Page 87 of Feral Werewolves
Getting into the house was kind of insanely easy, something I tucked away as an advantage, something I could use.
The doors were not locked and people were coming and going, so after I observed this happening, I just walked up to the front door and let myself in.
I figured that I’d be recognized if I wasn’t careful, so my first stop was the hallway closet, where I found a hooded windbreaker jacket. It was hopelessly big on me. I was swimming in it. I put it on anyway. Didn’t zip it up, pushed up the sleeves, and pulled the hood down over my forehead. I made my way through the hallways.
I overheard bits of conversation coming from one of the rooms. “… not even worth it, considering the way their snatches smell.”
“I know, right? I couldn’t even nut. I tried three of them before I just gave up.”
So, they raped the mates. I mean, I knew they had, but hearing it made me twitch. Was it good to know that the scent had made it difficult for them?
“I don’t even want one of them, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Even the ones with dead mates didn’t lose thatscent.”
That was weird. The mating scent lingered?
I waited, listening, to see what else they’d say, but one of them just turned on a TV. Griff had somehow spliced into some old cable out here to get broadcast television, something that wasn’t supposed to be available on the other side of the walls.
They put on some football game and I moved on.
Shortly after that, I found the mates, all ten women, in a room with bunks lining the walls. I watched them through a crack in the door. They weren’t talking. Most of them were staring off into space, looking sort of blank. A few were sleeping. I thought about whether I could get them out, all by myself, right now.
I thought about trying to get them past the room where the guys were watching football. I’d have to take them bothdown, and I didn’t have a weapon. I could have brought a gun from Liam, but I hadn’t. I would have preferred a weapon like a knife, one that didn’t have a limited number of bullets or whatever. You could stab infinite times as long as you didn’t lose the knife. But I didn’t even have that.
Recon,I reminded myself.
Anyway, that was when I realized Clementine wasn’tinthere.
I panicked.
I showed myself. I went into the room and grabbed one of those women and asked about Clementine, but she was terrified, and she didn’t know anyone’s names. I described her, and the other woman were all swarming around, alert now, and one of them said that Clementine had gone off with someone named Noah, which confused me, because somehow this Noah person was also a tithe, but then it became clear to me that Noah was trans or whatever.
That was when someone heard the commotion in the room and came in to check on what was going on.
I took off, making a beeline out of the room, and I might have gotten away, too. I was outrunning the guys coming after me.
But someone caught me at the door.
They pulled my hood back and they recognized me, and that’s when it turned into a free-for-all. It was four of them on me, all of them hitting me at once.
I did what you do in that situation, which is to taunt their prowess. I laughed and spit out blood while they punched me in the face and said, “Such a big man, aren’t you, beating up on someone half your size withallof your friends.”
It worked.
Sort of.
They stopped hitting me.
They tossed me in a tiny little room with one window and said Red was coming to talk to me.
Fucking perfect.
“Great job at recon, Paladin,” I muttered to myself as I dripped blood on the carpet in there.
Anyway, I guess it was a compliment that I didn’t have to wait very long for Red to show up.
He came into the room and took me by the throat and propelled me back into a wall and pinned me there. He had huge fucking hands.
