Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [20]
“I don’t understand why you’re so pissed.” That was Michael. “If you didn’t want me to do it, why’d you build the cage?”
“Your actions were premature. Premature and stupid.”
“What’s the difference? You got what you wanted, right?” Michael sounded sulky. Brid suppressed a grin and kept listening.
“I wanted a hybrid,” the other man shouted, “not the heir to the damn throne.” His voice quieted. “No one in Brannoc’s line—I thought I made that perfectly clear.”
A mumbling noise from Michael, then, “A mutt is a mutt.” Brid heard a thump, and a whimper from Michael. When the man started talking again, his voice grew soft enough that even Brid had to strain to hear it.
“The difference, Michael, is that I will be first on Brannoc’s suspect list. The difference is, we wanted someone they wouldn’t notice until much later.” Brid heard another thump and whimper. “The difference is that you took a perfectly respectable plan and pissed all over it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“You never do. I will clean up your mess, but—and I will say this only once—do not become more trouble than you are worth.”
The voices quieted. The man wanted a hybrid from one of the weaker families. Less noticeable, easier to handle, that was the implication. Well, if he thought stealing one of the others would have gone by without notice or care, then he was ignorant of how the pack functioned. Even before the attempted coup, a missing member would draw attention. After the coup, security was tight, and the weaker members drew the most attention when they vanished. Predators always cull the weak before the strong. The other hybrids were younger than her, mostly. Kids. The pack wouldn’t take that lightly. And her father would hunt down anyone who took one of his own. And “own” extended far beyond his off spring.
Whoever the other man was, he’d never been pack.
Brid heard the slide and click of several locks from the top of the stairs, then muttering. Did the man have the door booby-trapped? Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“The bitch was sniffing not two feet from me,” Michael said. “What was I supposed to do? Hide?” He snorted. “I was upwind. She’d have run straight to her freak family.”
“Please stop yammering, Michael.”
There was an audible click as the werewolf shut his jaws. Brid cast around in her memory, trying to pull out her last action. She’d been jogging in the park, burning off some excess energy. One of her dad’s conditions for her to stay in the city was that she had to exercise every day. Gyms reeked of sweat and cleaning supplies, and if she wasn’t careful, people noticed her. Especially when she lifted weights. So she usually ran. If she didn’t, she’d have to change more, and that was harder in an urban setting. But she hadn’t seen Michael in the park. She’d stopped when a strange smell had hit her. She remembered jogging in place, trying to catch it. Then she’d pretended to tie her shoe. After that…nothing.
The stranger spoke again, this time much closer to the cage. “You were lucky. I heard the last time you scuffled, this slip of a girl wiped the floor with you.” Brid could hear a faint trace of amusement. He was provoking Michael.
Brid heard Michael spit. “She cheated.”
“How?” the stranger said, laughter definitely in his voice now. “By being better than you?”
Michael growled as he walked up to the bars. He grabbed Brid by the neck, pushing her body farther into the cage before pulling her back and slamming her into the bars. She let him do it. Even with limited movement, the force of it hurt like hell. But the drug made dodging chancy, and this way a piece of him was in the cage. Her turn.
Brid grabbed his arm and bit down hard before pulling back with her head. A chunk came free, and Brid rolled to the center of the cage. She opened her eyes. She spit the chunk of flesh out of her