by Jana Downs
“Um, sure…” Something about the way JP responded didn’t inspire much confidence in his own response.
These initial courtship moves were always the hardest for Billy. Once he got a man in his dungeon, he was good. Until then…Awkwardville. Population—Dr. William Carrigan.
He opened his mouth to say more, but some more of his surgical team came around the corner and effectively cut him off. It was impossible to have a private conversation in a hospital. He pasted a smile on his face in greeting.
“To be continued,” JP said with a wink. “After surgery, doctor?”
He nodded.
Time passed quickly once they were all ensconced in the ER. Surgeries were all about focus, all about narrowing his perspective down to nothing but whatever small task he was doing with his wider attention on the end goal. It was a very sterile feeling to reduce human beings down to a collect of cells, of tissue, of bone, but it was the only way he was able to perform these tasks.
He wasn’t a surgeon by nature. His passion lay more with the patients than their illnesses. However, as a Circle-appointed physician he’d studied almost every form of medicine there was in his forty years. He’d been accepted into the program at fifteen and had started practicing medicine at twenty eight.
JP was an excellent assistant and had been since he stepped through the OR on his first day in the program. It was one of the reasons Billy always allowed him in on his surgeries despite the fact that most of his team were much more experienced. At twenty-three, JP was one of the youngest in the program but he had a maturity that belied his age.
They had a very good natural chemistry going. He’d denied the connection for a good while because of the standing rule that humans and wolves were forbidden to interact unless the human in question was an available. However, the rules had been changed thanks to the mating of his Alpha, Mustang, and his mate, Grayson.
He spared a glance at JP as he closed. Now if he wanted to date a human it was perfectly legal to do so. Coffee was a start.
I will find a way to talk about something other than work.
“All right, guys. I think that does it,” he said, stepping back from the table and pulling off his gloves. “Good job, everyone.”
He tossed the gloves in the disposal bin and headed into the area where the scrub sinks were and then out into the dressing room where he could toss the remainder of his surgical attire before going into the main hospital.
He felt JP follow him into the room. He smiled as he glanced over his shoulder. “How about that coffee?”
JP pulled off the mask and threw it into the bin. “I could really use it.” He stretched, revealing just a strip of muscle under his belly button where his scrubs climbed upward. Billy’s gaze caught on the tantalizing bit of flesh.
His cheeks heated as JP gave him a cheeky grin. “Erm, well, caffeine is necessary for my daily function as well. So, do you care to go down to the cafeteria and then take it up to my office?”
JP nodded. “Sure. That sounds great.”
Finally, something was going right today. After what had happened earlier with Steve at the Alpha’s house, he wasn’t sure his day could look up.
If the boy didn’t gain control over his animal soon, he would have to be put down. There weren’t many options in their world for people like Steve, people who had been forced into their world and brutalized beyond the capacity of what Billy could imagine. There were no mental health facilities in their world, no opportunities for growth. If a wolf wasn’t strong enough, he was too dangerous to trust medication and therapy to. He was destroyed.
“The surgery went well,” JP said, making conversation as they traversed the seemingly never ending halls of St. Maria’s. Granted, it wasn’t the largest hospital Billy had ever worked at, but it was a good-sized medical campus with three separate buildings.
His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it. He wasn’t answering any frantic calls from the nurses or his other staff for at least an hour. He wanted to enjoy his coffee with JP and maybe even stretch it out into a dinner date. If he was really lucky.
“I think Mr. Mendoza will recover nicely,” Billy agreed. “You were very helpful.”
JP beamed at the compliment as he always did whenever Billy complimented him. He was such a vibrant person, so open that his enthusiasm for life spilled over like a kid at Christmas with every joy in his life. It was intoxicating to watch.
“Thanks,” JP said. “So what do you do for fun, Dr. Carrigan?”
Billy chuckled and waved his hand to encompass the hospital. “I work. I occasionally go out to my friend, Mustang’s, place but that’s pretty much it.” Realizing how awful that sounded, he attempted to downplay the admission. “I guess I’m just a garden variety workaholic.” He smiled. “How about you?”
JP shrugged. “I used to go out rollerblading but that was when I lived in California. My parents live right down from a boardwalk and I used to blade all the time down there.”
He hadn’t been rollerblading since he was a pup tagging along after his friends at the roller-skating rink at the edge of town. He’d skied in his undergraduate years but that was at least ten years ago. The Circle and his duties as their physician had effectively taken over his life. Like the omegas that had come to their territory a few weeks ago, he was their pawn to move about as needed.
“You’re a native Californian?” Billy had visited a small pack in Laguna Beach not too long ago. They’d had an outbreak of bruitíneach mac tire, a wolf-shifter version of measles, and Billy had been brought in to vaccinate and treat those already infected.
JP nodded. “Yep. Born and raised.”
That explained a bit about JP’s quirky, laid-back personality. Granted not every Californian had those traits, but a good majority of those Billy had the pleasure of meeting had a sort of natural offbeatness, for lack of a better term.
“Where are you from?” JP asked.
“Colorado. I grew up a few streets from here, though I studied in Europe for a while.” Under the careful supervision of the Circle of course.
It was always a frustrating experience for Billy to have a conversation with a human. Fortunately or unfortunately, he was fairly limited in what he could divulge.
“Oh cool! I always wanted to go to Europe. My parents were keener on Hawaii and the Bahamas though. Don’t get me wrong, the Bahamas are great, but there are only so many beaches in the world before you start to realize that they’re all the same.”
Billy nodded. “I understand very well. Growing up here, all I could think about was getting out and seeing the world.” And then I came right back here like a good pup because as much as I complain about the restrictions, I love this place. “My parents’ idea of a vacation was camping.” He shuddered at the memory. “I have vivid nightmares about the smell of bug spray and burning sleeping bags to this day.”
JP’s eyes widened an instant before he started laughing. “You clearly did camping differently than I did camping.”
“I imagine we did camping differently than everyone in the world did camping.”
If his parents were going to insist that they go out in nature and play human survivalist, the least they could’ve done was be somewhat prepared for the event. As it were, no one was prepared for anything. They’d dropped all their hot dogs in the fire and had somehow managed to fail to pack any of the other necessary ingredients for the macaroni and cheese. At Billy’s insistence, they’d hunted a few rabbits in wolf form to subsidize the piss poor meal.
The entire week he had rabbits and the odd squirrel. His stomach twisted. To this day he couldn’t stand to eat rabbit.
They reached the cafeteria and Billy held open the door for JP to step inside. The place was fairly packed for late afternoon. No doubt both patients’ families and staff were in desperate need of some nutrition before they shut down for the night. Billy was known to take three meals down here, mostly because he was busy running from here to all over the territory.
It was a frightening thought that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a full night’s sleep at his own house.
They beelined for the coffee counter and proceeded to doctor their coffees in the ritual fashion of most coffee drinkers. It dawned on Billy that they could’ve just gone up to the third floor and grabbed some at the Starbucks kiosk but there was something to be said about making just a plain cup of coffee without having to learn another language to get it.
Prizes in hand, they went over to the pay counter. Billy smiled at the cashier as he approached. “Hello, Donna Darling. How is Robert?” Donna’s son Robert had recently decided it would be a wonderful idea to skateboard off the top of his roof into the pool in the backyard. Having missed the pool and shattered his leg, he’d then tried to shift forms to heal himself—a foolhardy attempt considering it would only aid in the duration it took to heal to begin with. Unfortunately, at twelve the boy had no stamina for the multi-shifts the sort of energy would require and had gotten stuck halfway between.
She sighed in the way that only mothers can. “He’s well. Healing up thanks to you, Billy. I really appreciated the house call.” She glanced at JP and her eyes took on a suspicious twinkle. “Two coffees today?”
Billy tried very hard not to blush as he nodded. “Yes. Please.”
He paid for their purchases and tried to hurry JP along without making it obvious that he was trying to do so. The town’s gossips would be all informed by sundown about his little coffee date. He nearly groaned at the thought.
His own parents would probably hunt him down and demand explanations. They were convinced that he would be perfectly happy with another Circle doctor, Dr. Karen Greenday preferably. “Gay” was something they were still hoping to change at some point during their lifetimes. It wasn’t that they didn’t love him. It was just that they thought they knew better than him how to run his life.
“She seemed nice,” JP said as Billy practically dragged them back out into the hall. “I didn’t know you made house calls.”
Whoops. He’d completely forgotten that part. “Friends of the family tend to call me at odd hours for medical things.”
“Oh. That has to suck.”
He had no idea. Being at their beck and call twenty-four-seven was frustrating while trying to maintain any sort of autonomy. At least Mustang could close the door and growl at anyone who came knocking. That wasn’t fair of him to think, but it felt that way sometimes. Mustang probably got dragged out of bed as often as he did, though usually the “emergency” usually ended up as disputes between neighbors.
He settled for. “I enjoy my job.”
“Hm, there is a difference between being a workaholic and enjoying your job, Dr. Carrigan,” JP said, looking up at him under lowered lashes.
Something deeply primal stirred in Billy’s chest at the blatant look of submission. His wolf was a quiet part of Billy’s soul and rarely made himself known unless they were in their shifted form or at the pack’s club downtown. The deep rumble of appreciation was entirely unexpected in a hospital setting.
“Billy,” Billy corrected, trying to keep the gruff note out of his voice. He failed by his own estimations.
JP tilted his head to the side, a move more reminiscent to a cat than a person. “Billy,” he repeated, testing it on his tongue.
Every muscle in Billy’s lower abdomen tightened as his cock threatened to harden. He liked the sound of his name on JP’s lips.
When JP chuckled, the sound low and amused, he nearly creamed in his slacks. “I always picked you as a “William” or a “Will,” JP said.
Billy shrugged. “Our old Alp—someone special gave me the nickname as a kid and it stuck. My dad never used it though. He still calls me William.” His near slip of the tongue served as a reminder that they were far from peers.
JP was a human. Billy was a wolf. JP couldn’t know anything about Billy’s kind unless Billy mated him or JP became an available, a human who was designated for the dominant members of the pack to “date.” If Billy wanted to keep the man in his life, he needed to be more careful. He knew better than most the consequences of breaking the Circle’s laws regarding human-wolf interaction.
“Do you prefer Billy or William?” JP asked, oblivious to the internal chastisement that Billy was giving himself.
“Billy,” he answered automatically. “William always seemed so formal. You would go to a ‘William’ for a bank loan. I think “Billy” is a bit friendlier. You’d have a pint with ‘Billy.’”
JP grinned. “I get it. You don’t want to be Dr. Carrigan all day every day.”
“Exactly.”
He was happy JP understood. Most people either saw him as the kid they grew up with or the doctor who was designated to take care of them. Despite the fact that everyone knew him, no one was really friends with him. It made for a relatively lonely life within a pack.
“That’s cool.”
They’d reached the set of elevators that would take them to Billy’s floor. The private wing needed a passcode number to enter as a guest and a hospital badge to enter otherwise. Even then it was restricted access. Wolves were given a new code to the wing every few months via an app on their phones which could only be downloaded via their designated Circle number. It was a system that Billy had endorsed ever since its inception five years ago. It kept people from coming to his office or blowing up his cell phone whenever they needed to get into the clinic. His nursing staff was there twenty-four-seven and had no problem paging him during emergency pack business.
The elevator arrived and dinged as the doors swung open. If one went right there was a nursing desk and beyond that trauma ward with patient beds. To the left was an entire wing all his own, complete with its own private OR paid for by generous Circle donations. It was the William Carrigan multipurpose wing, a name he’d argued against from the start.
“I heard you had a wing named after you but I hadn’t seen it yet,” JP said, walking right over to the placard with his name on it and traced the gold letters. “That’s really cool.”
“Hm, if you say so.”
“Is your office in the suite?”
Uh-oh. Someone wants a tour. “Erm, it’s beside the wing actually.” His office had to be accessible to the rest of the hospital.
“Oh.” The disappointment was so obvious that he would’ve had to be blind to not see it.
He chuckled. “Maybe I could give you a tour after we finish our drinks?” he asked, raising his cup. “Do you have time before your next surgery with Ronald?”
“Ronald?”
“Dr. Andrews,” Billy corrected. He forgot most of the staff weren’t on a first-name basis with the doctors here.
“Ah. I think so. Next surgery starts at seven I think.”
“Great.” There was no one in the clinic at present. He’d had a few visits from some pack members this morning for some minor ailments, but that was it. His staff had said it was relatively uneventful day when he’d checked his phone earlier.
He fished his keys from his pocket and managed to unlock the door without dropping said keys onto the floor or unceremoniously spilling his hard won coffee onto the floor.
JP smiled. “I have to admit, I’ve been curious about your wing since I started interning here.”
Him and every other staff member in the place.
He pushed open the door and motioned toward the cushy chairs opposite his desk. “Take whichever one you want.”
The instant JP walked into the office, Billy smelled it.
“JP!”
The word had no sooner left his lips than Steve was on him. His patient had only managed a partial shift, a form that was painful for anyone who wasn’t Alpha. JP screamed as Steve tackled him to the floor and sank his teeth into JP’s forearm.
Billy jumped onto Steve’s back, applying pressure to the other wolf’s jaw in order to make him let go.
“Jesus!” a familiar voice shouted from behind the brawl. “Steve, no!”
For a second Steve hesitated. It was long enough. Grayson wrapped his arms around Steve’s middle and hauled him backward. “Mustang, I need a little help,” the big Alpha Mate called. He needn’t have bothered. Mustang was already there, clamping his hand down hard on the back of the wolf’s neck.
“Steady, Steven. Steady.”
Seeing that the threat was under control for the moment, Billy knelt beside his “date.” “JP, are you all right?” The scent of blood was thick in the air as he gathered his smaller human companion into his arms.
“What?” JP asked, staring up at him in confusion. He was in shock. It was clear how he was trembling, but emotionally he seemed completely checked out.
“Are you okay? What hurts?”
“My arm hurts.” JP’s gaze went to his own forearm where blood dripped down from a jagged wound there. His bottom lip started to tremble.
“Shh,” Billy hurried to say. Sometimes he felt a lot like Neville Longbottom. Why is it always me? He was never going to be able to get through an entire date without an interruption or some sort of violent outburst. “You’re okay.” He scooped him up and cradled him to his chest. “I’m going to take you to one of the exam rooms.”
Tears dripped down his face in silent declarations of trauma. “What was that thing?”
“Don’t think about it right now. We’ll talk after I clean you up.”
His mind raced from possibility to possibility. What was he going to tell him? He was going to murder his Alpha for putting him in this position. He kissed the top of JP’s head and his delicious scent infiltrated Billy’s senses.
Mine.
Aw, crap.
Chapter Two
Billy administered a light sedative and stitched JP’s forearm before leaving one of his nurses with JP so he could check on Steve. He was going to murder his staff for not telling him the Alpha and his entourage was waiting in his office. If he would’ve known Steve was there he would’ve never taken JP.
