Yet…I pause.
Her powers are tantalizing. And bringing her back to my pack would earn me the role of alpha, uncontested.
Immortality. Unparalleled healing.
A brood of my own, maybe even some that pass for human enough to infiltrate the towns.
Or convince them to a truce.
I can’t do that if she’s either fleeing or trying to take me out every time I turn my back.
“What will keep you loyal to me alone?” Pacing along the edge, I track her pinpoint and scent that stays centered in the mass of brambles.
She snorts. “You’re fucking joking, right?”
“Tell me.” My chest rumbles. “Or maybe I’ll just lock you away myself.”
I don’t know how that would work. Most of my kind are full dogs.
Their ability to build is limited. I’m sure I’d figure something out.
“Then I’ll kill myself.” Her words come out almost a whisper. “I’m not going to be trapped again. Ever.”
That drops me to the ground.
Fur covers my body, claws adorn my hands and feet, teeth the length of daggers sprout from my muzzle, but my heart still remembers what it was like to be human.
There was a time when I was young, before the virus changed me, that I went to jail for a bar fight.
I swore I’d never forget having my will and freedom taken away. My sentence was only a few weeks, yet the lesson clung to me for years.
“Fine. No cages,” I grunt. “But you’re still mine. Tell me what you want.”
“I’m not negotiating this! Leave me alone!” A rock sails from the trees to land yards away.
“There’s a pack coming in. They’ll be here in a few hours. Maybe they’ll make a deal, if they can even talk.” I dislike the idea of anyone else touching her.
I’d never let it happen.
She doesn’t need to know that.
Letting her stew in silence is a test in my patience I didn’t know I had.
After enough time has passed that my cock has softened back into its pocket, she finally emerges.
Fresh nicks and scratches adorn her pale skin.
Two fingers extend from her hand. “These are my conditions.”
I don’t move from my lazy spread across the warm dirt.
Well, I may have twitched a nostril or turned an ear.
“First, stop fucking tearing me apart all the time. Growing parts backkicks my ass.” She waves her arm exaggeratedly over my head.
“Second, take me to my son. I want to live near him.” One palm rests on her bare hip as she peers down at me.
That makes me raise off my paws. “You have a child?”
