Page 86 of Feral Werewolves

Paladin glanced down at his crotch with a little grin. “Sorry?”

“Ezra,” said Liam to the other guy.

Ezra scurried off.

Liam looked around the inside of the pantry arsenal, sighing. “You got a plan, then, Paladin? Something brilliant and chock full of carnage?”

“Not yet,” said Paladin. “Why? You got a plan besides, ‘I got the guns’?”

Liam sighed again. His shoulders slumped. “I just want her back. I don’t care what happened or what they did, or anything else. That’s all. I’m going to shoot my way in and get her and shoot my way out. That’s it. That’s the plan.”

“That’s a great way to get yourself killed,” said Paladin.

“Fuck you,” said Liam.

Ezra was back with pairs of sweatpants, mumbling something about not knowing what sizes we were or he would have brought jeans. We took the pants, pulled them on, tightened the inner drawstrings.

I felt a good thirty percent better with my junk covered, had to say.

“So, what are you thinking?” said Liam.

“I think we need to go scout the compound out,” said Paladin. “We need to see what’s going on there, find out what’s going on with our mates—”

“We need to get our mates out of there as quickly as possible.”

“Agreed,” said Paladin. “But we need to survive it. We need to be smart about this.”

“You know what it’s like there,” said Liam. “It’s a fucking free-for-all. They just check the women out like library books. I need to get my girl out of there. Now.”

“Agreed,” said Paladin. “But recon first. I’ll go on my own. You stay here and inventory your guns and ammo. When I get back, you should be able to tell me how manypeople you can arm.”

“You think you’re in charge, huh?” said Liam, folding his arms over his chest.

Paladin folded his own arms over his chest. “You want to fight over that, Liam, or you want to get your mate back?”

Liam sighed heavily, hanging his head. “Fine,” he muttered. “But so help me, if you don’t live up to your reputation here—”

“I will,” said Paladin. “This is headquarters. We plan from here, and you have your guys upstairs, watching for any of Red’s people trying to intrude. They can shoot off warning shots to scare them off—shoot to kill if they seem to be a threat.”

Liam nodded.

I spoke up. “I’m coming with you.”

Paladin shook his head. “I need you and Lazarus to go and get what’s left of the other packs who were affected by this. Bring everyone who wants to fight here. Can you sort that out between yourselves, who goes where?”

I nodded. “Yeah, not a problem.”

“Good,” said Paladin. “I’ll be back very soon.”

paladin

THERE WASN’T MUCHto see outside the compound. The place was as ugly as I remembered it. Why they decided to build onto that McMansion instead of just expanding into the nearby houses, I would never know. It seemed stupid to have everyone on top of each other.

If I’d been running this show, I would have given all my guys their own house and their own woman and made that shit inviolable. There’s a way to inspire loyalty by giving people their own agency and there’s a way tomakepeople loyal because they are dependent on you.

On the other hand, giving away women, that wouldn’t have flown with Madrigal when she came to the house with Griff, and maybe it was beneath me, too. I doubted that Clementine would approve if she heard me say that.

At this point, I just needed tofindClementine, though.