My friend shifted his stance and lifted one big blue hand to the others, palm out. “You are hale, Tin?”
Tin gave a laugh. “We don’t stand on puke drinking ceremony here, little man. You know that.”
The second largest boy stepped up, eyes narrowing as he eyed me up. “You bring dinner with you? A little Tracker with a side of wolf. Not bad. Not the best combination, but I’ve had worse. Remember those smelly shit waffles that Sas brought home?”
It took everything I had to stand still, to not tell him where he could stuff his dinner and just how to season it, shit waffles or not.
Dox laughed, but I could hear the force in it. “Yeah, those were … not good. But don’t tell Sas I said that, she’d skin me alive. And no, these are my friends. Rylee and Liam, meet the triplets. Tin, Dev, and Lop.”
The second biggest one was Dev; the smallest one, who still stood at least nine feet, was Lop. Their eyes widened as Dox spoke, and it was Lop who blurted it out.
“Listen, dick nose douche biscuit you might be, but even you aren’t that stupid, are you? You don’t bring ‘friends’ here.”
Everything in me wanted to let them have it, and it took all my willpower to keep my mouth shut, though I had no doubt Liam could hear my teeth grinding. Doran had said to follow my guts, and my guts were screaming at me to give these three a big freaking piece of my mind. The potty mouth piece.
Lop took a step forward, his eye’s widening as he took me, and all my barely contained fury, in. “Ah, look at the little Tracker. I think the white trash taint jockey wants a shot at us.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, and then glared at Dox, but it was Liam who stepped forward. Yeah, neither one of us did so well with insults.
“What did you say?” His voice was a bare growl, his lips rippling as they pulled back over teeth that didn’t look so human.
A swell of appreciation caught me off guard. In my life, there weren’t a lot of instances where someone stood up for me. Usually, it was the other way around.
The triplets started to laugh, slapping their big hands on their thighs, like distant cracks of thunder. “Ooeee, I think the Tracker is banging the dog. What a slutty cock knob she is!”
I managed to get a hand on Liam before he took another step, but his whole body vibrated with anger. I knew what this was about; they were trying to get us riled up, to make us stupid. I’d dealt with supernaturals long enough to know that Dox was going about this the wrong way, even if it was his species.
Again, I looked at Dox, whose eyes were lowered. “You think submission is going to gain their respect? Look at them; we’re a joke to them! You’re a joke to them.” I kept my voice as low as I could. “You think that they respect you because you won’t defend yourself or your friends?”
Their laughter continued and I knew then that perhaps, as much as these were his people, Dox didn’t understand them. This, in some ways, was more my world than his. He’d lived, hiding out and being ‘human’ for too long.
“I trusted you.” I stepped out in front of Dox. “And now you’re going to have to trust me.”#p#分页标题#e#
His head snapped up, his eyes uncertain. But he didn’t try to stop me.
That’s what I’d thought.
With my boys at my back, I faced the triplets. “You three about done with your idiotic fuckery?”
Roaring with laughter, Dev actually went to one knee, holding his guts with one hand. “Oh, gods. What a pompous bitch nazi she is.”
I sensed Liam moving without actually seeing it, and I held up my hand, staying him. This was a game, one I’d played before. Like a schoolyard stand off. I’d never lost one of those, and I wasn’t about to start now.
I smiled at them and took a few steps closer. “Which one of you is the youngest?”
Without error, Lop and Dev pointed at Tin. He smiled at me, all big white teeth.
I beckoned him with one finger. “Mind coming a little closer, ass face?”
With three long strides, he was more than a little closer. He loomed over me, all ten-plus feet of him.
“Close enough for you, pie eating—”
I swung hard, the height perfect for an upper cut. My fist connected with his oversized man jewels, and he dropped to his knees, where I grabbed the ring piercing his eyebrows, pulling until blood dripped. “I am not a child, to follow the rules of your children. You are going to be polite to Dox, and you are going to be polite to me, or I will let my wolf rip your tiny little purple balls off and feed them to the Roc. You understand?”
He groaned, but I saw the flicker in his eyes, the twitch in his muscles. With a roar, he jerked backward, but I didn’t let go, the rings tearing out above his eyes. He slapped his hands over the open wounds, covering his eyes as he bled.