Forty-two
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Footsteps on the stairs drew Jess' attention away from a rather interesting novel Shaine had handed him in response to yet another growl of boredom—he was, at least, capable of functioning for brief periods, but he tired annoyingly easily, which made it difficult to do much. Those weren't Gisela's footsteps, or Shaine's, or Kevin's, he thought, frowning.

Gisela's voice was audible, with the door ajar to let Hob in on his frequent visits. “Bane! Get back down here! Jess is off limits!”

“Not to me, he isn't,” Bane retorted, and there was just enough growl in his voice to be a warning, though not actual threat. “This is pack business. Back off.”

Jess closed the book with hands that trembled, and set it carefully on the floor next to the loveseat before sitting up, legs crossed, facing the door.

“Bane...”

“This needs to be taken care of.”

Pack instinct howled at him that the alpha wolf was certain to be angry at him, that was bad, almost anything was better than that. Reason utterly failed to silence it. Shivering, he laced his hands together in his lap and tried to slow his breathing down. At least he was in magesilks, if Bane showed any signs of aggression he could change and show his throat...

Bane went so far as to rap lightly on the door before opening it, which was a good sign; as soon as he came in, Jess dropped his gaze, and heard Bane close the door. He'd resented it, for a while, the power over him wolf instinct gave Bane and Eva, and to a lesser degree the rest of the pack; he'd resented it only until he'd realized that his trust in Bane, as simply Bane, as a friend, even as a teacher, was something else, something all his own that had nothing to do with respective pack status. Once he'd stopped fighting it, stopped seeing it from a human interpretation of pride and strength and superiority, fitting into the pack and knowing his place in it—even if it was at the bottom of the hierarchy—felt right and safe and somehow comforting. He couldn't remember ever, even in his most frightened and angry moments, truly believing Bane might hurt him.

At the moment, he wasn't sure what to believe, so he stayed very still, eyes fixed on the rug in front of the loveseat, not daring to do anything that might possibly look like a challenge.

What difference does it make? a small, logical part of his mind asked coldly. You ran away from the pack, cut yourself off from them. So what if he thinks you're challenging him? You aren't part of the pack anymore.

Pack instinct completely disregarded it. That part desperately wanted reassurance, approval, to be part of the pack again, and didn't care what that meant to Jess' self-respect.

There are definite drawbacks to being a werewolf... shapechanging is way cool, and so is healing fast, but all this instinct shit makes it awfully hard to figure out what's going on in my head sometimes. Harder than usual, even, which is saying something.

Still, he was pretty sure it wasn't entirely that instinct wanted the forgiveness of the alpha wolf; partly it was yearning for the sense of belonging again.

“Jess, relax.” He couldn't remember ever hearing the alpha wolf sound so weary; he took a chance, looked up just enough to watch Bane walk over to sit next to him, though he carefully avoided eye contact. “Honestly, between Gisela acting like I've only been trying to get up here to eat you alive, and now you acting like I'm going to...” Bane sighed. “I have enough trouble apologizing at the best of times, let alone all this.”

“Apologizing?” There was no scent of anger, nothing aggressive in Bane's body language; if anything, what he was picking up was... distress? That helped the almost unendurable tension, but not much. God, what is with me today? Reacting to the alpha wolf is one thing, but it doesn't normally make me this wired. “But I'm the one who screwed up.”

“Funny, I could've sworn Kev mentioned you two spent a while talking yesterday. He didn't mention details, but I know him well enough to know that he told you that it wasn't your fault. You admittedly didn't react in the smartest way, but you had reason for the way you did react. Much better reason than Kev and I had, not staying with you or bringing you back here.” His tone turned gentle. “What's scary is how very much pain was caused, to you and to Kev and to all of us, by a few hours of none of us thinking rationally. I had every reason to know better, but somehow I completely failed to think through the consequences. In other words... yes, you made a mistake, but it was hardly the only one made that day, it was just part of a whole series of mistakes and misunderstandings. And one of them was mine, I failed in my responsibility to the members of my pack, and my responsibility as a friend. And I'm sorry.”

“Oh. Does that mean you aren't going to chase me out of your territory for real this time?”

“I'm not in the habit of chasing my pack out of my territory.”

Which means I'm still part of the pack! wolf instinct sang joyfully. Everything is okay now!

Learned reflexes of paranoia and insecurity weren't banished quite so easily. “For real?”

“I apologized. Don't push it, wolf-cub.” There was no anger in it, though. Bane leaned back, pulled Jess down against him—the playful-rough, dominant-affectionate kind of behaviour Jess had adapted to readily as soon as he'd accepted the way pack structure functioned. Jess curled up against his side willingly, closing his eyes as Bane began to stroke his hair and back lightly—that tension inside, knotted almost too tight to bear, loosened and faded, leaving behind a powerful sense of release.

Alpha wolf's accepted me home, so all's well, Jess sighed to himself in resignation. Well, if that keeps all the wolf instinct stuff settled down, maybe I can figure out the rest in peace.

He didn't really believe himself, even as he thought it, that that was all there was to it.

“As for this mage who is much too interested in you...” There was a definite growl in Bane's voice now, but it wasn't directed at Jess. “If I'd known he was going to be a danger to you, I would've ripped his throat out the first time, while phoenix had him backlashed.”

“Seriously?” Jess said sceptically.

Bane considered, then chuckled. “Well, if I'd known he was going to be a danger to you and that I'd start to value having you around, instead of being tempted daily to chase you off. You're right, at the time, I didn't know you'd be worth it. But I still rather wish I had. He's dealing with demons. If you see him again, don't mess around. For all intents and purposes, he's chosen to make himself into an extremely dangerous predator. Treat him as one. If you're absolutely sure you can kill him fast, do it, but otherwise, run.” His tone turned thoughtful. “Sam seems to know an awful lot about demons, she might actually be a good one to go to. Or Kev or Lori or one of the Adepts, since he seems to be using heightened elvenmage abilities. Or to me—I know how to take out a mage.”

“Practised on Kev?”

“Yes. Did you pay any attention to the rest of what I just said?”

“Mage calling demons, extremely dangerous predator, kill him or run to you or Sam or Kev or Lori or Tomas or Katherine. Yep, got it.”

“Remember it. Sam thinks he's paying for power with either gifts and emotional energy, or possibly blood and pain, at this point, and I'd rather they weren't yours.”

Jess shivered, instinctively huddled closer. “That was what he wanted...?”

“Probably, yes.”

“Oh. Trust me. I'll run.” He sighed. “I'm good at that. Run away from absolutely everything.” He brightened. “Well, maybe not absolutely everything. I killed a predator.” He wasn't sure whether it was himself or Bane he was trying to prove himself to, and had a hunch he wouldn't like the answer.

Bane glanced down. “When?”

“In the city. I dunno, three or four weeks ago? I kinda lost track of time.”

“Tell me.” Not exactly a command, but more than a request, which was okay, since he wanted to anyway.

Jesse described the whole encounter, from first catching the scent through to killing it and running.

Bane listened quietly, asked only a couple of questions.

“I'm impressed,” he said, when Jess finished. “And I'm not exaggerating. You took out an unfamiliar predator that had a form of attack I've never heard of but that sounds extremely nasty, and you did it with minimal harm to yourself and no apparent harm to the one it was after. Very well done.”

“No apparent physical harm to her, anyway,” Jess sighed, though the praise felt good, made the whole encounter feel finally complete. “She was so scared of me. I know why, I mean, I would've been pretty freaked too, but...”

“But you've been taught here, where we're appreciated instead of feared,” Bane said softly. “Which you automatically expected, and didn't get.”

“Yeah. And my first thought was to come tell you, then I remembered I couldn't, or thought I couldn't, or something, and everything just went to pieces. But I killed it.”

Bane's arm tightened around him, briefly. “Yes, and once Gisela decides to stop guarding your door, you can tell Eva and the others all about it, and we'll make sure every wolf in Haven hears. I should probably stop calling you wolf-cub, you're anything but.”

Jess shrugged. “I'm used to it, now, don't worry about it.”

“Want me to get out of here and let you rest, now that we've managed to get important stuff sorted out?”

“No.” That took no thought at all. While Bane was here, that took precedence, forcing everything else away somewhere into the back of his mind. Once Bane left, all the confusion would come back. He was quite willing to postpone that for a while. “Tell me what's really been going on? Gisela's been kinda uninformative.”

“We've all been told on an hourly basis that no one is to do or say anything that will cause you any extra stress, or else.”

“Not knowing is causing me stress,” Jess pointed out.

Bane chuckled. “Brat. All right. What do you want to know?”

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