Page 44 of Vicious Wolf Mate

“And I am not going anywhere. Show some respect and explain what you are wanting to know, and I will maybe have an answer or two,” Drario snaps. “You are not cuffing me.”

“You want me to beat some compliance out of you?” the guard asks. “Is that what you’re trying to say? Some dogs are like that. They need to be beat to feel loved.”

“Tell me what this is about, I will consider being cooperative,” says Drario.

“How about our whole crew at the surveillance house,” the guard answers. He is practically hissing the answers he is seething so heavily with anger. “We want to talk to you about wiping out our whole crew at the surveillance house. Now turn around or I will help you turn around.”

“We did it,” I tell the guard. “You want to hold somebody accountable, we did it. You need two feet to hold over the fire, so to speak, take me.”

“You bastard,” I hear Drario growl. His skin is rolling slightly. He will be shifting any second now. Drario continues, doesn’t wait for me to say anything. “You framed my whole clan. You slaughtered others, and let me and my clan be blamed!”

I watch the guard tense up. I can sense Jax tense up. They both know what I know. Drario will shift, and I will shift. Then claws and teeth and fur will fly.

I decide not to wait. To hit first.

I am fine with striking while still shifting. Drario does the same thing. The only rule in a fight is there are no rules.

I throw a couple exaggerated haymakers that I know will land. I exaggerate so Drario will take me down.

I am on my back first, on purpose this time. And you can bet I kicked off my shoes on the way to the ground so my rear foot claws will have a chance to find purchase in Drario’s midsection. I just need him to jump on top of me, go for my throat.

“Stop, damn it,” Jax screams. “This is what they want, man. Shifter on shifter.” Jax is screaming at both Drario and myself. Insignys wants shifter against shifter to take place. Even though Jax is dense at times, he can see that for Insignys we are much more pliable if we are at odds with each other.

Drario takes the bait and lunges at my neck while I am down. I drive upward with my hind feet and raking sharp claws across Drario’s midsection.

We are both on our feet now. Shifter pugilism. Our own private face beating and shredding contest.

“Stop, stop, stop, you freakshows,” the guard yells. The guard is quite smooth as he switches from Drario to me and then back to Drario with that nasty club of his. I want so badly to switch my wrath from Drario to the guard.

The guard and his nasty club that he swings quite well is actually doing a great job of getting between Drario and me. Drario and I are not exchanging blows as readily as we were a moment ago.

What also surprises me is that Jax has shifted his attention to something on the ground that he picks up and subsequently starts reading.

What Jax has found and is reading has absorbed all his attention.

The fight with Drario slows to a stop for both of us, I am staring at Jax who is reading something he grabbed off the floor, and the poor bastard of a guard does the dumbest maneuver of his career. He levels one last, gratuitous crack with his club across my snout while I am still shifted, and my ears are flooded with the buzz of combat adrenaline.

So I get him. I am a buzz saw of blunt-force trauma, teeth, and claws. The poor thing.

Jax is the one who is able to pause me and then stop me short of killing the poor creature.

The guard will survive, barely.

“Please, Mace,” Jax tells me. His voice gives away a tone of urgency I seldom hear from him. “You need to hear this,” Jax continues. Then he reads me the note. Dave and how McKenna and Dave really are divorced. She’s being held captive. The injection that is about to happen, if it hasn’t already. Several other key points.

“She wasn’t lying,” the words burst from me. I am saying this to hear it myself from me.

“She wasn’t cheating, and she hasn’t been,” Jax adds. “But this is bad, this is worse than bad.”

“You are right on target,” I tell Jax. “This dude Dave is having an absolute meltdown.” I pause to reach down and grab the keys from what’s left of the badly torn up guard. “Let’s go. We need to get McKenna and Gnash out now,” I add with a huff.

A turn of the key, the neighboring door opens, and Gnash is out, ready to shift at a moment’s notice.

We find the cell that is adjoining the cell that we were just in smells plenty strong of McKenna.

Is she there? Has McKenna been turned with whatever injection she had been referencing in her note?

Is the psycho ex of hers using this setup where she’s in a holding cell waiting to be rescued a trap?

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