“Why do you think they don’t like you? Are you a werewolf?”
The unexpectedly silly question made him smile. “Do animals not like werewolves?”
“So I’ve heard. I also assume werewolves are taciturn and have perfect eyebrows.”
He squinted at her. “Perfect eyebrows, eh?”
“Beyond perfect.”
He shouldn’t feel so happy over such an odd compliment, but it was still a compliment, so he’d take it. “I don’t know why animals tend to be, at best, indifferent to me.” He scratched Doodle’s neck. “It used to make me feel bad, but I learned to get over it.”
“Why did it make you feel bad?”
“Animals are excellent judges of character, aren’t they?”
She side-eyed him. “Or they’re animals, and somewhat fickle and unreasonable?”
His smile was faint. Doodle hummed and scooted closer to him. “I suppose that’s possible.”
“Can you tell me about your dream, Jas?”
He hesitated, that same warring urge rising inside of him. He wanted that euphoria of unburdening himself, but he also wanted to bury it deep. To compromise, he switched into as robotic a tone as he could manage, eager to get through this with as few emotions as possible. “I led my infantry platoon. There was a bomb, a roadside explosion thatkilled two of my men. We got a tip about this guy who they said was the weapons supplier for the cell that placed and detonated the IED. Our superiors questioned him for two weeks before letting him go. There was no proof he was connected at all.” Jas had looked at the Draft Intelligence Information Report later. The suspect had been a civilian, by all accounts a quiet villager who lived with his mother and daughter. There had been nothing to tie him to the crime except a rumor.
She rubbed his knee, and he leaned back against the pillows. It was odd to have someone petting him like this, but the soothing massage calmed him.
“One guy, McGuire, he was best friends with one of the men who was killed. He and another soldier were supposed to take the suspect back to the village, but he stopped on the way.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah.” Jas squeezed his eyes shut, as tight as he could manage. He couldn’t block out the memory, though. “I don’t know if he planned the whole thing, or if it was a spur of the moment terrible idea. The sergeant with him, Lorne, she slipped away and came and got me. We raced back. We found the translator terrified and huddled away from the scene, the suspect naked and tied up, with McGuire screaming questions at him. The man had been hurt badly.” It was getting harder to remain emotionless.
“Did he kill the suspect?”
“He tried to. The guy went to stand up, and McGuire shotat him. Lorne and I rushed him, and he shot me twice in the struggle.”
Katrina’s touch on his knee turned soothing. “This is what you had to testify to at the trial?”
“Court martial. Yes. We all did.” His eye twitched, recalling the angry glares of McGuire’s parents and supporters. They’d called him and Lorne the traitors, held firm in their belief that their son had been doing his job the best he could.
Bullshit. Jas had seen the aggression and rage in McGuire’s face, up close. All he’d cared about was exacting vengeance on anyone he could.
“Tell me he was convicted.”
“Twenty-five years.”
She sighed. “Good.”
“He served five before he was paroled.”
Her lips curved down. “Oh.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Looks like he’s probably going to be pardoned.”
She inhaled. “Oh dear.”
“Yeah.”
“What can you do?” She came to her knees.
