“Exactly.” Tom’s gaze settled on Westley’s clenched hands. He looked back up to Westley’s face and said, “How have you been feeling since we killed Denton?”
“Peachy. You?”
Tom gave a wry smile, letting on he saw through Westley’s sarcasm. “I can shift whenever I want now.”
“You could always do that.” Westley wasn’t sure where Tom was going with this, and it annoyed him. He wasn’t ready to give up his anger yet. He’d had a week at Jaylen’s bedside with no one to get pissy with except the nurses, and he felt bad when he snapped at them.
“It’s different,” Tom said. “I think I could still do it when the moon wasn’t near full.”
Westley’s hands relaxed. “Okay, that’s weird,” he admitted. “I’ve been feeling, well, like I could, like if I quit taking my tea, I could shift right now.”
“Do you think you could control it?”
Westley shook his head. “I’m out of practice, not that I ever had much control to start with. And I can’t afford to shift, not tonight, not with—” He nodded at Jaylen. “He needs me.”
“Yeah. Listen, sorry I implied he was a mass murderer. I’ve been touchy lately. And I’m looking out for you, you know—”
“He is,” Westley said, feeling touchy himself. “But I guess he had a good reason for it.”
“A good reason?” Tom upended the question into a laugh. “He’s bonking insane? One wolf kills his family so he decides to kill all of them?”
“No.” Westley looked at Tom, feeling more earnest than he’d been in weeks. “He’s like Denton. Focused, but for revenge, not killing for kicks, which is what Denton did. Jaylen let himself get blinded to what he was doing. To who he was hurting.”
“So we should let it go?” Tom asked.
“I’m not saying that. I just think we shouldn’t judge him so fast. And that now Denton’s dead, he won’t need to kill anymore.”
“So you hope.”
“Don’t you hope that too?”
“It would mean I don’t have to kill your mate, so, yeah, I hope that too. Anyway—” he shrugged “—County is looking into the Curlicue murders.”
Westley’s heart stopped. “Are they going to arrest him?”
“In that condition?” Tom gestured at Jaylen, barely visible beneath the feeding tube and oxygen mask and all the wires and bandages. “Unlikely. Plus there’s the fact that no one can find the evidence records about the case.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Weirdest thing. They disappeared.” Tom examined his trimmed nails. He hadn’t cleaned all the dirt out of them. “I guess they were destroyed in the chaos. Now no one knows who to suspect for those murders.”
“Are you saying you—” Westley held himself back from hugging Tom. He didn’t think his mate would appreciate it, even if Jaylen was unaware. And Westley didn’t want it either. He wanted to be good for Jaylen.
“Not saying anything except that the records are gone,” Tom said. He grinned. “And nobody knows Mr. Knox is here, so I wouldn’t expect troopers to come barreling down the hall any time soon.”
“Mr. Knox” was the name they’d used to check Jaylen into the hospital, same as the fake ID, credit card, and insurance card Tom had found in Jaylen’s bag. It was one of about fifteen IDs (“Just in case you didn’t know you were dating a criminal,” Tom had said, holding them up in a fan formation) and the only name with a complete set of documents needed for a long hospital stay. The other surviving victims had been taken to La Mer’s community hospital, but the paramedics’ assessment of Jaylen’s injuries had resulted in his being helicoptered to a larger hospital where he’d slipped in with little notice.
Westley, still needing to touch Tom somehow, squeezed his shoulder and stepped over to sit on the windowsill before he did more to show his gratitude. “Are you here to help me bust him out?”
“Thought I might. If you wanted the help.”
He and Tom had talked about moving Jaylen, but now that they were a few hours from the full moon, the need to shift pulled him so strong Westley was losing his confidence.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea. Moving him could kill him.”
“As a human, yeah.”
And there was the crux of Jaylen’s “miracle.” Not an act of God, but an act of the Alpha. Denton’s saliva mingled with Jaylen’s blood and surged through his veins, keeping him alive and, in a few hours, it would be responsible for his first shift.
“We have to wait until he’s changed,” Tom said, “and then make him follow us out the window.”
“Are you sure he’ll follow?” Westley asked.
“He’ll recognize his alpha.”
“Considering who bit him, are you sure he’s not your alpha?”
“Well then, he can chase us out.”
Westley sighed. “So we wait?”
“We wait.”
They waited.
And waited.
The moon stood full in the sky.
Westley guzzled his tea and vomited, guzzled and vomited, did it again until Tom made him stop and led him, shaking, back to the chair.
“You need to shift.”
“I can’t, I can’t I—” Westley blinked through tears until Tom’s face came into focus. “I have to be here for him.”
“He’s not going to shift tonight. We must have been wrong.”
“Maybe he’s not a werewolf after all?” Westley cursed himself for how insecure he sounded. Of course Jaylen was a werewolf. After a bite like that? If he was still one hundred percent human, then Westley was part cow.
“You sense it, don’t you?” Tom asked. “You smell it in him?”
Westley nodded. Somewhere, beneath the stench of hospital and almost-death and IV bags, there was the earthy iron shaving scent of a new wolf emanating from Jaylen’s body. “What if he wakes up and hates himself?” Westley asked. He’d nuzzled against Jaylen’s bare cheek when no one was looking. He’d let his wolf growl in contentment at this hint that his mate was here and finally smelling like he should. Knowing how Jaylen would feel about becoming the monster he’d hated, Westley was ashamed for being so pleased.
“We need to go,” Tom said. “I need to shift too, and we’ll be safe if we do it up here. There’s nothing but fields and forest between here and La Mer, fifty miles all around. We can hide.”
“I can’t trust myself—” Westley fought to keep his voice from cracking. “What if I do something stupid and get one of us killed? Or kill someone else?”
“One, you’re still omega. Killing isn’t in you.”
“But—”
“No. Extenuating circumstances aside, it’s not in you. And I’m going to guarantee there won’t be any of those tonight.”
“How can you be sure?” Maybe Tom didn’t believe Westley had killed his classmate....
Tom looked him dead on as a slow smile burned across his face. “Because that’s the other thing I’ve figured out. Since we killed Denton, I don’t lose my human mind when I’m a wolf.”
“What? Are you saying you’ve got full consciousness?”
“Almost. I think with more practice I will. So what I’m saying is, follow your alpha and you’ll be fine.”
“Tom...”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
Westley didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He glanced at Jaylen for a final look. He hadn’t moved. “Let’s go. Before I throw up again.”
Tom clapped him on the back. “Good man.”
“I’VE NEVER CARED about you at all. I’ve never cared about you. At all. I’ve never cared. About you at all.”
Denton paced around Jaylen’s hospital bed delivering the phrase in practiced inflections. Jaylen wondered why it sounded familiar and why Denton was wearing a yellow hat. It was distracting. Denton stopped at the foot of the bed. “Funny you settle on that line to get maudlin over. Did I hurt your feelings?”
Jaylen wanted to focus on why his family’s murderer was having
a conversation with him, but his mind wouldn’t break from the word “maudlin.” He circled it, poked it, tried to dig a meaning up. He knew that word. He knew he knew that word. And yet it wouldn’t come. As he stared at Denton, the man’s image blipped like a bad antenna connection. Not sure why, Jaylen began to cry.
“Huh,” Denton said. “How about that.” He grinned. “Good.”
He flicked Jaylen’s foot. Jaylen tried to kick out, but his foot wouldn’t move. He didn’t know where he was.
Blinding pain exploding in his head. Muscles tight. Spasming. Wanted to scream. Couldn’t. No voice. No sight. No... awareness. Nothing except pain. Something high-pitched in his ears, loud. Beeping going crazy. Fast fast fast.
“He’s having a seizure!” A woman’s voice. He didn’t know what a seezhur was, but it sounded like something he didn’t want to have. He cried harder. “How did he pull his feeding tube out?”
Footsteps. Running. He heard it even through the beeping. Heard it as clear as if they are standing next to his bed instead of, he guessed by the fading sound, moving farther and farther away.
His skin breaks. Feels like it’s ripped open. Can’t scream. His voice is gone. Convulsions. He doesn’t know what his body is doing, how it’s moving. If not for the pain, he’d think he was in someone else’s body.
“What the hell?” The voices returned, this time joined by a squeaking cart.
The wolf rose up, cool and confident, and darted between them as he ignored their screams and skidded down the too smooth hall toward freedom.
IN THE OPEN air, he could breathe easier, unassailed by the hundreds of scents that lingered inside. Jaylen lifted his nose. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for, but he knew when he found it. He took off in the direction of the sweet smell. Running came easy to him; it might be the only thing he remembered. Certainly it was the only thing he cared about at that moment, running and finding the source of that scent.
Instinct told him to stay away from bright lights, especially the ones moving toward him. He hunkered into ditches and waited until the lights had washed over his back before he emerged. The scent pulled him out, away from the hard roads onto grass that was dry and sharp beneath his paws and toward trees that grew thick in the distance. Barreling toward that line, he heard rustling ahead. A rabbit came flying out of the underbrush. Another wolf tore out of the forest after it. Jaylen hesitated. This wolf smelled familiar, but it wasn’t the scent he’d been tracking. He crouched down, paws pushed forward and head low, and bared his teeth.
The wolf turned toward him. It stood tall. It took a step toward Jaylen. Another. Jaylen remained still. He was alpha. This wolf was as well, and one with the advantage, as this wolf obviously knew its place in the pack, whereas Jaylen didn’t. Memories tripped back to him of traveling alone. He knew then that he didn’t have a pack, and he had no desire to mix with another’s. He rose up and, turning his side to the wolf, moved away while keeping an eye on its unmoving form. However, the further away he moved, the less he could smell the scent he was following. Turning around, he walked up to the wolf. It licked him as if they knew each other. Jaylen licked back, quick, and yes, the sweet smell was definitely mingled with a tangier scent that belonged to the wolf. It wasn’t unpleasant, but Jaylen wasn’t besotted with the need to run toward it.
The rabbit, which had been still since the other wolf stopped chasing it, took a run for freedom again. Jaylen ignored it as he focused on this curious alpha in front of him. From the same place in the woods that wolf had come, another emerged, running full tilt at the bunny. Jaylen backed up, startled, as the sweet smell smacked into his nose. Mate. He watched as his mate grabbed the rabbit by the throat and slammed it into the ground. Gaining his senses, Jaylen rushed over. At first his mate growled, the rabbit hanging from his jaws, then, as suddenly, he dropped it and bounded to Jaylen.
They frolicked together, licking and snapping and nuzzling, the dying rabbit on the ground between them ignored. Jaylen’s mind tugged again and he remembered his mate another way, as a man. Tall and tan with brown hair that fell over his ears and down his face. Westley. He nipped Westley’s neck. Westley crouched down for him. He stood three hands taller than Jaylen, but Jaylen sniffed Westley and licked him in approval before he mounted.
When the mating was complete, Westley picked up the rabbit and gingerly set it in front of Jaylen and sat down, his tail thumping the ground in an upbeat cadence. Jaylen tore into the fresh meat. He glanced over to see if the other wolf would interrupt. (Tom.) But he was lying down with his back to them, oriented toward the town and the passing lights in the distance. Nudging the rabbit to Westley, Jaylen returned the offering. When they’d finished eating, he lay down alongside him and tangled their legs together. Westley made tired licks to Jaylen’s nose until he fell asleep.
Jaylen stayed awake. He watched the sun rise over the tree tops. Tomorrow he would fell a deer for his mate. What pride he would have to bring such a catch to Westley’s feet. The vision tumbled in his mind until at last he fell asleep with that happy thought.
JAYLEN AWOKE. HE remembered running through grass, his body whole again but transformed. That couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be a wolf. That would make him a killer, a murderer, a monster. It was a terrible dream brought on by his vision of Denton; that was all.
Then he felt the grass pricking him. Wrenching his eyes open, he saw the sky. Clear blue, and slow moving clouds. He must have sleepwalked out of the hospital. He tried to sit up. And tried again. He could feel his extremities, fingers and toes. If he concentrated, he could wiggle them, but he couldn’t get his brain to cotton onto the bigger picture. How the hell had he made it all the way out here? Wherever “here” was. A soft snuffling distracted him. With all his effort, he turned his head in that direction. Westley, in his wolf form, stretched to his feet. He didn’t seem aware of Jaylen. Tom, human again, lay face down a hundred feet away.
Jaylen lay still—not that he had a choice—as memories of frolicking with Westley, of mating with him came crystal clear into his awareness. It was true then; he was a wolf. Westley made a horrible sound, a sound so filled with pain and suffering it could have resided in the darkest areas of his soul. It was a noise Jaylen wanted to make, but when he opened his mouth, his wounded vocal cords reminded him he had no voice. He imagined Westley crying out for him. However, as Westley pitched forward and vomited up partially digested rabbit meat and fur, it was clear that this was the noise of his transition. Jaylen must have gone through the same thing. He had no memory of it—for once something to be grateful for—but his own late night meal was regurgitated a few yards away.
Westley shuddered and shrieked and twisted. His fur fell off in clumps and each loud “crack” indicated a bone breaking and reforming. Jaylen closed his eyes. To watch was unbearable. Take me away. Please. This can’t be real. Hot tears pressed his eyelids, seeking escape. He let them out, but kept his gaze turned from Westley until the noises stopped and Westley, naked, stumbled down beside him. He stretched an arm across Jaylen’s chest and lost consciousness.
Jaylen remembered what Denton had said to him about being a bad man but a good wolf, and how Jaylen had been wrong. He’d spent his revenge seeking it against the wrong species. But now Denton had his final revenge. Jaylen was a wolf. Wherever Denton was now, he was laughing.
No sooner had the thought come than pain followed it. Jaylen’s abdomen thrust upwards, raising Westley with it. He opened his mouth for an empty scream. His limbs flailed of their own accord.
“Jaylen!” Tom shouted in the distance, but it was too late.
He was changing again. Jaylen stared at Tom, who came running. Tom reached him as Jaylen’s vision turned white and he passed out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CAGE IN Westley’s basement was the same type early nineteenth century traveling circuses had used to transport tigers. It had belonged to his grandfather, who’d received it from his father, who’d claimed he’d won it in a poker
game from PT Barnum himself. One of his ancestors had taken the wheels off it and anchored it to the floor, but the wooden brocade was still attached. It was painted red and yellow with the circus logo and a tiger leaping out in the center. Westley hadn’t used the cage since he’d perfected his tea, but now he’d had to lock Jaylen inside every night since he’d brought him home from the hospital. Jaylen hadn’t returned there since his first shift. As far as the hospital was concerned, “Mr. Knox” was a mystery disappearance. They’d clean it up to put it in their reports. Westley didn’t care what they wrote, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t mention a black wolf that two nurses on the night shift had claimed to have seen. They’d probably say he’d refused further treatment and “wandered off.” Put that medical miracle diagnosis to good use on a man who the day before couldn’t breathe on his own.
Jaylen tried to stick his snout through the cage’s bars when he saw Westley looking. Westley reached in and scratched the top of his head. “Be pretty neat if I could shift now so we could have some time together when we understood each other, wouldn’t it?” Jaylen licked his hand. Sometimes Westley thought that he could understand things as a wolf, same as Tom could now.
“Do you understand me?”
Jaylen moved over to the water bowl and started noisily lapping.
“Maybe not.” Westley opened the cage and stepped in. He sat down on the mattress, stretching his long legs out across the floor. Jaylen trotted over and sat down beside him. He rested his chin on Westley’s leg, nudging his hand until Westley started scratching.
It had been Tom’s idea to bring him back to Westley’s. In the field that day, he’d shifted twenty times, sometimes returning to his other form within seconds. Westley had never seen anything like it. Based on Tom’s aghast expression, he hadn’t either. The worst of it was, each time Jaylen returned to his human self, he was confused and upset. He turned his pleading gaze to Westley one second and shunned him the next. Westley couldn’t help but think Jaylen held him responsible. He didn’t know how much Jaylen remembered of what had happened.
Wolf Hunter Page 17
