Series of Death, Draft 02, CH 22 (Patreon)

The voices were loud and joyous as Trembor entered the Watering Hole. He had to dodge prey and predator that moved from table to table, drink in hand, congratulating one another, on his way to the bar. There he received a nod from L’nard as his cousin made a series of drinks for his servers to deliver. A sleek fox and ermine were working with the regular bear tonight.

Trembor sat on one of the few available stools, and the L’nard placed a glass of alcoholized blood before him as he crossed to the other side of the bar to serve the people standing there demanding attention. He drank a quarter of the glass, and his neighboring stools changed proprietors three times before his cousin returned, breathing hard.

“Should I start calling ahead to reserve a stool?” Trembor asked, trying not to laugh at the other lion’s be-ragged expression.

“Office party,” L’nard replied, filling a glass with water and drinking most of it in one go. “Someone got promoted at an actuarial firm; so you can imagine I didn’t expect this level of…” he looked around. “Energy.” He studied Trembor. “How are you doing?”

“Have you heard about Bo?” Trembor studied his cousin.

L’nard shrugged. “I heard he’s on the outs with your dad.”

“Bo’s taken up gambling.”

L’nard winced. “And Torim hasn’t gutted him?”

“It was close at the last family dinner. Dad’s angry. Bo is, well, Bo, and digging his claws in.”

“There has to be more to it than that if it’s unnerving you enough to bring it up here.”

“Bo’s in—” Trembor closed his mouth, frowned, then shook his head. L’nard already knew what he could talk about.

The lion chuckled. “Ah, the famous Trembor neutrality. Keeping all those family secrets is hounding you now, isn’t it?”

“You’re one to talk,” Trembor replied, smiling. “How many people have told you things here you feel duty-bound not to divulge?”

“The difference is that it’s mainly strangers who talk with me here. I can count on one hand the times it’s put me in any kind of a bind, and the worse I’ve had to deal with was an unexpected expense, and fitting all that extra meat in my cooler.” Trembor tilted an ear and L’nard shrugged. “Neither sides were being reasonable. I don’t think you can resort to that with family.”

Trembor shook his head. “Whichever I’d end putting in my cooler, I’d have to deal with Serene.”

The other lion shuddered. “Now that’s a scary female. Did your dad ever say how they hooked up?”

Trembor chuckled. “That’s a story you need to hear directly from her.” He grinned, showing teeth. “Ask her the next time everyone’s together.”

“Absolutely not.” L’nard smiled. “I want to live a long enough life for me and Tiff to have plenty of cubs.” Someone called for him from the other end of the bar and the lion sighed. “Break’s over. Signal me if you need a refill. You get two more, then I’m cutting you off, even if you are family.”

He drank slowly, trying to come up with a way around his self-imposed restrictions on sharing what he knew about Bo. He’d like his cousin’s opinion on it. Maybe he’d have an idea on how to fix it. Marlot would be the better person to talk with, he realized, and had his pad in hand, the number on it, before he stopped himself. What about his promise to never have anything to do with the wolf again?

While he stared at the pad, his neighbors changed, in his peripheral vision bulky in a sweater was replaced with short in a suit, lean in jogging attire, by young in leather and chains.

What if sticking to that promise meant Bo was pulled deeper into debt? He placed the pad down. Why did life have to be so damned complicated? Marlot knew people within the underworld, and unlike his friends within the enforcers, he wouldn’t decide Bo needed to be turned into a pawn so they could arrest as many criminals as possible. Trembor didn’t want his brother pulled in deeper, whatever direction that ended up being. He wanted him out from under all those problems.

But Marlot would attach a price to his help. Trembor would have to be the one who was under someone else’s control, and he was never allowing that again.

A cheer erupted and the short male in a suit next to him winced hard enough his drink sloshed over the rim. The hare gave Trembor a sheepish smile as he mopped the liquid with a napkin.

“Not comfortable in large crowds?” Trembor asked, finishing his drink and motioning to L’nard for a refill.

“I grew up with thirty or so siblings,” the male said, folding the wet napkin and placing it on L’nard’s side of the bar. “Crowds are normal for us.” Another cheer made him wince again. “It’s the sudden, loud, noise that put me on edge.” Another sheepish smile. “It’s usually a sign a predator’s about to strike.”

“The Watering Hole’s a no predation bar. You don’t have to worry about that here.”

“I know.” The hare raised his glass so L’nard could wipe the counter as he placed a full glass before Trembor. “It’s why I come. But instinct has saved my life often enough that when it goes ‘loud roar, hide in closest hole,’ I listen.”

L’nard looked like he regretted opening the bar as he left Trembor’s area of the bar to go serve more demanding customers.

“I have to agree it served you well,” Trembor said, “since you’re still around today.” He looked at the number displayed on his pad, trying to decide what to do about it.

“I don’t often see someone agonizing over a number they blocked,” the hare said, nodding to the pad. Trembor realized the icon was next to Marlot’s number. It had been there so long it no longer registered.

“Someone who could, maybe, help with a family problem.”

“The one called Bo?”

Trembor narrowed his eyes at the hare.

“I was waiting for a stool when you spoke the bartender. I caught the name and that he’s in trouble with your father. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Trembor shook his head to clear the suspicion. “It’s my fault for talking about it in a bar. I shouldn’t expect privacy here.”

“Barkeepers are good people to unload on,” the hare said, “although I do get a sense the two of you are related, so that might conflict.”

“L’nard’s my cousin.”

The hare nodded to the pad again. “If that person can help, what is the issue?” he sipped his drink.

Trembor ran a finger over the number. A message ‘the number is currently blocked. Do you wish to remove the block?’ appeared. He tapped no. “He’s my ex.”

“Ah.” The hare sipped his drink again. “Bad breakup?”

You didn’t leave me any choice, Marlot had said, looking at him from across the roof of his car, his expression that of being hurt.

He took a long swallow from his glass. “I broke it up before it turned bad.”

“I see.” A silence. “Are you certain it would have turned bad? If you knew enough to know it could turn back, couldn’t you also do something to make sure it steered into a different direction?”

You didn’t leave me any choice, Gorrek had said, standing over Trembor, his expression that of being hurt, even if Trembor was the one with the broken muzzle.

He shook his head. “I know the type. The only way to steer that kind so it won’t be trouble, is to steer yourself out of their influence.”

The hare turned to face Trembor, the angle of his long ears inquisitive.

Trembor looked into his glass and waited for the hare to grow bored, but the curiosity only intensified. With a sigh, he placed the glass down. “I’ve been in that kind of relationship before.” The male was a stranger, he could unload on him in a way he couldn’t with L’nard, so why not take advantage of it? “I experienced how bad it can become before I found the guts to walk away from it. In the hospital kind of bad,” he added for emphasis. “I was just a cub, but that’s no excuse. I’m a predator, I should have known better than to let Gorrek charm me into a position where I was nothing more than his possession.”

The hare studied Trembor in a way that began to feel uncomfortable. “And you’re certain this male would do the same thing?” he indicated the pad. “Is it possible you misinterpreted his actions?”

“Are you a counselor?” Trembor asked, realizing it would explain the analytical way the hare looked at him, and the male shrugged. Trembor could imagine him as a counselor, as prey he was unassuming, disarming. Until he’d grown intensely curious, there had been an air of ease around the hare. “You don’t misinterpret signs when they’re the exact same thing that was done to you.”

The hare nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe he doesn’t mean to act in such a way?”

Trembor snorted. “He kept up the loving act for three years before he let the truth slip. That’s intent. He knew what he was doing, and he was fucking good at it. If he hadn’t slipped then, he would have slowly turned me into his possession too.” He drank half his glass in a long swallow.

“You barely avoid a predator’s teeth once, so you believe you’ve learned everything there was to know about them.” He sipped his glass. “Only to discover every predator is different. they stalk prey in their own way, brings them down in a unique way.” He nodded. “More than one prey became meat because they thought they knew all predators after escaping one.”

Trembor chuckled. “Yeah, you’re a counselor. And yes, I’ve caught more than one meal taking advantage of prey thinking I’d act in specific ways.” He looked in his glass, his mood darkening. “I hadn’t considered how I’d done that with Marlot myself.”

“That’s the male’s name?” the hare nodded to the pad again.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “And her had me completely fooled with the defenseless act.”

The hare took his pad out and looked at it before finishing his drink. “I need to go, but before I do, I’d like to know something. If you could talk with this male, in a place away from prying ears, where neither of you had reasons to put on an act for others. Do you think you would do that? Ask him why; let him explain?”

Trembor opened his mouth to reply no. To spit out the word; that he’d never listen to any lies Marlot would tell him, but the word caught in his throat. To be with the wolf again. To put this behind them. To go back to being together. To hold his wolf again.

He sighed. “How can I believe anything he’d tell me? Abusers lie. They tell you what you want to hear until you drop your guard, then they pounce again.”

“But would you be willing to try, if the opportunity presented itself?”

To breathe in Marlot’s scent.

“I guess.” His eyes stung, and he wiped at them. He thought he caught the hare smiling, but then his expression was neutral.

“I really need to go,” he said. “I want to be away from here before too many predators realized there’s a party going on. The no predation zone ends at the door. And this many drunk prey could cause a frenzy I don’t want to be caught in.” He placed a bill under his empty glass and stood. “If I can give you a piece of advice, as someone who isn’t a counselor, but has seen much of the world. Don’t let the past define your future. Some people are locked onto their path, but others just make mistakes and can be steered back onto a path that parallels yours, instead of going away.”

Trembor watched the hare weave through the boisterous crowd. He meant well, but it was clear he’d never experienced the kind of abuse Trembor had. Marlot hadn’t hacked his pad and locked him out by mistake. You didn’t leave me any choice. It had been a deliberate act to maintain control over him.

“Do you want a refill?” L’nard asked, indicating the nearly empty glass.

Trembor shook his head, then finished it. “The hare that sat here, is he a regular?”

“I thought he was with the party,” L’nard replied, frowning.

“If you ever need someone to help out behind the bar, offer him the job. He has a knack for getting people to open up.”

L’nard stared at Trembor, ears forward. “He got you to open up? What’s his name?”

Trembor opened his muzzle, then paused. “I never thought to ask. He didn’t ask for mine either.”

“And he’s good at maintaining anonymity,” L’nard mused.

“He claims he isn’t a counselor, but I’m pretty sure he is. He has that same way of talking the one I had to see after Gorrek had.”

L’nard indicated the pad on the bar. “He reopened wounds, I’m guessing?”

Trembor shrugged and put the pad away. “I allowed him to reopen them. I was so taken in by Marlot’s act I never bothered looking for the signs.”

“What if there wasn’t any?” L’nard asked, still looking at where the pad had been.

“What do you mean?”

His cousin looked conflicted. “I’m just saying, how would you feel if you could look back on everything clearly, and there weren’t any signs there? Would it change the current situation?”

Trembor chuckled. “Yeah, you need to hire him. He said something similar, but what you don’t understand is that if there weren’t any signs to see, it just means Marlot is craftier than Gorrek ever was.”

L’nard looked like he wanted to say something. Even after a customer called to him by name, he remained before Trembor. Finally, he took the hare’s bill and glass and moved on to serve the customer, leaving Trembor to wonder what his cousin might have wanted to say he felt he couldn’t.

With his glass empty, Trembor decided he had enough of the bar. The hare had been right about one thing. This much drunk prey was going to cause chaos when they left, and he didn’t want to get caught in the middle of that. He waved to his cousin and headed out. Tightening his jacket against the cold and noting the predators already taking positions around the bar’s exit.

At least one of them had tried to take on someone who hadn’t been drunk enough, by the way he held his sides and clearly broken arm. That he hadn’t gone to a medical clinic told Trembor some of them were desperate for meat.

They’d get their pick soon enough, and even the injured one might be able to bring someone down.

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