The night after Lucian and I mated wasn't the best night of sleep I'd ever had.
Strike that, it was the worst.
For one, Lucian hogged the bed. That shouldn't have surprised me, since in all fairness he should have gotten two thirds of it to start with.
But I ended up with a tiny little sliver of mattress, and only sleeping against the wall — and I do mean against the wall, squished on my side with my spine crammed against a wood panel — kept me from toppling off and rolling under the bed, possibly never to be seen again.
I'd glanced around a little more while Lucian was at the pack house getting food, and it quickly became obvious that the only part of the floor Lucian swept was the middle.
For two, I was still hungry. Lucian's idea of 'food that came from a grocery store' was a dented can of minestrone soup and half a loaf of whole-wheat bread with all the gross seeds in it. Without butter.
And third, even if my fucking useless mate had scrounged up something more to eat and had a better mattress — seriously, weren't alpha werewolves instinctively driven to provide, or something?
This was bullshit — worry would have kept me awake.
I tried to ask Lucian what the hell was going on while we choked down our sad soup.
He'd seen Jace, after all. They'd talked. Presumably about, you know, the other pack that was trying to kill us all in various subtle and exciting magical ways? And probably direct not-so-magical ways too, since werewolves weren't all that creative, in general?
They were more for the ripping out throats with their claws, and less for the careful planning that really ought to go along with that.
"You don't need to know," Lucian growled at me, setting down his spoon.
I put mine down too, with a little more force. Okay, if we're being honest, I threw it at him and he dodged, and it clattered onto the floor.
"What the fuck happened to getting along? What do you mean I don't need to know? They kidnapped me, Lucian! And if their shaman is the one behind this, which, hello, he obviously is, then we're going to need to work together —"
"You aren't working on anything. You're staying here, where you're sa—out of the way while Jace and I figure out—"
"Oh, like fuck I am! For one thing, how long has it been since you strengthened the wards around the territory, hmm? You have someone else to do that for you?"
That was mostly a rhetorical question, since I knew perfectly well they couldn't afford any of the witches in the area, even me.
When my father had done some magic for the Reese pack way back in the day, they'd had more money — although probably a lot less once he finished invoicing them.
So I expected a grouchy deflection. I didn't expect the shifty way Lucian tapped his fingers on the milk crate we were using to eat our dinner off of, or the way he couldn't quite look me in the eye.
After a second, the penny dropped. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Really? No wards at all?"
My magic had been too messed up when I crossed into their territory for me to notice wards or the lack of them, but I'd just assumed. Which made an ass out of me, et cetera. And made real idiots out of Jace and Lucian, because wards on the boundary were the first page in Holding Your Territory for Dummies.
Lucian pressed his lips together and didn't answer.
I wished I hadn't thrown my spoon, because I wanted it back. It would work pretty well for whacking the top of his head.
I reached for his, and he grabbed it before I could get to it.
"Ten points for good instincts with the spoon, Lucian. Minus a million for leaving your territory boundary totally unprotected. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He finally looked up, his blue eyes narrowed in anger. "It's not unprotected. We patrol it constantly. And don't fucking talk that way about Jace. He's done a good job leading the pack since Dad stepped down."
Since 'stepped down' was a euphemism for 'forced out by the pack council because he made stupid decisions like hiring Jonathan Grey as a magical consultant,' I didn't bother going there. Jace hadn't been ready, but he'd done the best he could.
Rationally, I knew that.
Instead, I took a deep breath, even though a whole oxygen tent wouldn't have been enough for dealing with Lucian. One of us had to be the grown-up here. I wasn't the poster boy for adulting, but hey, just like Jace, I had to step up.
"Look. I know he's trying, and I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're trying too —"
"Fuck you, Landon."
"Yeah, whatever, been there done that got the t-shirt." I glared at him, and he glared back, but there was an odd look on his face I couldn't quite parse. "Can I make my point, please?"
Lucian waved a hand as if to say, get on with it. "I'm not the one coming up with insulting digressions."
"You know that word?"
And then it was my turn to look away and turn red, because yeah, proving his point.
His smug smile showed he knew it, too. "Do you have a point, Landon?" he asked, in a gently coaxing tone, with a little dollop of sarcasm and condescension on top.
Another deep breath. "How far from the boundary was I when your patrol found me?"
A long pause followed. "Half a mile," he said grudgingly.
"Right. And if I'd been using magic to disguise my scent or keep quiet? Or actively trying to avoid a patrol? Or, I don't know, doing anything more threatening than literally crawling on the ground trying to attract someone's attention before I passed out and died?"
And now that I thought about it, of course they didn't have wards. Wards would have let them know I was there long before they found me on their own.
I pointed that out too, and then I sat back on the couch, letting Lucian stew a little in the dose of obvious reality I'd just given him.
"You're right that we ought to have wards," he said finally, once he'd stewed. Which he did pointedly, with a lot of frowning. "But you're not going to work on them."
"But who else —"
"Someone who isn't you!" he shouted, turning to face me. He stared me down, looming over me where I leaned back against the couch. "I was trying not to say this, because I don't want to be an asshole." He stopped for a second. "What, not going to tell me how it doesn't show, or something?"
I smirked at him. "Why, when you can do it for me?"
He rubbed at his temples and mumbled something that sounded a lot like a prayer for help. "Okay. Bluntly? I don't trust you. Jace doesn't trust you. All we have is your word about what happened last night.
For all we know, maybe this was the plan all along, for you to show up with some crazy kidnapping story, get Jace's sympathy, and get you set up inside the pack in a position where you can spy on us and sabotage us the best because we feel sorry for you.
Your father was a grade-A dick, and he made deals with everyone and then broke half of them, and you lived in his pocket for twenty-two years. I don't know, and until I know, you're going to stay here, and you're not going to do any magic. And you know I'll know if you do, through the bond. So don't fuck with me."
I'd never heard Lucian say so many words in a row before, and it was amazing how much each of them hurt, like he'd punched me with every single one.
"I thought Jace liked me," I whispered, and then I dropped my head in my hands.
I hadn't meant to say that out loud. I was just so tired. So very, very fucking tired.
Lucian made a weird, strangled sound and shifted on the couch suddenly. Was he going to actually punch me? Did I care?
"Why did you mate with me, then? If you thought it was a trap? If I'm — just like him?"
I took my hands off my face and looked up at him, and was shocked to see how pale he was, and how stricken. He turned away and got up off the couch.
Maybe I'd imagined it. Maybe he was so angry he'd gone white.
"If you're telling the truth, you deserved our help for getting pulled into our fight. And if not, you're here where we can keep an eye on you. Win-win." He spoke without any inflection at all, and he didn't turn around after, just went to the little kitchen area to put the dishes in the sink, his back still turned. "You should get ready for bed."
I stared at his broad back for a minute, at the tense, bunched muscles in his shoulders and the rigidity of his posture.
I wasn't going to get anywhere with Lucian night, and the argument had taken the last drop of energy out of me.
I stumbled into the bathroom, brushed my teeth with my finger, since surprise surprise, there weren't any new toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet, washed up, and headed back out into the main room.
Lucian had put everything away and was lurking, waiting for his turn. We brushed past each other awkwardly and I crawled into bed.
A few minutes later Lucian flopped down beside me, making the mattress dip at an alarming angle.
I pressed up against the wall so that no part of me was touching him.
Exhausted and drained as I was, I stared at the ceiling until dawn started to wash it pale gray and a few cranky birds started their morning right outside the window.
I couldn't tell if Lucian was asleep or not, or if he laid there staring at the ceiling too.
Neither of us moved a muscle.
It was a long night.