Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I want everything to be the same for a bit. I want to be just myself for just a little longer…
CHAPTER 20
Tailor
I walk into the house one afternoon and realize that something has forever changed. I can’t say what it is that tips me off. Is it a different scent? Maybe? A mood, perhaps. The seasons are changing. Winter is coming to an end and spring is causing flowers to bloom and the days to become longer, and spirits to rise. The port is well on the way to being rebuilt. Some of the smugglers are already coming through, but using tents and temporary structures now that the docks are back in place. Coastwood is seeing an increase in business again, which is making the locals happy. I have been down looking at new fabrics for the upholstery I have planned.
I find Conroy sitting in the kitchen with an empty plate full of crumbs in front of him. He has a strange expression on his face, as if something entirely unexpected has befuddled him. It transforms his features in a way I have never seen before.
“What’s going on?”
He turns his head to me slowly.
“She bit me.”
“You mean she shifted and bit you? Accidentally? She got riled up in her animal self?”
“No. I mean she just bit me. For no reason. Really hard. And then she took a cake upstairs and she’s eating it in bed.”
He looks befuddled, as if he doesn’t know what to do about any of it. That’s the strange part. Conroy has never been shy about handling Kita. He’s arguably the most aggressive of us all when it comes to laying down the law. So finding him here, staring at an empty cake plate is very odd.
“Why didn’t you just discipline her?”
“You go in that room and tell me if you want to discipline her.”
I go up to see Kita. I am expecting her to look sheepish after the behavior, plus she knows that she is not allowed to disrespect us. I made that very clear not all that long ago. Conroy might be backing down for some reason that makes no sense, but I don’t intend to.
She is sitting cross-legged in bed with a very large bowl of cake smashed together in several chunks. She has extra syrup drizzled over the top, and ice cream on the side. It is enough dessert for an entire pack.
She snarls as I enter, a deep animal sound that makes something inside me quiver.
I suddenly know why Conroy looked like he did. Something’s changed.
“What do you want?” She asks the question with a harsh timbre to her tone, and the general demeanor of a beast who just took down her first prey and does not intend to share any of it.
I had intended to raise a brow and lecture her about good behavior and tell her that if she wanted to bite, she’d soon find herself muzzled—maybe even do it myself with my cock, give her something to fill her mouth with. But the energy in the room suggests I’d be more likely to lose my member than have it pleasured.
Something has shifted inside Kita. Something that makes her seem twice as fierce as she has ever been before.
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Oh,” she says. “No. Thank you.”
“Alright, call out if you need.”
I shut the door and go back downstairs to join Conroy at the kitchen table.
“What happened to her, or with her?”
“Nothing that I know of. I was down at the docks today, came back, found her in the kitchen making a cake, and then when I asked what it was in aid of she snapped, told me she didn’t have to justify her actions, and when I told her she better watch how she talked to me, she smashed the whole cake into a bowl and bit me.”
“Okay.”
Damon walks in at that moment with a curious expression on his face. He sits down with us and looks at our faces.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Probably.”
“Where’s Kita?”
“Upstairs.”
He nods, and goes upstairs. We can hear his feet on the stairs, and then on the landing, and then he opens the door.
“Wargle bargle dink donk furk!” Something muffled comes from the upstairs room. Words, probably, but they’re more like machine gun fire.
We hear footsteps on the stairs, and then Damon comes back into the kitchen looking concerned.
“I think she’s possessed.”
He’s never spoken to us this much in his life.
Conroy and I exchange looks. It sounds silly, but I can sense us both somewhat agreeing with him.
“We should go and talk to the doctor.”
“She’s a doctor, not a witch doctor,” Conroy says.
“I know, but she’s the only doc we have, and she has enough experience with our kind to keep us alive, and I don’t know who else we can talk to about this and get anything other than break-up-with-her advice.”