Page 82 of Feral Werewolves
“I said she couldn’t stay out here,” said Kestrel. “I said it and said it, and you went after her anyway. This is your fault. She should never have been here.”
I considered that. “You’re not wrong,” I muttered. “It was selfish of me.” She made me feel whole. It was a way that Ineverfelt whole. She made me feel like a person capable of being integrated—the vicious parts of me and the vulnerableparts of me. When I was with her, I felt this shred of hope that I could heal with her. That was why I’d brought her here in the first place. Letting her stay, it had been a sacrifice. I had sacrificed her for my own happiness.
But then, well, I was good at that shit, at necessary sacrifices.
“Oh, whatever, Kestrel, you talked a lot, but you wanted her with us, too,” said Lazarus.
“It’s all right,” I said, touching Kestrel’s arm. “I’m okay with it now. I can do that for us. I don’t need you to take that from me anymore. I don’t need you to pretend that you’re responsible. I’m all right.”
They exchanged a look, a wary look.Sure you are,that look said.But how long until you fall the fuck apart?
“It’s not all your fault, anyway,” said Kestrel, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” I said. “What’s done is done. We have to accept the situation as it is and move forward.”
“What’s our next move?” said Lazarus.
“Well, I don’t know until we get more information,” I said. “Who’s the closest pack who had a new mate? We have to assume this was coordinated, the way they did this. They would have had to strike all at once, or else the packs would have formed defenses. So, they took all the new mates last night, I think. And we should go and see who survived. You think Liam’s pack?”
“Okay,” said Kestrel.
“We should get clothes, but they might have eyes on the farmhouse,” I said. I thought about it. “If they have eyes on our farmhouse, they’ve got eyes on Liam, too.”
“Liam has guns,” said Lazarus in a gravelly voice.
“Good point,” I said. “Straight there, and hopefully, he can spare us a few pairs of pants, yeah?”
They both nodded.
clementine
DID I CRYin the shower?
I tried.
It wouldn’t come.
I stayed in there a long time, though, and I didn’t want to get out. Maybe I would have stayed in there forever, but Noah knocked on the door, calling out that he was just checking on me, and I figured that was enough hot water.
I got out, toweled off, and put on the clothes that I’d been wearing before.
I left the bathroom, which was next to the room I’d been in before, Red’s room, I figured. There was a bedroom next door that Noah said was going to be my room. But I didn’t go in there. I stood outside the bathroom, steam from my shower billowing out, and I was frozen.
Noah poked his head out of Red’s room. “Oh, hey.” He gave me a bright smile. “Two choices. You pick or tell me to pick if you don’t want to pick. We can talk about whatever happened or I can tell you what happened to me.”
“Thanks,” I said, liking the choices, feeling that like safety. “Uh, you pick?”
“Sure,” he said, and we went into Red’s room. The bed was made and it was covered in a bunch of pillows. Noah flopped onto it, sprawling out and patting a spot next to him.
I gingerly got onto the bed.
“So, my first gathering, I got it real bad,” he said conversationally. “I think they were mad because I wasn’t a real woman—or you know, a woman at all.” He shrugged, looking up at the ceiling. “Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“You’re not a woman,” I said softly.
“Yeah, thanks for that,” he said with a little sigh. “Anyway, so, I got it real bad. There was, like, tearing and a lot of blood and stuff. They took bites out of me. I’m saying this because, like, the next day, when I went back home, I… the way you are right now… like, I don’t know what happened to you, and you never have to tell me, and I’m not saying it’s the same or something, or that I get it, but, also… I get it.”
I laughed a little.
