Page 37 of License to Kill

Jake had told me Mason was the pack’s submissive wolf, someone who managed to calm most in the pack just by being in the room.

I hadn’t been invited to meet most of the pack.

“This will complicate things,” Jake’s father muttered.

The Fenerec holding my leash shrugged. “It was already complicated. She’s been in the wild for six months.”

Had it been that long? I leaned back against the leash and bared my teeth despite the muzzle. Maybe with another six months, Jake’s betrayal wouldn’t hurt as much. Maybe in a year or two, I’d be able to forget.

“Let’s get her loaded in the van. We have time to figure out what to do with her.”

It took three of the Fenerec working together to drag me away from the river’s shore, and I chittered threats at them, clawing at the snowy ground in my effort to pull away. The Fenerec cursed, hauled me to a black FBI-marked van, and forced me inside.

Two of them held my head down while the third used a locking d-ring made of inch-thick steel to clip my leash to a steel loop on the steel floorboard. I struggled to raise my head, but I couldn’t even budge it.

“She’s secure,” the Fenerec reported.

Jake climbed into the back and crouched beside me. “Struggling is pointless. That’ll hold even old Fenerec. All you’re going to do is tire yourself.”

I flattened to my belly, lifted my hind paw, and hooked my claws into the back of the muzzle in an attempt to pull it off my head. I couldn’t even budge it.

“That won’t work, either.”

I gave up and angled my body away from Jake, revealing my teeth in silent warning.

Jake’s parents jumped into the back of the van, too. I flattened my ears, straining against the collar. If I couldn’t escape them, I would ignore them, so I turned my head and stared at darkened window.

“Well, this isn’t going well,” Sebastian muttered.

Had he truly been expecting anything different?

Nine

That’s not what I want.

The snow and ice clumped to my fur didn’t have a chance to melt before we arrived at a private airstrip, where a small plane waited. Like the van, the plane’s small cargo bay was equipped with metal rings embedded in the floor, and three Fenerec pinned me down while Jake handled locking the d-ring.

They left me alone. Too tired to struggle, I flopped to the floor and closed my eyes. While sleep would have provided an escape, the plane rumbled to life, and the roar of the engines and vibrations through the metal kept me awake.

I decided the best thing to do was play dead. No one could question me if they thought I slept, not that anyone had asked me for my opinion at all. If given a choice, I would have returned to my den and been content if I never saw any of them ever again.

Turbulence and a rough landing turned pretend unconsciousness into a real knock to the head, one that bought Jake’s pack enough time to lock me in a cell furnished like an upscale hotel room.

I had no recollection of shifting from fox to human, and I resented the choice being taken from me almost as much as the locked, barred door. The only clothes they left for me were the pajamas someone had dressed me in.

Why would they waste silk on me? With nothing else to wear, I kept them on, although I was tempted to wrap in the blanket and reject everything they offered.

In the six months I had spent as a fox, my hair had grown out to black marked with white tips, just like my fox’s tail. The length hadn’t changed much, falling a little below my shoulders, long enough to tie into a tail if I wanted.

Maybe if I just signed the divorce papers, they’d let me go. Then I could return back to being a fox and vanish back to my den and mountain. I hadn’t bothered anyone, avoiding humans and their herds.

As a fox, I hadn’t ever become truly bored although I’d been lonely. When I wasn’t hunting, I slept or dug out my den. While comfortable in human standards, there was nothing for me to do beyond sit and wait. The kitchenette would have given me something to do, except it had been stripped of everything useful.

Even the refrigerator was barren of anything interesting, offering vegetables as a snack. What sort of fox wanted vegetables?

I had no idea how long I waited, but by the time I heard the door click, I’d gone from infuriated to numb. Jake stepped into the room with his parents at his heels.

“If you want me to sign the divorce papers, just give them to me so I can get out of here.” While soft and hoarse from disuse, my voice emerged better than I thought it should after so long without speaking.