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What Was Broken -

Chapter 12

Over the next few weeks the last of the summer's typical muggy heat had finally faded to relative pre-autumnal comfort but in the office things were heating up for Taws. California was drawing down to the wire with a rapid flurry of new Proposition 12 media spots, a couple of which took off online to become viral hits that the New York team would ride along as the pivotal voting event approached. Whichever way it went, the Firm would continue onward with its push in New York, a much more conservative state despite being the same shade of 'blue'. A lot of eyes were turned to California as the trend setter for almost every political movement in recent years.

And Taws was caught up in the frenzy of it along with everybody else, keeping tabs on shifting polls day by day and sometimes even hour by hour, with the latest information being fed to her directly through the partner Firm in California. Hawaii had also picked up its own movement along the same lines as had predominantly non-human populated Alaska, but they would be at least a year behind. All of this went into Taws' marketing team to be spat back out with sound bites, info spots, and other material geared toward a northeastern crowd. Summer faded and autumn snuck in with pleasantly cooler nights and now few blustery late season storms. A hurricane raked up the coast, worrying everybody, only to veer off into the Atlantic just north of DC, but Taws was only dimly aware of it.

Seated at one of the desks in her media 'farm', a large room where much of the information gathering and aggregation took place before it was sent to respective secondary locations for various purposes, Taws looked up when she sensed a presence at the door. Her glass-walled office was on a mezzanine that overlooked the entire floor, along with the five others occupied by the leads on other marketing teams also working with the same information to other ends. At least none had been tasked to run opposing media, which had happened in the past. The Firm was solidly behind the progressive movement toward equality. When she looked up she found the russet-hued mail clerk standing just within the doorway. His cart was parked just beyond and he held a large manila envelope in one hand.

"Hello, Taws." He drawled smoothly with a winning smile, but there was something in his eyes that set Taws aback. She set aside her tablet and stared flatly at him.

"Just put it on the desk, Trevor." She waved to her inbox. "And don't call me Taws. Not even my own team calls me that."

Trevor shrugged it off and approached. "I think you might want to see this." Carefully he laid the thick document envelope on the desk and slid it across. "It came in this morning without a return address. I had to run it through safety protocols before delivery." Not that anyone had intentionally targeted the Firm, despite its often heavily weighted political marketing, they still had to be careful about what came through the post. Non-return labeled mail was always screened. As a result the envelope had already been opened, re-secured with nothing more than a single strip of clear tape.

It was addressed to her, but only insofar as to have been sent to the Firm in her name and had a Las Vegas post mark. With a dubious look up at the setter, who had taken a step back to merely wait to see how she would react to what he had found during the safety examination. His slightly wagging tail made her more than a little dubious. Popping the tape Taws saw that, within, was a stack of perhaps fifty glossy photo prints and a single type-written sheet on top. Drawing them out she read over the note.

In the center it said simply: "Your friend does not know when to keep his mouth shut. All actions have consequences. See that he learns that." Taws frowned at the enigmatic message and shuffled the paper to the back. The first picture was of a color photo of a white canine's back bent over a person lying under it. The canine was wearing a garish flower-print bath robe from which his tail stuck to reveal he wore nothing beneath. Likewise, the human, male by the look of the legs visible extended beyond the wolf kneeling over him, was apparently wearing even less. Taws blinked at the photo and then back up at the Irish Setter still waiting, a baited look pulling at his whiskers and his tail moving more brusquely now. By the subdued shadows of the image the photograph had been taken just after dawn or before dusk. Taws slipped the photo to the bottom of the stack and looked at the next.

That one was very much more telling.

Sean and Oda, in profile, standing on some porch built of age-faded wood. The forced perspective hinted that the photo had been taken from an elevation and its subtle focal points meant that it had been taken at some distance with a telephoto lens. It was also much darker and had been artificially enhanced in post processing. Sean was wearing only a pair of briefs while the wolf wore nothing but his own fur. Their pose was romantic, if not intimate, arms about each other while Oda's head was dipped and his tongue caught in the act of drawing across Sean's cheek.

"What the hell is this?" Taws growled in surprise, flipping to the next photograph, this with Sean's briefs half way down his thighs and being drawn down by the wolf. Her hackles lifted under her blouse and she felt a shiver race up her spine to lift her fur from nape to tail. "What the hell?"

"Not sure, Taws." Trevor shrugged, trying hard to keep a concerned look on his muzzle as he gazed down at the photographs in her hands. For a few moments the only sound in the office was the hastening whicker of the photographs being shuffled. Each was ever more salacious than the last, clearly taken clandestinely from some vantage a little higher than the back of whatever house Sean and the wolf had shared, or through windows.

With shaking fingers Taws collected the envelope and shoved the stack back into it before stalking out of the office. Trevor hastily danced to one side and followed, grabbing his mail cart. Reaching the elevator she gave the call button a vicious stab. "Taws! Where're you going?" the setter asked as he caught up.

She shot him a withering glare, her ears backed and lips lifting to show off a deadly array of long, pearl white teeth. "To go rip someone's balls off." The elevator hissed open and Taws stormed aboard, a couple of office workers dodging aside in their exit with surprised gasps. None had ever seen Taws in such a state. By the time she got back, whenever that might be, she could only imagine the rumors that will have started. Even so, that was but a fleeting thought in the growing storm of rage within her. Trevor waited for them to exit before navigating his mail cart into the elevator and waited for the doors to close.

"He cheated on you, so? And?" The setter shrugged, straightening the dress shirt that had gotten tugged ever so slightly out of line in his haste to keep up. "It happens, Taws. Fuck the guy."

"With a friend, no less." Taws snarled, not really hearing the dog next to her and speaking to herself, "With a guy!" She slapped the wall with the envelope in fury; but also with sorrow. A name and laughing face from her past -- someone she hadn't even thought about in years -- had boiled up, bringing all the pain and hurt back with it.

She tried to blink back the tears of her rage. It was all threatening to happen again.

"Yeah, with a dog." Trevor shrugged and watched the numbers tick down. "Look, Taws, I mean, if he's such a complete and utter asshole -"

"Shut up, Trevor." She snarled without looking at him, teeth flashing through snarling lips.

"What?" The setter paused at the interruption, his ears springing up.

"None of this is any of your fucking business, so do me a damn favor and just shut the fuck up."

The elevator dinged to a stop. "But, Taws, if you're going to -"

Taws rounded on him with a snarl and shoved the mail cart aside as she stepped closer. One hand swept up, the side of her curled index finger catching his chin and closing his mouth soundly with a loud click of teeth. "I said shut your fucking muzzle, you asinine popinjay! And keep it shut! If I hear a single solitary god damned word anywhere in this fucking building it'll be your_balls I rip off!" Her growl became a howl as the elevator doors whispered open. "_And stop fucking calling me Taws!"

Spinning on one foot while Trevor, clutching his chin, staggered back against the rear of the elevator in shock, Taws stalked out. The office floor beyond was crowded with half-height bullpen cubicles, tables, modeling easels, and heads popped up like ground-hogs from burrows to see what the yelling was all about. Seeing the gawkers Trevor hastily straightened up and stabbed a random floor on the elevator panel while the infuriated collie ignored all as she wove through the office space.

Whatever conversations had been taking place all fell silent as curious eyes watched her storm furiously across the office floor, her hard stare fixed on the closed office door. Heaven help any poor soul who happened to be in that room with him.

"... you see, the problem is with the market perception and I will call you back," said Sean to whomever was on the other end of his phone before abruptly hanging it up. Despite the receiver against his ear, both were still ringing from the bang of Taws having slammed his office door closed. He blinked in surprise at the fury twisting her muzzle, a look he had never seen before. His jaw fell open as he rose from his chair. Not bearing to look at him at the moment Taws turned and locked the door behind her, resting her brow upon the door to try regaining some of her composure. She was caught squarely between fury and pain and did not trust herself.

"Love?" Sean asked softly, taking a step and reaching out, only to stop when she whirled on him with a glare and snarl.

"Love? Love?" she snapped, slamming the envelope of photographs on the desk before him. "What, do you actually fucking mean that?" She spat an angry bark and grabbed the envelope, only to slam it violently against the desk once more. "Love, what a crock of shit."

"Love, Taws, what has -"

"What the fuck is this, Sean?! What. The. Fuck?" She snarled and slid the mailer at him, forcing him to catch it. Glancing up, caught utterly out of left field by the uncharacteristic bestial danger radiating from his girlfriend, he found the opening and drew out a photograph. His eyes widened with another drop of his jaw at what he saw. It was not the same photo that Taws had first spied, having been randomly drawn forth, showing a black and white processed image of Oda on his back with Sean leaning forward between the wolf's legs.

"Holyshit." He gasped.

"You think?" Taws barked, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her bushed tail held out-thrust and still behind her. "What the hell is that all about, Sean?"

Sean half-drew another photo and grimaced, dropping both back into the envelope and looking down at the floor, his thoughts scattered. "You."

Taws blinked, stunned at his answer. Of all the responses he frantic mind had come up with, all the lame excuses and pitiful attempts to weasel out of things, that particular answer has never crossed her mind. She blinked again and tried to ignore the tears fogging her vision, resolutely fighting back the urge to break down entirely, "What? What the fuck, Sean, me?"

Slowly he looked up, pushing the envelope away from him with a grimace of disgust. "Yes, Taws, love. You." He nodded, meeting her hurt, angry glare. "All of this," he waved at the mailer of damning images, "was about you."

Taws shook her head and chuffed, though it came out almost as a sob. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from him, hugging herself tight as he tail finally dropped behind her. Her thoughts were a jumble, part of her wanting the pictures to be some kind of sick fakery dreamed up by that annoying setter, another sure that her perfect love was going to be ruined the same way her first truly serious relationship was. Her chest heaved as she sucked in a quivering breath, fighting back the sobs that were still treating to break through. "Then you had damn well better explain. Because the last time this happened it broke my heart, Sean. I don't want you to do that, because there will be no putting it back together."

She flinched when he gently touched her shoulder, her mane brushing out once more. "It was something Oda told me, that night before we left, when I was out on the back porch. One experience does not a lifetime make, he said." Still, she let him gently draw her around to face him, though she couldn't bring herself to look up at him.

"So? What? So you just went and asked him to fuck_you?" She expected him to say no, she _wanted him to say no, because she wanted that denial to throw aside what she had seen; her man in bed with another male in intimate ways that she thought she alone had enjoyed.

"In short? Yes." Sean whispered back, his own pain clearly rasping his voice.

Taws closed her eyes and tilted her head back as tears leaked from between her eyelids to leak into the long fur of her cheeks. "Why?" She moaned in an anguished, soft howl.

Sean closed the last distance between them and drew her into a hug, "For you, love." His arms closed about her crushingly as he pressed his face against her whiskers, despite having seen those teeth flashing in anger inches from his face minutes before. "Out of fear of losing you."

A sob escaped the collie as she was embraced. It was more than she wanted to show right then, but came out anyway. Fighting with her roiling emotions she struggled not to bring her arms up around Sean in return. Part of her wanted his comfort, but part still wanted to remain angry with him. The former won out that time and she unfolded her arms, dropping them around Sean's hips as she pressed her head against his shoulder. That was as far as she was willing to let herself go just then. "How -? How would you lose me, Sean?"

He reached up and began to stroke the back of her head and base of her ears, rocking them both gently. He heaved a sigh as if searching for words. In time, he found them. "The cat. That demon he left behind. It was going to force us apart." She could clearly hear the distress in his voice, how much this was hurting him, too. "It was, I could feel it. We were - we were growing apart, love, and it terrified me more than death itself."

Taws shook her head in denial, quickly dabbing the damp fur of her cheeks into his shirt. "No, Sean, it was not. I hurt for you, with you, but I would never leave you because of a memory!"

"That memory had cut our relationship in half, love. We were ... becoming nothing more than friends. And eventually that friendship would become the whole of our relationship, if it survived having that god damned demon bouncing around in my head." She felt him bump his head gently against hers, his whole body slumping as he sighed. "So, yes. I got drunk. I got roaring, stupid drunk, and took Oda up on his words."

"More than once." A statement rather than inquiry, the photos told the whole story.

Sean merely nodded, "More than once."

Her lips pulling up in a snarl as she squeezed her eyes shut, Taws pushed herself back from Sean. Looking up finally she was prepared to yell, to scream, to let him have a piece of the hell she was feeling, only she stopped when she actually saw. "You're crying," she rasped, reaching up to touch the tears on one of his cheeks.

He nodded jerkily in return. "Taws, you're... you're my whole world. I can't lose you, not now. I just got you back."

"Oh, Sean," she moaned. "You never lost me."

"Then I lost myself." He reached up and with a thumb tried to wipe away the tears one of her cheeks. "I let this thing run roughshod over me, I let it control what I thought and what I felt for too long. With the prospect of seeing the cougar again in that court room, I couldn't take any more. I was desperate and turned to the only person I could for help."

"I would have helped, Sean. I love you and I would have done whatever you needed me to do to help you beat this thing."

"Taws, oh Taws," he murmured. He ran his fingers over her ear, coming down and cupping her cheek. "I needed... What I needed you couldn't have provided. I needed to go through this with another male, someone I could trust totally. Oda was the only one. He agreed to help... for us."

"Sean," she whined in a plaintive growl. She grabbed and shook him, but gently. "Why... why couldn't you have told me the truth?"

"Because it was spur of the moment. Because until I was back with you, I didn't even know if it would really work. In my heart I hoped, but until I was back... I just didn't know." His brow furrowed in remembered panic, his blue eyes momentarily looking beyond her gold ones. That panic was reflected when he spoke. "I didn't want to risk it driving us apart totally, especially not while I was out of town. And after I got back, after we had spent the night together and I knew it worked, I still couldn't decide what I would say to you. I still can't, I still can't clearly explain it. Yes, I did sleep with Oda, I did cheat on you. But I did it because I love you and couldn't stand the idea of losing you."

Taws only shook her head, her brow furrowed with hurt and eyes teary with anguish. The initial anger had been quenched, the agony and rage that the pictures brought out had been doused, but the pain at his deception, that while he had not exactly lied to her about what he was doing in Vegas, he had not felt that he could trust her with the truth, that still burned. After all their time together and how close they had grown, that lack of trust was what hurt her the most.

She reached up and took his hand away from her cheek, then stepped back from his grasp. She needed the distance before she asked. "Do you love him?"

This time it was Sean who was taken aback. "Love him? Taws, I --" But he stopped short under her withering glare. She would not accept any off-the-cuff response. She saw him look down and swallow, carefully considering what to say. "Oda is a friend. In many ways he is closer than anyone else I know. I only knew him a few days before this, Taws, but I knew I could trust him with this, I knew that he would help." He paused, screwing up his face as he tried to figure out what to say next. "I don't know if there's a word for it, but it is a deeper friendship. Like him and Lazarus, how they are with each other, that's as close as I could describe how I feel towards him. Oda is a deep, intimate and unique friend. But love him? The only person I truly love is you, Taws, and the -" Sean had to stop and swallow, blinking away tears that were trying to come. "The thought that you'll no longer be with me, that our love may be over terrifies me like you would not believe."

Taws couldn't look at him. She couldn't or it would all crash down around her. Instead she focused all her attention on the floor, on some non-descript spot she had never noticed before and hugged herself tightly. "Call him. Call Oda, tell him what happened."

"Taws, I--"

"Just... call."

Abashed, Sean turned his eyes down and returned to his desk. He had to get the number off his cell phone, but used his office's speaker phone to make the call.

"Sean... ? Damn, it's early." The wolf grunted, apparently quite recently awoken, perhaps by the very phone he was answering. "'S'up?"

"Bad news and worse news," Sean replied, pounding his fist into his hand. "I just got an - uhm - package in the mail, from Vegas." At the wolf's grunt of curiosity he continued, "It contained some - well, some photographs. Of us. On the back porch? And in the bedroom." He fell silent and listened to an answering silence from the other end of the line.

"Well, fuck." Oda muttered after a few moments. "To you?"

"No. To Taws."

"Oh, fuck." Oda's voice suddenly gained an alertness he had not shown upon answering the phone. "She saw them?"

"I did."

"Oh... fuck." His voice trailed off with that type of panic children experience when the bottom has fallen out of all their carefully laid plans and their parent has caught them. "Taws, I am so--"

"Save it," she growled, some of the old anger stealing into her voice again. While she may not be able to direct her full rage at Sean, Oda was another story. "I'm pissed enough at both of you as is."

"Oda, can you tell us what the hell this might have been about?" Sean jumped in with. "Who the fuck took those photos?! And how."

Oda sighed heavily, blowing nosily into the phone. "I don't know. Not exactly. I have a few ideas, though." In the background they could hear the subtle sounds of a house; a running AC unit, the sound of claws on a hard floor as Oda paced. "Give me some time to check a few things at my end, I'll get back to you. Damn!"

"Do you think this was something from the trial, something aimed at me?"

"I don't think so. Smear tactics like this aren't usual mob retaliation for what you did. Like I said, I have a few ideas."

"Yes, but what about your superiors, if they get it?"

"If isn't a question, it's more like 'when', so I should try to inform them before that happens. Thanks for the head's up, Sean. I'll call you when I know more. Good luck." There was a pause and they could hear the wolf breathing, but he did not immediately hang up. "And, Taws, I am sorry if - well, that I hurt you." He hung up before either of them could reply.

Sean ran his hands through his hair with a growl of frustration. Taws was looking down at him when he looked back up, her arms still folded across her chest. "Love, just let me say again how sorry I am about this whole thing."

But the collie just shook her head at him, he ears backed half way. "I've got to go do some damage control of my own to run. I may not be as mad at you right now as I was when I came in here, but this isn't over. We are going to have a very long talk when we get home tonight." She reached across his desk and repacked the photos, slipping the mailer under her arm as she left. Sean was still wearing his shell-shocked expression as the door swung shut with a soft click on its own.

The elevator gave that telltale quiet ding before opening onto the garage sublevel, allowing Sean and Taws to disembark. She was leading, her back ridged and tail stuck out almost straight behind her. When they met up at the elevator she had whuffed a greeting back at him and not said anything since. There had been times with Ashley when she had given him the silent treatment, but Taws had never had occasion to. Until now.

He trailed behind, a hangdog expression on his face. Sean didn't know how her day had gone, but his own had been pretty well shot when those pictures arrived. Knowing that someone had seen him and Oda in those compromising positions had been one thing, but to have Taws find out that way was positively devastating. He had been no good creatively that day, all his thoughts focusing themselves on worst-case scenarios with her, and what would happen after work. She hadn't bothered to show for their usual lunch, and he couldn't quite bring himself to text her and find out exactly why. He suspected she'd tell him he should already know.

Taws stopped suddenly, patting her purse and then reaching around as if looking for something. "Ah, shit."

"What is it?"

"I forgot my valise. Those damn photos are in it and it's just lying there on Marshal's desk!" Marshal was one of the junior partners in the accounting department at the Firm who was coordinating the campaign that Taws' team was working on, among several others.

"Oh! Well, at least it'll be a quick run back up. Let's --"

Taws held up one finger, cutting him off. "No. You wait in the car, I'll get the pictures." By the way she growled it out at him, he knew better than to try and broke an argument with her. Instead he nodded and slunk off to the car to wait.

The twenty first floor was where the executive suits where, all of them around the periphery of the building offering relatively decent views, for what that was worth in a city like New York. When the doors whispered open Taws walked quickly across the lobby and through the heavy glass doors to the main offices. Beyond the receptionist's desk were numerous doors leading to other hallways. Some led to cubicle farms where executive assistance shuffled paperwork all day and others lead to conference rooms where their various projects were screened for clients. The office she sought, however, was across the assistant's cubicle farm so she whisked past the unattended desk and pushed through that door. She made her way through the accounting room cubicles and down the hallway toward the furthest office from the elevator, passing a few ubiquitous custodial staff going about their jobs. They paid her no mind and she hardly noticed them, other than the fact that they were almost all goats or sheep. People joked that they took care of the paper recycling without shredders but Taws always found those jokes, often bantered about by her human colleagues, to be in rather poor taste.

Without custodians they would have a frightful mess in short order.

Similarly, a lack of mailroom staff would leave them almost entirely out of touch with the world. That fact presented itself as she passed an office with its door open and happened to glance in as she passed to see the russet hued red coat of the irish setter, Trevor, picking up a stack of dropped mail. Or, at least it appeared he was. Taws paused when she noticed him digging behind the computer tower to one side of the desk.

"Trevor? What are you doing?" She asked curiously from the door. The setter's ears pricked up and his head jerked around in surprise.

"Taws?" he yapped upon recognizing her, "Dropped a letter behind the desk and it's stuck here, against the wall." Wrestling with the tower he slid it to one side and jerked an envelope out from the gap he opened between the tower and wall. "What're you doing here?" He set the envelope on the desk and pushed the computer tower back in place, reconnecting a few wires he had loosened in the effort.

"Picking up some homework. Adam won't be too pleased if you mess up his computer." She turned to walk away, "Just be careful." She continued down the hall and used her passkey to get into Marshal's office. Sure enough, her valise sat untouched on the expensive leather sofa where she had set it during the meeting. Quickly snatching it up she tucked it under one arm and locked the office behind her. Trevor was coming down the hall.

"That stunt you pulled in the elevator was bullshit, Taws, trying to put the alpha moves on me in front of god and everybody." Trevor said conversationally as he walked past his mail cart to face her. "What'd your man think of those photos?" He asked, one ear half cocked and a roguish smile pulling at one corner of his long well sculpted muzzle.

"None of your business, Trevor." Taws growled as she walked past. He quickly backpedaled to keep pace with her. "You got what you had coming, nothing more." She kept him in the corner of one eye but did not turn to look at him. "If you want to put a pack spin on it, then yes, I'm far and away higher in the pecking order than you are."

"What, you think you're too good for us, now?" Trevor turned to keep pace with her, "After what you saw, you're still all hot and bothered for that furless status symbol?"

Taws stopped and leveled a glare at him, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The setter shrugged and crossed his arms, coming to a stop as well. "Too good for your own kind now that you've upgraded to a human, is that it? Think you're all high and mighty over the rest of us now, ah?"

"Trevor, get your head out of your ass. He's an adult, a man, not a petulant boy not used to getting his way."

Trevor cocked his head slightly, "I'm no boy, I assure you of that."

"Pup then." Taws shrugged and resumed walking, but he kept pace. "Either way, you're half of what he is, a half I have no interest in."

"Just because you're shacking up with a human doesn't make you any less a dog, Taws. You're a bitch, not a human woman." Trevor sneered, "Don't think he won't kick you to the curb the first time a hot number of his own kind puts the moves on him."

"Piss off, Trevor." Taws snarled, picking up her pace.

"Livestock, Taws! That's all you are! Just another animal plucked from the farm and put in a business suit, just like the rest of us." He threw up his arms and waved at the cubicles as they emerged from the office hall. "He's made you his favorite pet."

Taws stopped and wheeled on him, raising a hand to level a finger at his nose, "Even from you I can't believe I'm hearing that shit! From a human, fine. But if you believe that, then you are everything that is still holding our kind back. You can't see past the end of your own nose to know that those times were over a long fucking time ago!" She jabbed her finger for emphasis but he was beyond her immediate reach. "I am no one's pet."

"Yes, you are. Fancy, pretty pet." The dog jeered, just like the schoolyard bullies of old. In those days, however, Taws had been more bully than pushover and she was not about to let the snobbish mailroom clerk cow her. "We all know that humans are into a little diddling with the livestock, the only difference between you and a rescue from the shelter is that you can talk back and sit on command."

"You're no better!" Taws wheeled about angrily, her tail snapping behind her as she resumed her march toward the elevators. "Hell, you're just a petty pup jealous of your betters. After all, you can't even get out of the damn mail room. Three years, now, hasn't it been? Longer? No one's been there that long." She stopped and looked aside at him, "Hell, and you're not even the manager after all this time!" Her laugh was short, sharp, and sinister. "Go lick stamps, little puppy, and leave your betters well enough alone."

"I'm far better, Taws." Trevor laughed back, "I don't fuck humans just to make myself feel like their equal!"

"One more word out of that pretty muzzle of yours, Trevor, and you'll be the one kicked to the curb like yesterday's trash." Taws warned with a low growl, "And do not call me Taws again." She turned away, only to be stopped by a firm grasp on her upper arm.

"What, you think you're all that, now? Think you can get me fired just for talking, huh?"

Taws looked at the hand on her arm and then slowly raised her gaze, lips lifting in a deep throated growl, "Let me go, mongrel."

Trevor blinked and then let out a sharp laugh, "Mongrel? Mongrel now, is it?" His hand tightened powerfully. "What, and you're-" He was cut short when Taws whirled and gave her arm a quick circular jerk, snapping it out of his hand so violently it made him stagger. "Bitch!" His freed hand lashed up and across with blinding speed and snapped Taws' head to one side as it connected with her muzzle making her teeth clatter.

Taws staggered, stunned by the sudden unexpected blow. With a snarl she snapped her head around and jerked up her left hand only to see Trevor's body tense in preparation to block, so she swung her hand in a feint. When his arm came up her right hand drove a fist sharply into his lower ribcage forcing out a startled grunt of surprise. His aborted block lashed down and struck her forearm before she could draw it back for another punch and he lunged forward, driving the full mass of his body into the collie and sent them both crashing against the wall of a cubicle. The contents on the other side gave a loud crash as it was shifted violently. "Bitch, don't even think you're going to show me up!"

Taws put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him off, "That's it, Trevor! Pack your shit, you're gone tomorrow!" When he reached for her again she blocked his hand with a short, fierce cut of her arm as she had been taught in the self-defense classes she and Sean had been taking. Trevor, however, was more evasive than a sparring partner and managed to reverse his hand and swat her block aside.

"You think?" His hand darted up and swatted her muzzle again, this time jeeringly without a great deal of force, deftly evading her attempt to block his swing. "You don't know who I know, bitch." Taws snapped at his hand, her teeth clashing together with a loud click inches from his fingers as he jerked his hand away. "You don't know what I know, they wouldn't dare." He leaned in and grinned with a show of glistening white teeth through the russet fur of his muzzle. "But you, well, you they can replace in minutes."

Taws wiped her arm across her nose and saw a smear of blood on her sleeve, "Back the fuck off, Trevor." She growled, bending to retrieve her dropped valise. "That's the last warning you're going to get." She stood only to find him nose to nose with her, his breath hot across her whiskers. She backpedaled only to be stopped by a cubicle wall behind her.

"What are you going to do, pet?" Her knee slammed against his thigh as he twisted, barely avoiding a solid shot to the groin, and he merely laughed and gave her shoulder a shove, "Sick your master on me?"

"I don't need to! You're done here, history!" She twisted and shoved her shoulder against him, forcing him back half a step before his teeth found the thick ruff of her neck fur and clamped down. Taws yelped in anger though her fur kept those teeth from finding flesh. She jabbed her elbow against his ribs, a blow too close to block, then gasped when a powerful blow hammered her gut. His hands tried to grab her arms but the collie became a flurry of flailing limbs, elbows hammering his ribs while blunt canine claws ripped at his dress shirt. Twisting about she managed to rip her fur painfully from his bite before he could use his greater weight, and clearly superior strength, to bear her to the floor. Darting down the alley between cubicles she made a quick turn at the next alley. Trevor watched her for a moment before going back slightly and pelted with surprising speed down a parallel alley, only his head visible above the cubicle walls.

Spying a loose keyboard on a custodial cart she snatched it up as she raced past, ignoring the surprised bleat of the goat cleaning up inside a cubicle. She saw Trevor turn at the end of the alley he was using to cut across her path when she reached the end of hers. They arrived almost at the same moment, the setter turning and his eyes darting to her empty hand as she raised it to strike, entirely missing the keyboard in her other hand until the edge of it drove under his chin with enough force to halt him in place with a choked yelp. When he staggered back and clutched his throat Taws took the keyboard in both hands and swung it with all of her strength down on top of his head.

The plastic computer accessory shattered with a loud snap, keys exploding in all directions to clatter from cubicle walls as Trevor went to one knee with another pained yelp. Taws hammered him again with the foreshortened remnants in a sideways swing that sent him sprawling in another loud cascade of shattered plastic and keys. She jumped past him as he struggled to regain his feet, pelting down the short hallway past the break room and crashing through the doorway into the reception area only a few paces ahead of the furiously snarling setter. She was hauled up short by a sudden grab on her tail and staggered into the receptionist's desk in a desperate spin that freed it. Trevor was beyond furious by that point, blood dripping from a deep, ragged cut along one side of his muzzle. "That's it, you snobby upstart bitch! I asked nicely, but you couldn't see the truth for what it was! You're livestock, bitch, just a furry plaything for a human into fucking animals!" He gave his head a shake as he stalked her around the receptionist's desk, spattering blood. His teeth gleamed predatory red, stark even against the rust hued fur of his muzzle.

Sidling around the desk, trying to keep as much of it between her and him as she could, Taws cast about for something else to hit him with as he darted around the far end. She quickly snatched up the large flat screen monitor and gave it a furious heave that jerked the cords loose from its back. She held it to her chest like a shield. Trevor's eyes went wide and he made a lunge for her, putting his shoulder forward to try and knock the monitor out of the way, as Taws hastily retreated. With a swift kick, she sent the desk's chair flying at him, causing him to crash to the floor as it caught him in the legs. With a ferocious snarl, the collie raised the monitor above her head, ready to deliver the coup de grace to the setter as he lay sprawled before her.

Only, when she tried to swing the monitor downward, it halted above her head solidly and Taws felt herself yanked back away from her opponent. She jerked again, trying to move forward and deliver the final crushing blow but the monitor but it refused to come down. She looked up to find two additional hands holding it and, turning her head further, she found the owner of those hands to be a towering ram with tightly curled, thick horns upon his head. Oblong pupils in deep brown eyes gazed down at her with the same unyielding regard as those hands and the chest against which she had staggered.

"That's enough, lass. He's done." The ram intoned levelly despite her furious snarl. When she turned to deal with this new addition to her melee the ram merely lowered his head, bearing those stout horns toward the snapping of her teeth, and stared up at her through his brows. "Let it go, lass. It's over" Blinking, Taws released the computer monitor, suddenly finding her arms weak and her knees wobbly. She twitched when she realized that she had almost turned on someone just trying to help; one of the custodians she had paid no attention to earlier. Her attention snapped back around as Trevor kicked the chair off of his legs and grabbed the edge of the desk to pull himself up.

The ram lifted his head and also turned his calm regard on the setter as he lowered the monitor and tucked it under one arm. "And you, lad, need to just sit down."

"Fuck you, old man." Trevor snarled as he stood as tall as he could, his fur bushed to full effect, trying to force the ram to back off by sheer predatory presence. The custodian was having none of that, taking a step forward to impose himself between the two canines.

"Sit down, boy. Before I drill you into the floor." Taws staggered away from the two males and sagged against a wall, choking back a sob and a growl at the same time, not sure if she wanted to break down and cry or send herself flying back at the mailroom dog in a fury of teeth and claws. Behind her the elevator dinged, the door whispering open to discharge its contents.

Chapter 11 < > Chapter 13