Check out all the chapters by clicking HER(fix)E
CHAPTER FIVE: WOLF MOON - PART THREE
Russ looked up as he heard Garrett walk toward the silver-plated cell he’d been locked in. Funny how it’d been his attack that inspired the county to install the werewolf-proof cell, in the first place. And, now, here he was, stuck in the middle of it.
Life really was a bitch.
Silently, he watched as five human cops entered the cell, cuffed his wrists and ankles — grinding his teeth against the metal’s burn against his skin — before marching him ahead of the group into an interrogation room. All five werewolves waited wordlessly as the human cops left the room. They waited until the door clicked shut before they even so much as breathed too loud.
Garrett was the first to speak. “Did they harm you? Were you mistreated in any way?”
Other than completely humiliating him? Russ shook his head.
Letting out a relieved breath, Garrett nodded. “What happened?”
Russ turned his head, ashamed. Garett already knew what happened; it was exactly what he’d warned Russ would happen. And, like a fool, Russ had walked right into it anyway.
Garrett sighed and shook his head. “The man who was injured, how bad is it?”
Russ shook his head, not wanting to even think about it, much less talk about it. But he didn’t need to, it seemed, as one of the pack lawyers, Elise, started talking as she typed furiously on her phone. “Benji, Carolyn’s mate, is on-call at the ER. Says the man has a mild concussion, a fractured collarbone, a cracked tooth, several scrapes and scratches, and an impressive amount of bruising.” She looked up from her phone at Russ dispassionately, before typing more. “Overall, Benji thinks, given it was a human against a wolf, the man got off light. Even if he is moaning more than his injuries would warrant.”
Garrett grunted. “Benji thinks or he has other nurses and doctors willing to say the same?”
The woman paused, her fingers flitting over her phone. She waited, her neat but unmanicured nails tapping the side of the device. “Benji says the chart speaks for itself. He doesn’t think it’d be hard to find any doctor willing to testify that Mr. Jones’s injuries, while unfortunate, aren’t severe.”
Garrett nodded. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that, but good.” He turned to Russ. “I thought you said you were going to leave them alone.”
Russ hung his head lower. “I know.” He shut his eyes. He should have. He should have walked away from Dawn, when he’d had the chance. Should have shut his door on her and the rest of the world, like he’d done before.
But, even now, the urge to both pathetically whimper and recklessly rage at that thought seized him. “I can’t.” The words came out in a guttural grunt through locked teeth.
Garrett leveled a look at Russ. “You know what we have to do then.”
Russ growled and stood up, the stinging cuffs holding him rattling. “You can’t!” He may not know much about werewolf law, but he knew enough to feel Garrett’s words like a rope around his neck.
“You didn’t give me much choice,” Garrett pointed out. “Either you claim her as your mate, thereby avoiding an assault charge, or you can spend the rest of your life in that cell, creating a new legal precedent for imprisoning werewolves for minor battery.”
“So instead of locking me away, she’ll be held hostage?” Russ recoiled from the idea.
Garrett shook his head, sorry but resigned. “Better her than all of us.” He nodded to the pack’s lawyers before walking back out of the room to make his dark deal with the district attorney.
Elise lingered as she continued typing on her phone. Without looking up, she said, “As your mate, Miss Meadows will be part of the pack now. As part of the pack, she’ll be taken care of. Whatever is going on between the two of you, she’ll be protected. And so will you. Along with the rest of us.” She looked up at him for a moment, pity in her eyes, before she turned back to her screen. “Not the worst deal in the world.”
Maybe so, but this was taking Dawn’s choice away from her and Russ hated that.
Fuck.
He really was a monster.
That thought echoed in his head as the cops came back to uncuff him and lead him out through the station, where he heard Garrett arguing with the police.
“Hey,” a balding, uniformed man said with his hands up, “we took the lady’s statement hours ago and she didn’t say anything about being that werewolf’s girlfriend, much less this mate business.”
Without missing a beat, Elise spoke up. “You can understand that, given society’s opinion on mixed relationships, most of us don’t exactly go around advertising our business to everyone.” She looked over at Dawn, who stood back silently but with her brows knit in confusion. “I’m sure that if Miss Meadows knew that her mate status could help Mr. Hardwick, due to the amnesty agreement’s protection over such pairings, she would have been more forthcoming.”
One of the other lawyers, Bruce, explained, “Werewolves, by nature, are extremely protective of our mates and families. Threats against them cause us to become incredibly aggressive.”
The officer shrugged. “Maybe the guy just didn’t know.”
“He was made aware,” Garrett said quietly, unquestioningly. “At least once, by me specifically and in detail, but I’ve been assured that wasn’t his first or last notice.” Garrett stared at the officer, daring him to argue. “Mr. Jones knew. He then attempted to assault Miss Meadows, Mr. Hardwick’s mate. Under the amnesty’s guidelines, Russ was well within his rights to defend her.”
“By slamming the man through a wall?” The cop let out a low whistle. “Made a man-sized dent in the drywall. I saw it. Gave the guy a concussion too. Could’ve killed him. When the first officers arrived, they said the werewolf looked ready to take that guy’s head off. I don’t care what’s in the agreement, that can’t be legal.”
“And, yet, it is,” Elise said matter-of-factly. “We’re all sorry for Mr. Jones’s injuries. In fact, the pack will personally see that his medical expenses are taken care of, but that man manhandled one of our member’s mates — one of our pack — we won’t let you illegally hold one of our own here for defending her.”
“After all,” Garrett said casually to the cop, his gold eyes glittering with power, “if that had been your wife, your family, being assaulted, would you have done differently?”
The cop stayed quiet for a moment, before taking a breath. “The DA is on his way. If he confirms what you say,” the man shrugged and said stiffly, “he’s free to go.”
READ PART FOUR
WANT MORE?
No comments:
Post a Comment