Chapter Sixty-six

Pax put himself in between them, his front end in Rick’s lap, his tail end backed up to Keller’s chair. He whined a little, an oddly plaintive sound in the silence that followed Rick’s hard-sounding words, like a human growl warning off a challenger. His tail wagged slowly, like a dog that expects a beating and hopes a show of submission will prevent it. Ears back, nose down. This discord was agonizing. They had finally begun acting like a proper pack and Pax was sorely afraid that now the pack, his pack, was disintegrating. Only one male can be leader; the other must either submit, or leave.

He followed as Keller pushed Rick back to his room. Instead of settling Rick in, Keller turned and walked out, leaving Pax to decide where he should be. A soft snapping of fingers and Pax went to Rick, sitting down in front of him, ears still in the supplicant position, hoping that Rick’s heartbeat would slow to normal and the blast of heated anxiety would lessen as he found Pax’s ears.

“What do they want of me?” Soft whisper into an ear, a susurration that tickles him a bit. “What does she want of me? I’m not the man she married. Is that what this means? Because I’m no longer a provider?” A ragged breath. “They don’t understand that I’m scared. Scared that I’ve lost everything.”

Rick’s fingers dug deep into the nape of the dog’s neck. Pax closed his eyes, infused with the primitive recollection of being safe in his mother’s jaws. When she’d gripped him thus, she’d been moving him out of danger. Rick’s grip suggested that there was some danger Pax could not glean through his usual senses. Some danger emanating from within Rick.

Pax could hear the tiny tick-tick of the pills bumping into one another as Rick groped into that bitter-smelling pouch at his side.