I came crashing down as I thought about it. What was I turning into? I was just a teenaged girl.

I didn’t have the right to harass people, threaten to kill them, threaten to set dogs on them. Mike could not and would not approve of what had happened.

Which was exactly why I had to tell him. He listened with a frown, then nodded. “You didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Thruor gave one of them a headache.”

I trusted her not to have done worse damage than she intended to. She was an experienced warrior, after all.

Mike made a wry face. “I can imagine.”

“What am I turning into?”

“Somebody you care about was threatened. Most of us turn into a raving instrument of vengeance at that point. The difference is that you’re strong enough to do something about it. It’s fine. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“Yet,” I said, making a face. “What if I have to follow through?”

“You won’t, right?”

I considered that. “I’ll try not to. But she did try to kill Kanesha. And I can’t prove that under the law.”

“Which is why hunters so often ignore the law and I’m always having to clean up after them. Fortunately, vampires and demons seldom leave bodies.”

I wondered if I would if anything happened to me. Probably not. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure I was entirely real. “But these are humans.”

“And you shouldn’t kill unless it’s really solid self defense. I can protect you to a point, but what about when you’re an adult and not here any more?”

“I’m not asking you to protect me from my own stupidity. Just from what I might need to do.”

“Then keep the line firm in your mind and you’ll be okay. As for feeling like the mob…well…”

I laughed a bit. “You know what I mean, though. Threatening to break people’s legs for hurting my woman. Isn’t that really a mob thing? Especially with the dog.”

“No concrete overshoes, okay?”

I laughed again. “I think I can definitively promise that part.” I had other ways of getting rid of somebody, at least I was pretty sure of that.

And besides, I didn’t have access to concrete.