EXTRACT FOR
Rehabilitation for Feral Cats
(Arian Wulf)

The guards who had brought her there and looked at her with pity in their eyes. She wishes they had enough pity to let her free.



"Do you know why you're here?" Alpha James asks.



She nods. "I hurt someone." No point denying that.



"Yes," he grins with all of his teeth and she doesn't understand why he looks so pleased about it. Everyone else had been a mixture of horror and pity. Horror, because she had hurt one of the untouchables, an Alpha. Pity because they know even if her actions are justified, she's going to be punished for it. "A shame you didn't finish the job."



She turns to him then, surprised by what he's saying. "I don't think you're supposed to be encouraging that," she whispers and looks around herself, expecting to find some sort of recording device. There's no electronics in here. She would have felt the buzz of it under her skin. Another reason why she preferred to stay inside her house, where everything is just the way she likes. It's not too bad here. She was expecting something more depressing. Her holding cell was worse than this. The people sharing the holding cell with her had been wary of her, twitching every time she moved. The toilet there did not have a door and the bed did not come with a blanket.



Her jail cell here makes her feel more human. She even has a bathroom with a door that closes.



"Perhaps not," he says cryptically, but that does not make it any less true. "I am certain that Harrold deserved what you did to him. Unfortunately, I did not hear about the proceeding until the very end," he says, like that's supposed to mean something.



"There were a lot of people there," she says, shaking her head. There were a lot of lights too, reporters taking pictures of her and writing all sorts of things into their little notebooks. They had written all sorts of things about her. She had read a few that her lawyer had brought her as reading material, knowing how miserable she is in her jail with nothing to do. Everyone wanted to read about the Cat Shifter who fought against an Alpha and won.



The whole thing is a sham. Most cats are loners. They're not even supposed to have Alphas. Harrold is a fraud and if she had the chance, she would do it all over again. Her lawyer told her not to say that in front of the jury.