Blood Howl

by Alex Kidwell

  Redford didn’t blame him. Seeing that—or experiencing it—took a lot to get one’s head around. He owed it to Jed to explain.

  “When I was five, my parents and I were out camping,” he started, leaning his temple against the window. Fall was beginning to set in, he noticed, the leaves turning into brilliant oranges and reds. “At the time, I didn’t know what attacked us. It killed my parents, but somehow I survived.”

  He didn’t remember too much of his parents now. It had been too long ago, and he’d been too young. They’d been good people. Redford knew that much. If he concentrated, he could almost recall the color of his father’s eyes, the scent of his mother’s perfume. She’d liked things with citrus in them. That night, however, was clear in his memory. Absently rubbing his thumb over the edge of his scar, where it curved down to the bottom of his cheek, Redford stared out the window, wondering again for the thousandth time why he’d been the one to survive.

  “My grandmother took me in,” Redford continued. Jed had moved a hand over to rest on his knee, and he smiled at the contact. “I didn’t know her that well then, but she was nice. I never asked how she knew about werewolves, or how she knew that I’d been bitten. She understood that I was a danger to other people, so she taught me how to lock myself up on full moons.”

  “Bitch,” Jed muttered, seemingly to himself, because he looked surprised when Redford stared at him. “What? She was.”

  “She kept me from hurting anybody,” Redford protested.

  “By caging you up and chaining you down? Shit, Red, I stopped you from hurting anybody, and I didn’t need any fucking torture devices.” Jed was well on his way to scowling angrily now, but his eyes were soft when he looked at Redford. “Without help, yeah, I can see how the wolf would be dangerous. But it’s just frustrated and scared, darlin’. Wolves need freedom like everyone else.”

  The idea was so startling that Redford fell silent. Wolves—natural wolves in the wild—didn’t kill for pleasure, only for food and when they felt threatened; that was true enough. Was it possible that the wolf only acted angry because it was scared? Because it felt threatened and terrified of being locked up?

  “We’re here.”

  Jed’s voice had turned cheerful, leaving Redford little time to reflect on his newfound question as Jed tugged him from the car. There was a bright banner in the distance, proclaiming the event to be “The Annual State Gun Show,” and Redford’s nose twitched as he picked up the overwhelming mix of scents of hundreds of people in attendance.

  Thankfully, Jed didn’t seem to notice his sudden anxiety. They weaved their way through the car park, approaching the huge open area of the gun show. Stalls and brightly colored tents dotted the area, people milling around them, different music blaring on various different speakers and clashing with one other, voices on megaphones adding to the chaos of noise. There was gun oil and beer, cooking meat, exhaust fumes, perfume, old leather, melting steel—

  “Isn’t this great?” Jed turned to him, a grin splitting his face, and Redford made himself smile back. “Some of my contacts I only see here, once a year. Some of them could know something.”

  Redford took a moment to wonder why Jed always spoke about contacts but never about friends. If he considered that he had friends, maybe he just labeled them as contacts. Or maybe he just never let himself get that close. “It’s….” He struggled to find something good to say. “Loud,” Redford ended up with.

  Apparently Jed liked that. “I know,” he enthused, grabbing Redford’s hand and tugging him into the crowd. It was a good thing that Redford could travel in Jed’s wake, as the other man seemed to effortlessly find a path through the swarm of people, never once bumping into anybody else as Redford knew he would have done himself. “There’s a new Glock model that I’m just dying to look at,” Jed shouted back at him, and Redford actually had to strain to hear him. The noise was incredible.

  His shoulder made contact with someone. Redford shrank back from the man, who had a frankly alarming number of piercings in his face, but since the man quickly kept walking, Redford felt it was safe to assume that he was not in any danger. Rubbing his now sore shoulder, Redford just struggled to keep up with Jed and his longer legs. Jed glanced back quickly, expression inscrutable, but his hand latched firmly onto Redford’s fingers, lacing as he drew him in protectively to his side.

  There was a tremendous bang, and Redford flinched and cowered into Jed’s side, but the other man seemed to be grinning. Redford had thought they were getting shot at.

  “Test ranges,” Jed yelled at him, pointing over to the right, where more of the shots seemed to be coming from.

  Personally, Redford thought letting people shoot guns in a crowded area might be fairly dangerous. He directed an incredulous look at Jed, a little reassured when the other man looped an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t worry, baby,” Jed said, lips right next to Redford’s ear to make sure he heard. “Bulletproof glass and they’re shooting blanks. It’s just to see the range and kickback, let you feel what the weapon’s like. Gun shows are, ironically, one of the safest places in the city.” He paused and then breathed out a laugh, breath a warm hop-skip along Redford’s skin. “That is, unless there’s an explosion. Then we’re standing in the middle of the volcano.”

  That last part was slightly less reassuring. Redford breathed out a sigh, tucking himself more firmly against Jed’s side. They probably could have really been in the middle of an actual volcano, and he’d still feel perfectly safe, with Jed by his side.

  “Walker!” Redford watched with wide eyes as a hand reached through the crowd, latched onto Jed’s shoulder, and dragged them both closer to a stall. The hand turned out to be attached to a man, a little taller than either of them, salt-and-pepper hair cut short. He was thick around the waist and arms, looking almost huge compared to Jed, his meaty fingers wrapped around his arm possessively. “I knew you’d be here!”

  “Holy shit.” Jed grinned and clapped the man on the shoulder, a now-familiar leer turning up his lips. Only instead of being directed at Redford, it was beaming straight at this man. “Buck Cambridge, as I live and breathe. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Picking up a new toy.” Buck brandished a gun. When Redford shrank back, he promptly just grinned, flashing teeth above a neatly trimmed beard, and put it back on the display case they were next to. “I like my Ruger Redhawk, but I got the urge for something new.”

  Redford tore his eyes from the guns to look between Jed and Buck. They obviously knew each other. He wanted to tell Jed that Buck smelled… weird. But he couldn’t describe it. It was the same way that David had smelled, not quite human. Jed had barely gotten used to his being a werewolf. How did he explain that some of his contacts might not be entirely normal either?

  Maybe he’d approach the subject later. Delicately.

  “Well, sweetheart, that’s because, if I recall correctly, your taste in toys run toward something quite a bit bigger.” Jed winked at Buck, moving around the table to let his hands trail over the display of gleaming handguns. “You want something with more girth to it. Something that you can feel the weight of in your hands. Am I right?”

  Even Redford, who was still struggling to understand sexual innuendo in all of its murky and confusing forms, understood what Jed was really saying there. As did Buck, who just laughed, moving closer to Jed than Redford was strictly comfortable with.

  “How sweet,” Buck breathed, hands stroking down Jed’s arms, lips tilted upward appreciatively as he let his gaze rake down his body. “You remembered. If I recall, you did enjoy what I was packing—”

  Redford had had enough. “Who are you?” He didn’t quite manage to sound threatening, but it was the day after the full moon, and he still had a little bit of growl in his voice. Even if he was, according to Jed, now totally Knievel’s bitch.

  For several long beats, nobody moved. Jed seemed hypnotized by the way Buck was looking at him. A soft noise escaped him as Buck ran hi
s fingertip down Jed’s neck, and he shuddered in a breath, eyes closing. “Jed?” Buck murmured, voice one of someone used to giving commands.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Red.” To his credit, Jed really did look surprisingly embarrassed, reaching out to draw Redford in closer to them with a hand on his elbow. “Jesus. Okay, this is Buck. I worked security for him a couple’a three times.” A beat and he flashed a grin. “Or sexurity, as I liked to call it. Buck, this is Redford. He’s a….” A pause then, as Jed obviously searched for the right word, eyes flicking between the two men. Swallowing, he finished lamely, “He’s my client. We’re just out doing some shopping. You know how I get.”

  Redford would be hurt at being called a mere client, if he didn’t feel the tightening of Jed’s fingers around his elbow. “Security?”

  “A man of my stature has enemies.” Buck shrugged simply, as if that explained everything. “I am very particular about those I have in my employ.” Here his eyes cut back to Jed, and he drew him in closer, away from Redford, an easy smirk of ownership on his face, like he’d just won the game of tug-o-war. “Jed fulfilled my needs admirably.”

  Now Redford really didn’t like this man. He might be a bit ignorant about innuendo, but he didn’t need to try to read between the lines of what Buck was saying. Jed had had sex with this man, and all of a sudden Redford felt a cold curling of jealousy in his gut. The flush of enjoyment on Jed’s cheeks faded slightly as he looked over at Redford, a line appearing between his eyebrows, faintly concerned.

  “I was just happy to help,” Jed murmured, gently extracting his arm from Buck’s grip and moving a few steps back, to where Redford was standing. His shoulder pressed against Redford’s, and Jed had a slight flicker of confusion cross his face, as if he wasn’t really certain why he’d done that. “What you’re looking for here, sweetcheeks, is a Smith & Wesson 500 model. It’s big, it’s shiny, and it’s going to feel like heaven in your hand. Trust me.”

  Watching as Buck picked up the gun that Jed had pointed out, Redford continued glowering. He didn’t like the way Jed was practically undressing Buck with his eyes, and he especially didn’t like the way Buck was returning the favor. Even worse, Buck seemed to notice him for the first time over studying the gun, while Redford’s scowl grew deeper as that same once-over was applied to him.

  “Not your usual type, Walker,” Buck noted. Redford wondered if he could just grab Jed and walk away. He wasn’t a violent person, honestly, but he started to think about kneeing Buck in the crotch. That could be satisfying.

  Jed blinked a few times, looking between the two men. “He’s a client,” he repeated, but there was a low growl in his voice that hadn’t been there before, and Jed moved in front of Redford, blocking Buck’s gaze. “And that gun’s the best you’re going to find, darlin’, so maybe I’d best leave you to it. I know how long it takes you to find the trigger sometimes.”

  Redford didn’t work very hard to restrain the amused curl at the edge of his lips. Subtle innuendo or not, he’d at least understood that one. Jed’s hand had dropped behind him to possessively curl around Redford’s fingers, and it occurred to him that the sudden shift in mood, the bristle to Jed’s shoulders, had nothing to do with Jed himself. It was because Buck had been looking at him like that.

  “Maybe we should go look at something else,” Redford said quietly, tugging on Jed’s hand. If Buck looked really insulted, well, that could only be a good thing as far as he was concerned.

  “It was good to see you again, Jed,” Buck said smoothly, a gleam of anger in his eyes as he looked over at Redford. “Thanks for the advice. Bigger is definitely better.” Somehow, Redford thought that last part was directed at him. Before they could walk away, Buck took Jed’s face between his hands and drew him in for a hard, demanding kiss.

  Redford promptly tugged Jed away and back into the crowd. Jed looked a little stunned, brow furrowed as he looked over at Redford, letting the throng of people close behind them and swallow Buck whole. For once, it seemed like the deafening noise of all those people was a good thing—it muffled Redford’s irritated growl. That man had just kissed his Jed right in front of him. Redford was not happy.

  The crowd seemed even thicker now, but thankfully Jed tugged him close again as they made their way toward the rifles. Redford didn’t think they were any more exciting than the handguns, they were just bigger, but he still smiled at Jed’s enthusiasm. It took his mind off of the knot of anger still buried in his gut. Also helping was the fact Jed seemed determined to hold him as near as possible, arm wound around his waist, hand tucked lightly in Redford’s front pocket.

  History lessons on each of the manufacturers were given as they walked among the booths, Jed seemingly oblivious to stares they got, walking so close. Apparently it wasn’t nearly as normal as Jed acted, two men so wrapped up in one another while they looked at very large firearms. Jed was more interested in the guns than the glances, laughing and joking with staff members, telling Redford about his favorite pieces. He spoke about them like they were art, letting his fingers caress barrels and handgrips and the shiny curve of scopes as they kept moving further into the show.

  Redford used Jed’s voice like an anchor. It was easy to relax when Jed was obviously enjoying the surroundings. He looked so at home, so in his element, so Redford just kept close, ignoring the chaos of the rest of the crowd in favor of listening to Jed talk.

  “You want to try one?” Standing next to a booth, holding a large, seemingly unwieldy rifle in his hands, Jed was grinning at Redford like the cat ingesting the proverbial canary. “This one’s a sweetheart, real gentle. She’ll treat you right for your first time.”

  “Maybe you should teach me how to shoot a gun,” Redford ventured. His life was in danger right now, and even though Jed was protecting him, what if something happened to Jed? He’d need to be able to fight, not just for himself, but for Jed’s sake, too. He may also need to shoot Buck at some point. Just because. “Maybe… with a smaller one?” The rifles just looked intimidating and not very useful in a fight situation at all.

  One eyebrow slipping up, Jed laid the firearm back down and nodded, serious. “Sure, yeah,” he agreed, taking Redford’s hand and leading him toward the back wall. “I know just the thing.” They had to pass through the middle of the arena again, everything a whirling mass of people and voices and music creaking from loudspeakers above their heads. A large group of men pushed their way past, and Jed’s fingers slipped from Redford’s grasp, Jed’s head disappearing behind a wall of other people.

  He was alone. In the middle of a huge crowd, nobody familiar at all, too many scents and noises, Redford was alone, and he just froze, terrified. What if Fil’s men were here? They could take Jed away. They could take him away from Jed.

  He backed up, bumping into somebody, which sent him stumbling forward again. Jed would find him, right? But how could he?

  It was a kaleidoscope of voices, of colors and scents and faces he didn’t recognize. His house was quiet, ordered, always had been. Not one thing here was familiar, not one path made itself clear. Redford’s breath caught in his lungs, panicked. Then there was a strong arm around his waist, the familiar smell of pine surrounding him.

  “Here,” Jed murmured in his ear, a smile belying the way he was hauled in close, the bone-crushing grip Jed had on him, like he wouldn’t ever let go. He ducked his head, quickly pulling off one of the chains looped around his neck. A piece of cool metal was pressed into Redford’s hand, and Jed explained, “It’s so you don’t get lost.”

  Not a bell, no, but a whistle on a chain. Redford immediately slipped it around his neck, tucking the whistle under his shirt. It was an odd gift, but now he was never going to take it off. “I usually carry some kind of crowd control device.” Jed shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck in faint embarrassment. “You’d be amazed at how people stop when they hear a whistle. Saves time if I need to get through fast.”

  Redford wrapped his fingers around Jed’s arm
and held on tight, trying not to show how scared he’d been. Most people would probably think it was silly, his fear of large crowds, too many noises and scents. But he’d grown up in a near-silent house; he’d never gone outside. All of this was too much.

  For a moment, those green eyes were focused on him, fingers gentling along his jaw. Then Jed pulled him close and ducked behind a row of booths. “God, the show is shit this year,” he announced, flashing nothing more than a grin at a security guard as they wandered into the off-limits portion, leaving the noisy crowds behind them. “Come on, Red, we have to salvage the rest of our day. Got any bright ideas?”

  No, Redford wasn’t exactly full of bright ideas right now. Struggling to get his breathing under control, he leaned his forehead against Jed’s chest, hoping he wasn’t digging bruises into his arm. There was less noise here, but the scents were still confusing and overwhelming, too many of them to sort through and understand. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “You can’t even take me out. I’m not the best company.”

  They’d paused in a dark hallway, made of long curtains, that separated them thinly from the press of people. Jed ran his hands up and down Redford’s arms, callused fingers sending whorls of goose bumps in their wake. “What, this? This is so not taking you out,” he murmured, bending his head to let his lips brush against the curve of Redford’s ear. “I could take you out, darlin’, don’t you worry.” His thumb arced back and forth against the sensitive curve of his inner elbow. “In fact, that’s what I’m going to do right now. You ready to get out of here?”

  Yes, Redford was definitely ready to get out of here. He still felt guilty for making Jed leave something that he’d obviously been enjoying, but he was grateful. “Where are we going?”