Chapter 18 #2
“Yes, sir,” he shouted before disappearing back into the hallway, the sudden reaction startling me.
“What the hell was that? Adam asked. “Why did he call you sir?”
I held up my hands in defense. “I’m just as confused as you are.”
“What did you guys really do while I was gone?”
“We didn’t do anything!”
“All clean, sir,” Austin said, showing me his wet hands as he stepped around the corner. I would have thought he was toying with me if it wasn’t for the empty blue glow of his irises.
“Soooo… did something happen?” I asked.
“Do you want something to happen, sir?” His tail wagged and an anticipatory smile flashed every tooth in his mouth. “I can make things happen.”
“All right, you’ve made your point,” Adam snapped, looping his arm around Austin’s. “I’ll be nicer to you. Wanna go have some fun?”
Austin’s irises faded back to amber. “I’m hungry.”
“Well, I’m horny,” Adam said, trying in vain to pull the werewolf toward the bedroom. “We can eat breakfast after.”
“Can’t. Not in the mood,” Austin said dismissively before brushing past the half-turn before disappearing into the kitchen.
“I thought we talked about this.” Adam grabbed my shirt, giving it a hard tug. “We agreed to leave each other’s kuu mates alone.”
“We didn’t do anything! I swear.”
Austin poked his head into the dining room. “Sir, Roscoe wants to know if you want your eggs sunny-side up.”
“Stop calling me sir. It’s weird,” I said, turning away from Adam’s increasingly angry stare. “And I don’t like runny yolks. I like them scrambled with a little bit of ketchup.”
A loud, overexaggerated groan echoed through the kitchen behind Austin.
The werewolf turned around. “Cody wants—”
“Yeah, I heard. Ask him if he wants me to defrost some chicken nuggies and tater tots instead.”
“Roscoe said—”
“We can hear each other just fine, Austin,” I interrupted as the werewolf shrugged and stepped back into the kitchen. “I think Mosavi did something to him.”
“Yeah, sure he did. He’s being all weird around you because Mosavi did something.” Adam pushed me away before sitting at the table. “I guess one werewolf wasn’t enough for your gaping ass, huh?”
I stood speechless as Adam picked up his phone and started scrolling like usual. So much for our truce. Mosavi’s cryptic warnings earlier started to make a little more sense, but I still didn’t understand what he’d done or how I was going to fix it.
Austin walked into the dining room holding two plates. He sat one gently in front of me while almost dropping the other in front of Adam before walking back into the kitchen. I looked down at my plate, which had the scrambled eggs covered with ketchup that had been squirted in the shape of a dick.
“Real mature, Roscoe.”
“I coulda just drawn an ass, considering that’s what it’s gonna taste like.”
I rolled my eyes before shoving away the pancakes and bacon with my fork that had gotten a little too close to one another. Unfortunately, some syrup had run into the eggs, which I then moved over into a napkin.
“What are you doing?” Adam asked.
“Separating everything.”
The two werewolves followed one other, each holding their own plates. The eggs in my napkin caught Roscoe’s attention as he sat next to me, the chair groaning under his weight.
“Yer seriously gonna throw away perfectly good eggs because of a little syrup.”
“Syrup doesn’t belong on eggs.”
“Neither does ketchup,” Roscoe muttered before biting into a biscuit.
“I like ketchup on my eggs. I don’t like the crust on my sandwiches or pizza, and food can’t touch.”
“Maybe you should have taken him up on the chicken nuggies offer,” Adam said with a snort, shoveling some pancakes into his mouth as Austin slapped the back of his head.
“Don’t tease him,” Austin said before sitting next to Adam.
“All right, I want to know the truth. Did you guys do something?” Adam asked, turning to Austin.
The blond werewolf scratched his head. “Hmm. Don’t remember.”
“Austin! You know damn well we didn’t do anything.”
“If you say so, sir. I mean Cody.”
Adam shot up and slammed his chair under the table. “I see what’s going on. You’re threatened because I’m hotter than you. You wanna be the only half-turn in this house, so you’re turning everyone against me!”
“Adam, for fuck’s sake.”
“Fine. You can have him.”
As he turned to leave, Austin caught his arm, but the half-turn pulled away and stormed off to their bedroom before slamming the door. The werewolf shrugged before finishing the food on his plate.
“You had better go talk to him.”
“He doesn’t wanna talk,” Austin said, pushing the plate away.
“Then you should probably do what he wanted you to do earlier—ooh.” I suddenly remembered why Austin turned him down. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small pair of keys. “Uh, let’s get that cage off.”
“Hey!” Roscoe dropped his fork on the plate. “You have the keys?”
“Forget it. You’re on notice.”
“C’mon Cody. Yer gonna get all cranky like Adam if I don’t do my duty.”
“I’m a sex camel. I can go without for weeks if I wanted.”
“Oh?” Roscoe picked up his fork again before stuffing bacon into his mouth, intentionally talking with it full to irritate me more. “We’ll see about that.”
As I stood to lead Austin to the bathroom, he pulled my plate over and slid my food onto his.
“Hey! I wasn’t done eating yet.”
“There’s cereal in the pantry.” He picked up an entire pancake and shoved it into his mouth. “Ya might like that better anyways.”
As irritated as I was with him, I was worried he might actually be right, and admitting when I was wrong to Roscoe was like ripping duct tape off my chest.
A crash rattled the walls behind a closed bedroom door as we made our way to the bathroom.
“I suppose I better fuck the little twerp before he destroys the house,” Austin said, a little more concerned than earlier.
Even though it was awkward, I pulled aside Austin’s extra fluff to find the cage firmly attached. I wasn’t even sure how it stayed on or how any of these things worked.
“I didn’t know Mosavi had a kinky side.” I moved the cage around, trying to find where to put the key. “You know, I was thinking… why don’t you try something different with Adam? You know, spice it up?”
“Like what?”
“How do you normally do it?” I asked, examining the cage closer. There were different holes, but nothing that would fit the keys the mayor had given me.
“Well, he’s usually always ready, so I just fuck him hard til I’m done.”
“Yeah, how about some foreplay?”
“What’s that?”
I looked up at him, thinking he was pulling my leg, but his expression was genuinely intrigued.
“Austin… how many guys were you with before Adam?”
“As a werewolf? No one. When I was a half-turn I just got fucked and that was it.”
“Let me figure out how to get this damn thing off of you, and I’ll fill you in on what Roscoe does to me.”
The keys didn’t actually do anything; it was the inscription on the ring that I should have looked at.
After letting out an annoyed groan, I tossed the key ring into the garbage and grabbed a box of off-brand marshmallow cereal from the pantry.
The mayor was punishing me in his own twisted way, but with the punishment came the lessons.
The only way to unlock those cages was to use the vironoct, which also meant messing with an already vulnerable mind. I did ask permission before doing it, but that didn’t seem to matter much to Austin. He was almost too eager to obey any command. The scene played out in my head from earlier.
“All right, private. You’ve got an angry half-turn in there and one mission: neutralize the target. You’ve been trained for this, soldier, and I want to see a smile on that half-turn’s face when you’re done! Is that understood?”
“Yes sir!”
His wagging tail betrayed his serious expression. For whatever reason, he responded well to the military roleplay, his eyes turning baby blue as his stare became glassy and distant. Maybe this kind of stuff was fine for Mosavi who was a borderline tyrant, but it made me feel kind of wrong.
As I ate breakfast, I had to turn up the volume on the television to drown out the moaning and banging coming from the second bedroom.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word neutralize in that command.
After nearly twenty minutes, Austin still hadn’t finished, and I was done with breakfast. The longer I sat in the living room listening to them, the more worried I got.
While I was trying to figure out the cage earlier, I thought about Roscoe. It wasn’t like him to get that upset. Hell, there was still a half-eaten plate of his breakfast sitting in the refrigerator. That alone meant there was something really wrong.
I slipped into a light jacket and stepped out into the backyard, hoping I’d be able to escape the increasingly aggressive noice.
After shutting the door, I made my way toward Roscoe, who was sat cross-legged next to the lit firepit.
His slight gut hung over the band of the borrowed fatigues he wore, which were several sizes too small.
He stared pensively at the growing flames, not bothering to acknowledge me as I sat on one of the plastic lawn chairs.
“You didn’t clean your plate.”
“Not really hungry.”
“Are you okay?”
“Can you please take this thing off of me?” He looked up from the fire, his sad amber eyes piercing mine. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
“That’s really all I wanted to hear.” I smiled at him. “Sometimes your antics are annoying, and sometimes they cross the line. This could have ended badly if the mayor went through with his threats.”
“The guy’s a real piece of work. I’m glad he left. He scares the shit out of me.”
“I don’t know. I keep getting this feeling like he’s overcompensating.”
“Well it sure ain’t his dick he’s overcompensating for.” Roscoe stood from the ground before sitting in one of the lawn chairs while letting out a slight whimper. “Not sure why he didn’t do to me what he did to Austin.”
“What did he do?”