Nobody knew when it would assault us or how long each wave would last. Eventually magic would win this war, but for now technology was putting up a hell of a fight, and we were stuck in the middle of the chaos, struggling to rebuild a half-ruined world according to new rules.
The phone clicked and Parker’s baritone filled my ear. “Good morning, Ms. Daniels. I’m calling to inform you that Julie has left our premises.”
Not again.
Curran’s arms closed around me and he hugged me to him. I leaned back against him. “How?”
“She mailed herself.”
“I’m sorry?”
Parker cleared his throat. “As you know, all of our students are required to perform two hours of school service a day. Julie worked in the mail room. We viewed it as the best location, because she was under near- constant supervision and had no opportunities to leave the building. Apparently, she obtained a large crate, falsified a shipping label, and mailed herself inside it.”
Curran chuckled into my ear.
I turned and bumped my head against his chest a few times. It was the nearest hard surface.
“We found the crate near the ley line.”
Well, at least she was smart enough to get out of the crate before it was pushed into the magic current. With my luck, she’d end up getting shipped to Cape Horn.
“She’ll come back here,” I said. “I’ll bring her back in a couple of days.”
Parker pronounced the words very carefully. “That won’t be necessary.”
“What do you mean, not necessary?”
He sighed. “Ms. Daniels, we are educators. We’re not prison guards. In the past school year Julie has run away three times. She’s a very intelligent child, very inventive, and it’s painfully obvious that she doesn’t want to be here. Nothing short of shackling her to the wall will keep her on our premises, and I’m not convinced that even that would work. I spoke to her after her previous caper, and it’s my opinion that she will continue to run away. She doesn’t want to be a part of this school. Keeping her here against her will requires a significant expenditure of our resources, and we can’t afford to be held liable for any injuries Julie may incur in these escape attempts. We’re refunding the remainder of her tuition. I’m very sorry.”
If I could reach through the phone, I’d strangle him. On second thought, if I had that type of psychic power, I might pluck Julie from wherever she was instead and drop her in the middle of the room. She would be begging to go back to that bloody school by the time I was done.
Parker cleared his throat again. “I have a list of alternative educational institutions I can recommend to you . . .”
“That won’t be necessary.” I hung up. I had a list of alternative educational institutions already. I had put it together after Julie’s first escape. She shot all of them down.
A wide grin split Curran’s face.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s very funny. Besides, it’s better this way.”
I swiped my jeans off the chair and pulled them on. “They kicked my kid out of their school. How the hell is that better?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find Julie and I’ll ground her ass until she forgets what the sun looks like, and then I’ll go over to that school and pull their legs out.”
Curran laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s also not their fault. They tried to help her and cut her a lot of slack. She hates that damn school. You shouldn’t have put her there in the first place.”
“Well, thank you, Your Furriness, for this critique of my parenting decisions.”
“It’s not a critique, it’s a statement of fact. Do you know where your kid is right now? No, you don’t. You know where she isn’t: she isn’t at the school and she isn’t here.”
Pot, meet kettle. “As I recall, you didn’t know where your chief of security and his entire crew were for almost a week.” I pulled on my turtleneck.
“I knew exactly where they were. They were with you. I could’ve fixed that situation, but some wannabe pit fighter stuck her nose into my mess and made a mistake into a disaster.”
I picked up my sword. “No, I saved the day. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Curran leaned forward. “Kate.”
The sound of my name in his voice stopped me in midturn. I don’t know how the hell he did it, but whenever he said my name, it cut through all other distractions and made me pause, as if he’d clenched me to him and kissed me.
Curran rubbed my shoulders. “Put the sword down for a second.”
Fine. I put Slayer back on the night table and crossed my arms.
“Humor me. What’s the harm in keeping Julie here? With us? She has a room already. She has a friend— Doolittle’s grandniece really likes her.”
“Maddie.”
“Yes, Maddie. There are fifteen hundred shapeshifters in the Pack. One more screwed-up kid isn’t going to break anything.”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it?”
“People around me die, Curran. They drop like flies. I’ve gone through life leaving a trail of dead bodies behind me. My mother is dead, my stepfather is dead, my guardian is dead, my aunt is dead—because I killed her, and when my real father finds me, he’ll move heaven and earth to make me dead. I don’t want Julie to live stumbling from one violent clash to another, always worried that people she cares about won’t survive. You and I will never have normal, but if she stayed in that school, she could have.”
Curran shrugged. “The only people who can have normal are the ones unaffected by all the fucked-up shit that happens around them. Julie doesn’t want normal. She probably can’t deal with it. She’ll get out of that school and run right into the fire to prove to herself she can take the heat. It will happen one way or another. Keeping her away just ensures she won’t be prepared when she’s on her own.”
I leaned back against the night table. “I just want her to be safe. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
Curran pulled me close. “We can keep her safe here. She can go to one of our schools, or we can take her to somewhere in the city. She is yours, but now that we’re mated, she’s also mine, which makes her the ward of the Beast Lord and his mate. Trust me, nobody wants to piss the two of us off. Besides, we have three hundred shapeshifters in the Keep at any moment, and each one of them will kill anything that threatens her. Can’t get safer than that.”
He had a point. I couldn’t have Julie staying with me before, when I lived in a shabby apartment with failing heat. It got attacked every time I found a lead on one of my cases. I’d worked for the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid back then, and it demanded every ounce of my time. Julie would have been on her own for most of the day, without me to take care of her and make sure she ate and stayed safe. Things were different now. Now Julie could stay here, in the Keep full of homicidal maniacs who grew teeth the size of switchblades and erupted into a violent frenzy when threatened.
Somehow that thought failed to make me feel better.
“You will have to train her one way or another,” Curran said. “If you want her to hold her own.”
He was right. I knew he was right, but I still didn’t like it. “We’re about a hundred miles from Macon?”
He nodded. “Give or take.”
“She’ll be staying away from the ley line and she’s carrying wolfsbane.”
“Why?” Curran frowned.
“Because the last time she took off, Derek picked her up at a ley point and brought her here in a Pack Jeep. He even stopped to get her some fried chicken and ice cream. She had a great time, so I told her that if she pulled this stunt again, she wouldn’t get anywhere near the Keep. I would either come myself or send somebody who
