Page 68 of License to Kill

He sighed. “I’ll just go give Mason a call before you decide I’m edible.”

I spent so long debating if I should face Mason as a woman or a fox I lost my opportunity to shift. The slam of several car doors warned me the Fenerec hadn’t come alone. Staying in the tub seemed like my best choice, if only I could figure out how to blockade the door so no one could bother me.

Fixing the lock rose to a high priority, although I expected Jake would end up breaking it again being an idiot and forgetting the door could lock.

The subject of my thoughts cracked open the door and poked his head inside the bathroom. “I swear he didn’t tell anyone.”

“I am not here.”

“I think it’s too late for that, Karma. I’m not taking a bath and they can hear the jets rumbling downstairs. That, plus you shredded our couch. Add in your fresh scent all over the house, and I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to work at all.”

“Who is here?”

More car doors slammed outside, and Jake winced. “If you weren’t afraid of heights, I’d suggest we leave out the window.”

“Who is here, Jake?”

“When I called Mason and asked him if he could play fetch and bring over something for us to eat, he asked who the ‘us’ was, and I tried to dodge the question, and he implied I had some hussy over here to piss me off.”

I sighed. “What did you say?”

“That I wouldn’t bring some hussy over to our house.”

“You said our house?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“He asked if my parents were over.”

I started counting the ways Jake could screw up answering that question. “Over my dead body?”

“Close. Over theirs. Mason then blurted something about a kidnapping, a potential murder, jumped to some sort of conclusion I’d grabbed some hussy off the street and coerced her into living with me, and it became nonsense really fast.”

“What did he really say?”

“He asked how many bodies I needed to hide. I said none. I may have mentioned the couch had been attacked by the cutest little psychopath on the east coast. Then he squealed in my ear and hung up on me.”

“You did not say that, and Mason doesn’t squeal.”

Someone snorted behind Jake, and I recognized Mason’s distinctive tenor. “No, he actually said, ‘I will kill you if you make her cry, and then there really will be bodies I need to hide.’ Is he bothering you, Karma? I’ll remove him.”

“He’s mostly fine, except I’m a living bruise, and it’s his fault. He’s blaming me for destroying the couch, too. It’s his fault.”

“Freaked out when he brought you into the pack? To say the least, I wasn’t expecting that. Good job, Jake. I give it four hours, max, before the Alphas show up and kill us all.”

“I lost. He was going to work as a desk jockey for a whole year if I won, too.” I batted at the water, sighed, and waved my hand in the direction of the tub’s control panel. “You may as well turn it off so I can crawl out of here eventually.”

Jake reached into the bathroom and turned off the jets. “I tried to be gentle. It’s not my fault you refused to give up without putting up a fight. I think the bruises happened when I bucked you off my back. I thought you weighed more than you did. I’m sorry.”

“How bruised are we talking about here?” Mason asked.

“They’re already showing, and it’s pretty much head to toe. I’d make a perfect model for a domestic violence victim.” I sighed. “Clothes?”

“I’ll get you some.” Jake closed the door behind him, and he growled, which was followed by several yips, warning me there’d been a crowd of curious Fenerec loitering in our bedroom.

Damned nosy wolves.