Page 58 of Feral Werewolves

“You’re doing nothing to appease them?” said Lazarus.

“Madrigal says—”

“No offense to your mate, Griff,” said Lazarus, “but Madrigal doesn’t really understand how things work out here.” He’d just interrupted Griff, and I thought Griff would put him in his place or at least react in some way.

But Griff didn’t. He just made a face. “I know.”

That left all of us speechless, Griff’s lack of decisiveness.

Griff toyed with some of the condensation on his glass of iced tea. “All right, you three haven’t had this woman for very long, so I don’t know if you’ll get this, but… you want to please them. You want to please them more than you’ve ever wanted to please anyone in your life.”

“No, we get it,” I said tightly. “Believe me, we all know it’s idiotic for her to be here. It’s a recipe for disaster—”

“How so?” said Griff.

I sighed, because I’d just given away that we didn’t believe he could hold his position.

“You think I’m dead in the water,” said Griff, leaning back in his chair, holding my gaze, daring me to say it out loud.

I shook my head. “I didn’t say—”

“Fuck,” said Griff. “You think that someone’s going to make a play for my position, and that I won’t be able to keep it. Then you think they’ll come for your girl.”

“We’ll die trying to protect her,” I said. “But there will betoo many of them and—”

“Fuck,” said Griff. He lifted a finger. “The other thing is, that they see you differently, the mates do. They’re in love with you, so they think you’re amazing and infallible and so strong and powerful… and you get caught up in seeing yourself how they see you. Which is bullshit. This is why I need to be around other wolves sometimes. And not yes-men, like I keep finding myself around. I need people to give it to me straight.”

“How many wolves?” said Lazarus. “How many have mates?”

“Ten,” he said. “Eleven counting you, well, I guess you would make thirteen.”

“Thirteen,” I said in dismay.

“It’s actually quite a lot so quickly,” he said. “But in a lot of the packs, it’s causing internal issues, already, because one of the wolves now has a woman. If he’s alpha enough, it doesn’t matter too much, but if he’s not, it’s a problem. Everything’s in turmoil.”

“We can’t count on the packs, then, you’re saying?” I said. “Just the individual wolves.”

He sighed. “I’m fucked. I’m seriously fucked.”

This was not what I wanted to hear from him. My stomach turned over and my chest squeezed.

Paladin looked practically green and Lazarus was grim.

The women came back into the room at that point. There weren’t enough chairs, and Griff laughed and said Madrigal could sit right here and patted his thigh. She did, looping her arms around his neck and grinning at him like he hung the moon.

Clementine glared at me and I knew she wasn’t going to sit in my lap, so I got up and had her sit in my chair. Then I leaned on the back of it and surveyed the table.

“I think we need to think about going back to what I said before, Madge,” Griff said to her. “This is too fast. We can’t cut off the access to the women entirely, all at once.”

She drew back. “What?”

“I’m not saying it’s right,” said Griff. “We can work ourway out of it—”

“Those women are forced into it,” said Madrigal. “They have no choice, and it’s institutionalized sexual assault—”

“I know that,” said Griff. “This whole place is backward, though. And these men agree with me, okay? They think I could be toppled.”

Madrigal turned to look at Clementine, and then up at me.

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