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CHAPTER13
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Eagan bellowed, shaking his head. “Hell no. And again,hell no.”
Magic leaned forward, elbows on his heavy desk. “You want her to work off her debt, make amends? This is how it happens. Theonlyway it happens.”
“No. I won’t do it. What you’re asking is cruel.”
“Cruel?” Magic spat. “What you pulled last night was cruel. Anchoring her to a futile mating is cruel. This? This is her salvation.”
Eagan glared at the cat he once called brother. “I’ll hate you for doing this.”
Magic narrowed his eyes. “I’ll hate you if you don’t.”
“No.” Eagan stood, sending his chair flying backward. “I won’t do it. You find another way, or I’m gone.”
Magic leaned back in his chair. “Go then. We don’t need your kind around here.”
“Mykind?”
Eagan glanced at Renner and then Owyn.
“My kind.” He let out an angry huff and threw his arm in the direction of the other cats. “Renner is mykind. Tana is mykind. Hell, maybe there are more of us who want to mate. The code has changed, Magic. The pact is obsolete. Do whatever you need to do to clarify that, but you can’t ignore it. It’s no longer ‘No mating’. It’s ‘No straying’. A choice, not a result of our breeding. Get that through your thick-ass head.”
Eagan shook out his shoulders, the disgust on his end this time. But what Magic was asking was out of the question.
“I won’t take an oath to leave my mate unclaimed. I won’t do it. Not even for the opportunity to work off her debt. Whether we mate will beourdecision. Mine and hers. And most certainly notyours. Not some asshole faux-leader who let his mate die instead of promising her he’d stay faithful. That shit is yours, man. And you need to quit pouring it onto your clan. You need to own it, and deal with it.”
Magic stood slowly, his whole body trembling with rage. “Get. OUT.” His roar blasted through the room like a siren of warning before a storm.
But Eagan wasn’t done. And if Magic wanted a fight, he’d give it to him.
Owyn and Renner both stood from their chairs, shoulders tensed, clearly wanting in on the brawl. Well, fine.
“Shit,” Owyn spat. “He’s gonna change. Right here in the lodge. Motherfuckingshit.”
Eagan frowned, gauging Magic’s behavior.
Oh. Owyn was right.Shiiiit.
“The back door,” Owyn tossed out.
“No,” Renner said. “It’s broad daylight. Someone will see him.”
Magic hated his cat more than anything. He fought the change, but it was gruesome to watch, his skin stretching and twisting as he struggled to remain human.
“Magic, man,” Renner spoke carefully. “Just… calm down, yeah? Let’s not make a scene for our guests.”
But Magic’s nostrils flared with his labored breaths. He might as well have been a bull fighting, for the sounds he was making.
Eagan shook his head, already defeated. There was no hope that he and Clara could live a life here with his family. None at all. Not if it reduced Magic to a raging monster.
With a burst of energy, the human gave way to the cat, Magic’s panther unfurling from his skin in a furious flash of black fur.
“Fuck,” Owyn barked when he got too close and the panther took a swipe at him. It was a warning, but still, those paws were the size of Eagan’s head, and the claws sharp as a sickle. They would have injured Owyn bad enough Doc Davis would’ve had to call for help.
“Son of a bitch,” Renner muttered, starting to remove his clothes. He’d have to go full cat if he hoped to take Magic down like this. “Get out of here, Eagan. Take your mate and wait at the cabin.”
Eagan stumbled for the door. There was nothing he could do here.
