"He's hurting. Waverly, he's lashing out because he's bleeding. He thinks we don't love him. He thinks we only love the gold in his pockets. Tell him! Tell him we'd sleep in the mud with him if he'd just stop looking at us like we're dirt!"
"Pulling me out of the gutters?" I snapped, stepping toward him, my red silk dress swirling around my ankles like a pool of blood. "You act like this is a one-way street, Kaeren! Like you're the patron saint of shack girls! This arrangement helped us both. You needed a Mate to keep your seat on the Council. You needed a shield against pack politics. Don't you dare stand there and act like I'm the only one on the receiving end of this 'business transaction'."
