Page 98 of A Shade Too Far
My head throbbed. “Who told you?”
“Tatiana.” Laurent smiled coldly, a smug satisfaction in his expression. “What a relief that I can bail you out though.” He paused. “Like always.”
Laurent had refused to fight Naveen over the revelation of the shifter’s Banim Shovavim magic, allowing the man to physically harm him, but he battered me with his contempt. He’d never unleashed his cruel side like this, and while he was certainly entitled to his anger, he hadn’t said word one to Naveen whereas with me he methodically landed these barbs for maximum bruising.
“Always?” I slammed the drawer with the stars shut. “Like when I saved you from BatKian’s compulsion? When I got you out of the cage that the Lonestars had thrown you in? Cages, which you hate, remember?”
“You forgot when I was caged in the air with hundreds of people, not knowing whether my shifter magic might hit because of you.” His saccharine voice stung worse than yelling would have. “You’ve been cleaning up the messes from situations you got me into.”
“Here we go again, the reconstructionist history according to Laurent Amar!” I ticked off items on my fingers. “You tangled with Zev because you took on a paying job. A job, I might add, that wasn’t even about helping me, but finding Mei Lin. And if it hadn’t been for me, you’d be on Deadman’s Island, accused of killing Raj Jalota.” I jabbed him in the chest. “Every single time, I’ve been trying to save you, so don’t worry about me asking for a damn thing.”
Laurent kicked the heavy curio cabinet hard enough to rattle it, but there was nothing left of me for him to shred.
“How lucky for you that you don’t have anything to be at fault for,” I said. “Even Naveen not jumping to conclusions about your magic was on him. How delightful to be so blameless.” I snapped my fingers. “Hang on, you have Banim Shovavim magic too. But I bet that I’m the one who should have known that taking you into the KH would anger it, right?”
“You were supposed to know not to risk me in the first place!” He swept his arm along the top of the cabinet, and I ducked as a glass head flew across the room and shattered into jagged shards. Even with a vat of glue, it could never be put right.
The crash had been shockingly loud, the violence of it hitting me like a bucket of cold water.
Laurent had spun away, clenching and unclenching his fists, but I went numb.
I laughed. “Real rich that the man who makes a point of never asking for support, who’s the first one into the fire, is also furious that I put him in harm’s way.”
He sucked in a raspy breath, his eyes glassy and his defined jaw clenched so tight, I worried he’d start spitting teeth.
“Laurent?” I reached out, but he hunched over like an archer’s bow, his hair sweeping the floor, and he shuddered violently.
His shirt exploded into tatters with a percussion of loud snapping sounds and his muzzle shot out from his face with a shocking suddenness. He was shifting, which should have been cause for celebration, but it wasn’t happening in stages. More like his magic had been jammed and something had shoved it free with brutal force.
His shoes were flung off and his hindlegs got stuck in his jeans for a moment, which would have been comic were it not for how his skin flayed off his body, replaced by wild tufts of white fur bursting out over the animal’s torso.
His entire transformation took less than a minute.
The wolf plowed repeatedly headfirst into the wall, the pinched noises he made having a choked quality to them. The plaster cracked, dusting his fur with white powder.
“Stop! You’ll hurt yourself.”
The wolf stood there for a second, his flanks heaving, then he raised his head and let out a deafening howl of rage and pain.
Laurent had gone over the brink.
I could bring him back. I had to.
Even if he hated me for it.
