Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
“You’ve got to be kidding, Betty. Four times?”
It was a quarter after six, and I was perched on a stool at the pub, Ronan, Karen, and a few other shifters surrounding me. The jukebox was playing, but it was a more recent song, and I didn’t recognize it.
“I’m dead serious, Karen. Four times.”
I was one special quesadilla and two cervezas deep into my story. I’d brought dinner from Rosie’s Cantina to the pub for Ronan and me and ended up sharing it with the other patrons. That was fine; the beers were taking up a lot of room in my stomach.
“Knee, elbow, knee, elbow.” I tapped the body parts as I called them out.
“Deadliest game of ‘Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ I’ve ever heard of,” Karen said.
“Don’t think they’re playing this version in any preschool.” I thought it over. “Maybe a shifter preschool? Foam bullets?”
She shook her head. “We don’t teach our children violence in preschool—at least we rats don’t.”
“Wolves, either. We prefer to wait until first grade before starting the torture techniques,” the woman on the other side of Karen said with a perfect deadpan delivery. Her name was Zelda, and she worked for the post office, which I knew because she was still wearing her uniform.
The room had a good laugh, and I finished my second beer and asked for a bottle of water. As usual, I had a sober charm in my purse, but that would only clear my bloodstream. I needed to clear my head. Not sure a bottle of water was going to do it, but it was as good a place to start as any.
“What do you plan to do to Greer and the Yarnells?” another wolf asked. Ronan had referred to him as Clint-the-electrician.
“Do?” I frowned at Ronan.
“Punishment.” He twisted the top off the water bottle and set it and a glass of ice in front of me. “They can’t be allowed to get away unscathed. If you don’t punish them, they’ll try again, and it’ll be worse next time.”
“Wolves understand pain best,” yet another wolf shifter said.
“That’s right,” Zelda said. “We should pound ’em into the ground, Alpha.”
I picked at the label. “I’m more screwdriver than hammer when it comes to things like this.”
“That’s true. She’s one clever lady,” Ida said.
She was seated at a table behind me with Gladys and two elderly gentlemen, drinking wine and playing a card game that required a small wooden board with pegs. Cribbage, or something like that.
Zelda shrugged, pointed at me with the mouth of her beer bottle. “I mean, you can stab them with a screwdriver. Whatever works.”
Yikes.
“All your third alpha is saying is you need to come up with some form of restitution.” Karen set a dirty tray behind the counter and picked up a new one, sliding it down to Ronan as she rattled off a drink order for three tap beers.
“It can be a beatdown, a financial obligation, or even a service to the pack.”
“No, Clint had it right. I want her to kick their asses,” Ronan said.
The shifters, including Karen, laughed.
“I thought restitution was what packs paid to other packs.”
“It’s basically, just a ‘you owe me’ thing. If it makes you feel any better, Greer’s far from a good person. Same goes for Helen Yarnell. Stephen’s mostly just stupid,” Clint said. “He goes along with whatever the others do.”
“All of them are awful,” Zelda said. “Rumor has it that Greer’s the one that killed the buzzard shifter in East Pluto. It was on Floyd’s order, but that’s no excuse. We all got orders that night. Most of us refused them.”
“That’s why the birds wouldn’t negotiate with the pack.” I looked at Ronan, who appeared as surprised as I was.
When it had looked like Floyd was going down, the bastard had decided to go scorched earth with the other shifters in Smokethorn County and sent his loyalists to indiscriminately attack them.
The alpha of the East Pluto Wake, a secretive group of buzzards and other bird-of-prey shifters, had lost his goddaughter in one of the attacks.
After Floyd’s death, the pack had paid restitution to all the shifter groups targeted—rats, reptiles, coyotes—and even unaffiliated shifters who’d been hurt.
But the buzzards hadn’t returned Mason’s, Ronan’s, or my calls.
I didn’t even know the name of their leader, and neither did anyone else in town.
The best I’d been able to get was the name and number of the wake’s second-in-command, and even he’d been largely uncommunicative.
“No amount of restitution makes up for murder,” Karen said, as she picked up a tray of mixed drinks and headed to the back room. “That requires an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Not to mention, why would they even consider negotiating if the murderer was still part of the offending pack?
Zelda downed the last of her beer then set down the empty bottle on the Roman’s Pub coaster. “How about our Esperanza, though? Four times.”
“Right?” Clint grinned. “Hell, I didn’t think the kid had it in her. Nice.”
“She’s a woman, not a kid,’ I said.
“A super badass woman,” Clint replied with a nod.
Murmurs erupted from the other shifters in the pub. Apparently, no one had thought Esperanza Pacheco was capable of shooting someone, and they were all damn proud of her for protecting me.
Wolves. I shook my head at them, but the truth was, I was proud of her, too. It was good to see her confidence building, even if her first foray into standing up for herself had been spilling blood on my behalf.
“After hearing that about the buzzard shifters, I’m really glad I asked Mason to keep an eye on her tonight,” I told Ronan. “I know she’s packing heat, but what I don’t know is how many other alphas side with Barry Grock. I don’t want her to be in danger because of me.”
“Barry Grock?” Karen strolled up with her empty tray. “It’s Brock Greer, Alpha Betty.”
“We’re saying the exact same thing, Karen.”
Another round of laughter worked its way around the pub.
“Greer has some sway with the old guard,” Zelda said, “but most of them cleared out of town after you took over. The Yarnells might be all that’s left.”
“Nah, there’s more of those assholes than that,” a man yelled out.
Several anonymous wolves offered up a few names that I immediately texted to Mason, who was so, so happy to hear from me again. I’d already reported my attempted kidnapping to him.
Mason: What do I do with these?
Me: Some of the wolves think they’re connected to the Trunkle Dumpling Gang
Mason: Was that supposed to be a play on the movie “The Apple Dumpling Gang?” If so, it sucked.
Me: You got it DiDn’T yOu?!?
Mason: …
“Are you messaging Hartman?” Ronan asked.
“Yeah. He uses perfect grammar when texting, so I make it a point to add in obnoxious punctuation and type in all caps as much as I can.”
“Mason isn’t someone to mess around with,” he said in a tut tut tone.
“I think he likes it when I mess with him. Let’s face it, other than maybe Bronwyn, he doesn’t really have people in his life who give him the kind of guff he deserves. It’s important to have guff-givers in one’s life. It keeps us humble. Ida’s mine.”
“You know it, bestie,” she called out.
“And I’m Cecil’s.” I raised my voice. “Right, partner?”
An annoyed chitter rang out from several feet away. I’d dragged Cecil and Fennel to the pub with me tonight, and Ronan had set them up in the back room with a group of wolves. Cecil was currently teaching the wolves to play a Gnomish version of Texas Hold ’Em.
Gnomish Hold ’Em? Texas Gnome ’Em?
Fennel was curled up on the chair under Cecil snoozing with one eye open. He’d been curiously quiet all evening. Watchful.
I think he felt guilty about the weird eyeball demon sneaking up on us. No matter how many times I’d told him it was okay, he couldn’t seem to let it go.
“Aren’t you my guff-giver, too?” Ronan asked.
“Nope. That’s Karen’s job.”
“And I’m hella good at it,” his assistant manager tossed the words over her shoulder on her way to refill the wineglasses at Ida’s table.
“She’s right,” he said, “but I’m still surprised you don’t consider yourself mine.”
“It’s because I’m your cheerleader and champion.” I gave him a wide, happy smile. “Although I reserve the right to give you guff if you aren’t listening to your usual guff-givers. And I expect the same from you, of course.”
“Always.” He toasted me with his water bottle then took a drink, his gaze holding mine the entire time.
At eleven, we left Karen to run things and headed upstairs. Ida and Gladys had taken Cecil and Fennel back to the park an hour ago, and most of the other shifters had gone home. It was a work day, after all. Even paranormal humans who shifted into wolves required sleep.
Ronan set his cell on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. “Sorry about this. I’ve got to keep it on in case Karen needs me.”
“Does she ever call?” I asked.
“It’s rare, but it happens. Usually, she wants to know where I’ve put something. It’s never anything fun, like bouncing someone out of the pub.”
“You have a strange definition of fun.”
“Wolf definition.” He leaned back, spread his arms out on the back of the sofa, and rolled his head back and side to side.
When he’d finished stretching, I sat beside him and snuggled against his chest. “Tired?”
“Little bit.” One arm came down, and he squeezed me tight against him. “You hungry?”
“No. I ate a quesadilla then drank a beer and three bottles of water.”
“Three beers and one bottle of water, you mean.”
I scrunched my nose at him in disapproval. “My point is I’m not hungry. I am tired, though. How about I take a soak in your tub then we fall into bed together and make love like a couple of newlyweds on their honeymoon? Sound like a plan?”
“You make the best plans, Betty bonita.”
“It’s a gift.” I pushed off the sofa, pulled him to his feet. “You start the fireplace. I’ll run the water. Lavender or eucalyptus bath bombs?”
“Lavender. It’s your favorite.”
“You’re my favorite,” I said, and went up on my toes to sling my arms around his neck.