her in an aura of strength. She was beautiful.
T.J. chuckled, lips turning in a half-grin. 'You're not my type.' Then he looked at Carl, and the smile disappeared. 'You're not a very good pack alpha, Carl. Bullying only gets you so far. Maybe I can do something about that.'
'This isn't a fair fight,' Carl said, his voice stifled.
'Neither is that.' T.J. nodded at me and Meg.
'If you really wanted to kill me, you'd have done it already.'
For a minute, I thought T.J. was going to tear his neck out right there. He waited for several agonizing heartbeats before he said, 'You're right. I want a deal. Let Kitty and me go. We'll get out. We'll leave this territory for good and you'll never have to worry about us again. You can have your little show here and run it however you want.'
On one hand, that sounded like a great plan. Save my skin, not have to fight anymore. Didn't want to think beyond getting to safety. But I still had issues with Meg's being a traitorous bitch. And I had a life here. KNOB, the show, friends even. The pack. The pack that had gone to hell somewhere along the line. But I didn't want to leave. I shouldn't have had to.
I deferred to T.J. He'd earned alpha status. Above everyone else I knew in the world, I trusted him to protect me.
Carl was breathing heavily, but T.J.'s hand never let up its grip. Finally, he said, 'All right. Let her go, Meg.'
Glaring at T.J., she did. As soon as the pressure left my neck, I squirmed out of her grip and scrambled away. I stood and backed up, getting ready to run. My arms and claws shifted back to human, the Wolf fading. As soon as T.J. was with me, we'd run and never look back.
T.J. let go of Carl. They each took a step back, putting space between them.
Then Carl attacked him. He was, in the end, cut from the same cloth as Meg. They were made for each other.
Carl pivoted on one foot and drove up with his hand, a massive undercutting punch, claws outstretched. T.J. backed away, but not quickly enough. Carl didn't gut him as the move had intended, but he caught T.J.'s chin, whipping his head back, throwing him backward. Blood sprayed from rows of cuts on his face.
I screamed, which came out almost like a howl.
When I started for T.J., to help him against Carl, Meg ran toward me. Looked like I was going to get my catfight after all. In a manner of speaking.
I bent and charged, tackling her in the middle, catching her before she had anticipated reaching me. I drove with brute strength I didn't know I had, lifting her off her feet for a split second, long enough to knock her off balance and slam her to the ground. I got on top of her, pinning her.
No teasing, no playing, no mercy. I laid my forearm across her neck and leaned with all my weight. She choked, her breath wheezing, whining. I brought my face to within a couple of inches of hers. She snapped, snarling, a wolf's actions showing through her human body.
I slapped her. Claws raked her face, ripping open her cheek. My claws had come back; I hadn't even felt them. A noise, not quite a growl, of pain, anger, hopelessness welled up in my chest. I hated her. I hated this.
A keening squeal, part human cry, part wolf in pain, distracted me. I looked to the scrub-filled yard beyond the patio. Shadows, I saw only black shapes against the darkening sky. I lifted my nose to a breeze that had started licking through the trees. I smelled trees, rain, pack, territory, wolves, and blood. The tang of blood crawled down my throat. A lot of blood, and the stench of waste along with it.
Two figures huddled on the ground. One of them stood, rolled back his broad shoulders, turned his bearded face toward us. Carl. The other figure lay facedown, unmoving. I bit my lip and whined.
I'd never moved so fast. I forgot Meg and ran to T.J. Carl, his right arm bloody to the elbow, reached for me but I dodged, skirting around him and sliding to the ground near T.J.'s prone form. He lay half-curled, one arm crooked under him as if he'd tried to get back up, the other arm cradling his gut, which had been ripped open. He was holding in glistening mounds, strange lumps of tissue—organs—which were straining through the gashes cutting upward through his abdomen, to his rib cage, under his rib cage. His heart's blood poured out of the wound.
We healed quickly only if we survived the wounds in the first place.
Crying, gritting my teeth to keep from making noise, I lay on the ground beside him. I touched his face. 'T.J., T.J.,' I kept saying. I brought my face close to his, our foreheads touching. I wanted him to know I was here. 'T.J.'
He made a sound, a grunt ending in a sigh. His eyes were closed. His lips moved, and I leaned in close. If he tried to speak, I never heard what he wanted to say. I kept listening for the next sigh, the next breath, and it never came. I said his name, hoping he heard me. Hoping it gave him a little comfort. I tangled my fingers in his hair, holding him.
I kept… hoping.
Then Carl was there, looming over us. I wasn't scared; I wasn't even angry. I was hopeless. Despair had made my face flush with tears.
I looked up at him, and my voice ripped out of me. 'He was your friend!'
Carl was shaking; it showed as a trembling in his arms. 'He shouldn't have challenged me.'
'He didn't challenge you! He was going to walk away!' I bared my teeth, a grimace of contempt. 'He's worth a hundred of you. Killing him doesn't change that.'
Glaring down at us, Meg joined Carl. She was a mess, her face and arms dripping blood. She wouldn't last in a fight. But standing behind Carl, she acted like it.
Almost spitting the words, she said, 'Finish her. Leave her with him.'
I met Carl's gaze. Held it for a long time. He looked hopeless as well. It was like we both wondered how it could have been different. That all of this should have been different. Starting with the night that I never should have been made one of them.
He shook his head slowly. 'No. She won't fight now.' When Meg looked like she was going to argue, he took hold of the back of her neck, and she stilled. To me he said, 'You have a day to leave town. I want you out of my territory.'
He could have his territory.
Before standing, I buried my nose in T.J.'s hair and took a deep breath, to remember the smell of him. The oil and grease of his bike, the heat of his kitchen. His soap, his jacket, a faint touch of cigarette, a stronger scent of pine. His wolf, sweaty and wild. He smelled like wind at the edge of the city.
I straightened, looking away. Never look back.
His tone hateful and biting, Carl said, 'T.J. paid for your life. Remember that.'
I swallowed a sob and ran.
EPILOGUE
'Okay, we're back with
'Yeah, hi,' Evan said. 'Senator Duke, first off I want to thank you for being one of the few members of our government willing to stand up for his beliefs—'
Inwardly, I groaned. Calls that started this way always ended with Bible thumping.
Duke said, 'Why, thank you, Evan. Of course it's my God-given duty to stand for the place of moral rectitude in the United States Congress.'
'Uh, yeah. And for my question, what I really want to know: In your knowledgeable opinion, what is the best method for punishing the minions of Satan—burning at the stake or drowning in holy water? If the federal government were to institute a code of mandatory punishment, which would you advocate?'
