Page 5 of Hellhounds Never Lie

Before I even realized I’d made a decision, I opened my mouth and said, "I'll go too."

ChapterTwo

DILLON

Disappointment blanketed me as I glanced around the dingy old basement rumpus room with its dirty, harvest gold shag carpet and ‘70s brown wood paneling. It wasn’t so much the room that bothered me, but the unkempt and boorish wolf pack who were using it as their meeting hall.

This pack wasn’t the haven for supernatural creatures I’d been led to believe. Not even a little bit. In fact, I would go as far as to say it was the most backward, narrow-minded, self-centered, prejudiced group of supes I’d ever met. And that was saying something.

I should have known a supernatural utopia was too good to be true.

At my age, I also should have known better than to eavesdrop on people and think I’d come away with anything useful. But when I’d been sitting in a downtown café in the largest city in this part of the country and heard two people talking about this place, I’d needed to know more, because even if a small part of what they had said was true…

A chorus of discordant howls interrupted my thoughts.

“Tomorrow night we will embrace our savage beasts and be free again,” Rob, the alpha, shouted enthusiastically at the others, building the pack’s energy to a frenzied level.

I’d seen human leaders do similar things to their followers: Build adrenaline and excitement in the masses and then set them loose to cause havoc. Nothing good ever came from shit like that. Right now, emboldened by Rob’s example, most of the pack had partially shifted and tilted their wolfed-out faces upward to bay at the water-stained ceiling. It was deafening in the confined space. The dulled pain in my head, which had arrived a few days ago when I’d first started to give up on this place, sharpened.

I sighed.

This was what I got for having a silly yearning to find a place to settle. It’d been a long time since I’d had people to call family; you’d think I’d have gotten used to being alone by now. Instead, my stupid dream got me into situations like this.

Whatever I’d hoped for—Family? Friendship? A place to call home?—it didn’t matter, because this place was not a utopia. What was the opposite of utopia? Anti-utopia? That didn’t sound right. And dystopia seemed more apocalyptic than what I was facing. I mean the world wasn’t ending because these wolves were shitty people.

Well, whatever a non-utopia was called, this was it.

I’d been living with this pack for six days. Six fucking days! And I wasn’t going to last another. Whatever new moon celebrations the pack did tomorrow night wouldn’t include me. I’d be gone before then.

I didn’t fit in here. Here or anywhere, apparently.

I sighed again.

I doubted there was a way to salvage the situation, but I should try, right?

“Can you explain, sir?” It went against my instincts, but I hunched down in my seat as I asked my question.

The wolves were already uneasy around me because of my size, but by questioning their alpha, I knew things could go sideways for me real fast. I didn’t need them thinking I was challenging him for leadership. The last thing I wanted was to be the leader of a bunch of narrow-minded wolves in the middle of the boonies.

Don’t get me wrong, I could take their alpha in a fight—shifted or not—but if I killed the idiot, then I’d have the dubious honor of being their next alpha. Wolves like this would never listen to a hellhound. They only respected their own kind.

But if I wanted to find out what was going on, I needed to play the game and pretend as though Rob was a good leader who needed to explain things to me as if I was stupid. I was still a member of the pack, after all. Even if I doubted I would be for much longer. As an alpha, he should want to incorporate me into his flock. I doubted he’d do much to enlighten me though. His kind usually preferred half-truths and bravado.

I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to obey this guy when I’d joined. Yeah, it wasn’t my smartest move.

I mean, I was a laid-back kind of guy. Someone once likened me to a sea urchin—even though my hellhound would never willingly step into a pond, let alone an ocean. But I guess maybe I was a little prickly when it came to letting people close, even though all I wanted was the terrestrial equivalent of a little tide pool to call my own. At least I thought that’s what they were getting at when they described me that way; I’d never had any desire to go near the sea, so I didn’t know a lot about the animals there.

Unfortunately, my relaxed attitude hadn’t helped me find a place to call home yet, as illustrated by my fucked-up decision to join this pack. But even I had my limits and Rob was getting close to pushing me right over the edge. He’d been irritating me for a couple of days now and I’d been trying to justify his sniping as a test of loyalty. But this was more than that now. He was pissing me off, and no one wanted to face a pissed off hellhound, not even a wolf pack alpha.

It usually took a lot for someone to drive me to this point. I had a high tolerance for bullshit, but I didn’t this time. I blamed that on my disappointment, which was my own damn fault. The wolf pack hadn’t broken any promises to me; they just hadn’t lived up to my hopes and expectations.

“No, I cannot,” the alpha snapped. He added a growly sound to his words, as if trying to intimidate me and anyone else who might try to question him. “Just do as you’re told.”

I closed my eyes. I really couldn’t do that.

The alpha obviously didn’t know shit about hellhounds, or he’d know he was asking the impossible. I frowned. I’d hoped to stay here at least a year—maybe even a lifetime if everything went to plan—and I hadn’t even made it a week. Still, as the only supe here who wasn’t a wolf, maybe I should have been happy I’d even made it this long.

A familiar hollowness in my chest ached as the last lingering bit of hope I’d been clinging to burnt to ash.