Page 5 of Fighting Furry

“Zane,” Axel said in a testy voice, still looking at something on Zane's phone. “Who's that?”

“Her boyfriend. He's the lead singer in that boy band you hate. The one with the—”

“We broke up.”

Both men looked over at me, confusion clear on their faces.

“Isaiah and I broke up after I lost my last fight. He doesn't date losers.”

“Dick,” Zane sneered.

“I agree,” I said. “So, now that you two know who I am, think you could let me out of this cage?”

Before they could answer, the door opened and a woman walked in, dragging a naked man with some sort of feathery, wiry wings on his back. “Hey, boss,” the woman said. “Caught Charles about to leap off the cliff again.”

Axel scowled and even Zane tensed up. “Put him in a cage, Clarissa,” Axel said.

Clarissa, who was smaller than me, dragged the pudgy Charles to a cage like he weighed nothing. She opened the door and shoved the man inside. Then, she shut and locked the door with a key she removed from a chain around her neck.

“It was going to work this time,” Charles said.

“The only way it was going to work was if you were aiming to be dead,” Zane said. “When are you going to learn, man? Harpies and wolves don't work.”

“Harpies? Wolves?” I asked. Maybe I hadn't woken up, yet. Maybe I was in the hospital and this was all some weird coma-induced nightmare.

“Yeah,” Zane said. “Charles thinks he's in love with a harpy, but harpies only mate in the air, so he's been trying to figure out a way to—”

“Enough,” Axel said. The command in his voice, not to mention the rumble that rolled over me like a warm stone massage, made me look at him. Our eyes met and I felt like I'd been hit with a taser of lust. I licked my lips and his gaze lowered to my mouth and hesitated there, before he cleared his throat and focused on my eyes, his expression stony. “Let's get back to this Julie Jacobs. She was just about—”

“Oh, my god,” Clarissa said. “Julie Jacobs. I thought you looked familiar.”

“Stop,” Axel roared. “The next person who speaks is going to be stripped naked, tied to the tree in the center of town, and covered in honey.”

“Boss, have you been doing your meditation, because you seem—” Zane started.

Axel glared at him and Zane mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key. Axel pulled at the hem of his shirt, a concert tee for Rob Zombie, like he was straightening a suit jacket. The move had my eyes going to his waist and the not insignificant bulge in his pants before I realized what I was doing and jerked my eyes up to his smirking face. Damn it. “As I was saying, Julie Jacobs was just about to tell me what the hell she's doing in our town.”

“Krista Merriman is my cousin,” I said, hands on hips, glaring at him, because I had done nothing wrong, and because he was an asshole for being too damn sexy. “I'm staying at her place while she's out of town.”

“You're related to Krista?” he asked, confusion creasing his brow. “She didn't tell me anyone would be staying at her house.”

This town was beyond weird. I was going to pack my bags and go back to LA as soon as I got the hell out of this cage. “Call her and ask her if you don't believe me.”

“And she didn't tell you to stay inside on the night of the full moon?”

I wanted to crawl into a corner of the cage and curl up in the fetal position until the crazy people had finished with their plan to end me, but I stood my ground. Nothing was gained by hiding. “Look, I understand you're upset that I beat up your friend, but can I talk to someone in charge, like a sheriff or a mayor or, you know, anyone sane?” I snapped my lips shut. Too far. I'd gone too far.

Axel didn't appear to be offended. “I'm in charge,” he said. “I'm the sheriff, the mayor, and the alpha of this pack.”

“Pack?”

“We're werewolves, Julie Jacobs. And now you're one, too.”

I bit my lip not to laugh in his face. Thanks to genetic mapping services, like Predecessor.com and Whosyourgranddaddy.org, we'd discovered that some people carried wolf and bat, even bird, DNA. The scientists hadn't figured out why, yet, but some of the people with that DNA had gone a little wacko and decided they'd had werewolf or vampire ancestors and that they had werewolf or vampire characteristics. Like, 'hey, I've got bat DNA, must be why I don't tan well,' that sort of thing. I'd never heard of a whole town taking it to this extreme, though. “I'm pretty sure you can't change my DNA with a little bite.”

Axel rolled his eyes. “Except that we did. We are full-blood werewolves. We change into wolves and howl at the moon and—”

I doubled over laughing. “Oh, my god,” I said. “You had me going there. You really did.” I stood and scanned the room again. “Where are the cameras? You saw me and you decided to prank me so you could get famous on YouTube. I get it. You're hilarious.” I sobered and glared at Axel. “Now, let me out, or I'm calling my lawyer.”

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