Page 16 of The SnowFang Storm

Jun grimaced. “Being a cold asshole might work for you, but the rest of us don’t treat people like they’re disposable.”

Sterling walked away.

Jun slurped down the remainder of his shake.

Cye nudged Jun. “Don’t provoke him. He’s been in a mood.”

“No shit,” Jun muttered. “Everyone’s someone to him as long as they’re useful, and if you’re not useful, you can fuck right off. Burian’s right about that.”

Oh, Burian, who had tricked Sterling into forming SnowFang so he could have a lifetime ride on the gravytrain? That Burian?

Cye nudged Jun harder. “Don’t.”

I finished my tea. “I’ve got to go pack. Thanks for helping, Jun. I know he appreciates it, even if he’s sort of salty right now.”

Jun grimaced. “Yeah, sure. And when he’s done appreciating me, maybe he could start appreciating you.”

Sudden Appearances

Crap.

I growled to myself as the brown belt holding my ankle twisted it just enough to warn me he had me. Damnit. Second time that day I’d gotten caught in a heel-lock. I tapped his calf, and he released the hold.

“Bah.” I grumbled, but it wasn’t a total loss: the scent of a she-wolf teased my nose. She’d walked by the mats sometime while I was playing sweaty pretzel.

The brown belt grinned at me. His mouthguard was black with white fangs. Wonder what he would have thought of my fangs. “Everyone’s got some hole in their game.”

I pulled out my own mouthguard. “I don’t like making the same mistake twice.”

“You didn’t. You made two different mistakes.” He ribbed back, and a few chortles came from the rest of the sweaty group.

“You can always go back to the afternoon class.” Another brown belt ribbed me.

I rolled my eyes.

I’d been tested to see where my skill level fell in the various disciplines I wanted to study. For jiu-jitsu this had been mid-range blue belt. That normally would have meant me being forced into the afternoon classes with a bunch of other white and blue belts, but within two classes I’d been deemed ‘too intense’ for the roly-polys. The black belt who ran the mid-morning semi-advanced group of competing amateurs and regional-level pro guys invited me to roll with them.

Training was part of every feral she-wolf’s life, and she-pups were tossed into it alongside males right from the start. Females weren’t supposed to be anyone’s damsel in distress, and we were expected to assist with patrolling territories and light boundary enforcement.

Sweat dripped down my arms and tendrils of hair stuck to my neck. Puddles of sweat on the mat. Disgusting. I’d been rolling around in that, and it had soaked my rashguard with more than just my sweat, and it wasn’t entirely my own sweat sliding down my skin. The human male form was so… moist. In all the grossest ways.

I stepped over a puddle. Not my turn to clean the mats. Time for a shower and to find this she-wolf, not necessarily in that order.

“Want to get a drink sometime?” the purple belt that had a habit of being too rough and holding submissions a heartbeat too long asked.

No, I did not want to get a drink, and double no, because Jerkface Purple Belt liked to leave bruises to fluff his ego. “No.”

“Come on,” Jerkface Purple Belt grinned, “I know how to treat a lady.”

Any man who advertised himself as knowing how to treat a lady probably did not know how to treat a lady. It should go as an unspoken assumption, along with bathes regularly and housebroken.

Before I could open my mouth, the black belt running the class intervened. “Don’t hit on the other students. It’s uncomfortable.”

The brown belt who had heel-locked me grinned at the purple belt. “You don’t have a chance. She’s married.”

He pointed to Sterling, who had paused in his sparring with two overmatched guys to stare straight at Jerkface Purple Belt.

Jerkface Purple Belt raised his hand to Sterling to acknowledge him, then gave me a long, slow wink that involved too much tongue motion in his mouth. “Lucky man.”

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