Page 108 of Feral Werewolves

“No, of course I don’t mind,” she said and dove back into my arms.

I held onto her for dear life, clutching her against me, and she was pressed up into my erection, and these jolts went through me, but weirdly, they didn’t feel sexual. They just felt like safety or home or something, like acceptance and goodness and love.

My eyes stung. “Why?” I said. “Why don’t you want to leave?”

She laughed. “I can’t leave anymore, you dumbass.”

“No, you fucking can. You should, even. We’re—this place—it’s bad for you.”

“It’s worth it,” she said, snuggling into my chest. “You’re worth it, Lazarus.”

Fuck that. Fuck that bullshit. How could she evensaythat? A tear slid out of one of my eyes, into the pillow. I hoped she didn’t notice.

25

paladin

MORNING.

I WASup before the sun came up, awake on the couch in the room upstairs. Kestrel was downstairs, doing the tail end of the watch. When Lazarus hadn’t been in here, I’d gone and found him with her, which made me feel relieved, that they were together, that Clementine had someone in her bed.

Just… one less thing to worry about.

And I had a lot of things to worry about right now.

This, you know, this was why I did not want to be the wolf boss of this whole region. Being a leader sounds cool or whatever, and you think you’re going to have power or that no one’s going to tell you what to do.

But actually, you end up with all this responsibility to the people you are leading, and you have to deal with a bunch of conflicts and annoying issues and it’s time-consuming and exhausting and you really end up having less freedom than if you were not the actual person in charge.

So.

What to do?

I could just give it back to Griff.

Griff was used to it, and he was okay at it, I guessed. Kestrel was always complaining about all the emails and the opt-ins and the threats, though. The way Griff had kepteveryone in line was basically to threaten that he’d send Red and some guys to rough you up, or to just straight-up murder you.

If I was doing it, if I was the leader, I would notneedthreats like that.

It’s a slippery slope anyway, if you have people only following you because they’re afraid of you. It means that a rebellion is lurking all the time. If you’re a threat, people are constantly thinking about eliminating you.

Okay, so, not Griff.

And not Red.

Definitely not Red. Red didn’t even know how to be a leader. Furthermore, I was not in any mood to forgive him for what he’d done, and neither would any of the other wolves who’d had their mates violated or their pack members killed. Red was lucky he was alive. If it weren’t for the fact that Noah was under Clementine’s protection, Red would be dead already. I’d have killed him myself.

Liam?

Did Liam want it?

Would Liam be good at it?

Damn it.

It had to be me, or at the very least, us. The three of us. Between me, Kestrel, and Lazarus, we could do it, I thought. I just needed to find out if they were in.

If they weren’t, someone else probably needed to step up.

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