Page 80 of Dozer

“I don’t want everything to be a deal long-term, but I think it probably works for tonight because I don’t want you to leave without us touching at all.” And if he wasn’t leaving, there’s a good chance I’d invite him back tonight, but then we’d have two awkwardcoming homethings, and one was going to be bad enough.

And maybe it was better if we had time to text and talk over video for a week, before he came home.

“Gen invited me to Bethany’s for a party thing with the ol’ladies. I think I might want to take her up on it.”

“Yes, you should go. The club is your family, even when you and I aren’t seeing eye-to-eye.Ourfamily, Daisy. Use them as your support system.”

When it was time to go, we hugged, did the quick-kiss thing, and then he put me into the Ramcharger, leaned in to kiss my cheek, and told me, “I love you. Stay safe, make good choices, and let the other ol’ladies be there for you.”

“I love you, too. I’m mad at you, but I have to get past it. Whatever you’ll be doing for the club, stay safe. I’ll bereallymad at you if you never come back.”

“There shouldn’t be any life-threatening danger on this trip. It’s something we do every year and a half or so, and we’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ll talk to you soon, and see you in about a week.”

Chapter 59

Dozer

Biting someone is a huge responsibility, and since I was only staying with the wolves a week, I wouldn’t be doing the actual biting.

We voted two of the three humans in, assuming they successfully made it through thechangefrom human to wolf. The vote was close on the third, so we ended up agreeing to tell him about werewolves and offer tochangehim, with the understanding that he had to work for us a minimum of two years after thechange, and that if we hadn’t voted him in one year after beingchanged, he’d no longer be a prospect, and also wouldn’t be a member, but he’d be required to keep working for us a year longer. If he was a good employee, he could continue working for us after two years if he wanted to, but would also be able to find employment elsewhere, if he preferred. Everyone would understand they’d have to be killed if they couldn’t gain control of their wolf, of course.

Duke would be biting all three, one per day for three days, since he needed to spend lots of one-on-one time with each. My duties this week would mostly be to keep everyone fed, and safe, and sane. We have jail cells in the basement of this cabin, and the men would be in them the majority of the time this first week.

I’d be spending hours every day as my wolf, running with the new wolves, teaching them to hunt and eat. Most ofit’s instinctual, but we let the human parts of us help make decisions. We’re careful not to take down a pregnant doe, for instance, and we make sure bunnies are dead before we start eating them. New wolves don’t always act as caretakers of the forest when they’re hungry and feral.

So, spending time at the cabin is a lot of work, but it’s also a chance to reconnect with my wolf.

Later, I’d take another shift of three to five days, and then we’d have them out one at a time, and give them tests that meant they’d be whipped if they started tochange, and then hit with a cattle prod once they were the wolf, when they weren’t supposed to change. Food would only be given to the wolf when they were given permission tochange, otherwise, if they went to wolf, there’d be pain until they could come back to human, at which time we’d feed them.

It was harsh, but it got them through the period where they had no control five times faster than it’d taken back before we started the negative and positive reinforcement.

But being hard-asses about this was a kindness, in the long run. They’d need to have absolutely perfect control during the worst of circumstances before they could be seen in public again, and about a fifth of the people we turned never reached that point, which meant we had to kill them.

And that’s one of the reasons Cora wanted to meet them ahead of time. Randall had trusted us to make good judgments of who is a good candidate and who is not. Of those who are turned accidentally, less than a third learn the kind of control necessary to be trusted in public. Our stats are excellent, considering, but Cora wanted to meet with our prospects before we bit them, and she gets to make the rules in her territory, so we complied. Also, we all like and respect Cora, and we’d liked and respected her long before she became Alpha.

All this to say, I was busy as fuck with little downtime, but I managed to scrape out thirty minutes a day to video call my little flower. Mostly, we talked about Champ, but that was fine. I wanted to see her piercings, but I knew better than to make the demand. All I could do was ask her about them, and she assured me she was taking care of them and they looked and felt fine.

And on my last day, when we both knew I’d be driving back the next afternoon, she asked me if I minded coming straight home, instead of going to the clubhouse first.

“We came down in the van,” I told her, “so we didn’t draw attention to how many people we have here, but as soon as we arrive back at the clubhouse, I can jump right on my bike and come home.”

“Okay, that’s good. I’ve come up with something you can agree to, so I can put all this behind us, and so you won’t have to walk on eggshells, when you get home. So we can beusagain, Master and slave, from the very first moment.”

Assuming it was something I could agree to, that was certainly welcome news, but if it was a demand I tell her all club secrets, or something along those lines, it wouldn’t work.

“Tell me.” It was an order, but I tried to say it casually.

“I’m going to fuck up bad at some point, and you’re going to forgive me. You’ll be able to scent to tell if I’m truly sorry, and if I am, you’ll wipe it away. Maybe you’ll need a day or two to forgive me, or maybe even three or four days, but then it’ll be in the past and you’ll get over it because I got over this.”

I considered what I could promise, and told her, “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for cheating on me, or getting one of my brothers hurt beyond what he can heal, or one of their ol’ladies, either, or ratting on any of us, but anything else, yeah, okay.”

She shook her head. “I’m not planning on cheating on you, and it would be stupid, because you’d know by scent even if Itook fifteen showers, right? And I can’t imagine doing anything to hurt your friends, but still, I need this to be a blanket agreement with no caveats. If my scent tells you I’m truly sorry for it, whatever it was, you’ll forgive me.”

I took a few minutes to sort through what I could promise, and finally told her, “I’m agreeing to it, the man part of me. The beast who lives inside me would need to punish you before he’d forgive you for some stuff, though, so there’ll need to be a belting or whipping in order to fully pacify him.”

“Okay, so long as you submit to whatever you do to me. I don’t want to belt you or whip you now, but if you require it before you can accept my apology, then I’m going to need it from you, too, at that time. Or, within a couple of days of it, anyway.”

I nodded. “Okay. Yes. Deal.”

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