Page 50 of The Bone Witch
“He’s off the stump,” I declare pointing behind me, like a pouty child intent on getting someone else in trouble.
“He is, but who can say if you are the cause or if Rogan here is?” Riggs counters with a shrug as he drops the bones back into the neck of his shirt.
I want to screamnooooas I watch the antler being hidden away, but then I really will look like a tantruming toddler, so I bite back my objection. Warm tingles move from my center down my arms as I summon my magic and call on one of the camel leg bones that are now sitting in a pile in front of the stump. I’m about to take a page out of Rogan’s caveman book and club him with it until he puts me down. The bone shoots up over the crowd and streaks toward me. I hold my arm out, ready to wrap my fingers around the calcified shaft, but at the last minute Rogan’s free arm shoots out, and he catches it, keeping the weapon away from me and foiling another of my brilliant plans.
An irritated snarl vibrates up my throat, and more magic pours out of me as I try to rip the bone from his clutches, but oddly, it doesn’t so much as twitch in his palm. Abandoning the leg bone now trapped in Rogan’s crushing grip, I call on another bone from the stump ring. A mental image of Rogan and I sword fighting with camel bones flashes in my mind, and I suspect that the lycan onlookers will be down for the show.
“Stop messing around, Lennox,” Rogan huffs as we weave past the hustle and bustle of the lycan celebrations and move out in the direction of the parked car.
“Then put me down,” I snap at him, renewing my efforts to get out of his hold. “What’s the emergency anyway? Did Marx call? Did he find Nik Smelser?”
The chirp of a car being unlocked is the only answer I get before Rogan opens a door and practically shoves me into the passenger seat. Wind teases the side of my face just as I furiously right myself. Jarringly, the door slams shut, sealing me inside of the car as Rogan stomps around to the driver’s side, climbing in with a slit-eyed glare aimed in my direction. With pursed, irritated lips, he presses the engine start button a little aggressively. His car purrs to life, and we peel away before I can get my tongue wrapped around the demanding questions in my head.
“What the fuck is going on?” I finally manage as we wind away from the festivities like we’re being chased. I look behind us, just to be sure that it’s not actually the case.
Rogan doesn’t answer.
“What about my order?” I object as we speed further and further away.
“It has already been loaded in the back,” he grumbles, and I snap my seat belt on and turn to fix him with a steely glare.
“Oh, so youcantalk,” I growl as I do my best to heat the side of his face with the ire in my gaze. “What’s the emergency? Why did you just haul me away? You cost me a seriously precious and coveted bone, Rogan! What the hell are you doing?” I snap at him, once again reminded that those are words that would have never come out of my mouth a week ago.
“I’mdoing?” he incredulously snaps back. “What the hell areyoudoing?”
“I was winning the coolest thing ever to add to the pouch of bones my line uses. I almost literally had it in the bag before you went and fucked it all up.”
“Had it in the bag? Is that what you call what you did back there? Because it looked more like a drunken make out than a winning move,” he states with rumbling disapproval.
I stare at him for a beat, trying to understand what the hell is going on here. He said it was a witch emergency, but every time I ask what the emergency is, he deflects.
“First of all, Rogan Kendrick, every move I make is a winning move. Secondly, tell me what the emergency is,right now, or I will slip ogre bone dust in everything you eat and drink. And before you dismiss that threat, my ancestors have a lovely recipe that will have you smelling to high heaven and parts of you limp as a cheap pickle spear,” I warn.
The tic in Rogan’s jaw pulses as he considers my threat. The car slows as the gate to leave the lycan's property rolls open. We rush through it just as soon as there’s enough clearance to do so, and I have to fight the desire to turn and see if the guard from earlier is still there. Nope. I can come playcatch the lycan with my vaginasome other time. Right now I need to focus on the Blood Witch, who has a nasty habit ofact now, explain later.
“You can’t pull shit like that with lycans, Lennox,” Rogan rumbles, pissed off, his eyes fixed on the road in front of us.
“Shit like what? I was just trying to win,” I defend.
“I know, but you can’t do it like that,” he snaps back, not offering any additional clarification.
“Did I break a rule?” I press, getting even more frustrated by his clipped responses that are still all too vague.
“No. But lycans are territorial. They can get fixated on things they feel like they have a claim to.”
“It was a kiss, Rogan, not a proposal. Did you forget what century we’re in or something? No one’s freaking out over a woman showing her ankle anymore. An affectionate act isn’t a profession of undying love and devotion,” I snark, but Rogan just shakes his head and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.
“Maybe not in the human world, Lennox, but you’re treading in territory you know nothing about,” he clips.
“I asked you if there was anything I needed to know when it came to interacting with the lycans. You told me to just be normal,” I shout, my threshold for frustration beyond full and now spilling over.
“Exactly! What’s normal about kissing strangers for a toy-sized antler? How was I supposed to anticipate you’d do something like that?” Rogan shouts back. “What’s normal about anything you did?”
“What’s normal about any of this to begin with?” I counter, exasperated. “We’re witches hanging out with a bunch of handsy lycans. Who really gives a shit? They didn’t stop us from leaving. Saxon didn’t drop trou and try to piss a circle around me, staking his claim. So what’s the real issue here?” I demand with flailing angry hands and narrowed eyes.
The car is silent other than the hum of tires on pavement and the sound of the wind moaning an ominous tune outside the confines of the car. The sun is setting, and in its multi-hued light, I study Rogan’s face, the tic in his jaw, the glare he’s wearing, the vexation etched in his masculine features. The longer he says nothing, the more it speaks to me.
Is the witch emergency that he’s jealous? Is that really what this comes down to?
