Black Wolf (46 page)

They followed
the road in the direction they'd been going, in hopes that
civilization might be closer than they knew it was behind them.
Exhausted, injured, though at least they'd escaped with little
poison this time, even a short distance was going to feel like a
very long way.

Aindry prayed
that they'd have enough time to recover before the next attack; the
intervals grew ever shorter. If they came much more quickly, the
demons would soon win simply by exhausting them and wearing them
down by inches.

That can't
happen,
she vowed to herself. We'll survive.
This can't go
on forever. Maybe we'll find Mom or Jess soon...

42

Footsteps on
the stairs drew Jess' attention away from a rather interesting
novel Shaine had handed him in response to yet another growl of
boredom—he was, at least, capable of functioning for brief periods,
but he tired annoyingly easily, which made it difficult to do much.
Those weren't Gisela's footsteps, or Shaine's, or Kevin's, he
thought, frowning.

Gisela's voice
was audible, with the door ajar to let Hob in on his frequent
visits. "Bane! Get back down here! Jess is off limits!"

"Not to me, he
isn't," Bane retorted, and there was just enough growl in his voice
to be a warning, though not actual threat. "This is pack business.
Back off."

Jess closed
the book with hands that trembled, and set it carefully on the
floor next to the loveseat before sitting up, legs crossed, facing
the door.

"Bane..."

"This needs to
be taken care of."

Pack instinct
howled at him that the alpha wolf was certain to be angry at him,
that was bad, almost anything was better than that. Reason utterly
failed to silence it. Shivering, he laced his hands together in his
lap and tried to slow his breathing down. At least he was in
magesilks, if Bane showed any signs of aggression he could change
and show his throat...

Bane went so
far as to rap lightly on the door before opening it, which was a
good sign; as soon as he came in, Jess dropped his gaze, and heard
Bane close the door. He'd resented it, for a while, the power over
him wolf instinct gave Bane and Eva, and to a lesser degree the
rest of the pack; he'd resented it only until he'd realized that
his trust in Bane, as simply Bane, as a friend, even as a teacher,
was something else, something all his own that had nothing to do
with respective pack status. Once he'd stopped fighting it, stopped
seeing it from a human interpretation of pride and strength and
superiority, fitting into the pack and knowing his place in it—even
if it was at the bottom of the hierarchy—felt right and safe and
somehow comforting. He couldn't remember ever, even in his most
frightened and angry moments, truly believing Bane might hurt
him.

At the moment,
he wasn't sure what to believe, so he stayed very still, eyes fixed
on the rug in front of the loveseat, not daring to do anything that
might possibly look like a challenge.

What
difference does it make?
a small, logical part of his mind
asked coldly.
You ran away from the pack, cut yourself off from
them. So what if he thinks you're challenging him? You aren't part
of the pack anymore.

Pack instinct
completely disregarded it. That part desperately wanted
reassurance, approval, to be part of the pack again, and didn't
care what that meant to Jess' self-respect.

There are
definite drawbacks to being a werewolf... shapechanging is way
cool, and so is healing fast, but all this instinct shit makes it
awfully hard to figure out what's going on in my head sometimes.
Harder than usual, even, which is saying something.

Still, he was
pretty sure it wasn't entirely that instinct wanted the forgiveness
of the alpha wolf; partly it was yearning for the sense of
belonging
again.

"Jess, relax."
He couldn't remember ever hearing the alpha wolf sound so weary; he
took a chance, looked up just enough to watch Bane walk over to sit
next to him, though he carefully avoided eye contact. "Honestly,
between Gisela acting like I've only been trying to get up here to
eat you alive, and now you acting like I'm going to..." Bane
sighed. "I have enough trouble apologizing at the best of times,
let alone all this."

"Apologizing?"
There was no scent of anger, nothing aggressive in Bane's body
language; if anything, what he was picking up was... distress? That
helped the almost unendurable tension, but not much.
God, what
is with me today? Reacting to the alpha wolf is one thing, but it
doesn't normally make me
this
wired.
"But I'm the one who screwed up."

"Funny, I
could've sworn Kev mentioned you two spent a while talking
yesterday. He didn't mention details, but I know him well enough to
know that he told you that it wasn't your fault. You admittedly
didn't react in the smartest way, but you had reason for the way
you did react. Much better reason than Kev and I had, not staying
with you or bringing you back here." His tone turned gentle.
"What's scary is how very much pain was caused, to you and to Kev
and to all of us, by a few hours of none of us thinking rationally.
I had every reason to know better, but somehow I completely failed
to think through the consequences. In other words... yes, you made
a mistake, but it was hardly the only one made that day, it was
just part of a whole series of mistakes and misunderstandings. And
one of them was mine, I failed in my responsibility to the members
of my pack, and my responsibility as a friend. And I'm sorry."

"Oh. Does that
mean you aren't going to chase me out of your territory for real
this time?"

"I'm not in
the habit of chasing my pack out of my territory."

Which means
I'm still part of the pack!
wolf instinct sang joyfully.
Everything is okay now!

Learned
reflexes of paranoia and insecurity weren't banished quite so
easily. "For real?"

"I apologized.
Don't push it, wolf-cub." There was no anger in it, though. Bane
leaned back, pulled Jess down against him—the playful-rough,
dominant-affectionate kind of behaviour Jess had adapted to readily
as soon as he'd accepted the way pack structure functioned. Jess
curled up against his side willingly, closing his eyes as Bane
began to stroke his hair and back lightly—that tension inside,
knotted almost too tight to bear, loosened and faded, leaving
behind a powerful sense of release.

Alpha
wolf's accepted me home, so all's well,
Jess sighed to himself
in resignation.
Well, if that keeps all the wolf instinct stuff
settled down, maybe I can figure out the rest in peace.

He didn't
really believe himself, even as he thought it, that that was all
there was to it.

"As for this
mage who is much too interested in you..." There was a definite
growl in Bane's voice now, but it wasn't directed at Jess. "If I'd
known he was going to be a danger to you, I would've ripped his
throat out the first time, while phoenix had him backlashed."

"Seriously?"
Jess said sceptically.

Bane
considered, then chuckled. "Well, if I'd known he was going to be a
danger to you
and
that I'd start to value having you around,
instead of being tempted daily to chase you off. You're right, at
the time, I didn't know you'd be worth it. But I still rather wish
I had. He's dealing with demons. If you see him again, don't mess
around. For all intents and purposes, he's chosen to make himself
into an extremely dangerous predator. Treat him as one. If you're
absolutely sure you can kill him fast, do it, but otherwise, run."
His tone turned thoughtful. "Sam seems to know an awful lot about
demons, she might actually be a good one to go to. Or Kev or Lori
or one of the Adepts, since he seems to be using heightened
elvenmage abilities. Or to me—I know how to take out a mage."

"Practised on
Kev?"

"Yes. Did you
pay any attention to the rest of what I just said?"

"Mage calling
demons, extremely dangerous predator, kill him or run to you or Sam
or Kev or Lori or Tomas or Katherine. Yep, got it."

"Remember it.
Sam thinks he's paying for power with either gifts and emotional
energy, or possibly blood and pain, at this point, and I'd rather
they weren't yours."

Jess shivered,
instinctively huddled closer. "That was what he wanted...?"

"Probably,
yes."

"Oh. Trust me.
I'll run." He sighed. "I'm good at that. Run away from absolutely
everything." He brightened. "Well, maybe not absolutely everything.
I killed a predator." He wasn't sure whether it was himself or Bane
he was trying to prove himself to, and had a hunch he wouldn't like
the answer.

Bane glanced
down. "When?"

"In the city.
I dunno, three or four weeks ago? I kinda lost track of time."

"Tell me." Not
exactly a command, but more than a request, which was okay, since
he wanted to anyway.

Jesse
described the whole encounter, from first catching the scent
through to killing it and running.

Bane listened
quietly, asked only a couple of questions.

"I'm
impressed," he said, when Jess finished. "And I'm not exaggerating.
You took out an unfamiliar predator that had a form of attack I've
never heard of but that sounds extremely nasty, and you did it with
minimal harm to yourself and no apparent harm to the one it was
after. Very well done."

"No apparent
physical harm to her, anyway," Jess sighed, though the praise felt
good, made the whole encounter feel finally complete. "She was so
scared of me. I know why, I mean, I would've been pretty freaked
too, but..."

"But you've
been taught here, where we're appreciated instead of feared," Bane
said softly. "Which you automatically expected, and didn't
get."

"Yeah. And my
first thought was to come tell you, then I remembered I couldn't,
or thought I couldn't, or something, and everything just went to
pieces. But I killed it."

Bane's arm
tightened around him, briefly. "Yes, and once Gisela decides to
stop guarding your door, you can tell Eva and the others all about
it, and we'll make sure every wolf in Haven hears. I should
probably stop calling you wolf-cub, you're anything but."

Jess shrugged.
"I'm used to it, now, don't worry about it."

"Want me to
get out of here and let you rest, now that we've managed to get
important stuff sorted out?"

"No." That
took no thought at all. While Bane was here, that took precedence,
forcing everything else away somewhere into the back of his mind.
Once Bane left, all the confusion would come back. He was quite
willing to postpone that for a while. "Tell me what's really been
going on? Gisela's been kinda uninformative."

"We've all
been told on an hourly basis that no one is to do or say anything
that will cause you any extra stress, or else."

"Not knowing
is causing me stress," Jess pointed out.

Bane chuckled.
"Brat. All right. What do you want to know?"

43

There, that
was the last one. Shaine slid the book into its place on the shelf,
and returned to the desk quietly. Towards the back of the library,
the tables were surrounded with high school and college students,
some studying, some doing research for projects; the carpeted floor
held the overspill, leaning against the wall or lying down.

He didn't need
to look at the clock to know that he'd be here for another hour and
a half yet, before he could lock up and go meet Jess at the
Brewery. Not that he was in a desperate hurry; he'd spent a lot of
time here even before Bryan recruited him as a temporary assistant.
So many people needed the library that apparently the budget
allowed for Bryan to recruit help twice a year for extended hours;
who got the job varied depending on who was available. Much to the
surprise of many, not only did Shaine always show up on time, but
he knew his way around the library reasonably well, and improved
quickly. True, after school was out for the summer the job would
disappear, but he didn't expect to be here long enough for that to
be a problem. Just long enough to make sure Jess was settled, then
he'd vanish before anyone could unravel any of his secrets. Haven
had far too many traps waiting for him to step into them.

Gisela and
Caitryn came in; Caitryn paused to greet him on her way to the side
room that held all the encyclopedias and reference books. Gisela
slid her backpack off her shoulder with obvious relief, and came
directly over to him.

"Heya," she
said cheerfully, though not loudly, while untying the knot holding
her backpack closed. "How's it going?"

He shrugged.
"It goes."

Gisela piled a
half-dozen books on the desk. "Thanks for helping me find them.
They had exactly what I needed."

Why did she
persist in trying to be friendly, no matter how coldly he treated
her? He simply shrugged again, slid the pile of books towards him
and reached for the box of cards. "That's good."

"I asked Jess
to come have supper with my family tomorrow night. Would you like
to come too?"