Page 42 of License to Kill

“I want you to give him another chance.”

“What, so I can be the leftovers when he couldn’t get the bitch you wanted for him? Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. He made promises he couldn’t keep. He lied to me. When I become inconvenient, at your encouragement, he tossed me to the curb. Then when he can’t get who he wants, he thinks he can just come crawling to me expecting what, exactly? Expecting everything will be okay just because he’s ‘seen the light’ and that he was wrong? That you were wrong? That everyone was wrong?”

Pauline sighed. “You could give him a chance to earn your trust again. No, it won’t erase our mistakes. And we all made them, and you’re the one who suffered the most because of them. I’m not asking you to forget what happened. That’s not fair to you.”

“What part of any of this was fair to me? You’re deluded if you think any part of this has actually been fair to me. Oh, but that’s right. You’re a wolf. I’m a fox. It’s always been what the wolves want, they get, isn’t it? Don’t feed me your bullshit. You think I’m a bottom-feeding scavenger compared to your apex predator. Why the fuck should I give any of you a second chance? What have you fucking done to deserve it? Absolutely fucking nothing.”

“We saved you.”

“You didn’t do that for me. You did it to appease your personal sense of justice so you wouldn’t have to carry around a load of guilt. This charade isn’t for me. It never was. If one of your precious pack wasn’t involved, you wouldn’t give a flying shit what happened to me, and we both know it.”

Ten

What the hell are you two doing?

I had no recollection of which one of us snapped first or what triggered the fight turning from a pair of humans to animals tearing out each other’s fur. She snapped her teeth and growled at me while I chittered. The table broke with a crack and a bang, and we scuffled on its splintered ruins.

While she beat me in weight and height, I had the anger and hatred I’d carried around and six months of hunting in the wild backing me. I sank my teeth into her and ripped into her shoulder, tearing out a thick clump of fur with a shake of my head.

She howled. Spitting fur, I hopped out of her reach and tensed. She lunged for me, and we rolled across the carpet. I clawed at her, twisting in my effort to reach her throat.

Closing her teeth around my foreleg, she bit down hard enough I yipped. Infuriated she had taken a chunk out of me, I redoubled my efforts to latch onto her. She brought her paws into play and raked my sides, digging her claws in deep enough to draw blood.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Jake’s father slammed his palm against the wall, the bang so loud and reminiscent of gunfire I released Pauline, scrambled to my paws, and darted across the room, tucking my tail.

Of course her mate and pack had come at her call. The reality of being alone crashed down on me, and I choked out a longing cry for what I couldn’t have.

Jake slid past his father into the room, his cheek twitching as he took in the destruction. When he spotted the blood on the carpet and the broken table, his eyes narrowed and he sighed. “Is there a reason you two are ripping out each other’s fur?”

“I’m sure there’s a reason for it, son. Will that reason make sense to us? Now that I doubt.”

Pauline flattened her ears and growled.

While Sebastian Thomas showed his throat and submitted to his mate often enough, he stood his ground, stuffed his hands in his pants pockets, and glared. “The last time I checked, you were supposed to be trying to convince her to talk to us, not start a brawl. This is not talking. This is destroying our holding suite. The goal wasn’t to piss her off even more. She’s plenty pissed off, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Jake approached me, and I crammed into the corner, twisting my ears back. When he crouched in front of me, he penned me in. I panted and shook. “Where’d she bite you?”

All things considered, his question fell into safe territory, and I lifted my bleeding leg.

He took hold of my paw, examining where his mother had gotten a hold of me. “Right to the bone. Why am I not surprised? I don’t think it’s broken, at least.”

“Small wonders. Pauline, please go upstairs and shift. Then maybe you can explain what happened here.”

While she cooperated, she bit her mate on her way out the door, and Jake’s father grimaced.

“All right. This room’s been trashed, so I’m taking you upstairs,” Jake said, releasing my paw. Looking me over, he grabbed me under my forelegs and hauled me over his shoulder. I whined at the distance from his shoulder to the floor. Without hands, I couldn’t even grab hold of his shirt so he wouldn’t drop me. “While I deserve it, please don’t bite the shit out of me.”

“Are you sure that’s a wise idea, son?”

“Your wise idea was to send Mom down here to start a brawl with her. Locking her down here was bad enough. She’s not staying here, not when it’s trashed like this. Forget it. You’ll just have to convince her to stay in the house. Since this is your fault, salvage her papers.”

“I asked her to talk, not to brawl.”

“Just get her papers, Dad.”

“Fine.”

I whined, and my shaking strengthened to full-body shudders. Jake pinned me to him with one arm and grabbed hold of my scruff with the other. “If you want to trash every room in the house, Karma, go for it. Maybe if they’re busy replacing their furniture, they’ll stop making everything even worse.”