certainbardric’scredit card, consisting of a leopard print mini dress with a swingy pleated skirt and some black ankle boots.
“Versace?”I guessed.
“Cavalli, and that’s not the point!”She looked pissed.“You’re not going anywhere—”
“Hey,” Noah said.
“—if I have to sit on you to keep you in place!You can’t run headlong into danger—”
“And you can’t talk to a Lupa that way,” Lee informed her.“Especially not your Lupa.”
“—when you haven’t even started to heal from the last time you did that!I mean, honestly, they put us withyouto learn restraint?Are they stupid?”
“The Circle?”Jen asked.“Hell, yes.”
“And don’t tell me there’s no danger, that you’re just gonna look for Jace!We are at war!”
“And Jace is out in the middle of it,” I said simply.
Which shut her up for once.
“I’ll call Caleb,” I said, talking about my war mage partner.“For backup.And I’ll take it easy.We aren’t going to get in any fights—”
“Yeah, because you hate those so much,” she muttered.
“We’re just going to find Jace and bring him back—”
“Whaddya mean ‘we’?”Lee asked.“Because that better not be just you and Caleb.That better not be excluding us!”
“You can’t talk to your Lupa like that,” Kimmie told him, causing him to snarl in her general direction and her to roll her eyes.
“—and then I’m going to have a talk with him,” I finished.
“Poor bastard,” somebody muttered, but I didn’t see who because I was in a stare-down with Sophie.Who was still looking like tattling to Cyrus was a plan.
It was not a plan.
