Page 146 of Poet & Protector

With a low whistle, I leaned forward. “Damn. So that finally happened, eh?”

That things had come to a head between Ren and Shay wasn’t surprising, and given Calla’s expression, she expected some serious fallout.

Dax glanced at me, then Calla, before he laughed, reaching into his pocket.

“Well, it’s about time,” Dax said to me. “I owe you ten bucks, man, he made it longer than I expected.”

After the Burnout catastrophe, Dax seemed to be making an effort to keep the peace with me and Nev. He knew we had a running habit of making bets about, well, pretty much anything and given how much it looked like Ren was planning to murder Shay after Calla bailed on Nev’s show, Dax suggested a bet about how much longer it would be before his alpha’s dislike of Shay boiled over into violence.

I wasn’t particularly interested in making nice with Dax, but I did want to maintain civility and I was pretty sure Dax meant the bet as a kind of olive branch. So, I took it. I usually liked penalties for my bets to be creative, but in this case I thought it safest to stick with money. If Dax lost and had to do something embarrassing as a result, he wouldn’t handle it well.

“Hang on.” I grinned at Dax, not because I’d wanted Ren and Shay to come to blows but because I’d won. “Did Shay lose any fingers? Or an arm?”

Calla shook her head, looking confused and even unhappier.

“You owe me twenty, Dax.” I stretched my hand toward him. He was less amused by the bet upon hearing it would cost him double. “Your alpha has more self-restraint than you thought.”

“No way, that’s just what I said I would do if it were me, not what I thought Ren would do. The bet was ten.” Dax pulled a crumpled bill from his jeans and slapped it into my palm.

Fey leaned against Dax’s shoulder and ran her fingers through his hair.

“Too bad,” she told him. “I thought you’d win.”

“What’s going on?” Poor Ansel was still confused.

Cracking his knuckles, Dax replied, “Ren taught that cub a lesson. Shay’s been panting over Calla ever since he got here.”

Ansel shot Calla a worried glance. “What happened?”

Calla answered in a stiff voice. “Ren found out that Shay asked me to Blood Moon, and he didn’t take the news very well.”

Lowering her voice, she continued. “He slammed Shay across a lab station and I had to pull him off.”

Dax and Fey burst out laughing. Cosette flinched and moved her chair to take shelter behind Sabine, who put her arm protectively around the younger wolf. I grimaced; Ren had lost control in the middle of class, which Guardians were never supposed to do. Nothing good would come of it.

“Shay, asked you to the formal?” Bryn said to Calla with quiet surprise. “What did you say?”

I was wondering the same thing, remembering how happy my alpha had been dancing with Shay at the Burnout. But she couldn’t have said yes…could she?

“She said no, of course!” Sabine snapped, glaring at Bryn before locking angry eyes on Calla. “What an obstinate, foolish boy. Calla, how did this happen? I warned you. Did you keep leading him on?”

I bristled on Calla’s behalf. Sabine wasn’t being fair. Was Calla spending a lot of time with Shay? Yes, but she didn’t have a choice.

Calla was quick to make that point herself. “Sabine, you were there when Logan ordered me to spend time with Shay! I didn’t want any of this. He asked and I explained to him I was already going with Ren.”

Her answer apparently wasn’t enough to satisfy Sabine, who continued to watch Calla with a disapproving glare. Cosette decided her best move was to copy Sabine. Calla deflated, slouching in her chair.

She was in a tough spot. Obviously, she had no choice but to turn Shay down, but I wondered if under different circumstances she would have preferred the human to be her date to Blood Moon. It was strange to even consider that possibility; I didn’t know how Calla felt about Shay, but I was beginning to suspect Shay’s interest in her wasn’t entirely unreciprocated.

If that was true, I felt sorry for both of them, but it was incredibly dangerous. For Calla, and for the rest of us.

Ansel had gone very quiet, his attention oddly fixated on the apple in his hands. I wasn’t sure what was up with that. Fey and Dax were arguing with Nev about the original terms of my bet with Dax.

“I still think you owe him the other ten,” Nev remarked as he flipped a guitar pick in the air like a coin. “You definitely implied that limbs would be lost when Ren took Shay on.”

I wrapped my arm around Nev’s shoulder. “I knew I could count on you.”

“Knock it off.” Dax bared his teeth at us. So much for that olive branch. “The bet was ten.”