7 – Get Your Ass Home

Jaggar stared at the dead body of the wild wolf the beast had killed, until the beast turned its head and body to go out the hole it had fallen in.

Another wolf leapt neatly into the cave through that entrance. A black wolf with a figure eight renqua on his shoulder, and a splash of white on the tip of his tail and his chest. Trent.

Trent, Jaggar said to him in ruhi. Leave us be. We aren’t going back.

But Trent didn’t act like he had heard at all. He stared at the beast, his head lowered. Trent was normal-sized for a wolfen, maybe two hundred pounds at the most, and the beast was easily twice that big. Trent didn’t seem to notice.

Jaggar, Trent said, his voice calm and low. I’m taking you home.

I can’t, Jaggar told him. I can’t go back.

Again, Trent did not act like he had heard him. Could Jaggar’s ruhi not breach the beast’s thick, malformed skull?

Trent, Jaggar said. I’m here.

Trent only stared. The beast growled low in the back of his throat, his eyes locked on Trent’s, then shooting past him up the sloped edge of the cave wall they’d tumbled down. The beast was going to try to get past Trent.

Trent saw it and moved his body in the way, blocking the beast’s exit. The beast growled and advanced on him. Trent watched him come, not showing his fangs until the beast was within striking distance, then he stalked forward, feinting at the beast, roaring in ruhi, his voice echoing strangely in the beast’s head, making the beast wince, but Jaggar could barely hear the words. He strained to figure them out.

Please, don’t make me laugh. You’re a baby. Sure, you’re big, and you’re confused, and you’re ugly, but ugly doesn’t win fights.

Trent came in fast at the end of that speech and bit the beast once behind the ear, not drawing blood, only giving him a warning. New pain sharpened old pain. Trent twisted around the beast, side-stepping him, then facing him from a few paces away.

You’ve never even been in a fight, have you? Except when you savaged Harlan. He lived, by the way. Which is the only reason I haven’t handed you your ass yet.

The beast growled and advanced on Trent. Jaggar sensed confusion from him. Confusion and rage, and he couldn’t get a handle on either.

Trent feinted in, heading for the beast’s right side, and the beast lunged for him, trying to catch him, but Trent was already moving to the other side. This time he did draw blood, then stood back just as quickly, pacing around the beast, making a show of turning his back, taunting the beast.

Jaggar was impressed. He’d always liked Trent, but rarely seen this side of him, and never from the vantage point of the one about to get his ass handed to him.

You’ve got a choice, Trent said, pacing, loping, head down, eyes seeming to glow dark with intensity. I can embarrass you now, or you can come back and see me in five years. Then it might be a fair fight. He snarled once, convincingly. For now, I am your alpha. Get home before I drag you home. Trent looked at the body of the wild wolf laying inert on the ground, then back to the beast. If you kill anything else I’ll be so far up your backtrail you’ll be asking my permission to take a shit. Got it? Snarl once if you understand.

Jaggar waited with held breath. What would the beast do? At least Jaggar didn’t have to worry about the beast killing Trent. Trent could handle him. But would the beast survive a fight between them? Maybe not. Did it matter? Maybe not. Was the beast anything more than a useless waste of space, a source of pain and embarrassment and shame? Maybe not. Jaggar knew he could put himself in the corner with the beast. It had been him who killed that orderly at the Roosevelt, not the beast, and he would do it again without hesitation.

That had been his one true mate in that bed, whether he wanted to admit it or not, dared to test it or not, he knew on some very deep level that it was true. That male had caused her pain, on purpose, more than once. Jaggar had been able to scent that fact on both of them, in the pain and shame and fear that poured from her and the misplaced predatorial urges that welled up in the orderly at the sight of Jaggar and Harlan in her room, about to take her away.

The thought of his one true mate helpless and abused sent Jaggar into a tailspin, stirring his brain, inducing that same sense of rage he’d felt when he’d seen her in that hospital bed, beautiful, but so fragile, seeming to barely exist, her body weak and pale and limp. He snarled from inside the beast, urged him to lash out at anyone and anything within reach. The beast snarled once, with him, and Trent snarled back, then moved deeper into the cave, away from the exit.

Jaggar closed his eyes and let himself go. He was too tired, exhausted, and ashamed to do anything but let the beast do what the beast would do. The beast moved quickly, not at Trent, but up the side of the cave, claws struggling for purchase over loose rocks and earth.

Beast, one more thing you have to know. Trent said. Harlan didn’t-

Rocks shifted under the beast’s feet, tumbling it half way down the sloped wall. Jaggar and the beast both growled and fought to stay where they were, fought not to fall all the way down as earth shifted under their feet. Trent grunted in their head.

The beast found his footing, then whirled around to look behind him. Trent was on the ground, covered in rocks and dirt, shaking his head, blood flowing from a slice on the very top of his head, the fur there hanging in a flap. Trent fought to his feet, dirt flowing off of him to the ground, and shook his head, growling. Blood flew.

Trent stood where he was, head down. A pup yelped from deep in the cave. The female growled back at Trent. Stay away.

Trent didn’t stay away. He turned toward the female instead, bleeding freely.

The beast didn’t watch. He turned and continued the climb out, uninterested. When he got to the top, he turned away from home, finally.

Good, Jaggar thought. They couldn’t go home, no matter what Trent threatened them with. He was glad the beast saw it the same way.