Little Wolf (21 page)

“You got me porn,” Tim repeated, not sure this was happening except that the sting in his cheeks was only too familiar.

“You asked for it.” Nathaniel said it as if that was any kind of explanation. “Just don’t….
Don’t
while I’m around.” He didn’t say don’t what, but Tim could guess. Tim stared up at him, barely aware they were leaving town.

It didn’t seem right to apologize for doing what felt natural, but then it wasn’t right to make someone else uncomfortable because of what he wanted.

“Tim,” Nathaniel broke into his thoughts, “about last night.”

“I didn’t mean to bother you,” Tim interrupted quickly. “Did I break some were protocol? There’s a houseful of us, so alone time is never really alone time, and then there’s you and what happened. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“What?” Nathaniel shook his head. “Didn’t mean for what to happen?”

“My scent.” Tim realized he was smoothing his hands over the book over and over again and held them still. “Does it bother you like that all the time?”

“You have no idea.” The noise that came out of Nathaniel was almost a sigh. It seemed strange, but no stranger than when Nathaniel squared his shoulders and continued to stare straight ahead. “But I can control myself.”

That… was not anything like what Tim had expected him to say. “What? No ‘Your hormones are out of control, Little Wolf?’” Tim wondered out loud. “No ‘You need to get laid, kid?’” He shoved the book back into the bag and studied Nathaniel’s profile. Nathaniel glanced at him, and a muscle twitched in his jaw, but he didn’t say anything.

Tim angled his head up and sniffed as discreetly as he could. Nathaniel looked over at Tim with wide eyes but then had to watch the road. Tim sniffed again, licking his bottom lip this time because it seemed to help him catch more.

Nathaniel’s explanations would only start making sense when Tim started thinking more like a were. He swallowed the scent-infused spit in his mouth and considered the flavor.

Nathaniel smelled like he always smelled, maybe a little warmer in a way that made Tim want to keep inhaling but with his mouth somewhere on Nathaniel’s skin. Nathaniel smelled like he always smelled, Tim thought again, only Tim was suddenly conscious of his own scent. His
want
for Nathaniel was like background noise, like the wind outside. Nathaniel’s scent was very much in the car with them, and it was warm and getting warmer, and Tim’s scent—at least until that moment—had stayed the same.

“Oh my God.” Tim exhaled at last. Nathaniel glanced at him, concerned, and Tim realized the excited beat of his heart probably sounded a lot like panic. He shook his head, then said, “Oh my God,” again, slightly louder.

“Little Wolf?” Nathaniel had to go and make it worse, asking in that voice. Tim thought about rolling down a window, but it was too late. The knowledge, the victory in understanding a scent and the instincts that went with it, were already making him hot.

“I haven’t been influencing you,” he realized. “You feel that way anyway. Fucking fuck. That is… that is… what is that? What does that mean?”

They were coming up on the house. Tim took a deep breath, kind of fascinated with how he could keep track of the separate scents now, two intertwining, lusty smells. No wonder he’d had it so bad; that hadn’t been just his desires he’d been reacting to.

“You’re attracted to me,” he announced in shock as Nathaniel parked the truck, and Nathaniel turned to look at him, radiating heat and
want
. Tim almost fell out of the passenger side door in his attempt to leave the truck. Nathaniel was giving him that look,
that
look, like Tim was slow beyond belief and testing his patience.

Maybe he was expecting Tim to jump him. Jumping him would make sense, even if Nathaniel was only a little bit attracted to him. But a small part of Tim wondered if he was wrong. He was new to labeling scents, and it wouldn’t be the first time he hadn’t understood what his instincts were trying to tell him. Nathaniel got out of the truck and came around the front.

Tim was breathing heavily and he knew it, but come on, it wasn’t every day he used his were-senses properly, or found out something this awesome. And terrifying. Nathaniel was so out of Tim’s league this shouldn’t have been possible.

“You like me?” he asked quietly.

“
Like
?” Nathaniel repeated with a hint of bemusement, because neither of them was in high school and Tim probably could have chosen a more adult word.

Tim could not have cared less about his word choice. Nathaniel wanted Tim but hadn’t done anything about it. Tim wasn’t human. He was were, even if he was a little lost were. Nathaniel must not want to act on the attraction. Tim could understand that; so far Tim had been nothing but trouble. But he scowled and lifted his chin. “You could have said. It wasn’t like I was going to pounce on you.” He might have, in a moment of weakness. It wasn’t Tim’s fault that he had no experience with this kind of thing.

“
Said
?” Nathaniel echoed. If Tim was embarrassed and flustered, Nathaniel was extremely confused. Because the scent had done his talking for him, and he had assumed Tim had known that. It wasn’t like every other were couldn’t have easily identified such a basic scent. It wasn’t like every other person in town, even the humans and fairies, hadn’t already identified it.

Tim’s sense of triumph disappeared. “I am the worst werewolf ever.” He was so bad that he needed a guidebook to function. Which reminded him. He swung open the truck door to grab his bag of romantic porn, then slammed the door closed again. “I should have been out there getting practice, not spending my time alone.” His words ended in a hitching, surprised breath. Nathaniel moved fast when he wanted to. Tim backed up into the truck and inhaled as Nathaniel leaned over him. If he was upset that Tim could smell what he was feeling, there was no sign.

Nathaniel’s eyes were mesmerizing. “Why were you all alone?” he pressed. “Who kept you that way?”

“I think… I think he didn’t think it was safe for me.” The answer came out quickly, but then Tim had been wondering about it too—why his uncle had locked him away in the house instead of letting him out to learn. “I was… little. Smaller than I am now. I was little and horny and thirteen and stupid, and my uncle’s wolves aren’t like you. I think he thought I would get hurt, or taken advantage of, for my name and my fort—”

“You?” Nathaniel snorted. “Your
uncle
”—he growled the word—“raised you for more than that. Even I can see that. You’ve been on the run, in hiding, and you still don’t know how to bow down and avoid trouble. You think you do, but you don’t.” Nathaniel seemed almost proud of that. “Whoever wanted you to submit had another thing coming. If your uncle knew you, he should have trusted you.”

“It was for my own good.” Tim wet his mouth. His lips tasted like Nathaniel’s anger and concern. It was like standing in the moonlight, and he looked up. “Except that is bullshit. For my own good would have been to let me learn how all this stuff works.” He gestured between them, momentarily ignoring the urge to rub against Nathaniel as he worked himself up to real fury. “The tactical advantage alone to knowing if someone wants me—I could use that as a weapon the same way you do.”

Nathaniel’s head went back. Tim wrinkled his nose at him. “Oh please, you use it all the time to get what you want or shut people up, to shut me up even. I could have done that too. Not that I have the same crazy sex appeal as you, but what I do have I still could have used. I am not drop-dead gorgeous, but I’ve had offers.”

“Little Wolf.” Nathaniel said his name in an entirely new way, not upset but not calm. His eyes were narrowed. “Who offered? Albert?”

Tim glared distractedly up at him. “I’m no kind of alpha wolf, clearly, but a weapon is a weapon, and he denied me one.” Tim considered it, licking at his teeth. “He shouldn’t have done that.” It was an act of aggression,
passive
-aggression. A cowardly way to declare war, if that had been the intent. Not the act of a Dirus.

“Tim.” Nathaniel called him in a low voice of command and met his eyes. Tim went still except for the rise and fall of his chest. He thought Nathaniel wanted to ask him something, but when he finally spoke, it wasn’t anything Tim thought it would be.

“No, he shouldn’t have done that.” For the smallest moment, the look in Nathaniel’s eyes made Tim’s hands ache as if they wanted to become paws. He lifted his chin, and Nathaniel gave him a nod before lowering his head.

Tim wanted to lick his teeth again, then run them down along Nathaniel’s throat as a reward for the promise of his future allegiance. He forgot about his uncle for a moment and focused on Nathaniel and the detectable interest in his pulse.

“I don’t know what any of this means,” he admitted, becoming aware again of how tense and aroused he was. His head was up, his gaze direct. His teeth were showing.

Nathaniel let out a short growl, then stepped back. “I know that, Little Wolf,” he agreed again, and Tim took a moment to consider that Nathaniel, the leader of a very large pack, had offered Tim help in dealing with his uncle, and Nathaniel didn’t know the whole story. Dropping his attention to Nathaniel’s neck didn’t exactly calm Tim down, but it gave him something to feel that wasn’t the raw feeling of betrayal. His uncle should have let him discover all of this. He shouldn’t have left it to Nathaniel to explain.

Nathaniel could have used Tim’s confusion and lust. Luca would have. Instead Nathaniel had stepped back. He’d given Tim porn, for fuck’s sake. Tim had a sudden, crazy urge to laugh, but he didn’t. His instincts had wanted him to trust Nathaniel. And of course they’d been right. Tim hadn’t been trained to deal with that either. His uncle might have used his senses and instincts, but he had never passed that information on to Tim.

“It makes no sense. I’m the heir, and he always professed to care about the name, if nothing else. I think
I’m
the princess here,” Tim murmured to himself.

Nathaniel blinked. “What?”

“Or prince, locked in a tower until my uncle decided my fate.” Tim looked up at Nathaniel again. “But I ran away. I took my fate into my own hands.”

Nathaniel seemed to be following him now. “Not the actions of a feeble, weak wolf,” he commented with that same savagely pleased show of teeth. If the people in town had seen him, they would have flinched, even if that ferocity was the reason he was their sheriff.

Tim’s feet stayed planted firmly where they were, but he put his weight against the truck and let out a heavy breath. He thought over those words, measuring his uncle’s lessons by the pounding of his heart. After a few moments, he nodded. “No, they aren’t, are they?”

He frowned, but more because his breathing was slowing. Things were starting to make sense. The mess of feelings he was used to pushing aside until they burst out of his mouth in reckless and stupid statements were his instincts, but no one had ever taught him how to process the information into anything useful. No one had ever told him how weres did that. They had ensured he wouldn’t be on equal footing.

All those facts presented themselves, and then Tim added one more to the list: if he had been a normal were, Nathaniel might have taken him to bed by now.

“Somebody is going to pay for this,” Tim declared seriously. “I have to use a
book
.” He had nothing against books, but there was a book, and there was Nathaniel Neri, and there was only one of those two things he wanted to jump into cock first.

And okay, it probably didn’t mean anything, and it wasn’t like he would have been anything more than one of Nathaniel’s seasonal lovers, but Tim would have at least understood that from the outset without embarrassing sex talks.

“I didn’t know what the scent of your interest was,” he admitted, twitching he was so angry. “I thought that was just
you
. Don’t hate me, but you smell amazing. You smell like the greatest thing in the world. Have you ever smelled anything that was so, so good? Terrifyingly good? Like a spark in dry timber?” Nathaniel seemed about to speak, but Tim cut him off. “But I didn’t know part of it was that you… holy shit, you’re attracted to me. I didn’t know.” Tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight, that fact was going to sink in, and Tim wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

Nathaniel stared, then let his shoulders drop. “Tim.” His voice was unusually weak, but only for a moment. “This explains a lot.” Nathaniel narrowed his eyes, but if he was mad, he wasn’t nearly mad enough. No one could be as mad as Tim was right now. Tim was
cold
he was so angry, shivering with the force of it. He wondered if wolves were supposed to feel rage like this, if they were supposed to control it and use it like his uncle would have, or channel it and shift and wreak old-fashioned vengeance with their claws.

He’d never used his claws for violence. He’d never used his claws for anything. Little wolf, little Timothy, not good enough to interact with the big wolves. He’d never felt so ignorant in his life. Listening to the baby wolves talk about their meadow frolicking was something he could pretend to understand, but separating scents was something any werewolf child could do, and he should have learned the ins and outs of negotiating sexual attraction in high school like they did.

“I am so
angry
.” It was difficult to hold his head up. Nathaniel and every wolf in this town had been taught about these things, but Tim had been denied them. On purpose. He didn’t understand why, but he knew his uncle, and he knew information was critical to control a person. To control
Tim
. The only family member Silas had that he gave a damn about, or
claimed
he gave a damn about. “I can’t… I thought he cared. He was strict, but I thought….” Tim focused on Nathaniel and realized he was still shaking, though his face was hot. “I’m blushing.” He was shocked at the low vibration in his voice. It was almost a growl. “Which is even more useless. I have nothing to feel ashamed about, except for a family that raised me to be the saddest were in existence.”