Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels 8)

He held up his hand. “I’m going to get a medkit out of the car.”

I didn’t even know any medmages besides Doolittle, who worked for the Pack. The woman who used to patch me up before I met Curran had moved away. I’d have to figure this out before long. In our line of work, access to a good medmage was paramount.

His Grumpiness returned with the medkit. I pulled my turtleneck up, trying not to wince, and turned my back to him.

Silence.

“It’s not that bad.”

His hands brushed my skin, warm and careful. The cold saline solution washed over the cut and I shivered.

“What about this?” Curran’s fingers touched the aching spot on my left side.

“That’s from the ghouls the other night. I’ll chant over it once you’re done cleaning. It will heal itself.”

Cold wind touched my wet back, making my teeth dance. Thanks, weather. Screw you, too.

“The rationale is, since we killed it once, we could probably kill it again. This is a residential neighborhood. We are going to do the right thing and watch over it.”

“This is a dumb law,” Curran said. “It’s easier to just not get involved.”

I grinned. “Aha! Now you are catching on. Welcome to human society, Your Majesty.”

“Kate. Chant.”

Ten minutes later he decided the wound had closed enough to put a bandage over it. I pulled my turtleneck over my back. Unfortunately while it was rolled up, it had time to cool and now it felt like ice on my skin. Being covered in ichor didn’t help. Curran sat next to me.

“Shoulder,” I told him. He took his shirt off, displaying the world’s best chest to the wind. I clamped the first insect hair sticking out of him with my pliers. It was about the size of a thin metal skewer. “Ready?”

“Do it.”

I ripped the hair out. It was ten inches long.

He made a short gritty noise. It had to have hurt like hell. I wiped the blood off his shoulder with gauze. “Four more.”

“No time like the present.”

I managed all four in under a minute. The less he hurt, the better. Curran put his shirt back on and pulled me close. His eyes were dark. Whatever he was thinking wasn’t good.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I had a feeling he was thinking that if he were still the Beast Lord, by now he would’ve had a team of shapeshifters standing guard over the corpse while he drove me to the Keep, where Doolittle would put me back on my feet.

“Being a human isn’t that bad, is it?” I asked.

“You remember the Savells? The house across the street from us?”

Heather Savell was a thorn in my side. The area didn’t have a homeowners’ association, but Heather very much wanted to have one. In her head, she pretended the HOA was real and she was its president. She took those imaginary powers and responsibilities very seriously. “Sure.”

“They sprinkled cayenne pepper around the border of their lawn.”

I almost ground my teeth. They sprinkled cayenne pepper to keep Curran off the property, like he was a stray dog come sniffing.

“Apparently they don’t understand I could step over it.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

He shook his head again. “No. They’re scared because they don’t know me. I get them. I don’t get you. Why are you protecting them?”

“Because they can’t always protect themselves.”

Curran looked at me, his face hard. “In the Pack, everyone is of a kind. We all belong together. We are united. Everyone contributes, some more, some less. We work toward a common goal of living a safe life.”

“So do these people.”

Curran grimaced. “If I were beating you in the street, they wouldn’t lift a finger to help you.”

“If you were beating me in the middle of the Keep, would anyone lift a finger? Or would they all simply decide to look away because alphas are fighting and it’s none of their business?”

Curran growled. “Kate . . .”

“You have a prejudice against people who are not shapeshifters.” I leaned against him. He put his arm around me. “It’s not a baseless prejudice, because when people fear someone, they treat them with suspicion. To a lot of people, shapeshifters are monsters, and you were the king of the monsters. I understand. To the Pack, I was a monster and they treated me accordingly.”

“Not all of them.”

“No, not all of them. That’s exactly my point.”