Page 94 of Feral Werewolves

Kestrel dragged a hand over his chin and didn’t say anything.

Paladin had gone feral in a way that had terrified me. I remembered the way he’d been, shirtless, blood smeared all over his narrow chest, laughing maniacally into the face of the guy he was perched on.

The guy’s name was Kronk. Well, that was not his real name. That was just some name that everyone called him out here. Kronk was bleeding out, half alive, and Paladin was cutting strips of skin off the Kronk’s forehead and chin and making Kronk watch as Paladin chewed them up. Paladin’s teeth had been red-stained, and he wouldn’t stoplaughing.

I often thought back on it, thought that I should have pulled Paladin off of him.

It was only that Kronk fucking deserved it, and I think wewere all enjoying it.

Kronk hadn’t been in charge in that house or anything, but he’d easily been the most sadistic of the guys in the place. He made sure that he’d fucked every single person who lived there, for instance, made sure he’d had his chance to “break you in,” as he called it, and he was a sick fuck about whatever he did. I remember he fucked me with a shovel handle and he flipped the thing around and put the blade up to my chin while he used his cock in me after that, while I was still sore and worried about wood splinters.

I don’t even know what it is about men like that. I don’t know why they exist or what gets turned on in them…

Maybe it’s just the same thing as Paladin, though, maybe they’re the same kinds of person. I don’t know.

But Paladin only ever gets that way about revenge, not about… not against someone innocent. Oh, and it doesn’t turn Paladin on.

Well.

I don’t know about that either, because he’s asked me to do things to him before, things we both liked, but it’s different if you’re turned on by receiving as opposed to giving and it’s different if everyone’s on board with whatever the scenario is. It’s different than enjoying hurting someone, enjoying forcing someone.

Kronk was legit psycho, anyway.

I was never going to be sad that he was dead, and I sure as fuck wasn’t sad that his last moments were watching getting his face peeled off and watching a maniac eat it. That was fine with me.

But I wished Paladin hadn’t come so unhinged, I guess. I wish Paladin hadn’t tipped off the edge into crazy like that.

Afterward, he’d refused to clean himself or get up. He’d laid around in filth and blood and started cutting himself and muttering weird shit to himself and the only way we got him out of it was to convince him, me and Kestrel both, though Kestrel started it, that it hadnever happened.

But the Paladin that came back to us after that, that Paladin was different in some way, younger somehow,almost as if we’d burned half of Paladin out, and all we were left with was this fragile thing that wanted—needed—our protection.

It was whatever after that.

I don’t know.

You don’t go through shit like that with two other people and not feel like they’re family. You don’t go through shit like that and not feel as though there’s a bond. That it’s love. We didn’t say it out loud or anything, but we just knew it. No matter what, no matter how angry we got with each other, no matter what annoyances came and went, we were going to be together, the three of us, for all time.

I wasn’t even surprised, really, that we bonded one woman together. It was exactly right, in the end.

“Look,” Kestrel was saying, “I’ll just go and tell him what we’re thinking, how it doesn’t make sense to stay. I’ll just go and say that we have to weigh the consequences at this point. I’ll just go and say he needs to think about Clementine.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, okay.”

Kestrel reached out and lightly stroked the back of her arm.

She stirred against me, smiling. “Someone said my name,” she whispered, yawning.

“Stay asleep, pretty girl,” said Kestrel.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at me and then Kestrel. “I could wake up.”

“No, I’m on my way to go talk to Paladin,” said Kestrel. He bent down and kissed her forehead.

She sighed, shutting her eyes. She yawned again. “I don’t get it. It’s not like I didn’t sleep last night. I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

“Just rest if you need it,” said Kestrel.

“You’re probably sick of having me draped all over you, Lazarus,” she murmured.