Page 34 of Bad Blood Bear

“Shit,” she muttered. “Magic is real too? Couldn’t you have saved that revelation for another day?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was going to, but…” He gestured to her shoulder. “We didn’t know you actually had some in you.”

He ran his hands through his hair in the gesture she was learning meant he was frustrated or searching for words.

“Magic, like spells or magical items, is a lot rarer than shifters, but there are witches and sorcerers who have powers, and some shifters…” he sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“Can I have the Cliff Notes version?” she asked. “Because that’s been working for me so far.”

Tank blew out another sigh. “I’ll try,” he said. “Alphas have a special kind of magic that allows them to lead and dominate other shifters. With some species, especially wolves, that magic is tied to the territory they claim. Flynn has that. It means he’s better equipped to protect people who belong in his territory, and fight people who don’t.”

“And I don’t belong in his territory?” she asked.

“We think that when Brother Damien Turned you, he imbued the claiming mark with some kind of magic—magic that binds your bear and keeps her from coming out. Since it’s similar to alpha magic, it reacted badly to Flynn’s alpha magic when he tried to take you under his protection.”

“So his magic thinks I’m an enemy?” Lissa said. That sucked.

Tank bit his lip. “More like, it thinks you belong to someone else.”

“Well, fuck that,” Lissa snapped. “I don’t belong to anybody but myself. Never have, never will. So how do I get rid of this shit magic from Brother Asshole?”

Tank had to admire her spunk. “We’re working on that.”

Well, that sounded less than promising. But right now she had to learn her way around this territory and this crew, and figure out how things worked. Meals. Micro-territories—whose space was whose, what were the communal areas, where she was welcome and where she wasn’t.

She didn’t even have a place to sleep.

“Is this your room?” she asked Tank. She thought it must be—it smelled like him.

He nodded. She looked around for a stereo, and saw nothing. “I thought I heard guitar music, before,” she said. “I was kind of in and out of sleep.”

“That was Sloan,” Tank said. “I had to go out for a little while, so he sat with you in case you needed anything. He thought the music might settle your bear.”

“He plays the guitar?” she asked, interested.

Tank gave a little snort. “Apparently.” He doodled with the pen, and then said, “While he was here, Xander and I went back to your squat to pick up your things. I hope you don’t mind. They’re over there.”

He gestured with his head at two cardboard boxes on the floor near the end of the bed.

Lissa crawled down to the edge of the mattress and flopped down on her stomach, reaching down for the first box. She wondered what they’d thought was worth bringing, and if they’d found the stuff that was important to her.

They’d brought everything. The first box held all her kitchen stuff, her camp stove, and even the bags of Ramen and cans of tuna. She couldn’t believe he’d gone to the trouble to bring all that.

She moved to the other one.

Blanket at the bottom, clothes on top of it. Those needed to be washed. She wondered if it was too much to hope that they had a washer/dryer here. That would be beyond awesome.

On top of the clothes were her paperback books. They’d found the knife, and even the pepper spray from under the couch. That was kind of impressive.

Then she saw something tucked away at the side of the box.

No way.

It was her printouts from the internet café in Missouri—the web site home page, and her picture of Brother Matthias.

The only one she had.

When she opened them, money fell out. She picked up the scattered bills, automatically counting them as she went. Eighty-eight dollars.