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Kaiden's now a full member initiated member of the pack, but Morrison won't let them rest on their laurels and has another exhausting task for the pack

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Kaiden took to his training with the Bone Shadows, particularly his theory lessons, much easier than David did. It was something that Kaiden didn’t know until he mentioned his teachers remarking how much easier he was to teach compared to their last pupil. It took Colin, Lucas, and Jesse holding David back from leaping onto the newest packmate to strangle him for Kaiden to realise who exactly that prior student was.

Kaiden warranted his success to his prior study as a student of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In which he was allowed to continue his studies without penalty. Even being supplied with a laptop from them free of charge so he could resume his classes online.

Even his first trip into the Shadow was easy. Having Jesse, Lucas, and David with him to help him navigate the spiritual reflection of the same office David did during his first trip into the Shadow without issue. Though he did need help figuring out how to use the punch clock locus, which David held smugly over him.

With the entire pack’s help, Kaiden’s two weeks of training with the Protectorate went easily. And after his full induction into the Bone Shadows tribe, Dixie returned the pack to Pioche where they found Morrison waiting impatiently in the Den’s driveway. Tsu’mara was leaning in the Den’s doorway, her shoulder still bandaged from the silver rounds she took rescuing Kaiden from the Pure the fortnite before.

Morrison growled as they all piled out, and pulled their bags out of Dixie's borrowed SUV, “Good, you’re finally here. We’ve got a lot of shit to do. The pure could attack again at any moment. So we need to get as much stuff done as possible.”

Once everyone got their belongings back in the Den, David raided the freezer for ice to bag his head with and Morrison said, “First we’re gonna need a pack totem. Without one you won’t last long without spiritual help. Need something of our own to help even the odds. Especially against that god forsaken snake spirit the Pure have.”

David had lounged back in one of the dining table’s chairs and put the fresh bag of ice over his head. He groaned from underneath the bag, “But we just got back.”

Tsu’mara, seeing the state David was in, asked the others, “What’s wrong with David?”

Lucas answered with a laugh, “The idiot ate a bullet.”

His grin immediately fell when Morrison’s head snapped to him and snarled, “WHAT?!”

Lucas quickly backed up against the wall as Morrison stormed over to him and demanded with a deep, animalistic growl, “Where was the Range Safety Officer?”

“There wasn’t one,” stammered Lucas.

“WHAT?!” snarled Morrison. He loomed over Lucas and growled, “Who taught him? Who did the pre-training for proper grip and stance? Who let him load multiple rounds in the mag?”

“I did,” Lucas said meekly. “But I didn’t do that other stuff. They’re just regular nine millimeter rounds.”

Morrison slammed Lucas against the wall and shifted his hand to grow claws. He slashed Lucas across the face and pointed at the pup with a bloodied claw and yelled, “Always treat bullets like they’re silver. Always. You can never be certain if a Pure spy switched bullets out with silver.”

While the elder werewolf continued to verbally and physically punish his charge, Kaiden leaned over to Colin and asked, “Is this kind of punishment normal?”

Colin shrugged, “Yeah, my parents did the same whenever I, or my siblings did something wrong. Though they made me put my hide on first, and gave my brother a crucifix before he had his First Change so we’d regenerate from whatever they did.”

Leaving Lucas bleeding and groaning on the tiled floor Morrison told the rest, “We’ll track down a spirit for a totem tonight. So be ready for then.”

He looked down at where he left Lucas knocked on the floor bleeding and said to him before walking out of the Den, “And clean up your mess.”

“Can I get a tylenol?” David groaned from underneath the bag of ice before the elder could leave.

“No,” said Morrison. “Your body will purge it from your system before it can do anything.”

David lifted the bag off his face and asked, “Does anything work?”

Morrison shrugged, “Fentanyl will for a bit.”

“I’ll take that,” David said, putting the ice back over his face.

“No,” said Morrison.

“Why not?” whined David, sitting up from the chair.

“I don’t have any,” said Morrison. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t waste it on your stupid mistake.”

David groaned and sat back in the chair.

Once it was nightfall, the pack had a small dinner and made their way to the Boothill Cemetery locus. Colin stayed behind in the Den, explaining to Kaiden that, as a wolf-blood, it was too dangerous for him to venture into the Shadow with them.

Kaiden was shown the locus, which appeared as just a plain, unmarked gravestone. He was confused by the strange scent exuding from the locus. He had never smelt it before. He could taste it in the air. But whatever it was, he couldn’t help but find it pleasant.

He was surprised, and disturbed, when David and Lucas informed him that it was death that he was smelling and tasting.

“You get used to it,” grumbled David as he knelt down in front of the locus and meditated.

Kaiden looked to the others but Morrison pointed back at David and said, “Watch.”

He looked back at David and watched his more experienced packmate who sat there in front of the grave stone with his eyes closed, slowly breathing in and out. When nothing happened after several minutes he went to ask Morrison what was supposed to happen but had his head forcibly turned back towards David without the elder saying anything.

He watched David for a few more minutes before the Ithaeur suddenly took a deep breath. And as he exhaled, his entire form faded. It faded until he had completely disappeared with only the echoes of David’s exhale that lingered in the air before that too disappeared.

Morrison shoved Kaiden from behind towards the grave locus, “You next.”

Kaiden was unsure on what to do. He’d only been into the Shadow once and even that required help from the others to figure out how to use the locus they used. He looked back to the others for help. But Morrison kept them quiet, with him only saying, “Do what Madhouse did.”

Kaiden did as he was told and knelt in front of the Locus. He did so for several minutes with nothing happening. He didn’t feel anything happen. No sudden turning of his stomach like his first time crossing the Gauntlet. It wasn’t working.

“Some time tonight would be nice,” quipped Jesse.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” Kaiden snapped back.

“Don’t worry,” said Lucas, ignoring Morrison’s attempt of throwing the pup into the deep end to learn, and joined Kaiden in kneeling down in front of the locus. “Just do what I do. Focus on the feeling of death. That’s the Essence that the locus resonates with, and it’s complimentary to Uratha. That’s why it smells and tastes so appealing to you. ”

Morrison gave a snort that sounded almost like approval and pride.

Kaiden did as directed and, like David before him, slowly faded from the Mundane as he slowly crossed the Gauntlet.

The rest of the Pack followed Kaiden through the Gauntlet. They found David in Boothill’s spiritual reflection standing over Kaiden, keeping watch over his packmate as they retched onto the ground.

When he saw the rest of the pack, David quickly stood away from Kaiden and faced the other way. Pretending like he wasn’t just guarding his vulnerable packmate. He crossed his arms and said dismissively to the vomiting pup, “Most people throw up the first few times crossing the Gauntlet.”

Kaiden finished bringing up his dinner, spitting before he asked, “Did you?”

“No,” lied David.

“Bullshit,” Kaiden muttered under his breath, not believing David’s lie for a second. He stood up and his eyes widened as he took in Boothill Cemetery’s spiritual reflection for the first time.

He saw that the cemetery was far larger than it was in the Mundane, with row after row of gravestones and wooden grave markers that led off into the distance.

“Woah…” said Kaiden as he looked around. He even jumped back in surprise as he saw a transparent spectre of a woman in a nineteen twenties flapper dress walked past the pack. A ghost.

“Yeah,” said Lucas as he saw Kaiden gawking at his surroundings, “Boothill’s reflection reflects its history rather than the reality of it.”

He pointed at a large black mausoleum in the distance that most definitely wasn’t in the Mundane, “That is the Keeper-of-Boot’s home. He’s the lord of this graveyard and all of Pioche’s cemeteries and graveyards.”

Morrison shifted to Urshal, a large hellish looking dire gray wolf, and said to the pack in the First Tongue, “Give the pup a tour of the town another time. Shift to something with four legs, we’re gonna be doing a bit of tracking.”

Most of the pack shifted to Urshal as well, with Jesse choosing to shift to his maned wolf Urhan form. David pinned his ears back and unwillingly let out a whine of sympathy as he watched Kaiden cry out in agony and fall to the ground as they shifted to his Urshal form.

The beast laid groaning on the floor. Kaiden’s Urshal form resembled his Urhan form but was far larger, with darker brown fur with black fur along his back, golden eyes, and hand-like forepaws. David couldn’t help but note a slight resemblance to Anubis.

After impatiently waiting for Kaiden to pick himself back up after shifting form he told the pack, “The spirit I’m interested in is a bit unique. Something the Pure won’t expect but it’ll give us an edge over them.”

He pointed to the East with his muzzle, “It’s off to the East. It’ll be a long run. Will probably take all night to get there.”

He turned back to the pack and asked, “You ready?”

Kaiden, standing on shaky legs, replied, “No, but I’m here regardless.”

Morrison gave an amused snort before turning and running off to the East. He led the pack on a fantastically long run of over fifty miles from Boothill Cemetery to their destination. They ran non-stop past Dry Lake Valley, stopping only briefly at the 318 highway to catch their breath and slowly cross the highway. They quickly continued their run, crossing over Seaman Range, and then finally stopping in Coal Valley.

“Okay,” said Morrison looking around the dry, white stone valley. “We’re here. Now get to tracking, you’re looking for a hot smelling scent.”

The pack then put their nose to the ground and got to sniffing. But they struggled to parse out the specific scent. David and Lucas managed to find a trace of a burning nitrous smell. They both agreed that that was what the elder was describing but they couldn’t find the direction of the trail. Jesse, Tsu’mara, and Kaiden couldn’t find what the two Ithauer found at all, even after having the sources of the faint scent pointed out to them.

Annoyed at the pack’s inability to find the scent as a group, Morrison growled and pushed aside the younger werewolves to find the scent himself. It didn’t take long for the elder to find the scent that the two young Ithaeur had found a trace of. But the scent was faint, and it took the elder much of the night to follow the barely noticeable scent down to the right hill.

The scent led them to a hill with a small hole at the base. It appeared to have been dug out by a medium sized animal.

Morrison sniffed the entrance to the hole and said, “This seems close to what we’re looking for.”

“Hold on,” said the aging alpha, hesitating. He sniffed the edge of the burrow again and said, “This isn’t the right smell. This is dynamite.”

“Oh shit!” He yelped as he jumped away from the hole. “Get clear, it’s the wrong one.”

Tsu’mara asked, “Dynamite? But that looks like an animal den. Not an explosive crater.”

“That’s because it’s both canine and explosive,” answered Morrison, slowly backing away from the animal den. “This is the home to an extremely dangerous spirit. One that we’re not gonna interact with.”

As Morrison backed away from the hole, both David and Lucas started to inquisitively sniff at the edge of the burrow. Morrison returned and put himself in between the hole and the two curious Ithaeur. He snarled at them to back off and promptly snarled at the others to force them to back off and retreat from the hole.

They all ran off, but Kaiden lagged behind. He still wasn’t used to all the physical exertion that his new duties demanded of him like the rest of his new pack were. He lagged far enough behind that when he looked back he saw a small coyote. It looked abnormal. Its fur was a brick red, and had strands of silk running from it in numerous directions in patches like an extra layer of shaggy fur.

Kaiden stopped to get a better look at the strange coyote spirit. He noticed that the ends of the silken threads were lit fuzes.

It saw Kaiden watching and yapped a single time like a regular coyote before it promptly exploded into a small mushroom cloud.

The cloud cleared to reveal the coyote standing unharmed, if a bit blackened, looking expectantly at Kaiden like he was waiting for the Cahalith pup to say hello.

“Nope,” said Kaiden, immediately turning away and running off to catch up with the rest of the pack.

He ran straight into Morrison who had run back after he noticed the newest member had lagged behind. He grabbed the pup by the scruff to force him to keep pace with the others until he was sure they were safely far enough away from the exploding coyote spirit.

“What was that?” asked Jesse.

Morrison let Kaiden’s scruff fall from his mouth and answered, “It’s a coyote spirit that got too involved with dynamite spirits. It’s why spirits of different types shouldn’t mix.”

“How does that happen?” asked Kaiden as he awkwardly rubbed his scruff with a forepaw.

“From a coyote spirit eating a dynamite spirit,” answered Morrison.

Lucas explained further, “When spirits prey outside their natural ecology, it creates an abomination called a Magath.”

Kaiden dropped down to the ground and gave a small whine, “Is it too late to go back to thinking I’m crazy?”

“Yes,” said Lucas. “But don’t worry. It only gets worse from here.”

Kaiden scoffed, “That’s something to look forward to.”

“Come on,” ordered Morrison. “We wasted too much time on this tangent.”

He then sniffed around for the true scent he was describing. He seemed to find it and led the pack further into the desert, to a large depression in the middle of the desert. The area was a dry barren lake bed and was notably sparse, like nothing wanted to grow there.

Or couldn’t.

There was a smell of burning in the air. Of scorched earth, molten rock, and burning coal.

Morrison sniffed the air and grumbled, “Ah, good. We’re here.”

The elder led them further into the depression, which the pack realised was in fact a crater not a lake bed. They walked past and through thin trails of steam that slid out of cracks in the ground. Many of the pack started to pant from the increase of humidity.

Morrison spoke up over the sound of canine panting, “I don’t know if it’s talkative. These spirits are rather rare as a whole. Though they’re, nominally, allies of Luna.”

He gestured to their surroundings, “This crater is hundreds of millions of years old. Older than Father Wolf. So it won’t have the same ability to comprehend like more modern spirits. It’s gonna have an even more alien outlook than regular spirits. Don’t think it’s something more conceptual like the fear spirit. This spirit is older than humanity.”

“What’s the spirit?” asked Jesse.

“A couple of decades ago,” answered Morrison, “I met a meteor spirit that had been inhabiting the county for a long time. Only found out recently that it’s millions of years old.”

“They’re very rare spirits, but they’re allied to Luna,” continued Morrions. He then added, “If you can remind them that they are.”

He brought them to the bottom of the crater. The ground was covered in a layer of smoke. The blanket of smoke was periodically broken by pillars of steam that launched into the sky from fissures in the earth that became more numerous as the pack approached a large, roughly spherical rock seven feet in diameter. It was covered in irregularly polished black glass. It could be confused as a large orb of obsidian.

“Meteor spirits are rare as pack totems because of not only their regular rarity but also because they’re hard to keep awake,” said Morrison. “But they’re a very solid ally if you can manage to.”

“How the hell do we manage to do that?” asked Tsu’mara.

David approached the large meteorite and gave it a sniff. It just smelled like regular hot rock and glass. He said, “Well. I guess a meteor is the most ‘awake’ when it’s burning up in the sky just before it hits the Earth. So light it on fire I guess?”

“If that’s your Ithaeur wisdom,” said Morrison. “Light the damn thing on fire, Mr Bone Shadow Ithaeur. It’s your job as one to wake it up.”

Surprised to have everyone’s attention on him as they looked at him expectantly, as if he were the expert in the matter. He awkwardly patted his chest with a forepaw for his lighter until he realised he was still in Urshal and didn’t have his clothes in that form. He shifted into Dalu form and pulled his lighter out of his flannel’s breast pocket.

He pointed the lighter at the base of the meteorite and let out a large gout of flame towards the orb of rock and glass.

He snapped the lighter closed. When the meteorite stayed dormant, Lucas quipped, “That it, Mr Bone Shadow?”

David growled at the Iron Master Ithaeur before saying in English with far more confidence than he actually felt, “The fire needs to stay lit longer.”

He left for several minutes, gathering a large armful of wood. He had to leave the crater in order to find and gather enough. He stacked the firewood on top of the meteorite and lit it on fire.

The bonfire burned for a few minutes with nothing happening. David nervously waited, and growled at Lucas to be patient whenever the other Ithaeur tried to criticise him.

Eventually, a faint rumbling could be heard and the meteorite started slowly turning. The burning wood tumbled from the top of it. But the fire didn’t extinguish. The fire crawled along the meteorite’s surface, coalescing and growing at the back to create a roaring cometary tail. A large crack formed on the surface of the rock. It widened to create a gap that resembled a mouth in the surface of the rock, a jagged mess of cracked rock that looked almost like a smile.

The meteorite rumbled in the First Tongue in a voice that was a grating crunch of rock, the crackling of flames, and the sharp squeal of glass-on-glass, “Who goes there?”

David looked to the pack for help but they just looked back at him like it was still his job.

“I don’t know what to do!” he snapped at them. “I didn’t expect to get this far.”

David’s response made Kaiden give a barking laugh.

The meteor spirit turned to David, its attention grabbed by his outburst. David, shocked at the attention he was getting, fell back to old habits and stared it down.

The flaming rock smiled all the wider at David and said in its grinding voice, “I smell Luna’s blessing on you, Flesh-Creature. Have you come to wake me for my Lady’s service?”

David froze under the spirit’s gaze. Diplomacy was far from his strong suit. His eyes flicked over to the pack and he silently begged them to take over.

Kaiden walked paced forward and said, “We ask you to help our Lady by keeping the Pure in check.”

“I will gladly aid the Silver Maiden, but I do not know what these Pure are,” said the meteor spirit. It looked over the entire pack and said, “You are Luna’s half flesh children. Ur-something.”

“We are Uratha,” informed Morrison. “Children of Mother Luna and Father Wolf.”

“Ah. I remember My Lady courting Wolf,” said the spirit. It looked up towards the stars for a moment, seeming to calculate something, “That was several millennia ago. I’m glad to know that their union bore productive fruit.”

Kaiden brought the spirit back on track by saying, “Some of those children had a bit of a disagreement and spurned Mother Luna’s gifts.”

The meteor spirit snapped its attention to Kaiden with a cracking of rock and a squeal of glass, “Ungrateful children of the Mother. How dare they?”

It turned its attention to Morrison and said, “I recognise you. You were here last time I was awake.”

Morrison nodded and gave a slight bow, “Yes, honored spirit. I was hunting a dangerous spirit in this stretch of desert decades ago and I stumbled on your resting place. We had a long conversation.”

The spirit wobbled in place, it took a moment for the others to realise that it was nodding. It said, “Ah, okay. The last time I was awoken before you was a few thousand years ago when-”

The spirit then said a word that didn’t translate in the First Tongue at all. All the younger werewolves looked at each other in confusion but none of them recognised the word.

The spirit continued, unawares of the pack’s confusion, “They were here then, only one of you flesh things. Asking for assistance in a task back then too. Seems to be common for you fleshy wolf-things to request favors of spirits in service of Luna.”

“Not often spirits of your calibre,” said Kaiden trying to flatter it.

The spirit looked the pack over again and asked, “What is this favor you ask of me? How may I serve the cause of Mother Luna?”

Morrison answered for the pack, “My pack and I request your assistance as a bonded spirit totem. A protector and ambassador to assist in our duties in protecting the Gauntlet and serving Mother Luna. Upholding her oath. In order to do this, a pack needs a spirit’s assistance and we call that totem. We ask that for as long as we may live.”

David and Lucas shared a look. Morrison always denied being a part of their pack, always claiming to just be their teacher. So him suddenly referring to them as his pack didn’t escape the two Ithaeurs notice.

“Ah, alright,” said the spirit. “That’s what the last fleshy wolves asked of me, Elder One.”

It said another untranslatable word, “That’s what she called herself. I don’t know what that means but that’s what she called herself. It was my first interaction with Wolf’s children. That was a thousand years ago. I’ve been napping since then. She explained the concept of being a spirit totem.”

The meteor’s flaming tail started to wane, “I turned down her offer. She explained that the job would require a lot of crossing into the other side of this new Gauntlet to deal with humans. But I was so tired, I just wanted to go back to sleep.”

The spirit looked around the desert, “But there seems to be a lot more of them now. Their digging around into the earth has me concerned.”

The younger werewolves looked around, not sure how the spirit was able to actually see anything it was describing from the inside of the crater. David and Lucas realised that it was because a meteor spirit was a combination of both a fire and earth spirit. So it could see through the earth itself much farther than anyone else. Lucas wouldn’t be surprised if it could see all the way to Alamo.

They also noticed that the fire that David had started was starting to wane as it started leaning into its more earthen nature which would encourage a more stationary and stubborn nature. If they wanted it as their pack totem they needed to get it to lean into its more fiery nature, as fire is a far more proactive concept than earth is.

The two were bickering with each other, growling at each other as they disagreed on how to get it to lean into its fiery nature. Kaiden, who had been eavesdropping on the two Ithaeur, spoke up. Gaining the spirit’s attention, “Humans have come a long way since that first Uratha asked you to be their totem. They’ve even started exploring the stars, which is where you’re from.”

Lucas quickly added onto the Cahalith’s comment, “Yes. You’d be interested to know that the humans aren’t just digging into the earth. They’re not only building structures of their own but, like how my packmate mentioned, managed to propel their way into space. They even landed on the face of Luna herself.”

David watched as his packmate built on Kaiden’s argument and begrudgingly decided to add to the Iron Master’s argument. He added in the First Tongue, “Our duty as Uratha is to keep the balance between the two worlds. It not only means keeping the Spirit World in check, but it also means needing to keep the humans in check also. Since they’re capable of completely throwing the Spirit World out of balance.”

The three’s joined argument worked. The spirit’s cometary tail burned hotter, gaining a blue tinge in its centre. The meteoric stone and glass that made up most of its form started to shift around excitedly.

“The monkeys touched the face of Luna?” it asked. “How fascinating.”

It then told the pack as a whole, “I’ll have to consult my fellow choir members before I can give you an answer. But I’m interested in seeing why Luna has such interest in the other side of the Gauntlet and in serving the Silver Maiden’s work. Even if that requires binding myself to you fleshy wolf-things. I will need time to survey the local hisil and gather some information. But I will find you and will join with you before the next turn of Luna’s phase.”

The meteor then moved ludicrously fast along the ground, the pack having to dive out of the way to avoid getting crushed, leaving scorch marks in its wake as it shot out of the crater.

David picked himself up, brushed off his flannel and jeans while being careful not to tear them with his claws, and asked, “What now that it went and fucked off?”

Morrison grumbled in thought before answering with, “Well I guess we wait until Fireball comes and finds us in a couple days.”

“Fireball?” asked Tsu’mara.

“That’s their name,” answered Morrison. “They told me their name the last time we met. Which isn’t actually Fireball. It's older than the First Tongue as a language, so its name is actually just the generic name for meteor spirits as a whole. Which is Sky-Rock-Fallen or Fire-Rock-Ball-Fallen-Sky. Both are clunky and inorganic names in the First Tongue. I gave it the name Fireball when we first met and they liked it.”

The elder werewolf then led the group back to Boothill, forcing David to shift back to Urshal in order to keep up with them.

On the run back Lucas excitedly said, “We’re actually gonna know a spirit that remembers the time before Pangea fell. But it’s a shame it doesn’t remember the juicy bits cause of it being asleep.”

Kaiden added, “It’s probably best that he doesn’t remember that.”

“But Luna forgave the Forsaken,” said Lucas.

David grumbled, “She could’ve forgiven us by getting rid of the silver weakness in full rather than just dialing it back slightly.”

“Shut up,” snapped Morrison. “She’s watching.”

“No she isn’t,” said Jesse poking his tongue out at the elder. The maned wolf pointed to the sky with his snout and added, “New moon.”

“Oh, it is,” said Morrison as he looked up to the night sky.

“Is that a thing she does?” asked Kaiden. “If so, that’s deeply concerning.”

Lucas told Kaiden, “It’s the belief that Luna blesses Irraka to be assassins and thieves but they do so while she isn’t looking, with her face turned away.”

“Assassins? Thieves? Us Irraka?” asked Jesse before trotting off, with his head held high as he feigned being insulted. “No, never.”

Tsu’mara and Lucas rolled their eyes.

***

The pack didn’t return back to the Mundane and the Den until a couple hours after dawn.

“Finally,” yawned David. They pack had shifted back to Hishu once they got within walking sight of the Den.

“Don’t get excited,” said Morrison, checking the time on his phone. “We have to clock in at the department in an hour.”

“Oh, come on!” whined David.

“You know what you signed up for when you became a deputy,” growled Morrison, walking past David and towards his cabin.

“I didn’t sign up!” yelled David. He jabbed a finger towards the elder, “YOU signed me up for it.”

“Just get ready!” Morrison yelled back at him from his cabin’s doorway. He slammed the door behind him.

Everyone rushed to be the first to showers, leaving David standing in the bedroom banging against the bathroom door.

“Fucking hurry up, woman!” yelled David in between bangs on the door. “You’ve been in there for over five minutes! I need to shower!”

“Use the other bathroom!” yelled Tsu’mara over the sound of the shower.

“It’s being used!” David yelled back.

Banging from the main bathroom rang out as Lucas yelled, “Kaiden! You don’t have a job to get to! Let me use it first!”

Tsu’mara yelled out, “Then use the spare cabin’s bathroom!”

“You still haven’t done the plumbing for it yet!” David yelled back, increasing his banging on the door.

A growl came from the bed where Colin was curled up in a furry ball trying to sleep. He shifted to Hishu and snapped at David, “I’m trying to sleep! I close tonight!”

Jesse made himself known next to David, startling David and making him snarl at the Irraka.

“Why don’t you take a shower with Colin?” asked Jesse coyly. “Double up and save time.”

David looked at Jesse, baffled, and asked “Why the fuck would I do that?”

He didn’t notice the glare of pure venom Colin was shooting Jesse with.