It wasn't a very inspiring story, since it started — just like Lucian thought, damn him — with me getting bent over in a bathroom stall. I glossed over that part as much as I could, and Jace only rolled his eyes a little, because he was awesome like that.
It took a while, what with me having to pause to pant for air, but I managed to get the main points laid out: kidnapped, chained, one shaman and several werewolves gathered in the warehouse, and a ritual that was meant to create a bond between me and one of the werewolves.
Jace listened impassively, but when I got to what I'd overheard between the two werewolves, Jace leaned forward, brow furrowed and attention completely engaged. "Describe them, the ones who were talking. Especially the one you were supposed to be bound to."
"He was older, maybe fifty? He wasn't the pack leader, though. I've seen Sam Kimball. It wasn't him. I don't think he was there."
Jace waved an impatient hand. "You said it seemed like they were doing a ritual that would create a bond? A mating bond?"
I hesitated. I'd been fudging the truth a little bit, because admitting how long, and how badly, my father had used me wasn't something I liked to do. I was ashamed of how much power he'd had over me, horrified by what he'd done with the magical strength he drained from me.
So instead of telling Jace I'd known what the ritual would probably do because my father had done something like it to me, over and over, for years, I'd said it was like a spell meant to create a mate bond.
But. If Jace knew something I didn't, the distinction might be important.
"I didn't see all of it," I hedged. "Maybe, maybe not.
Either way, it would have created a connection. Maybe even a conduit. Something meant to share the magic of the two parties back and forth, only with one in control and the other subordinate."
"But is it something you could do if one of the two people involved already had a mate bond?" Jace pressed. "Because one of Kimball's brothers isn't mated, and neither is one of his seconds. Either of them could fit the description you've given. If a mated werewolf could do this, then that puts Kimball's other brothers and his uncle into play. Kimball wasn't there. That means he either didn't authorize this, or he didn't want to be directly involved. If one of his inner circle is betraying him, or working against his orders? I want to know which one. Especially since the pack's shaman is working with whoever it is."
"I don't think it would work if he already had a mate bond," I said, after considering it for a minute. I was being honest about that, at least, which salved my conscience. "The two bonds would conflict. Cancel each other out, or blow up, or something."
"That's helpful," Jace said dryly. "Really. Good to see your magical expertise is so detailed."
"Bite me," I muttered, and then quickly added, "Figuratively! Figuratively, Jace."
He laughed a little, but he sobered at once. "Let's skip the biting for now and get to the part where you were in the middle of being bonded and ended up crawling through my territory at dawn."
That wasn't actually hard to explain. I'd been under the influence of the witchbane when the ritual started, but burning through it faster than they would have expected.
After all, I was pretty strong. More than pretty strong. What I lacked was control, because I'd been denied most of the training I should have had as an adolescent. Yeah, I could do the basics — warding, minor illusions, transforming simple physical objects — in my sleep, but I couldn't do a lot of the showier magic that powerful warlocks liked to flash around to impress the masses. Everyone underestimated me as a result, to the point where the money I pulled in for my freelance magic jobs barely kept me in a crappy studio apartment and a few pairs of outlet-store jeans.
And even though my raw power meant I'd shaken off the effects of the potion faster than my captors probably expected, I still would've been screwed if it hadn't been for the sheer, overwhelming terror that hit me as I realized what they were doing. If I'd learned control as a kid, I'd have been so conditioned to only use my power carefully that the witchbane would've been enough to keep me helpless.
But the fear and rage and blind, animal instinct to get away won't be bound again would rather die — it all burst out of me, in a wave of unchanneled power that disintegrated my chains, flung my kidnappers in all directions, shouting and slamming into walls, and blew out the side of the warehouse in a cloud of splinters and flying nails.
I ran, and I ran, and I must have used more magic to move faster, because when I came back to something like rationality, I was already less than a mile from the edge of the Reese territory. I didn't know exactly where I'd started out.
"Okay," Jace said, after he'd digested that for a minute. "Why are you here?"
I blinked at him. "Is that a trick question?" The words came out a little slow, a little slurred. I was starting to fade, even though the nap I'd taken had helped me a little. I needed to eat, and I needed more sleep, and more than anything, I needed a magical fix.
Jace frowned at me. "No. And stop wasting the little strength you have fucking around."
"You needed to know." He looked at me expectantly. I sighed. "And I needed your help, because who the fuck else is going to help me right now?"
"So I owe you for coming here and giving me a heads- up, and now I help you fix whatever's wrong with you? Fine. I'll buy what you're selling, if it's not too expensive. What do you need? Some herbs? A chalk circle, or something?"
"Patronizing much?"
He shrugged. "I'm not a practitioner." Well, no shit.
Werewolves almost never were. The rare werewolf who could cast actual magic became a pack shaman, and those fuckers were worth their weight in gold. The Kimball pack was as successful as they were in large part because they had one. "Anyway, make a list. You look like shit."
Yeah, I was sure I did, if I looked anything like I felt. Which meant my time was running out, and I couldn't put off the moment of truth I'd been tap-dancing around.
Because I'd had a lot of time to think it over, making my miserable snail-like way through the woods in the middle of the night, and I'd come to a horrible and inescapable conclusion once I had.
I needed Jace's help. Without it, I was as good as dead — and his pack was the only place I could get what I needed.