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I’d cried even harder then. But she never told me to quit, or hushed me, or acted like losing my shit right out in front of the unmated shifter dorms was anything out of the ordinary.
I wasn’t embarrassed. Well, not until we wiped our faces, walked inside, and Patty, the unranked girl on duty, led her into my dorm room. It hadn’t changed since I’d left, but even Patty seemed shocked at how bare it was.
Margarette set me down on my narrow, broken-down cot and whirled around to Patty with a snarl. “What the fuck is this?”
The unranked shifter bowed so low, I thought her head would hit the ground, too terrified to answer. Margarette’s power seemed to suck the air out of the room, making it hard to breathe.
I straightened, pulling the blanket around me. “Margarette, she’s no one to worry about. Just a girl who lives here. She’s not one of the bad ones.” Patty’s eyes met mine, and she blinked in shock. Margarette closed her eyes for a moment, clearly trying for calm. I nodded toward the open door. “Patty, you should go. Tell the others to steer clear for tonight.”
Patty smiled slightly. “Thank you,” she whispered. It was the first time she’d ever spoken to me, though I was almost positive she’d been the one to leave a half-full box of tampons in my trash can a year before.
Once we were alone, Margarette stalked through the room, opening the three drawers and cursing when she saw the meager contents. I was shocked that no one had taken the stuff I’d left. Of course, I had almost nothing.
I pulled on a ragged pair of shorts and a stained t-shirt as she went into the bathroom, still cursing. She poked her head out a moment later. “You live here? Full time?”
“Until a few days ago, yeah. I’ve been in the woods since… Thursday, I think.”
“Ah.” This seemed to make her feel better. “Did you take your belongings out there?”
“No.” Where was she going with this line of questioning? “I mean, I have a few things. A toothbrush, a canteen, and a knife. But this is all I have.”
“Excuse me.” She walked around the corner to the bathroom, and I heard her punching the wall, shattering one of the tiles. Her voice filtered through. “All she has. All she fucking has.”
“Um, sorry I don’t own more stuff. I’m unranked. It’s sort of like being a monk, except the vow of poverty isn’t optional,” I tried to joke.
She stormed back into the room and sat on the bed. “I am livid,” she growled, then took a deep breath. “I am livid that a treasure like you has been wasted on a pack like Southern. I’m beside myself at the thought of any girl being forced to live in a room with nothing, less than what homeless humans have.” She grabbed my hands. “And I’m enraged that the girl I saw fight a shifted wolf harder and better than almost any Enforcer in all of the packs just apologized to me for not having ‘stuff.’”
I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about this woman. She was coming off as a tiny bit unhinged, and I could tell for sure she had anger issues, but lots of shifters did. At Southern, though, the female shifters weren’t allowed to show it.
I inched away from her slightly, and she winced, her voice softening. “Ignore me. You can’t stay here; I won’t hear of it. I’ll find you a room near mine—one that doesn’t smell like piss, and make me want to burn this whole pack to the ground and salt the earth.”
Definitely anger issues, though the burning and salting had a certain appeal.
She rubbed the spot between her brows, like she had a headache. “I’ll pack for you. You rest, Flor.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, trying not to feel even worse when all she could find to put my stuff in was a plastic grocery store bag. She stomped back into the bathroom.
A shriek suddenly drew my attention to the doorway. “You little murdering slut! I swore if I ever clapped eyes on you again, I would beat the evil outta ya!” The dorm mistress Holly was already halfway across the room, her hair half in pins and half out, the day’s mascara smeared around her eyes in a raccoon mask. “You shamed our whole pack, you little whore!”
I would have laughed, but I was too tired to move, and she had a hairbrush in her hand, already raising it to hit me. Closing my eyes, I tried to curl up on my side. I knew from past experience that her brush hurt a lot less on my back and butt than on my face, but the blow never landed.
“Wha—!” Holly shrieked again, a sort of gurgling sound, and I opened my eyes to see Margarette holding the dorm mistress off the ground with one hand wrapped around her skinny neck.
“Who the hell are you?” Margarette asked, shaking the dorm mistress like a dog would a squirrel it had caught, and with as little effort.
I was pretty sure Holly was trying to answer, but there was no way she could talk. Or breathe, for that matter.
“Flor, dear daughter of mine, who is this trashy person?”
I sat up, the pain in my abdomen still awful, though I wasn’t sure why. I’d shifted, right? But I suppose I had been mostly disemboweled. It’d take time, maybe. “That is Holly Grier, the woman in charge of the unmated shifter dorm.”
Margarette tilted her head, her ice-blue eyes glowing like a wolf’s now. “In charge of discipline?”
“Among other things,” I said with a look at the hairbrush. “Pretty sure that was the part of the job she worked hardest at.”
Margarette nodded at the fallen brush. “Hand me that, dear?”
I did, and watched in awe as she used her free hand to crush the hairbrush like it was a brittle twig, before dropping the pieces to the floor.
