Page 18 of Butcher

The youngest came up and side eyed me, then she reached out and poked my cheek. “She feels human.”

Oh my god, she left something sticky on my cheek. And I can’t do anything about it. Why, why, why! They’re always so sticky.

I tried to rub my cheek against my shoulder to transfer whatever it was onto the t-shirt, but with my arms tied behind me I couldn’t reach. Ugh.

Gabby shrugged. “Why else would she be here?”

“But why would she be tied up if she’s a good guy?” the younger girl, whose name I didn’t know, pointed out in a soft voice.

“Good point,” Gabby mused. “Besides, this isn’t Uncle Toxic’s room. There are never strange women just lying around in here.”

My brows shot up at that. And for some reason a smug feeling rolled through me at hearing it.I reallyneeded to go see that doctor. After last night I definitely knew there was something wrong with me.

“We should go,” Cassie added. “Uncle Butcher is going to be done with church any time.”

“Or we could stay and find out who she is on our own,” Taylor suggested with a wicked smile.

Oh yeah. I could train her into an assassin alright.

“I like her.” This came from the quiet one.

I blinked in surprise. Kids didn’t usually trust me. For good reason. My lips twitched before I shut the smile that was about to appear down and scowled at her. The girl just gave me a sweet smile and my scowl disappeared, all on its own. What the hell was happening here?

Gabby took this insight under serious consideration. “Okay, we’ll discuss this more, but not here. We’d better go,” Gabby said in a decisive tone.

Taylor grumbled, but she let the other girls pull her out of the room. She turned and gave me a wicked smile that I couldn’t interpret before they finally left.

I heaved a sigh of relief. I wasn’t used to kids. And those seemed different than most. Looking down, I tested my bonds to see if there was any give in the rope. There wasn’t. I glanced around the room and groaned in frustration when I saw my knife was gone. Butcher wasn’t dumb, I’d give him that.

A low growl made me freeze. I stared at the ground by the bathroom, afraid to even lift my head. Another growl had me slowly turning my eyes, then my head until two huge dogs came into view. “What the hell? They have werewolves here?”

Both dogs were tan with black faces and dark ears. It was the pearly white fangs being bared at me that made me think ofwerewolves. All they were missing was the frothing drool.Oh, no, there it is.A long string of drool dripped down to the floor as one of the dogs held his spot and the second advanced on me barking and snapping his teeth.

“Jesus Christ!” I hissed, trying to jerk away from the dog. The chair screeched as I managed to move it the barest inch across the floor. “Good dog,” I said, flinching as he growled low in his throat again. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” Nope. But he was going to eat me. Fucking Butcher left me up here at the mercy of kids and dogs. What kind of sick bastard did that?

If there was anything that was a better lie detector than a kid, it was a damn dog. And these two clearly didnotlike me.

It wasn’t that I was necessarily scared of death. Wasn’t scared of dogs either, but these two looked like they wanted to chew holes in me and roll around on my guts. It didn’t sound like a pleasant way to die. I at least tried to be humane while killing my marks. I did it as quickly and painlessly as possible. Teeth shredding me to bits didn’t sound quick,orpainless.

“Auron,” came a deep voice and I sighed in relief. “Leave her be.” A man poked his head into the room and his brows shot up when he saw me. “Never seen Auron or Jecht have a problem with anyone or anythin’,” he said in a heavy drawl. The guy was gorgeous, older, and now he was grinning at me. “You must be Butcher’s...guest. Saw you last night in the bar.”

My mouth was hanging open, and I wasn’t about to answer because those damn killer dogs might attack. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that anyway.

Guest?

He must have taken my silence as some kind of answer because without another word he shook his head and continued on down the hall, calling the dogs to him as he went.

Silence descended after that as I was left alone again. I scissored my wrists, trying to loosen the rope. It would be better for everyone if I was gone by the time Butcher got back. And those little girls seemed to think that was going to be soon.

CHAPTER 7

Butcher

Lock motioned for me to sit down at his desk. Toxic followed me in and sat too. We’d been in his office far too fucking much over the last month. A sure sign that I was getting sloppy. Or lazy. There was a time that Lock didn’t know half of what I got up to.

“What’re you doing?” Lock asked Toxic as he made himself comfortable.

“Just want to hear the rest,” Toxic said with a shrug and a grin.

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