Alex shook his head and went to kneel next to Neriah. He was by Calvin’s head, holding it up so it rested onto his lap. His eyes were full of tears when he looked at Alex. “Please help him.”
Alex wasn’t a doctor, but he could try. He leaned forward to take a better look at Calvin and froze. “Shit.”
“What? Is it bad?” Neriah screeched. “Oh my God, is he dead?”
Alex shook his head and held his hand out toward Nuallan. “Nu, you need to shimmer all of us to the infirmary. He needs help.”
When nothing happened, Alex looked up. He wasn’t surprised to see Nuallan was still against the wall, looking scared. He swallowed, because it wouldn’t do any good for him to yell. “Nu, please. If you don’t come here, I’m going to ask Neriah to shimmer us. I’ll leave you here if I need to.”
Neriah made a small noise, but Alex ignored him.
“Please, Nu. Don’t make me choose between the safety of my best friend and my mate’s life.”
Chapter Two
When Calvin woke up, he tensed, waiting for the pain to hit.
It never came.
He opened his eyes and squinted against the harsh light. He would have recognized that kind of light anywhere. He had to be in the infirmary, or in a hospital if humans had found him. Actually, that was more probable than being found by shifters. There were a lot more humans in town than shifters.
“There you are. We have to stop meeting this way, Calvin. I don’t think my heart can take it.”
Calvin turned his head slowly. He still expected pain, even though he knew Sei had probably healed him. Dallas was sitting next to his bed, a file in his hand. He wasn’t looking at it, though. He was looking at Calvin, and Calvin could see he was worried.
“What happened?”
“Your face met a fist again.”
Ah, he’d been beaten. Again. How could he forget that? He probably had a fist-shaped indent in his face by now.
He sat up, and Dallas snapped up from his chair, putting his file down and helping Calvin. Calvin didn’t need it since it was obvious he’d been healed, but it was nice. It made Calvin feel loved, even though he knew Dallas didn’t actually love him. He did care for Calvin, though, as his actions showed.
“How are you feeling?” Dallas asked once Calvin was propped up against several pillows Dallas had stolen from the beds next to Calvin’s.
“I’m fine. I’ll have to thank Sei, I guess.”
Dallas patted Calvin’s thigh. “You do that. He had quite a bit of work to do when you got here.”
Calvin sighed. “Come on, tell me.”
“You had three broken ribs, as well as bruises on your torso. Well, it was more like one giant bruise, actually, but you were lucky you managed to protect yourself well enough. There was no internal damage, at least nothing life threatening. You also had a broken nose, one broken cheekbone, one broken collarbone, a cut on your forehead, your lip was split, and there was the collection of bruises on your arms and thighs, of course.”
Calvin grimaced. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“And it looked even worse, trust me. You were lucky Alex found you before those guys could go too far. From what he told me, they wouldn’t have stopped until you were dead.” Dallas’ tone softened. “Who were they, Calvin?”
“One was the guy from last time, the one who was beating me up.”
“And the other one?”
“I don’t know. I’d never seen him before. But he was weird.”
“Weird how?”
“He didn’t say or do anything. The guy from last time did everything. He was the one who spoke and beat me.”
“And the other one didn’t do anything?”
“No. Who’s Alex?”
“A bat shifter. He was in town with two Nix when they heard noises and went to see what was happening.”
“And what was happening was me getting beaten into the ground.”
“Yes. They sent the guys attacking you away and brought you back here. Alex, well, I think you should talk to him.”
Calvin frowned. “I’m going to thank him, sure.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
Dallas sighed and looked at the infirmary door. “I’m going to go call him, okay?”
Calvin looked at the door too. “Is he out there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s the reason why you need to talk to him. I can’t be the one to tell you this, Calvin.” Dallas smiled. “But don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing. You’ll be fine.”
Calvin had no clue what Dallas was talking about, but he nodded. He knew Dallas well enough to know he never did anything without a good reason, so he had to have one to say that. “I’ll be all right, yes?”
“You’re perfectly healthy. Sei took care of that. You might be a little sore, especially in the places where you broke your bones, but it shouldn’t last more than a few hours.”
That was better than Calvin had expected. To be honest, he hadn’t expected to ever wake up, not when he’d been in that alley. It had been the scariest moment of his life, and he didn’t know how he was going to thank this Alex guy. Nothing Calvin could do would be enough, but he was going to try.
Dallas nodded and got up, grabbing his file from the bed and walking to the door. He opened it and poked his head outside. Calvin could hear him talking, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then Dallas came back in, smiled at Calvin, and disappeared into his office.
The door opened again, and Calvin looked at it. A man came in, and Calvin couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to, and he definitely didn’t. Alex—it had to be Alex—was tall, way taller than Calvin. He was also so much bigger, and Calvin felt like a kid next to him, even though Alex didn’t seem to be much older. Of course, they were both shifters, so Alex could be eighty for all Calvin knew.
And fuck, he was cute. He had a boyish kind of look, his hair just long enough to reach his eyes, his brown eyes shining with an emotion Calvin couldn’t place. He looked almost shy, and Calvin didn’t understand it.
He swallowed. “Dallas tells me I have you to thank for saving me.”
Alex nodded and strode to the bed. “Yeah. I walked in on those guys beating you up.”
“Well, thank you. I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for you, or in what state. Not a good one, I guess.”
Alex stopped when he reached Calvin’s side. He hovered there, looking like he wanted to do something but was restraining himself for some reason. Calvin rubbed the back of his neck, wondering what he was supposed to do. He’d said thanks. He couldn’t do anything else. He didn’t have money or anything.
Alex shook himself and nodded. “Right. I guess I should just come out with it.”
“With what?”
To Calvin’s surprise, Alex thrust his hand toward Calvin, palm up. Calvin wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with it. Did Alex want to hold hands? Why?
Alex rolled his eyes and pushed his hand closer, twisting his wrist. It brushed against Calvin’s lips, and Calvin gasped. Then Alex’s scent hit his nose, and he jerked backward, his eyes wide. “What—how—what’s going on?” he asked stupidly, because he knew what was going on. He just couldn’t believe it.
Alex smiled and let his hand fall to his side. “Yeah, tell me about it. I really didn’t expect that when I found you in that alley.”
“But... how? Why?”
Alex shrugged. “There’s no reason. And why, well, all shifters have a mate, right?”
“Yeah, but I’m only nineteen. I don’t know if I’m ready to get married.” Calvin knew mating wasn’t exactly like marriage, but it was the closest thing he could think of right then, the closest thing he knew well. He’d been told about mates when he’d arrived in Gillham, and he’d seen all the couples around the pack, but he’d never thought he had a mate out there som
ewhere, and he’d certainly hadn’t thought his mate lived next door to him. What were the odds?
“So? I’m only twenty-one, and I can’t say I was expecting to meet you this soon either.”
Okay, so Alex was as young as Calvin, but he’d probably lived all his life with shifters. He was better prepared than Calvin to face this. “I have no idea what to do. What happens now?”
Alex gestured at the chair Dallas had sat in. “Can I sit down?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Alex sat. The chair looked too small for his bulk, but he managed to squeeze it in. He looked uncomfortable, and Calvin thought he could maybe suggest going to talk somewhere else since he was fine, but he decided against it. It might be weird, but he felt safe in the infirmary, with Dallas so close to him.
“I don’t know anything about you yet,” Alex said. “Well, almost nothing. I do know that you didn’t know about shifters before you first shifted a few years ago, but that’s only because Dallas told me while you were out.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess this is confusing for you, huh?”
Calvin snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
Alex moved toward Calvin, and Calvin moved backward, pressing his back against the pillows. Alex’s eyebrows rose on his forehead and he raised his hands. “Look, I’m not going to jump you or anything, okay? I don’t know what you’ve been told about shifters, but it’s not like we have to mate right here and now.”
Calvin swallowed and nodded. This was too much. He didn’t even know where to start, what to start thinking about. “What do you want from me, then?” There. At least he’d know something for sure. It was more than he knew now. He just hoped he’d like what he was about to hear.
* * * *
Alex wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Calvin looked scared, and it was the last thing Alex wanted. Besides, he felt as scared as Calvin looked. Maybe they could be scared together. “How about we just talk?”
Calvin blinked. “Talk?”
“Yeah. That’s how people get to know each other, right? How humans do it?”
Calvin’s lips twitched. “How humans do it? Are you asking me or telling me?”
Alex shrugged. “Asking, I guess. I can’t say I know many humans, and the ones I do know are mated to shifters.”
Calvin smiled. He looked a tiny bit more relaxed, which was good. “You have to know how dating works, though. I mean, I can’t believe you never dated, not with how you look.”
“How I look?”
Calvin blushed and looked at his hands. “Yeah. You’re, well, you’re hot, and you seem nice from the little I know about you. Who wouldn’t want a guy like you?”
“Shifters don’t usually date much,” Alex said.
“Yeah, I got that from the people I talked to, but I’m not sure I understand. I mean, okay, I get that you want to find your mate and everything, but what happens if you don’t? Are you going to stay single all your life?”
“Honestly? I hadn’t thought that far yet. I’m only twenty-one.”
“Right.”
“So, tell me about you.” Alex wanted to know everything there was to know about his mate. He’d tried asking around while Dallas and Sei were busy with him, to distract himself, but he hadn’t had many answers. For one, he couldn’t get his mind off of Calvin and what was happening to him. Secondly, no one seemed to know much about him. Everyone told him to go talk to Dallas, but that wasn’t possible, since Dallas was busy healing Calvin.
In the end, Alex had decided to stick by the infirmary. It had taken Sei a few hours to declare Calvin was fully healed, and he’d looked pale and weak when he’d left the infirmary to go home and rest.
“There’s not much to say,” Calvin said. “I’m sure you’ve already heard everything there is to know.”
“The only things I know for sure are that you’re a recent addition to the pack and that you don’t have a family.” Alex actually knew a bit more than that, but he wanted Calvin to tell him.
Calvin hesitated, and Alex kept his mouth shut. He relaxed only when Calvin nodded.
“Okay, so I grew up in foster care. I was told I didn’t have a family, but that’s about all I know, and I never pushed to find out more. I don’t want to know. It wouldn’t change anything. Anyway, I grew up in foster care, lived with a few families. I never knew I was a shifter until I shifted in the living room one evening when I was seventeen.”
Alex frowned. That was kind of old for a first shift. Calvin’s animal half had probably stayed under wraps because it hadn’t been safe for Calvin to shift before that, but it obviously hadn’t been safe when he was seventeen, either. Maybe his animal hadn’t been able to stay hidden anymore, or maybe something had triggered him. Either way, it hadn’t been a good thing.
“My foster family didn’t take it well. Only my foster mom and one of her sons were there, luckily, and he tried to stop her, but she told me I was monster and that I needed to leave. She didn’t want me to stay with them. She was afraid of me, even though I’m only a dog. I mean, it’s not like I became a tiger, or a bear.”
“What kind of dog are you?”
“A Labrador.”
When Calvin didn’t seem like he was going to continue talking, Alex gently pushed. “What happened next?”
Calvin cracked his knuckles. “Brian, my foster brother, managed to convince his mother to let me take some of my things. He was her biological son, you know? So she listened to him, and I got to pack a bag before she kicked me out.”
Alex didn’t even want to think about what had happened next. He’d never lived on the streets, but it didn’t take much to imagine what Calvin’s life had been for the past two years. “You survived,” he said, because that was the most important thing.
Calvin shrugged. “Yeah, I did. I was lucky, luckier than most. I could shift into my Labrador when I got too hungry, or cold. It was easier to survive that way. I just needed to make sure my stuff was safe, but yeah.”
“What brought you here to Gillham?”
“The video of Kameron. I only saw it once, because it’s not like I had easy access to a computer, but I read the comments, and I managed to find out where it had been recorded. It took me a while to get to Wyoming, and I started to ask questions. Kameron isn’t as easy to find as you might think, but I finally found out about Gillham and came here.”
“And that’s when you were attacked the first time.”
“Yeah. I’d shifted into my dog form to find something to eat and to sniff around.” Calvin smiled. “You wouldn’t believe what people say in front of a dog. When I went back to the alley where I’d hidden my bag, I shifted back, and someone saw me. They started to call me freak, monster, things like that, and then they beat me. That’s when Hamilton came to my rescue. The guys ran away when they saw Dallas, and the rest is history, I guess. That’s how I became a pack member. Kind of boring.”
Alex chuckled. “It’s not boring. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard your life was.”
Calvin finally looked up again. He hadn’t looked at Alex the entire time he’d been talking, and Alex was glad to see that aside from a lingering sadness in his eyes, Calvin seemed to be fine. He hadn’t planned to press like that when he’d asked to know more about Calvin, but he wasn’t sure what else to talk about.
He’d told Calvin the truth when he’d said he’d never really dated. He was still young, and his few hook ups had been short, even with women. It wouldn’t have done him any good to get attached, not when he was being used like cannon fodder by his alpha and he feared for his and his family’s safety.
“What about your life?” Calvin asked.
“It was fine.”
Calvin laughed. “That didn’t sound convincing.”
“No, really, it was. My family loves me, and they never gave me problems about being bisexual.”
“Who gave you a hard time, then?”
A
lex sighed. There was no getting out of it, obviously. “I wasn’t out to anyone but them until we moved to Gillham. My nest followed the traditions, and my alpha was an asshole.”
Calvin raised his legs and hugged them, pressing his chin onto his knees. “What does that mean?”
“Shifters used to be very traditional. Still are, at least some of them. I guess it was a way to keep things under control and make sure we didn’t completely disappear. That meant no same-sex couples, no interracial couples, things like that. Some didn’t even want different breeds of shifters to be together.”
Calvin frowned. “But what about mates?”
“Not every shifter cares. Some think it’s a ridiculous idea, that it shouldn’t hinder the possibility of packs and prides to grow. Arranged marriages were popular once, even here, in Gillham.”
“But things are different now.”
“Yeah. Kameron isn’t just any alpha. He’s a good man, and he doesn’t care about race, or sexuality. He just wants to give people a peaceful place to live.”
“How did you end up here?”
“Remember that wolf Kameron fought in the video?”
“Tom. I know about him, more or less.”
“Yeah. He created his own council, and he had followers. My alpha was one of them, and both my older brother, my father, and I were forced to fight for Tom that day. Iggy was already a pack member because he’d fled to tell Kameron about Tom, but we didn’t know that. Our alpha had told us the pack had tortured and killed him, and we were out for blood. Then Christian stumbled onto Iggy during the fight and realized everything was a lie.” Alex smiled at the memory. “He also met his mate that day, Clea. Anyway, Clea got all of us out, including my mom, and he brought us here. Kameron welcomed us with open arms.”
Calvin hummed. “He’s really a good man, huh? Sometimes it’s hard to believe.”
“That someone can be that selfless?”
“Yeah. I mean, no one gave me anything for nothing when I was out there. I thought I’d have to find a job to be able to stay here, but instead Kameron gave me a place to stay and told me to figure out what I want to do with my life. I guess I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Gillham Pack 19 - Calvin Page 3
