"You're especially wild today."

A soft whisper, close to her ear. It irritated her that Master Veron was always deathly calm, as if he'd lived this life before. She tugged at the collar of his always perfectly pressed jacket, ignoring the plaintive sounds of the stitching. He stood obediently pressed against the wall of a dank alley in the most wretched part of Grite one could find to live in. He knew she would hide here.

She always chose such places. He always found her.

She had worked for him in the past. Long and difficult. What else could a werewolf with an intellect barely better than a mongrel do if not a "forest orderly"? That's what their gang called those who did the dirty and bloody work: ķill, intimidate, ķidnap, beat, clean up traces. Without going into details, she was happy with the job, she had all the skills (only those skills) to handle it as safely as any job. But there were details that made it unbearable. And one of those details was now before her.

"Did you get rid of the phone I gave you? You haven't answered a single call."

The same confident, gentle indifference in his voice. She looked down at his slightly pink lips, swallowing. There were so many calls, and she still hadn't learned how to use this useless, fancy device, so she'd simply thrown it away a month ago. His warm, rough palm slowly rose, gently touching her angrily folded wolf ears. His dark eyes lazily wandered over her head, as if he missed her.

"You know why I'm here. And you know your stubbornness is no match for my wish. The car is 15 meters from here, get in there of your own free will."

Two fingers slid down to her face, ephemerally tracing lines across her features.

"And then we'll go somewhere where you can take out all your anger on me, little wolf."