Black Wolf (33 page)

"Neither has
anyone else."

"Oh, gods. And
something could be really wrong, that no one's seen..."

"We might be
over-reacting, but being late isn't like him."

"I'll see what
I can find, and let you know."

"Thanks, Kev.
Talk to you later."

"Later," he
echoed, and hung up.

Kevin closed
his eyes, gathering his gifts. If Jess were outside his own range,
he could always ask Flynn to find him, but Jesse couldn't be all
that far away. The connection left long ago wasn't as strong and
clear as a coven-bond, and he couldn't reach along it to make
direct contact, but he should be able to at least track where Jesse
was.

He found him,
deep in the forests surrounding Haven. Mental senses told him Jesse
wasn't conscious, but there was someone with him who was. Not a
mental pattern he'd ever touched before, he could tell only that it
was a witch. He stretched farther, checking Jesse, trying to
ascertain if he was just over-sleeping after a particularly
exhausting night, perhaps with this witch, or whether there was
something else going on.

Something was
definitely out of place, and this needed investigation in person.
Immediately.

*Bane!*

*Yo.*

*Meet me on
Morgan's Road, by the lane. Fast. And don't ask.*

Bane
acknowledged that.

Kevin left the
house, long swift strides covering ground quickly.

Bane must have
been some distance away: Kevin beat him. The wolf ran to him
furform and stopped in front of him, panting.

*Why can't I
ask?*

"Just try and
find Jesse's trail."

Bane
obligingly began to search. Some distance down the road, he found
it; from there his path was visible.

It didn't take
them long to come to one of the old cottages scattered around
Janicot Township.

"In there,"
Kevin said tersely. He had to be wrong, didn't he? His senses
couldn't have picked up what he thought they had.

*In there
what? Is this dangerous? I'd better go first.*

"If you
want."

Bane pawed the
door open, and stopped cold in the doorway, Kevin right behind
him.

Avryl looked
up, fast, from where she was sprawled half-naked beside Jesse on a
sleeping-bag spread on the floor. Jesse's midnight magesilks were
in a pile nearby; both were semi-covered by a striped blanket.

Bane growled,
the fur on the back of his neck rising.

Avryl
blanched, stumbled to her feet, backing away, but there was only
the one door. Nowhere to go except right past the threatening
wolf.

"I don't
suppose," Kevin said coldly, "you'd care to explain."

"No," she
retorted. "I wouldn't." A gate formed, right beside her, with Moira
on the other side; she stepped through, and the gate closed.

Kevin crossed
the room to kneel beside Jesse, and rolled him over onto his back.
No reaction, from someone who usually woke the instant anyone even
came close.

No indication
of injury. It would've taken wolfsbane to reduce his resistance
enough for anything to take effect, and since he knew Jesse'd been
taught how to identify it, it could only have been voluntary.
Followed by... what? Probably not wine alone. His mind was so
unnaturally deep in unconsciousness Kevin couldn't even reach
him.

Bane scouted,
found a small plastic bottle with Avryl's and Jesse's scents both
on it. Found an empty green glass bottle with a somewhat peculiar
wine-scent on it, and two glasses. He reported as well the heavy
scent of strong arousal, but not of outright sex.

"Let's go
home," Kevin said, getting to his feet, just the thought of all
this making him feel more than a little ill. That they'd trusted
Jesse so much to have changed...

*He'll know we
were here.*

"So? Maybe he
won't come home and we won't have to deal with this."

*You don't
mean that.*

"I don't know
what the hell I mean, wolf." He gestured a gate into being, back to
his anchor-point in the living-room. Bane hesitated briefly, then
crossed ahead of him; Kevin stepped through, and the gate
collapsed.

* * *

Jesse was
mainly aware of how badly he ached, when he woke. That, he
discovered, was probably because of what he'd been sleeping on, at
least in part. But he had a headache, too, one intense enough to
interfere with his vision. This felt remarkably like a
hangover.

What the hell
had happened?

His magesilks
were nearby, he found when he sat up carefully. Avryl's skirt was
still there, too, discarded on the floor in a corner, but no Avryl.
He tried checking for scents. Avryl's. An unfamiliar elvenmage's,
faintly.

Kevin's and
Bane's, both liberally laced with the acid smell of disappointment
and anger.

Gritting his
teeth against the pain, he willed himself wolf. It didn't hurt so
bad then, something to remember. Slowly, he tried to piece together
what had happened. With Avryl, that too-strong wine, that much
memory gave him before it failed. They'd started flirting, had
gotten at least as far as cuddling and casual messing around, but
his nose confirmed that it hadn't gotten past that. His nose also
found the plastic pill bottle, and his own scent on it with hers.
The angle of the light suggested mid to late afternoon, he'd been
out a long time. Maybe someone had finally missed him...

Sam! I was
supposed to work!

And Kevin and
Bane had come looking, and found him here stoned unconscious.

And that was
why the anger scents.

He changed
back to human, and sat in the middle of the sleeping bag, hugging
his knees to his chest and trying to think as calmly as he
could.

While
something inside was crying,
now I've lost this, too, just when
I was happy...

No one's going
to believe me that I didn't mean to do anything. Did Avryl set me
up? Even if she did, no one would believe that either. Everything
is totally fucked up. They won't listen. They won't understand not
being able to stop...

So there's no
point in going back.

Back to the
house. But I can go back to the city.

That voice
inside wept at the thought. But what else could he do?

Still, there
were things he needed, and he wasn't going to take anything given
to him by anyone in Haven. Maybe the house would be empty? Kevin
would sense him passing the walls anyway, but Jesse could be in and
out in no time.

By some
chance, the entire house was dark. His
housemates—ex-housemates—could be anywhere. Still, he stayed wary
while he darted to his room. He shed the magesilks, and reclaimed
one of his own old black T-shirts and his jeans and leather jacket.
Everything else he'd actually brought with him he stuffed into his
old black canvas backpack, pushing Hob aside when the cat tried
determinedly to drag things back out. Nothing from Haven. None of
his birthday presents, not even the Walkman. He removed the silver
crescent earring Flynn had bought him to replace the one he'd lost
in the woods, laid it on the shelf beside the stereo, and the
necklace with it, and the silver promise-ring. Hob twined around
his ankles, miauwing at him urgently, but Jesse pushed him away and
stepped over him.

In less than
ten minutes, he was outside the gates again.

Trying to
ignore the tears that insisted on streaking his cheeks.

On two feet,
but still at home in the dark, he got oriented, and started for the
road that would take him south, back to the city.

28

Wishes are
dangerous
, Kevin vividly recalled Jesse saying once.
Be
careful of them.

They'd all
assumed Jesse was still in the area, when he hadn't come home the
next night, although he'd been due at the Brewery and hadn't showed
up. When he missed work at Sam's again the next day, a renewed,
increasingly frantic search couldn't find him anywhere inside the
borders of Janicot Township. A closer look at his room made it
quite clear he didn't intend to come back.

Even Flynn
couldn't find a wolf who didn't want to be found, outside the
immediate area.

The elf
slumped on the loveseat in Jesse's room, guilt gnawing at him
ceaselessly. It was his fault their wolf-cub had run, he could have
done a thousand things other than leave Jess alone and with
scent-traces of his automatic reaction. Jesse had too much sense to
have anything to do with Avryl had he known that she was part of
Rebecca's coven. Who could blame him for turning to someone who was
willing to pay attention to him after how much the rest of them had
been ignoring him?

The worst ache
of all was that he'd done to Jesse what all of Haven had done to
him for so long, even after Deanna and Bane got him away from
Rebecca: assuming that he hadn't really changed, that he was still
capable of old behaviour.

He rested his
cheek against the arm of the couch, eyes closed, wishing memories
would just stay buried.

* * *

"Hey,
Lioren."

Kevin ignored
the deep growl until he'd finished what he was saying to Karl, and
only then turned to see who had the nerve to interrupt. With the
elementary school, high school, and college all within a couple of
blocks of each other, all near the library they shared and that
also served the community as a whole, there were a lot of people
who could easily be around, just after high school classes had been
released for the day. He hadn't thought there was anyone who would
take that kind of tone with him, though.

Bane faced
them both, the growl still rumbling in his throat, almost
subliminally low. Every line of his body broadcast aggression.
"Flynn is black and blue from one end to the other, thanks to you,
and we had to stay with him last night so he could fall asleep. For
that matter, I don't think Cynthia would've been able to fall
asleep alone, either. Whatever you did to her didn't leave marks
but it was just as bad."

Kevin
shrugged. "Yeah, so? He shouldn't have said what he did about
Rebecca. And she shouldn't have said what she did about me
defending her. So how about you talk to them about thinking about
what they say, instead?"

"What they
said wasn't even a fraction of what everyone in Haven thinks of you
two and Rebecca. The only reason more people aren't saying it is
because you've made it quite clear that you consider it grounds for
a temper tantrum and most people are too sick of dealing with that
to bother. You feel tough now? Big bad elvenmage, beating on a seer
two years younger than you and half your size?"

Karl pulled
his lips back from his teeth in a snarl of warning. "You're on thin
ice."

"What, shut up
or you'll pound on me, too?" His voice dropped about an octave and
half its volume. "You go right ahead and try. If you can manage to
make a decision without Rebecca here to do your thinking for you,
that is. You don't even have to decide which of you, I'll take you
both down right here."

Bane couldn't
seriously believe he had a chance of winning, not against the two
of them together.

But then, he
deserved whatever he got, for that challenge. What was wrong with
people, that they couldn't see Rebecca for what she was? Unlike the
rest of Haven, she wanted him to live up to who and what he was,
not try to keep the fire dimmed and contained because that made
everyone else feel safer. Unlike the rest of Haven, she questioned
all the expectations and demands and assumptions that surrounded
them on all sides. Why was that so threatening to everyone that
they criticized her and insulted her and twisted everything she
did?

Kevin
understood her, though, and loved her and that wild spirit that
couldn't bear cages and collars. She'd told him often enough that
he was the only one who did. And that meant it was his job to
defend her, no matter what it took, against enemies in any
form.

And Bane
counted as Rebecca's enemy.

"Oh, beating
you is going to be fun," Karl spat.

The school
board discouraged wolves wearing magesilks at school, which meant
both wolves had to strip in order to change. Kevin glanced at the
early November sun, still high enough to give him plenty of light,
and began to gather it together. Let Bane get all the way to
furform, it made no difference.

Both wolves
kept a wary eye on each other, and shifted virtually
simultaneously. Instantly, Karl flung himself at Bane—he could keep
Bane busy while Kevin used magic, and this would be over in no
time.

Bane wasn't so
easily distracted. Mage shields fell under werewolf claws, as did
the sandy-blonde wolf, how badly hurt Kevin didn't know, but his
fur was streaked with blood, most of it his own. He was on his own
now, and unfamiliar fear was waking; though he knew Bane would
accept a surrender, knew it was the sensible course, his pride
wouldn't allow it.