Page 96 of Feral Werewolves
“Look, I know you’re enjoying pretending this is some game or something, Paladin, and it’s probably fun when everyone thinks you’re the shit, but I want you to rememberwhat happens when you go all-in on this side of yourself, and how bad it can get and—” He broke off because there was a gunshot, one of Liam’s guys firing a warning shot at the approaching car. “Jesus.”
I leaned forward, touching the glass, trying to make out that car. Was that a car that had come from Red’s compound? I turned to look at Kestrel. “Hold this thought, okay? I issued an invitation to the wolves at Red’s, and I’m thinking some of them have taken me up on it.”
“An invitation?” said Kestrel.
I grinned at him. I pressed in close and kissed his jaw. “Hold that thought, please?” And then I scurried down the stairs and out onto the front lawn, running to intercept the car.
I waved up over my head at the shooters at the windows to hold their fire.
I hurried over to the driver’s side.
The guy inside was one I recognized from the steps today, when I pulled Noah down with me as my shield. “You going to balk on your word?” he said. “You said if we came to your side by nightfall, you wouldn’t retaliate against us.”
“I did say that,” I said.
He yanked out a pistol and put it in my face.
I laughed. “You don’t have a lot of faith in my word. That much is obvious.”
“Well, I don’t even know,” he said. “If you really can trigger a shift at will, I imagine that shooting you does nothing.”
This was… wow. I had not anticipated how mythic I had become in these wolves’s heads, thanks to rumor undoubtedly. They were fucking terrified of me.
My mind was working overtime, thinking about how to use this. “Okay, okay, hold up. Let me ask you a question. Did you advertise the fact you defected to Red? Was it a big blow-up, like you giving him the finger and riding off into the sunset?”
“Do we look particularly stupid to you?” said the guy with the pistol in my face.
“So, no one knows you left?” I was grinning really wide.
“I mean, the car’s gone, so they’re going to figure out—” He broke off.
I opened up the door to the backseat of the car. “Scoot,” I said to the guys sitting back there. “We can work with them figuring it out, as long as someone can get back inside.” I thought about it. “Uh, probably two someones, maybe three.”
The others scooted. I climbed inside and pulled the door shut.
The guy who was driving turned around to look at me. “What the fuck?”
I leaned forward. “Look, life on this side of the walls is shit, and we all know it. Except for the gatherings, it’s basically constant pain and suffering. You got wolves above you ordering you around and wolves beneath you demanding you look out for them and you have the punishing elements of fighting nature itself for basic survival demands. It’s hard. I can’t do anything about the elements of nature, of course, but what I can do is take all that pressure from the top off of you.”
“What do you mean?” said one of the wolves next to me.
“I run this place, the goal is for every wolf to have his own space. You choose to live with a few other guys like I do, that’s on you, but no one is forced to do that. Your own house, a chance to mate someone, a chance to forge your own destiny.”
It was entirely silent in the car.
“What did Red promise you?” I said.
“You know what Red said,” said the guy from the driver’s seat. “I’m guessing you want us to go back there now?”
“I do,” I said.
“Are we spearing your armed insurrection against Red?” he said.
“No,” I said. “We’re rescuing the mates. If we can pick up some more of Red’s supporters on the way, that’s not a problem, though.” I paused. “So, Red promised unlimitedpussy?”
They all just snorted.
“But is that what you want, really?” I said. “Unlimited variety of pussy, but all of it unwilling, all of it terrified, all of it something you wake up the next day and sort of regret, because you want, once, just once, someone towantyou?”
