“I can say without a doubt that this isn’t a chemical burn of any kind. The skin is dead. I suspect that some of the muscle underneath is as well and I’d like to do a quick procedure to see how far down the necrotic tissue goes. Your pain wouldn’t radiate from the dead area, the nerves are dead, but from connected tissue, which makes me optimistic.”
“Um, okay? That doesn’t sound very good.” Wolf leaned into the hand Jason placed on his shoulder, needing the warmth, needing Jason’s scent to counteract all the awful hospital smells.
“So you want to operate? Is that really necessary?” Jason’s voice was soft and calm. His fingers tensed on Wolf’s shoulder.
“Pff. Hardly an operation. Just a little exploratory debriding.” Dr. Moreau straightened and looked directly at Jason for the first time, her smile the chilly one she pulled out when she was annoyed. “It’s nice to see Officer Wolf with a defender other than his parents, but I don’t believe you have a voice here.”
“Who doesn’t have a voice, Dr. Moreau? Hello, sweetheart. How are you doing?” Mom bustled in and kissed Wolf’s cheek, pointedly ignoring the ongoing staring contest. She plopped a bag down in his lap. “I brought you a sandwich. Wasn’t sure how long they would keep you.”
“Hi, Mom. I—”
“Good afternoon, Dr. Tudosz,” Dr. Moreau’s voice was as dry as Wolf’s leg. “It’s a leg injury but nothing that can’t be dealt with. I was just emphasizing with Wolf’s new boyfriend that he has no say in treatment plans.”
“Boyfriend? Has it gotten to that point? Well, that’s wonderful.” Mom beamed and reached over Wolf to offer her hand. “You must be Jason. Very nice to meet you. I’m Alex’s mother. Please call me Miriam.”
“Great to meet you, too.” Jason’s expression thawed, his smile a genuine one for Mom. He probably would’ve said something else but Mom was talking again.
“I’ll pick up Audacity after I leave here, Alex. Just so you don’t worry. Carrington called and said your coat friends are looking after her. He’s such a polite vampire.” She leaned in to brush the hair back from Wolf’s face. “I’m glad you’re all right, sweetie. We’ll just get out of Dr. Moreau’s way and let her do her work.”
She bustled around the bed, took Jason by the arm and, despite being half his weight, steered him out of the ER exam room, chatting as she went.
“I’ve always liked your mother,” Dr. Moreau said with a soft chuckle. “Go ahead and have your sandwich. I’ll be a few minutes getting a procedure room set up for you.”
Three hours later, Wolf rode in a wheelchair to his mom’s car with his not-dead leg elevated and instructions from Dr. Moreau to come every morning for leech therapy, which sounded worse than it was. The little guys would help get the circulation flowing again around the part she’d had to cut out—about a highlighter’s length and diameter worth of his calf muscle. She was taking the dead part for study, an unholy gleam in her eyes for something in this world she’d never encountered before.
Working with the Seventy-Seventh for so many years, there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen.
“I sent Jason back to work,” Mom said as they rolled up to the car. “With a promise that you’d call him. You’re not cleared for work yet, are you?”
Wolf shook his head, a bad idea since he was still woozy from the constant assault of hospital smells the entire afternoon. “She said she’d decide tomorrow about work release. See how it’s doing.”
She hugged him tight, whispering, “I don’t like to say it in front of people but I was worried, sweetheart. This thing, whatever it is, and don’t tell me there was no thing, sounds horrible.”
“Carr didn’t tell you?”
“Of course not. He’s too professional. All he would tell me was my son had an encounter with an entity, Dr. Tudosz. He always pronounces it correctly, too.” Mom helped him out of the wheelchair and into the car, chatting the whole time so he knew she was still shaken. “I hear he has a beau now. A librarian. Could that be any more perfect? I hope I get to meet him someday. He must be a very interesting person.”
A demanding squeak-meow greeted him as he settled in the front seat. He pulled Audacity out of her carrier once he’d buckled in and let his mom’s verbal tidal wave wash over him. His cub had to sniff all over his face and hands with little disapproving sneezes. How dare he smell wrong and weird? Eventually he was judged good enough to be Papa again, though, and she wobble-kneaded his thigh before she settled into a purring ball of fluff. Everything was good. He was alive. Jason was alive. Mom’s voice and Audacity’s purr had him half-dozing as they drove home through the city.
He really didn’t want to think about the thing under the stove. Not yet. He’d had a rough day.
Chapter Seven
Audacity refused her box that night. She wouldn’t settle until she and octopus were in bed with Wolf, nestled up on his pillow. Something wasn’t right—she knew it but Wolf didn’t think she really understood what. He was setting a bad precedent, letting her sleep with him. The box wasn’t going to be acceptable after this. Too tired to care, Wolf slept until two in the morning when both his leg and Audacity got him up.
“Hey, that was great.” Wolf grunted as he put her up on his shoulder and got his crutch under his arm. “Almost made it through the night. Kitten food keeps your tummy full, huh?”
He made his ponderous way down the stairs and settled at the kitchen table to give Audacity a bottle. By the time they were finished, both their eyes were drooping and Wolf couldn’t face hauling himself back up the steps again, so he got them settled on the sofa in the living room. Of course, by the time he was dozing off, she wanted to go exploring, first around the blanket on the sofa and then doing a half clamber, half fall to the carpet.
That went well for a while. He’d closed the living room door so she couldn’t wander into any potentially hazardous parts of the house. With much sniffing and the occasional squeak, she toddled happily around the furniture and Wolf let himself doze off again, figuring she’d climb back up when she got tired.
Audacity squeaked at the coffee table leg when it got in her way, toddled under the table then suddenly hopped back out, back arched, spitting at some terrible enemy. Curious and fully awake again, Wolf scooped her up and checked underneath. Something had made her angry enough that she was still doing kitten hisses as he held her, so he expected maybe a pen or a stray Post-it note or some other fierce enemy. Nothing. Not a thing under the table but carpet and dust.
“I think we both need more sleep, little girl.”
Her chirp might have been agreement since she yawned wide enough to show all her tiny needle teeth and fell asleep on his chest soon after.
* * * *
The next morning went by quickly with the visit to Dr. Moreau’s office to start leech therapy and to listen to the doctor talk with morbid fascination about the impossibly dehydrated tissue sample she’d collected from the injury. Part of Wolf really didn’t want to know. Part of him knew the information might be important to the case so he asked if she could email the report to him and copy Krisk.
The mummifying monster had now attacked a human, or someone equivalent to a human. It was only a matter of time before someone was seriously injured or worse, so even though Wolf was officially off duty, he spent most of the afternoon texting with Krisk about the case.
Though working from home didn’t prevent the afternoon from dragging.
“Alex!” Mom called from the kitchen around four in the afternoon. “I have a dinner lecture this evening at Drexel on cytotoxicity and glyphosate.”
Slumped on the sofa again, Wolf half-listened as he plotted the known attack sites on a city map. “Okay, Mom.”
“There’s chili in the fridge. You just need to heat it up. And Jason’s coming over to keep you company.”
“He…what?”
Mom stuck her head around the door. “I didn’t like the idea of you being all alone.”
“I’m limping a little, Mom, not s
tuck in bed or something.” His heart was jogging along faster than it should have been. “You called him? How did you…? I didn’t…”
“We exchanged numbers yesterday,” Mom said calmly. “He thought it was a good idea.”
Wolf buried his head in his hands. “I thought we weren’t doing this anymore.”
“Doing what, sweetheart? I’m not interfering in your dating life. You’d already found each other. He’ll be here at six.”
Deep breath. Another. One more. “Okay. Um, thanks for telling me?”
“You’re welcome. You two have a nice evening. I’ll be back late.”
Was that supposed to mean something?
“Mom?”
The door had already clicked shut behind her. Wolf heaved a sigh and glanced around the living room. Not too bad. He made a couple of trips to bring glasses and a plate into the kitchen, started the dishwasher and gathered his work notes into a neat pile. He supposed he shouldn’t have worried since Jason’s house was such a mess but he knew his colleagues thought of him as messy and disorganized. Not that he was. A bit of clutter never hurt anyone. Still, he didn’t want Jason thinking of him as a slob.
After cleaning, he had to sit and put his leg up—stupid monster, stupid leg—and promptly fell asleep. He woke with a jerk and a certain kitten who’d settled in his lap woke with a squeak when the doorbell rang. Blinking his eyes into focus, he growled at his crutch and the crick in his back and growled all the way to the door before it hit him what time it was.
“Well, hi. Nice to see you too.” Jason grinned when Wolf opened the door. “Your mom did tell you I was coming over, right?”
“She did. Fell asleep.” Wolf hurried to move aside when he realized he was blocking the doorway. “Come on in. Mom’s not here.”
“Hmm. Yeah, she told me she was giving a lecture. Didn’t you say she’d retired?”
“Sure.” Wolf shrugged. “Doesn’t stop her sciencing. The universities still ask her to give talks sometimes.”
Audacity tumbled squeaking down the corridor, tripping over her own feet in her eagerness to see who was in the house.
“There’s our big girl!” Jason put down the bag he was carrying in favor of picking up Audacity. “Oh, man, she looks good. I swear she’s bigger than when you first took her. She doing okay with the kitten food?”
“She’s put on a few ounces. At least Mom’s small animal scale says so.” Wolf itched to take her away and yet he had to smile at how she batted at Jason’s fingers. “She’s down to a bottle in the morning and one at night. Almost on all kitten food.”
“And how’s she doing with the litter box? Getting the hang of it?”
“We’re…getting there.” Wolf eyed the suspicious puddle on the linoleum of the front hallway.
Jason laughed and transferred Audacity to Wolf’s shoulder so he could pick up the grocery bag. “I’ll get that for you so you’re not trying to bend down. It takes a little patience. Especially if mom’s not there to show her, poor thing. But I have something that might help.”
Wolf limped doggedly after him into the kitchen where he realized he hadn’t even taken the chili out yet. Damn it. “What’s that?”
“It’s…holy hell, Alex, sit down. Please.” Jason pulled out a chair and guided him into it. “Are you supposed to be keeping that up?”
“Yeah.”
Jason rolled his eyes, brought over a second chair and lifted Wolf’s injured leg onto the seat. “Then keep it up.” He took a plastic container out of the bag. “This is stuff to help with the litterbox. Just dried herbs and plants but ones kitties like. Easier to get her to start using the box if she likes climbing in there. Also—” A smaller container joined the first. “Kitten treats. For when she uses it successfully. She’s a smartie. She’ll get it pretty quickly.”
“Okay. Thank you. Um, I need to get dinner out.”
Jason held up both hands. “Hey, I’m not helpless. I can get it. Just tell me what we’re dealing with here.”
With minimal direction, and angry eyebrows from Jason when Wolf tried to get up, they got dinner warming on the stove. Jason was true to his word and knew his way around a kitchen, but Wolf cringed when he stirred the chili and put the spoon down on the counter. He’d never thought of himself as neat. Seemed to be a matter of degrees.
“Can I ask you something?”
Jason half-turned from where he was fetching bowls out of the cabinet. “What’s that?”
“Do you…I mean is it because I’m a wolf? That you, um…there’s no way to ask this so it doesn’t sound terrible.”
Now Jason turned, arms crossed over his chest. “Do I just like you because you’re a wolf? Because I like animals, is that it?”
“I told you it sounded terrible.”
“Sort of, yes. If I wanted to be all offended and wonder if you thought I was into bestiality.”
“That’s not…can we forget I asked?”
Jason crossed the room and put a hand under Wolf’s chin, tilting his head up. He smiled and planted a soft kiss on Wolf’s lips. He’d never been smile-kissed before and it felt like spring days on sun-warmed grass, full of promise and possibility.
“No. You asked. It was a fair question. And the answer’s also no. I crushed on you way before I knew you were a wolf. To be honest, I always thought you might be a werewolf.”
Wolf gripped Jason’s wrists to keep him there. “Were you disappointed?”
“Hell no. You’re much cooler than some mangy old werewolf who has to be chained in the basement three nights out of every month. That wouldn’t be any fun at all.”
Wolf managed a weak chuckle as he licked the ball of Jason’s thumb.
“Hungry?”
“Appetizer.”
Jason pressed their foreheads together, close enough that Wolf heard his heartbeat accelerate. “So that’s how it is?”
“Only if you want?”
“I definitely want. Dinner first. Think we can manage that?”
Wolf’s stomach let out a threatening growl worthy of an angry predator. “Um, yeah. Guess we better.”
Jason pulled away and came back to the table with chili and Mom’s cornbread. “Right. Civilized dinner first without innuendo and licking each other.”
“Damn it.”
“Eat now, lick later.” Jason took a spoonful of chili and closed his eyes on a moan that didn’t help Wolf with the licking moratorium one bit. “Oh, that’s good. Please tell your mom it’s amazing chili. So ask questions. What stuff do you want to know?”
Wolf concentrated on his food as hard as he could, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. He wished there was a handy set of expected questions that he could slide over the table and ask Jason to fill out. He already knew some of them. Parents living? Yes. Siblings? Several. Kind to non-humans? Yes. Likes food? Yes. Lots of yes.
“What kind of food don’t you like?” Wolf blurted out the first and probably lamest question he could have picked.
“Hmm. There’s not a lot. I won’t eat octopus. Worked with them as an undergrad and I just can’t anymore. Not big on boiled vegetables. It kills anything good that vegetable might have been, like saying ‘here, delicious broccoli tree, I will put you in this bubbling cauldron until you forget who you’re supposed to be’.” Jason popped a bit of cornbread in his mouth with a grin. “How about you?”
“It took Mom and Dad a while before they got me to eat any vegetables. I still like carrots best.” Wolf licked at his spoon, thinking. “I hate lima beans. They’re evil. And grapefruit. Gah.”
“I’ll try to remember those.” Jason waved his spoon. “What else? I keep making you talk about you. Of course, I think you’re more interesting.”
Wolf covered his increased embarrassment by nearly going head-down in his bowl. “Oh. Um. Music?”
“I like music.”
The laugh lines crinkled around Jason’s eyes and Wolf snorted. “What kind of music?”
“I like a lot of stuff. I
guess I don’t like metal much. Everything else, it depends what I’m doing. But as long as it isn’t hateful or just noise to be noise, I’ll give it a listen.”
“Good. I can’t do loud music,” Wolf mumbled around cornbread.
“Your ears, right? You hear a lot more than most humans do?”
Wolf realized he had devoured his chili. Did he want seconds? No. He did but he wanted other things more. “I hear about as well as most dogs. That’s what the scientists and doctors all told me, anyway.”
Jason pushed his finished bowl aside, leaning both forearms on the table. “I can’t even imagine how hard it was. Just learning to be human.”
“It’s…it was hard. But since my brain seems to be mostly human, I guess it couldn’t have been much harder than it is for a human baby. I mean, they have to learn from scratch too, right? It took me about three years to start speaking. I was maybe ten in actual years when I started reading.”
“Did you ever go to school?”
“No. Homeschooled. Mom and Dad thought it would be too much for me. All the drama of other kids on top of stuff I needed to learn.” Wolf shrugged. “First time I was in a class with humans was at the police academy. State Paranormal came and asked my parents if I’d be interested. They, um, waived some requirements for me. I’m still learning about humans.”
“Hey.” Jason reached across the table and gripped Wolf’s hand. “We’re all still learning about humans. I don’t think anyone ever stops. You get to understand a lot more than most people since you’ve been more than one species. Your perspective is unique.”
Wolf nodded, a sudden ache in his chest. “Dad used to say that. Something like that.”
“God. I’m sorry.” Jason was out of his chair and around the table before Wolf could blink. He wrapped his arms around Wolf, letting him burrow against his solid chest. “You miss your dad so much, don’t you?”
Feral Dust Bunnies (Offbeat Crimes Book 4) Page 8
