Andrew

He tossed the wolf shifter across the floor, not even bothering to look when he slammed into one of the marble columns and cried out in pain. They were back within his domain now. Every move that he made was calculated, such as where he’d thrown Al.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Al?” he snapped, his voice echoing through the room.

They were in the lobby of the Cadian embassy.

In reality it was the lobby of the old Mineshaft Motel, an old building that the Cadians had acquired to use some time before. Once its original purpose as a headquarters for their fight against rival shifters had been no longer needed, they’d turned it into a place of peace, instead of war.

An oval reception desk greeted anyone who walked in through the large double doors. Dual staircases lined the walls to either side, a grand look for a motel that must have been quite prominent back in the golden age of Cloud Lake, during the prospecting and subsequent gold-mining rush that had filled the mountains just to the east a century or two ago.

Andrew Raskell hadn’t been around for that, but he could appreciate the old-style beauty brought back to life by the tireless efforts of the various shifters who had inhabited it. The bear shifters who had been there before him had done a decent job, but he’d been working hard at it in the two years since they’d turned it over to him to bring back some of the original shine as well.

After all, if he was to be the Cadian Envoy to Cloud Lake, his embassy had to look the part. Now though, he stalked across the marble floor and once more picked up Al by his broken leg and began to drag him. They moved into the back right of the lobby, where a flick of Andrew’s hand sent the wolf shifter bouncing down a set of stairs.

Before he’d reached the bottom two massive bear shifters had poked their heads around the corner to see what the commotion was.

“Put him in a cell,” he ordered the guards. “And don’t be gentle.”

Grins spread across their faces, and he heard Al begin to shout once more, trying to stop them. The shouts turned to squeals of pain as thick hands gripped his battered and bruised body.

Andrew hadn’t been overly gentle in bringing the would-be killer back to the embassy.

Now he let his lips turn up slightly in a smile as he headed back to his office, the false smile a mask for the anger and frustration that seethed within him. It had been close. Too close.

Dammit, he’d told them not to allow Al into Cadia. He’d rejected several applications, making it very clear that he knew if the wolf shifter was allowed into Cloud Lake, that he would cause trouble for the human residents. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain! Yet somehow the mongrel had wrangled up enough political support back home to ensure that they could find a way to pressure Andrew into signing off on the application.

All potential visitors to Cloud Lake from Cadia were screened rigorously, and only ones who appeared as if they would be able to mesh well with humanity were allowed out. As it turned out, that wasn’t very many of them. There were perhaps two dozen shifters in Cloud Lake at any given time under his jurisdiction, not including his embassy staff. That staff consisted of him, the three guards, and two assistants to help him with the ridiculous amounts of paperwork that always seemed to pile up.

Personally he thought they were there to watch over him, to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Not that he could tell anyone that, though. That was the whole game of politics. To say what you wanted and then get it, without actually saying it.

Andrew hated politics.

Still, he’d been learning to play the game. Slowly, and with a lot of catching up to do. But as a gryphon shifter, he could comfortably expect to live for another three centuries, if not four if nothing untoward happened to him.

Plenty of time to play catch-up with these pompous assholes.

Assholes who would likely have died off before he even felt somewhat confident playing their game. Alas, that was the life for the shorter-lived shifters. If he ever got too angry with them, Andrew just contented himself with the gentle reminder that he only had to deal with them for a few more decades at most.

Though they’ll probably be replaced by others who are just as bad.

That sobering thought did absolutely nothing to improve his mood. Nor did it help him deflect the decision that he would have to make regarding Al. The worst offense a shifter could commit while in human territory was to kill a human. In all honesty, while Andrew didn’t want anyone to die, the ugly truth was, if Al had just gone and done that, it would have made everything so much simpler. If he’d killed a human, Andrew would have killed him. Easy, end of story.

But Al hadn’t done that. In fact, he hadn’t technically committed a crime. That was where the technicality—and Andrew’s frustration with the whole scenario—lay. If he’d come upon Al any later, he could have charged him with murder, and that also would have been sufficient to end him. Al was a shitty excuse for a wolf shifter—and that was saying a lot!—but Andrew had to play by the rules. Technically Al had assaulted her, not killed her, and even the assault bit was tricky to prove, since he’d done little more than shove her up against the wall. Everyone in their right mind knew what the shit-stain had been intending to. The first thing he’d had to do was stop the attack from happening. After he’d known he would have to deal with Al, but at the time, stopping the human woman from suffering any further was priority number one.

Now though, he had to decide what punishment to mete out.

“I hate this job sometimes,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair.

The office chair creaked, but it didn’t explode as his powerful bulk shifted position in it. He eyed the pile of plastic shards in the corner that were the remnants of several flimsy folding plastic chairs that were all he’d had to use at first. Now at least he could lean back while he contemplated what to do. Unfortunately, that was the worst part of it. As the Cadian envoy to Cloud Lake and the one who had witnessed the attack, it was entirely on Andrew’s shoulders to decide what punishment he handed out.

Did he end the wolf and remove his stain from existence? Or did he just beat him silly and send him back to Cadia? If it were anyone else, he would probably have gone with option number two. But Al was a different problem. Al was connected back in Cadia. He had friends in high places, the same friends who had forced Andrew into giving him permission to come here in the first place. So if he sent him back with instructions to imprison him there, he doubted the orders would ever even be carried out.

Al escaping punishment was not an option.

That left ending him then, didn’t it? Andrew unhappily looked up at the ceiling. He had killed before, and would likely do it again. But he’d had enough killing. Too many shifters had died when the rival shifter territory of Fenris had tried to invade Cadia. Thousands of them had perished. Andrew didn’t want to be responsible for more death, even if it was in regard to a scumbag like Al. Plus there were those connections to consider. If he killed Al, who knew what they would do to him once they found out.

“What to do…what to do…” he muttered, slowly spinning the chair around on its axis, watching the ceiling rotate above him.

It didn’t seem like he was going to get much sleep that night.