Page 49 of Fighting Furry

Krista spun, her mouth turned down in a fierce frown, her eyes damp. She looked as sad as if I'd just told her I'd killed her dog. Could werewolves have dogs as pets? I hadn't seen any in town and…She threw her arms around me and squeezed so tight I thought I might upchuck all the breakfast in my belly. “You can't have sugar. Oh, my god. I've ruined your life.”

I disentangled myself from her arms. “Sweetie. I was a broken fighter desperate to find a way back into the game. Now, I'm part of a pack and I have this amazing ability to transform. I'm healed and stronger than I ever was. Not being able to have sugar is a small thing.” I may have played up my situation a bit to make her feel better, but there was no reason for her to feel bad.

Her expression lightened. “I'm so glad you love it.” She walked into the kitchen and stuffed a brownie in her mouth. I guess she didn't have to worry about getting sugar drunk when…

“Wait, a minute,” I said. “You can just eat all the sugar you want?”

She finished chewing and licked a crumb from the corner of her mouth. “I can. I've developed a tolerance for it, though I may genetically be more tolerant. It affects every wolf differently.”

I watched her smash two cookies together and eat them in three quick bites. She closed her eyes for a moment and savored them. “Honestly, right now, I've got more than a bit of a buzz going on, but my metabolism's so fast it won't last.”

“Genetically? You weren't turned?”

“Nope,” she said. “Born and bred.”

“But you were married to my cousin. Can wolves and humans marry?”

She dropped her eyes to her hands and stuffed in two more brownies.

“Krista.” I drew her name out to several syllables. “What's going on?”

She swallowed and grabbed my hand. She dragged me back to the living room and sat next to me on the couch. “Did you know that about eighty-five percent of people who are bitten don't survive their first shift?”

“No.”

“Well, it's true. People who have no wolf DNA in their make-up don't ever survive a wolf bite.”

I sat up straighter. “I'm part wolf? Was Stu a full wolf?”

She nodded. “Your family's pack wasn't tight and they interbred with a shit-ton of humans. Your father was a quarter wolf, so that'd make you…Damn, I always hated math.”

“An eighth wolf?”

She nodded.

“Could my father shift?”

“At a quarter it's a toss-up. Some can, some can't. Your dad could, but after he married your mother, he chose not to. He didn't want her to ask questions.”

“Makes sense,” I said, my whole worldview changing. “He was so angry and controlling and mean, do you think that had anything to do with his wolf?”

Krista frowned. “Stu said your dad was always a bully, but he never knew how badly he'd treated you and your mom.”

“I know.” Krista married Stu when I was ten, and she and I'd hit it off from day one. After I became famous, she'd gotten in touch with me. She'd been divorced from Stu for a while at that point, but we'd reconnected. My grandmother and great aunt and Stu had also gotten in touch with me. I'd seen them once or twice, but I'd never felt entirely comfortable with them. I just couldn't believe they didn't know what Dad was doing, what he was like.

“But yeah,” she said. “I think being a wolf made it worse for him. Not that wolves are naturally cruel, but that in caging his wolf, in never running as a wolf again, he became even worse than he naturally was.”

“How's house arrest?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

She shrugged. “It's okay. I'm lucky the council didn't decide to execute me.”

“That was because Axel lied for you.” Axel might get pissed at me for telling her, but I thought she should know. She needed to be more careful if she ever had another human staying with her in the future.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “Axel wouldn't spit on me if I was on fire. There's no way he did anything to help me.”

I'd thought everyone in the pack adored Axel. “But he did. He told Darius you'd asked him to look out for me and to make sure I knew the rules. Axel said it was his fault he didn't. Said he'd forgotten what time I was due to arrive.”

She could not have looked any more shocked if I'd suggested we invite all the eligible males over for an orgy. “He did that?”

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