Chapter 4: My Dog
Lucian's POV
"You… what did you just say?"
My voice went hoarse on the spot. My dog ears drooped before I even had time to think.
Faye didn't repeat herself. She just told me to come home: "Dissolving a contract is more trouble than you'd think. Come back soon."
Then she hung up.
I stood there staring at the shattered screen in my hand — because somewhere between one breath and the next, I'd crushed the phone without realizing it.
My chest heaved. My claws extended on their own. My back arched with the effort of holding back the rage coiling through me, my tail rigid and trembling, my ears shaking along with it.
How dare she. How dare she be the one to say she wanted to dissolve the contract.
Lucy was sitting beside me. She watched for a moment, then laid her hand lightly on my back and stroked along the grain of my fur — the kind of touch meant to calm a cornered animal. She leaned in close, her voice low and coaxing.
"Since Faye's already made up her mind, why don't I come back with you? Once the contract with her is dissolved, you could sign a new one — with me."
The moment she offered to come along, something clicked into place. Faye bringing that filthy beastman home was obviously meant to make me jealous. And now this talk of dissolving the contract — that was the same game, wasn't it? She wanted to rattle me. Wanted me paying attention to her again.
The more I sat with that, the more certain I felt. After all these years, I knew exactly how much Faye loved me.
I stretched my back, retracted my claws, and let my tail go loose — it swung in a slow, easy rhythm. All I had to do was bring Lucy home and let Faye see what she stood to lose. She'd cave. She always did. She'd soften, coax me back, and everything would return to how it was.
I stood up and nodded. "Fine. Let's go."
Once the decision was made, I felt lighter. I grabbed the car keys and waited by the door while Lucy changed, already quietly picturing the look on Faye's face when regret set in.
When we reached the house, I keyed in the code and pushed open the door — but not before I'd curved my arm around Lucy's waist.
I expected Faye to be waiting in the entryway the way she used to. She wasn't. I walked all the way into the living room and there was no sign of her.
"Faye!"
Her voice came from the second floor, behind me. She was standing at the railing, a cigarette held loosely between two fingers, the beastman at her back.
The smell of smoke made me frown. Faye caught it immediately — she gave the cigarette a faint little shake, then stubbed out what remained against Thor's hand without a word.
"Lucian." Her brow was furrowed, her eyes fixed on me. "We haven't dissolved the contract yet. Don't you think walking into my home with my sister on your arm is a little out of line?"
The tightness in my chest eased without my permission. She minds. She still minds.
I lifted my chin and let the contempt show. "You brought that mongrel home — why shouldn't I bring Lucy? Starting today, she lives here too."
Lucy drifted to my side and leaned into my chest, her voice carrying a practiced sweetness. "Don't be upset, Faye. We're sisters — aren't you glad to see me? We can take care of the contract dissolution while we're at it."
Thor's gaze slid to Lucy.
I pulled her closer without thinking, putting myself between her and him, every instinct sharpening into a single edge of warning. My ears snapped upright. A low threat built in my throat. My teeth bared, white fur bristling, my tail fanning up behind me.
I didn't understand it — facing this wild beastman, I felt something I couldn't entirely account for. Not just hostility. Something colder. Danger.
Lucy didn't look away from him. If anything, her gaze turned more languid, more deliberate.
Then Thor spoke.
"Master." His voice was flat. "Would you like me to tear out this cheap woman's throat? And the dog's?"
Faye said nothing.
Lucy turned to me with tears catching in the corners of her eyes. "Lucian… he frightens me. Have I gotten in the middle of something I shouldn't have?"
I stepped in front of her, eyes locked on Thor, jaw tight.
"Don't touch her."
Faye visibly startled at the motion. Then she turned away — turned her back to me entirely. When she spoke, her voice had gone cold.
"Lucian. Go and get the contract dissolved. That's an order."
Something flared in me, hot and sharp. "Faye, there's a limit to how far you can take a tantrum. If you hadn't brought this piece of filth home in the first place—" I pulled myself back. "I won't get into that right now. Have him apologize to me and Lucy, and we'll call it even."
The moment I finished, Thor's wolf ears shot up. His pupils narrowed to slits. Fangs dropped from behind his lip, cold and unhurried, and he stepped forward, golden claws closing around the railing hard enough to bow the metal.
I didn't flinch. Faye wouldn't let him actually hurt me. I could already see her hand moving toward Thor's shoulder—
"Thor." Faye's voice was quiet.
"Give him a lesson."
He came off the second floor like a dropped weight, landing directly in front of me, jaws open and driving toward my throat.
I twisted just in time. A centimeter closer and my neck would have been gone.
I hit back. He had the size advantage, but I'd trained for this — and after several brutal exchanges, neither of us was winning cleanly. I drove every attack at his throat, his stomach, pouring every ounce of spite into it. His ear was bleeding where I'd torn through it. My tail — my carefully groomed white tail — was laid open where his claws had caught me.
From somewhere behind me, Lucy's voice broke through the noise: "Faye, Lucian is a show-class beastman! How can you let some nameless piece of trash hurt him like this?"
The crack of a palm meeting a cheek cut through the room.
Lucy's head snapped to the side.
"Who gave you permission to speak?" Faye's voice was low and even. "He's my dog. I'll discipline him how I see fit."
My dog.
The words landed somewhere in the center of my chest. My tail moved before I told it to. The corner of my mouth followed.
She still claims me. She still wants me.
That half-second of distraction was all it took. Thor drove me into the floor.
I snarled up at him, straining against the weight pinning me down. "Get your filthy paws off me."
His grip tightened. Turning my head became an effort. Breathing became an effort.
When I was close to the edge of what I had left, Faye's voice reached me.
"Enough, Thor. Let him go."
I pushed myself upright, one knee on the ground, still catching my breath — and Faye was standing in front of me.
She was looking down at me. There was something in her expression I hadn't seen before. Not anger. Not cold superiority.
Hurt.
"Lucian." Her voice was almost gentle. Almost resigned. "Why would you do this to me?"
It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't even really a question. Just those words, quiet and unguarded, and I found I had nothing to say to them at all.
My ears sank. My tail dropped slowly and brushed the floor in small, uncertain sweeps.
I looked up at her, and everything I'd been pushing down rose at once.
If she'd just meet me halfway — just a little — I'd give it all up. I didn't actually want this. Bringing Lucy here, the posturing, all of it — it was performance. I'd been trying to make her come back to me, because somewhere I'd convinced myself she needed to. But looking at her now, I knew that was wrong.
It wasn't Faye who couldn't survive without me.
It was me.
I'd been circling that truth for a long time without letting myself see it. I saw it now.
I almost said it. I almost opened my mouth and told her.
Lucy stepped in front of me first.
"Faye, have you lost your mind?" The fury in her voice was unrestrained. "You set that lowlife creature on Lucian, you put your hands on me, and now you're standing there trying to soften him up so he'll keep playing your obedient little dog. That's all this is, isn't it?"
Faye looked at her, and laughed — a small, short sound with no warmth in it.
"He was purchased to serve me," she said simply. "Pleasing me is what he's for." Her gaze moved past Lucy to find mine. "He's damaged goods now anyway. You clearly want him — take him. You always did like picking up what other people threw away."
The words hit like something physical. Damaged goods. I wanted to say something — to tell her that wasn't true, that I wasn't — but nothing came out.
Lucy's hands balled at her sides.
"Oh, that's rich." Her voice turned sharp with derision. "You want to talk about cast-offs? Weren't you the one Damon Blackwood didn't want? Aren't you the scraps he left behind?"
Damon Blackwood.
I'd never heard that name. Not once, in all the years I'd been with Faye.
Faye went still.
The kind of stillness that isn't calm.
