Page 92 of Feral Werewolves
“You can’t… is this what you’re like?” I whispered.
He considered. He dabbed at his swollen lip where it was bleeding. “Sometimes,” he said.
“But Paladin—”
“Fuck,” he said. “Stop the car. I have to get him back.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“It’s obvious, Clementine, I trade Noah for the mates,” he said. “Stop thecar.”
“No,” I said. “No, I will not.” I gave him a fierce look, half expecting him to reach over and take the wheel or something.
He didn’t. He just sighed. “Okay, I’ll think of something else.”
“Did you really do it, then? Entrails hanging over the chandelier?” I said.
He sighed again. “I mean… it went too far, is all. Kestrel and I, we got out of the other place, the first place, and something in us was still just—” There was a pause. “Something inmewas still switched on. It wasn’t Kestrel. That’s the story he likes to tell me, because I felt so freaked out after it was over. He likes to tell me this story that it was all him, and Lazarus doesn’t mind either, because Lazarus is already a big walking ball of guilt, so… But I wanted it to end. I thought that if we didn’t make an example of these fuckers, that if we didn’t do something to show everyone what happened if they messed with us, it would just keep happening. Every single time I settled anywhere after I shifted, it was the same story. It was me being forced to be some guy’s bitch. I was done with it.” He lifted a shoulder. “Just… done.”
I still didn’t know what to say. I drove.
“And with them, with both of them, Kestrel and Lazarus, they respect me now.”
I glanced at him.
“I mean, maybe I didn’t like that either,” I said. “It’s not totally respect, anyway, it’s fear. They’re afraid of me. You are, too, I guess. I wanted that to go away, so I just pushed that scary part of me away, I locked that whole side of me up, and I let them baby me. But I don’t think it’s going away again this time.” He drummed his fingers against the dashboard of the car. “I really don’t think it is.”
“I don’t think it really went away, anyhow,” I said. “I could see it, sometimes.”
He smiled. “Yeah, I think I knew that, too. Or I wouldn’t have gone after you so hard. I wanted you to see it, to see all of me.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess I do now. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Red or anything, but Noah is my friend, and I was really worried that you would cross a line with him.”
“No, come on, Clementine, I told you I wasn’t going to hurt him.”
“You didn’t really. You said, ‘no permanent damage’ and excuse me for not thinking that was really good enough. I mean, what does that even mean? You could hurt him a lot and claim he’ll heal up or something, and if you did that, I don’t know if I could forgive you.”
“Okay,” he said. “Noted.”
“Noted?” I repeated, incredulous. “So, what? If I didn’t say that, then you’d be fine with just wounding Noah?”
“Clementine,” he said, “this is basically war at this point.”
“If you love me,” I said, “you are good to the people I care about.”
“I said, ‘Noted,’” he said. “Turn here.”
“Where?” I said.
“That dirt road,” he said.
I barely managed the turn. The car bumped over the rocky and uneven road even worse that it had on the old paved road. My teeth slammed into each other. I gripped the steering wheel hard.
“There, see?” he said. “This is Liam’s place.”
A farmhouse came into view. It was bigger than ours, and it had a wraparound porch. There were chickens roaming around in the front lawn.
A man with a gun appeared in one of the top windows and fired a shot.
