The woman scoffed, and Jax glared at her. I turned my glare on her as well, only to see the ghost of my ancestor standing behind her, staring at her. Instead of spewing the usual bigotedbullshit, his gaze was speculative, and he looked up at me. “Do you know, there’s a spell that’s perfect for this situation?”
I raised a brow in question, but thankfully kept myself from asking the guy who wasn’t visible a question in front of a bunch of people.
“My mother called it ‘the disrespect cure,’ and she used to use it on people who acted inappropriately to those she cared for.” He lifted his hands into the air and sketched a rough pattern of magic, which... it was actually incredible. Prudence taught through practice, doing a spell over and over and over while she watched and helped me tweak my lines. The problem with it was that she couldn’t actually draw lines for me to trace with my own magic. Apparently, as a ghost, this ancestor could do precisely that. I watched and committed the lines to memory, but... well, I didn’t even know what it would do. It might kill her or something, and I couldn’t just—“It’s like that thing your little friend Maia likes to say to people. May you step on a LEGO. Inconveniences. The milk in your coffee turns sour, your favorite shoes develop holes, and if there’s a single obstacle to trip over on the floor, your foot will find it.”
That... made sense. The lines of the spell were kinetic and mental, and built like a small cage. Those, in different configurations, could mean almost nothing, or they could kill a person.
For some reason, I believed him.
No, not some reason. Because of the disgusted way he was looking at her. He might not like werewolves, but hating pedophiles was universal among decent people.
So without thinking another second about it, I closed my eyes and sketched out the lines of magic, then snapped them shut around the woman.
The woman who almost immediately lost her balance as she tried to sit in her chair, and ended up landing on her ass on the floor.
Everyone stared. Jillian giggled around her margarita. Jax’s shoulders relaxed just a tiny bit. My ancestor, standing behind her, looked up to meet my eye and nodded approvingly. “Well done. You’re a quick study.”
Jax looked over at me, interest in his gaze, like he knew I’d had something to do with the fall. I didn’t even try to pretend otherwise, just shrugged and smirked.
This time, it was his turn to stink up the room with his lust.
Dinner was a tense affair, to no one’s surprise.
The woman, whose name was Giselle, had quite the rough go of dinner. Apparently nothing tasted quite right.
I’d have felt bad about torturing someone like that, but next to me, Jillian—strong, brave, amazing Jillian—was drinking one margarita after another, clearly trying to drown out the demons of this terrible, shitty pack and what they’d put her through.
I hoped Giselle’s hair fell out and she had inexplicable, painful acne on her genitals for the rest of her life.
Grant was trying to pretend that the whole thing was simply what everyone had been expecting for years. Of course Jax and his “strays” would come back to the fold, and this whole situation was merely a formality. Jax continued to tell him, oh so kindly, that he was a fucking jackass and that wasn’t going to happen.
I was calming down, though. Because seriously, this Grant guy? Couldn’t take Jax out if Jax had one hand tied behind his back. Even as a human, he wasn’t all that coordinated. I doubted he’d magically be graceful as a wolf.
He was smaller than Jax, and weaker than Jax, and just... nobody.
Toward the end of dinner, I’d slipped off to the bathroom, but before I could return to the table, the huge blond guy slipped into the room behind me, and leaned against the door, holding it closed. He glanced at the stalls, taking a cursory sniff, then curling his nose in disgust, which... fair. Public restrooms were gross even when you didn’t have a werewolf nose. When you did? It didn’t get better, that was for sure.
“I do not know how wolves can live in city like this,” he said, shaking his head, and that was what made me pause instead of shrilly insisting he let me out of this bathroom right now. His voice was low and rough, and weirdly, he had a Russian accent. How had I not noticed during dinner?
Because he hadn’t said a word at the table with the others.
He shook his head again, this time as though trying to clear it, then turned to look at me. “Cash. Cash is... is alive?”
Huh.
“Why?”
His face twisted up, looking literally pained, and I realized that was what he had been searching for earlier. Cash. The smell of Cash’s blood was still sitting in the front hall, still seeping from his slowly-healing wounds. He’d been looking for Cash, because he could smell him.
What was more, he seemed to give a damn about that.
“If... if Cash wishes to leave us, then... is his right. Right, yes? There are too many rights in English.”
My hackles started to rise, then I realized... context. He hadn’t said there were too many rights in America. He’d said too many rights in English. Because “right” had so damn many definitions in English, and it didn’t seem to be his primary language, so he wasn’t sure he had the correct word.
“Yes,” I agreed. “It’s his right if he wants to leave. But he didn’t come asking into our pack. He just came to warn us that your people were planning to attack us. But... he’s not well, buthe’s alive, and he’s healing. Slowly, but we think he’ll be okay, thanks to some quick work by my mentor.”
The young man’s handsome face twisted in anger, but he wasn’t looking at me. He set his jaw and closed his eyes, taking multiple deep breaths before looking at me once again. “This is trick.”
