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“That is your choice. Just know neither of us expected this, and neither of us did anything to hurt you,” Lance assured her, but Sarah didn't seem to be listening. She appeared to have spotted Stan on the lawn at Darius’s feet.
“You!” she snarled, and in an instant she was off across the lawn. “This is all your fault!”
Lance raised a brow. He wasn't at all sure how his daughter had come to that conclusion, though he had to admit, it had been Stan's attacking Kayla in the alleyway that night and his breaking into her house that had drawn them closer together.
“Nice to see you too, Sar—” Stan smirked, though he didn't get to finish the greeting as Sarah planted her boot right in his stomach.
“Stop her!” Lance ordered as he raced forward. Darius grabbed hold of Sarah, clamping her arms to her sides. Though he was twice her size, he seemed to struggle to hold her back as she aimed another kick at Stan's head.
It took both Lance and Darius to drag her away from the lion shifter, who coughed up blood from the single kick she had managed to land.
“Sarah, Sarah! Calm the fuck down!” Lance ordered his daughter. “Go home!”
With that, he shoved Sarah away and placed himself between her and Stan. Everything in him wanted to move out of the way and let her go to town on his ass, but he knew that if she did, Dash would have something to say about it.
“What is the matter with you?” Sarah demanded. Her hands were spread at her sides, claws flashing. Her teeth hadelongated to fangs. “He attacked Kayla. He broke into her house. He hit me over the head and left me for dead! He—”
“He would have likely done far worse,” Lance said, shivering as he remembered the wound on Kayla's neck. “But we have him now, and it is for Dash Silverdale to decide his fate.”
Sarah growled low in her throat. She glared at Lance almost as if she wanted to tear into him as much as she did Stan. Then, finally, she grumbled, “He had better suffer.”
“I will make sure of it,” Lance vowed, already knowing what his vote would be when it came to dealing out punishment against the shifter. “Now go home and calm down, Sarah. You aren't doing anyone any good by coming here all riled up. You and Kayla have been friends for a long time. You'll figure this out.”
“Wewerefriends,” Sarah snapped, and before Lance could say anything, she turned on her heel and sprinted away.
Lance ground his teeth angrily. Guilt clawed at his insides anew. He should have known his daughter was far more stubborn than that. Hell, she was even more stubborn than he was, and that was saying something.
Closing his eyes, he took a second to breathe.
“Trouble in paradise, wolf man?” Stan sneered at him.
Lance turned on him and hissed, “Unless you want my foot in your stomach, I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”
The amusement that lit Stan's face made it exceptionally hard for him not to simply beat him to a pulp.
“I wouldn't look quite so happy if I were you,” he snarled instead. Dropping down into a crouch, he met Stan's gaze evenly. “You'll soon wipe that smirk off when you see where you're going to be staying for the foreseeable future.”
Stan laughed. It was a horrid laugh, filled with malice and violence, and it took all Lance had in him not to simply knock him out for a little peace and quiet. “You think this is my first arrest?”
“It certainly is in Silverdale,” Lance said. He knew every arrest that had ever been made during his adult years in Silverdale. Hell, he had made half of them. There really wasn't much crime in the locked community. But every so often a bad one slipped through the net.
“You're one of the reasons humans write horror tales about our kind,” Lance snarled, hating the fact that he had lumped himself in with such a despicable creature. But to humans they were all the same. Shifters, fae, vampires, witches, they were all hunted and killed the second a human so much as got a sniff of the truth. That was why Silverdale existed in the first place.
Lance glared into Stan's eyes as he said, “You may have been able to hide police records from human prisons, but you can't hide your crimes inside Silverdale. And let me assure you, we werewolves aren't half so lenient as the humans. If you're lucky, you'll be banished—maybe you'll end up in another human prison. If not, well, I guess we werewolves will have one hell of a fun hunt on our hands during the next full moon.”
He looked to Darius and smirked as he said, “Do you remember the last time a hunt was passed as punishment?”
There was a glint in Darius’s eye. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “There hasn't been one in my lifetime, but I've heard it's a lot of fun. Hunting, capture, playing with our prey until it dies of shock. You know, real animal kingdom kind of shit.”
Lance watched Stan's face growing paler and paler. When he finally gulped hard, Lance knew Darius’s words had frightened him.
Of course, werewolves would never do anything so barbaric; not since the medieval days had they gone through with such practices, but Stan didn't need to know that, and the idea of doing so with him was half-tempting after all the trouble he had caused.
Shoving his hand under Stan's arm, he growled, “Get up. It's time we take you in.”
He then turned to Darius and added, “Give me your car keys. You stay here and keep an eye on the house until I can get someone to come and fix that door. I'll be back as soon as I've seen him into a cell.”
“Are you sure? I can go,” Darius protested, though he did remove his keys from his jacket pocket, handing them over hesitantly.
