“I—” He opened his mouth to continue but shook his head and looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted, of course,” I replied. “I don’t hate you or anything, but you’re just too much sometimes.” I studied the look on his face, which seemed remorseful enough for me to bring up the other big topic. “I know this is going to be difficult for you, but you need to try harder with Austin.”
“What I did to you was really bad, but don’t tell me to be nice to a guy that treats me like shit all the time.”
“You said he didn’t always treat you like this. What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? He showed his real self.”
“Have you guys ever talked?”
Adam stared at me pensively. “I guess. A long time ago.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Dude, I don’t fucking remember. He was always whining about something when I wanted to have fun. I told him to stop bumming me out all the time and loosen up. That seemed to help for a while, but then he started getting really aggressive.”
“And you don’t see a problem with anything you just said?”
“Not with me!”
“How are you this dense?” I looked toward the hallway, everything having gone very quiet since I’d left a helpless Roscoe alone with a werewolf following my orders. I had absolutely no room to talk about Adam being a bad kuu mate. Rosco and I had a dynamic where he would piss me off and I’d get some kind of revenge, but none of it felt right this time.
Then I thought about how Roscoe protected me last night, and that was when the guilt crushed me. I finally hopped off the couch and walked into the hallway.
“What are you doing?” Adam asked, following me.
“I just realized I’m just as shitty as you are.” I slammed open the door to see Austin lying with both hands folded under his head while a semi-conscious Roscoe lay drooling next to him.
“Interesting conversation?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Austin said, his irises back to their usual amber. He smiled and looked over at the motionless werewolf. “It’s great. He can’t escape, and I was just getting to varnishes.”
With a bit of smug satisfaction, I looked down at the old werewolf but couldn’t shake that something was off with his blank expression.
“Oh, by the way,” Austin added, “I accidentally turned that thing on high. Was wondering why he kept throwing himself off the bed.”
“Oh my God,” I shouted, frantically searching for the key to the cuffs before dashing toward the bed. “How long was he like that?”
After I slipped the key into the hole, the enchantment Roscoe was under disappeared. I then began removing everything attached to him.
“I dunno. Maybe five minutes. It was kinda funny watching him flop around like a trout on the floor.”
Roscoe didn’t move, and I started to really worry. He’d warned me that this stuff was dangerous, and now I’d probably messed him up.
“Well, fun’s over. Everyone out!”
“Aww.” Austin climbed out of bed, eyeing Adam dismissively.
After undoing the strap on his muzzle, I gave the cock cage a tap with the magic key, and it expanded before falling off him.
“I’m so sorry, Roscoe. I didn’t know.”
The werewolf remained silent and turned toward the wall.
“Guess I’ll leave you two alone,” Austin said, walking out of the room, but not before shoving Adam to the side. The half-turn scoffed at me before walking in the opposite direction, toward the back door. I’d have to take care of that later.
“I went too far.”
