Page 43 of Warmongers and Wands
Chapter 14
Bronwyn
The werewolf was limp in an utterly submissive pose that any other time would have been hysterical. Instead, my pulse raced to see him. My truck had been tampered with. The werewolves wanted me dead. And I wasn’t sure if Cassie’s threats would keep them back or not.
Why was Stanley here? Spying on us in preparation for an attack? Was he sent to take me out himself? Or spin me some lie designed to get me out of the safety of Hadur’s circle and to somewhere he could kill me?
Hadur marched up to me and threw the werewolf down at my feet. “Talk,” he commanded.
I flinched, for a second thinking that order was meant for me.
“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” Stanley pleaded, his hands protectively over his head. “I was being noisy on purpose, so you could hear me coming. I need to talk to you. I need to tell you something. So don’t kill me.”
Good grief. When had Stanley become such a wimp? “I can’t vouch for Hadur, but I don’t have any immediate plans to kill you, so talk.”
The werewolf glanced around. “Can we go somewhere more private? The cabin?”
I nodded. Hadur went to grab Stanley, no doubt to perp-walk him back to the cabin, then he hesitated, looking at my leg.
“I can walk,” I told him. Then I realized something. “Well, I could if you hadn’t rushed me over here without my crutches.”
It wasn’t just the crutches, either. I was on the opposite side of the truck with no clear and easy way to get back to the path. The demon did a back and forth between the werewolf and me.
“Carry me over to my crutches,” I told Hadur. “Stanley, you make one wrong move and I’ll curse you bald for the next six months.”
I couldn’t do curses, but Stanley didn’t know that. He blanched, reaching up to touch his thick beard. Werewolves were hairy—like really hairy. Even the women. It didn’t make them much fun at the pool in the summer, but having a chest and back that looked like a throw rug was a source of pride to them. The more hair, the better—legs, back, face, chest. The works. Being hairless would send Stanley into a humiliated self-imposed isolation for six months. It was an effective threat, even if it was a threat I had no ability to carry out.
Hadur picked me up, taking me to my crutches then hovering protectively by me as I got things organized and made my way down the path. He followed with Stanley’s arm held firmly in his grasp. Back at the cabin, I sank into a chair, worn out from my exertions. Hadur made Stanley stand over by the door, then went to pour me some tea.
The werewolf fidgeted. “I could be killed for this, you know. If it gets out that I warned you, that I was involved in any of this, I won’t be safe either in Dallas’ pack or Clinton’s. If I need help, can I rely on the witches to give me sanctuary? Like they did with Shelby?”
Pack law didn’t allow for lone wolves. It also didn’t allow the females to have sexual relations with anyone but a male werewolf. Shelby had gotten herself in a pickle by falling in love with a female troll. Clinton had been about to rat her out to Dallas, so rather than face a forced mating and a lifetime confined to the pack compound, Shelby had decided to eliminate Clinton and keep her secret a secret.
Luckily, Clinton had survived. Luckily Cassie had felt sorry for Shelby and decided to bend the human law our town based its governance on and call the whole thing aggravated assault. Shelby got community service, but she also got a sort of refugee status in the town. She was a lone wolf, unaffiliated with either pack. There would be no reprisal for either Shelby’s attack on Clinton or her relationship with Alberta. Any wolf who decided to take the law into his own hands would face Cassie. And no one wanted to face Cassie when she was pissed off.
Did I mention she’d once set her ex-boyfriend’s pants on fire? In the middle of the courthouse? Yeah. Don’t piss off my sister.
That’s what Stanley was bargaining for. Being a lone wolf wasn’t all sunshine and roses, though. I knew Shelby. I hung out with her and Alberta sometimes. The werewolf was depressed, missing her pack. As far as they were concerned, she wasn’t even a werewolf. They completely ignored her. No werewolf was allowed to speak to her or acknowledge her presence. She’d been shunned, and that had been a hard price to pay for love.
It made me realize how much Stanley was risking to talk to us. Death, or shunning. Either one horrible.
“We’ll protect you, Stanley,” I told him, hoping it didn’t come to that. Although maybe if he got shunned, Shelby would finally have a werewolf to hang with. I mean, she’d hated Stanley before, but surely he’d be better than nothing at all?
He nodded and clasped his hands in front of him. “It’s not Dallas, it’s Clinton. Although Clinton will deny it and say it’s some rogue in his group operating without his knowledge or consent. Some poor wolf will lose his life if it comes to that, and Clinton will insist justice was done.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Hadur asked as he handed me a cup of tea.
“I think he’s saying Clinton had my truck tampered with in an attempt to kill me, right?” I took a sip of my tea and regarded the werewolf. The fact that Stanley knew this meant he was some sort of werewolf double agent—living with Dallas’ pack, but obviously in the know and facilitating things with Clinton’s. The werewolf had more guts than I’d thought.
Stanley nodded. “Clinton didn’t expect you to die. He just wanted you to wreck. You’d find out your brakes had been cut and figure one of Dallas’ wolves had done it. Then your sister would go up there and rip Dallas’ spine out his ass.”
I winced at the visual. “So, Clinton was setting it up to look like Dallas tried to have me killed?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t work. It took you too long to fix the butchering equipment up at the compound. With the storm and the rockslide, you went over the hill. We figured you were dead, that when your sister eventually found you, she’d just assume it was an accident.”
“And none of the blame would have gone to Dallas,” Hadur finished.
“So, wait,” I interrupted. “Clinton was happy to just let my body lay there in a wrecked truck for days until Cassie found it? Seriously?”
