“We’re not causing trouble,” Scar said, sounding falsely innocent. “If anything, we wanted to pay our respects. After all, it’s not every day that the Goddess herself comes down to tell a pack who their alphas should marry.”
“And not every day that they get paired with a fat little bitch, either,” Graham crowed.
He might have continued that line of thought if it wasn’t for a fist that collided with his face. Bones crunched, and his nose snapped, spraying blood into the air. My vision was awash with red, so much so that I hardly realized it was my fist that had hit him. I howled, my wolf snarling blackly as I kneed him in the stomach and threw him to the ground.
“Killian!” Jasmine gasped.
The rest of the troublemakers swarmed, coming at us swiftly. Owen shoved two of them away and ducked from the fight to grab Jasmine and spirit her away. I focused on the troublemakers, punching another one in the face. They tried to surround us, but the three of us moved swiftly, quickly pushing them back and kicking them down.
Either they were poorly trained or drunker than they seemed, but the fight was over in moments. They all groaned on the ground, alternating between groaning and glaring. Someof our warriors had left the bar when they realized there was fighting.
“Take them to lockup and keep them there until their alphas can come collect them,” Jace ordered.
I rubbed my hand. My knuckles had split open, and they were starting to throb. I glared at the troublemakers as they were hauled away, until Renz grabbed my arm. He was bleeding from his scalp.
“Jasmine,” he said, nodding.
The aggression drained from me as I turned swiftly around. Owen and Jasmine were in the car, Jasmine in the backseat, Owen in the driver’s. We went to the car quietly, and I slipped into the backseat first. Jasmine anxiously looked us over before turning her face away.
She held herself stiffly next to me as we drove back to the house, her arms wrapped firmly around her middle, and she turned her face toward the window. Normally, I enjoyed her long hair, but now it seemed like a veil keeping her separate from us. Jace pressed against me on my other side, Owen growling softly as he drove, and Renz pressing a hand to his face. The scent of blood filled the air.
This must have been terrifying for her. She’d never seen us driven to fight before. We could have handled it differently. It must have been even worse, knowing that it was an insult directed at her that prompted the fight to begin with.
“I’m sorry,” I said, speaking into the silence. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“Is it going to cause trouble with the other pack?” Jasmine asked, her voice small.
I didn’t know. I hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened, then leaned back against me. Her warmth seeped into me, and I pulled her a little closer. It was impossible to know if this would cause trouble or if the other alphas would consider it justified.
The one thing I did know? “It will slow down construction on the omega housing project. Without them as workers…” I shook my head. “But we’re better off being a little slower. If they’d be so disrespectful to us, then it’s no doubt they’ve been treating the omegas badly, too. We’ll have to double-check their work. Make sure they’ve worked to the proper specs and haven’t cut corners.”
Jasmine nodded. We came to the house, and we were all still quiet. Damn. What a terrible ending to the evening.
Chapter 18 - Renz
I pushed the cloth that Jasmine handed me from the first aid kit to the bloody gash in my scalp. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t that bad. Sure, it made a mess, but scalp wounds were deceptive. And it was just a scalp wound. Though I’d been hit pretty hard, I could tell there wasn’t anything deeper. The pain was all surface-level.
The four of us sat at the kitchen table, quiet as Jasmine tidied us up. Her hands were steady, but every so often she inhaled sharply, like she was remembering something that upset her all over again.
I watched Killian, who sat across the table from me. His eyes were downcast as he soaked his knuckles in a solution that Jasmine had given him. Even though we would all heal soon enough, since we weren’t that badly injured, she insisted on taking care of us. Currently, she was brewing several different teas and making poultices with her herbs.
The silence seemed to be getting more intense, so I finally leaned back in my chair and let out a weak chuckle. Not that the situation was funny, but the tension was just becoming too much. “Well. Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the irony of it being Killian of all people who snapped first?”
Killian turned toward me. “Ironic? Jace is the most level-headed one.”
“Yeah, but if he was the one who snapped, it would have been disturbing,” I answered. My wolf still growled lightly in my chest. It wasn’t happy with leaving the outsiders in the care of the warriors. It wanted to go back and beat them all to a pulp. It didn’t want to leave them in our territory or let them go.
Killian dragged a hand through his hair. One of his earrings had been ripped out during the fight, and his lobe bled slightly. Jasmine returned to him and dabbed something onto the injury, causing him to flinch back and hiss.
Though I’d just been light-hearted about the whole thing, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation we found ourselves in. Killian wasn’t usually someone who lost his temper. I didn’t like how I’d reacted, either, being so hyper-focused on the outsiders. I’d seen them around town before and kept them in my periphery, but I hadn’t had such a violent reaction to seeing them.
“I was surprised to see that you have a right hook after all,” I said to Killian, putting a laugh into my voice. “But I’m also not surprised at you splitting your hand open like that. Never saw you actually land a punch before.”
Jace frowned at me, and Jasmine shot me a dirty look, but Killian slammed his hand on the table, hard enough that the various concoctions slopped over their edges. “What the fuck is wrong with you? How can you find this a laughing matter?”
Owen reached over. “Killian.”
I renewed the pressure on my wound as Jasmine backed away from Killian, her eyes wide. Killian slumped back in his chair, pressing his palms to his eyes as his shoulders slumped forward.
