39

Silky blankets, a soft bed under him, familiar scents...

Haven, his own room, Jesse realized sleepily. It must have been a wilder party than usual...

He stirred, felt the pull of partly-healed wounds on his hips and sides. That woke him up completely, brought back the memory of running, trying repeatedly and vainly to fight off his tormentors, long past the point of instinct taking over from reason.

Those same instincts had taken him back to Haven.

More hazy was a memory of seeing the two wolves that had been chasing him with impossible endurance melt and vanish, of Kevin with power swirling around him in a blindingly bright aura, of Gisela crouched beside him with her hand tangled tightly in his fur.

No wonder he felt so awful.

Carefully, he untangled himself, and got shakily to his feet. He was glad the bathroom was close and there were no stairs to navigate; he barely made it that far before he had to stop and lean against the wall.

Shit. There's no way I'm going to make it back to the city. I'm stuck here. Damn it.

He turned on the shower, and stepped under the hot water. By letting the wall take much of his weight, he stayed on his feet until he'd gotten rid of all the sweat and mud from his nightmarish run.

I am really getting sick of having to be rescued. I'd give a lot for something I can actually fight back against for a change.

Clean, he paused to evaluate his condition. One of the healers had been at the bites; other than them and feeling like... well, he'd been roaming some distance north of the city to hunt, but still quite a long way from Haven... he was in reasonable condition.

Christ. If anyone ever wondered just how tough a werewolf really is, I think I just proved it. Of course, I don't think I was going to make it any farther than I did... And damn it all, I bet I wouldn't've stayed on my feet that long if I didn't know there was someone at the other end of the road that would help.

All I want is to stay with Shaine, and not have to feel anything anymore... Shaine's going to freak...

They can't have been really wolves. They didn't get tired at all.

Reluctantly, he went back to his room—why wasn't he surprised that no one had touched anything? Waiting for him to come back.

Leave me alone, stop messing with my head, stop making me feel!

He found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and got dressed—pausing more than once when weakness made the room spin wildly.

Someone knocked softly on the open door; he identified Gisela's scent even before he turned around.

She set a plate of food and a glass of juice on the chest. “Thought you might be hungry. Feeling pretty rough?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, you did the highly improbable again, by getting here still alive. Evaline says she's never heard of such a thing. You must have the purest demon-luck ever. Liam thinks you have nine lives like a cat.”

“Then I'm probably running out fast.”

“Sit down and eat. I won't let anybody bother you.”

“But I can't get rid of you.”

She didn't get mad, simply shrugged and smiled. “If I go, there's no one left to keep everyone else away, so you'll have to put up with me.”

His stomach growled at him, so he picked up the plate and sat down on the bed to eat. “Like anyone cares.”

“Everyone cares. You could have come to me, or to Sam or Eva, y'know, instead of running away.”

“Yeah, right. If I thought I'd make it past the gates, I'd be out of here by now.”

“Back to where nobody cares?”

“Back to where nobody tells me they trust me and lies!”

She sat on the floor, legs crossed, facing him. “Haven't you ever made a mistake, Jess? Kev can make mistakes too. Kev feels so awful that for about two weeks Sundark was in serious danger of falling apart.”

Jesse stopped mid-bite. No way. They'd never break, they'd be together as long as any of them were alive.

Gisela, watching him closely, nodded. “They really were, and nothing I did helped. Jess, Kev gated to the city to stop that mage from getting you, remember? For the second time, actually, apparently he had to chase off the same one back just before you met me. He really cares. We all do. It was only that everybody was so stressed out, and Rebecca used that...”

“Rebecca? What does she have to do with this?”

“Avryl's in her coven. Rebecca set up a trap. No one talks much about her and Kevin, or you'd know just how evil it actually was. Believe me, she managed to hurt you and Kev about equally badly, and everybody else through the two of you.”

“What do you know about hurting?” he flung at her, suddenly wanting to do just that, make her hurt like he did.

“You aren't the only one who's ever been hurt. Listen to me, Jess. Your life is your own, you can do whatever you want with it. As soon as you get your strength back, no one can stop you from going back to the city, that's your choice. But if you do, you should at least think about all the consequences. Like the fact that Kev will never forgive himself—and I'm not exaggerating. Like the fact that Sam hasn't ever been happy like she is when you're here, and she's been miserable ever since you ran away. Like the fact that Bane has been alternately moping and snapping. I could keep going for a long time. But I'm not going to, because right now you need to finish eating and then rest. I'll come back in a while.” She got to her feet, left the room.

Gisela wouldn't lie. Anybody can lie. No, not 'Sela, she wouldn't lie, and however tired I am my nose still works, I would've smelled it.

Sort of like I smelled Kev lying when he told me we're friends?

So either they're both lying or both telling the truth.

Damn it all! How come I have to get hurt every time I trust somebody? Nobody else seems to. How come I can't have a family? Any family except Shaine, anyway. And even Shaine lied to me, when he told me to get out.

He finished the food, gulped the juice, and curled into a tight ball on his bed, everything inside spinning in confused tangles. Shaine had lied, made him stay in Haven, so Shaine was part of it... for all he knew, Kevin might have sent the grey wolves to chase him back to Haven... except that if Kevin really didn't care, why would he?... how should he know? He didn't know why that mage was after him, either, or for that matter what the real source of Rebecca's grudge against Sundark was, no one would ever talk about it... was that supposed to mean he could trust Kevin and Shaine and Rebecca all about equally? And what about his faith in Bane and the rest of the pack, but Bane had been there too and felt the same as Kevin and had abandoned him... Nothing made any sense anymore!

Hob hopped up next to him and snuggled close, purring at high volume. Jess rubbed his throat and ears absently, grateful for the friendly company and certain that at least this member of the household had no ulterior motives.

He must have dozed off; when he opened his eyes again, the sunny windows had turned dark, Hob was gone leaving only black fur that wasn't Jess' own, and Gisela was beside him though he hadn't heard her come in.

“Suppertime.” She smiled when he growled in annoyance, the sound rumbling deep in his throat. “Jess, you wore yourself out thoroughly. Expect not to do much beyond eating and sleeping for a few days. Even for wolves, and even for the wolf that other wolves are calling tough, there are limits. You reached them and then some.”

“Great. First Shaine's going to be glad I'm alive. Then he's going to kill me.”

“Any way to get ahold of him?”

“There's no phone, if that's what you mean.”

“I could tell someone to go find him. Even bring him here, if you want.”

Jesse weighed that, risks against benefits. “Yeah, sure, why not. Flynn's been there, but I doubt he remembers.” He rolled over to grab the pad of paper in the drawer of the table, tried to clear his thoughts enough to give directions that would work in a car, and then put approximate times on the points in their usual daily routine when Shaine might actually be there. “That's where the apartment is, and more or less the times you might catch him there.”

She accepted the sheet of paper he handed her. “I'll find someone. Do you want him to come?”

“Doesn't matter what I want. Shaine does what he wants.”

“How careful do we need to be?”

“He knows I'm wolf, never even blinked.” I'd love to know why elvenmage battles and werewolves don't throw him at all...

“Okay. Supper's on the chest.”

Alone again.

He ate without even tasting the food. Wonder what Shaine's going to do. Other than tear strips out of my hide, 'cause I promised I'd be back within a couple of days. Shaine in Haven. Poor Haven.

* * *

“Jesus, Jess, can't I ever take my eyes off you for an hour without you getting into trouble?”

Jess jerked awake sharply, out of restless confusing dreams—something to do with a silver dagger lying under water, but every time his hand touched the surface the dagger disappeared in the ripples like a reflection. He rolled over to find Shaine standing there, arms crossed, expression dark.

“Stop yelling at him!” Gisela protested. “He's in bad shape!”

“The hell he is. You've never seen him in bad shape.”

“He needs rest, not lectures!”

“He needs the common sense god gave seaweed!”

“Chill out, 'Sela,” Jesse said, and managed to sit up with a reasonable amount of grace. “I'm used to it.”

“It wasn't your fault, what happened,” she insisted.

“Of course it was,” Shaine said. “Everything is Jesse's fault. Ask him sometime. If you get him in the right mood he'll give you detailed reasons why he is directly responsible for some of the most amazing things.”

Well, that's really Shaine, all right...

“Give him a chance,” Shaine added. “He'll figure out how it was his fault.”

Jesse decided he needed to visit the bathroom. It was sunny out again, he noticed. Shaine settled himself calmly on the edge of the bed; Gisela shadowed Jess out to the hall.

“Why do you let him say things like that?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

Jesse shrugged. “Because Shaine is Shaine.” He didn't really have a better answer to offer; she wasn't going to understand if he tried to explain. “Don't worry about it.”

She didn't look like she liked that idea, which meant she was deliberately letting him see her dissatisfaction, but she shrugged, and sighed. “All right.” He heard her footsteps on the stairs while he closed the bathroom door.

“You're an idiot,” Shaine said bluntly, when he returned.

Jess sat on the bed, facing him. “Why this time?”

“You left a room like this, in a house like this, with meals like that,” he gestured at another plate of food on the chest, “in a place where you aren't being abused in any way I've heard you mention. And you came back to my one room apartment, and eating what we can afford after the rent's been paid by me fucking strangers and you begging spare change and shoplifting and occasionally helping me, in between cleaning out the local urban wildlife. Did you have a short circuit in there somewhere?”

“I had a reason!”

“Oh? What? This I've got to hear.”

“They lied.”

“And of course you've never told a lie in your life.”

“I've never called someone my friend and then hurt him.”

“Bullshit.”

“When?”

“I'd put myself on the list a dozen times or so, except I know you too fucking well to bother getting hurt when you do something stupid. There's Kevin, starting when he came to the city to challenge an elvenmage to defend you and we turned around and you were gone. The fact that you're always complaining that no one ever listens to your side of things when at the moment you've got a lot of people willing to listen and wishing you would listen.”

“He's the one who judged without asking!”

“Which is exactly what you're doing.” He pitched his voice to a childish whine. “He hit me first, mommy, so I did it back to him!”

“It's a bit more complicated than that. I trusted him.”

“And he made one mistake, he was stressed over school and walked into a trap, and you're going to punish him and yourself and everyone else who got busy and stressed for a couple of weeks for it forever. Christ, Jess, for once in your life, would you get your fucking act together?” He got up, picked up the plate of food and held it out to him. “Here. Eat. Then go on back to sulking. I'm going to go back to talking to Flynn—he actually makes sense, which is more than I'll get up here.”

That only made the chaos inside worse.

Later, he came half-awake and opened his eyes on darkness when Shaine coiled against him in bed.

“Thought you're mad at me,” he mumbled, snuggling close anyway.

“You expect me to sleep with Kevin maybe? And it's hardly the first time I've ever been mad at you.”

“Mm. 'Night.”

He might have imagined the gentleness of Shaine's voice when he said, “Good night, Jess.”

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