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He didn’t give a shit about his dogs. “Naw.” His eyes lit up. “Wanna stay and watch? Call your daddy and tell him to give you another half an hour.”
Absolutely fucking not.
I stared at the werewolf, trying to focus. “Can I see the goose?”
“Sure, honey!” He grinned widely and slid off his stool. I stumbled off mine. Jeff steadied me and turned around. “Hey, fellas! This pretty lady wants to see our new pet.”
The other four werewolf men bellowed happily. “Come on over, baby!”
Jeff took my arm, loosely cuffing his hand around my wrist, and led me over to the table. Judging by the way I stumbled and bounced around in his iron grip, while he remained as steady as a rock, his strength was phenomenal.
I’d never fought a werewolf before. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to care that he might kill me before this night was over.
Chapter Six
His friends waited at the table, grinning, their eyes glittering with excitement.
“Come over here, honey.” Jeff pulled me close to the table and lifted the corner of the blanket.
In the cage was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen in my life.
My mouth hung open as I stared at him. He was an Embden goose, or an American Buff, maybe, I wasn’t sure which breed exactly. There was something off about his coloring, but he was extraordinary. Blazing, snowy-white feathers, a magnificent thick, long neck. His body was heavy, packed with muscle and power. The wolves were right—his bright orange beak had a razor-sharp edge that looked like it could cut the very fabric of our universe. Besides the obvious sharpness of it, the lower mandible was shorter than usual, his culmen looked overly thick and hard, like a rock. The bean on the end of his upper mandible dropped down further, curving into an almost claw-shape. I looked closer. The edges of those beautiful wings had a diamond-hard sheen. They weren’t normal feathers.
Oh, yeah. This guy was, indeed, a battle goose.
I blinked, caught off guard by his beauty. Those little glittery eyes were like the coals from the fiery pits of Hell. He glared at me, vibrating with an intense, overwhelming anger that felt like a punch to the gut.
The words drifted out of my open mouth. “He’s… beautiful…”
“Ain’t he something?”
I swallowed roughly. Something about this goose made me want to howl in anguish, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Blinking back tears, I focused, staring at him with my new sight.
Scars.
That was it. This magnificent creature was covered with battle scars. You couldn’t see them through his feathers, in fact, his plumage was perfect. But I could see them.
He was just like me. Beautiful, deadly, and scarred on the inside. He was a monster, just like me; obviously built for killing, just like me. Some sadistic megalomaniac had put him together, just like me, and kept him in a cage, just like me.
I blinked back tears as our eyes met. The fire dimmed as our gaze connected; he, too, recognized a kindred spirit. Wistful images of still bodies of water filled his aura—duckweed ponds and marshy swamps. His thoughts yearned for peace. He imagined himself all alone, because he was too damaged to deserve love from his own kind.
My lips felt numb. “Damaged things deserve love too.”
Jeff coughed. “What was that, honey?”
I jerked. “What?” I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud.
In the beat of awkward silence that followed, I suddenly realized that the screams in my head had also gone mercifully silent.
Damaged things deserve love too.
Jeff chuckled uncomfortably. A sticky sheen of sweat rose on his brow. “What did you say?”
I laughed stupidly and shook my head. “I don’t know. So, where’s this dog fighting ring, then? I’ve only got fifteen minutes before my dad gets here.”
“Come on.” He took my wrist again, and, not particularly skillfully, lifted my phone out of my pocket with his other hand. “I’ll show you.” He palmed my phone and held it behind him. “You’re going to love it.”
“Great!” I grinned happily at him. My eyes were crossing—I was still shitfaced—but even I could track his movements as he passed my phone to his buddy sitting in the booth behind him. The other werewolf slipped it into his own pocket and nodded at the others, grinning.
