Little Wolf (57 page)

Luca had the kind of wild, thick dark mane Tim had always wanted. He’d been pure muscle, even at eighteen, and still was; the suit did nothing to hide it. He approached Tim at an angle, a slow stalk at odds with the quick, surprise pounces Tim remembered. Tim had never seen Luca coming unless Luca was accompanying his uncle as part of his circle of guards, and then Luca had kept his distance, not that it had mattered. As a kid Tim had hardly been able to look at him without blushing, and when Tim had gotten older it had only taken the feel of Luca’s gaze on him to make him lower his eyes.

Now Luca seemed to want Tim to watch him get closer. Tim turned his head and caught the worry from Robin’s Egg and a glimpse of a street full of strangers. Then Luca stopped in front of him, and Tim hit the shelves against the wall. He hadn’t known he’d been moving until there was no place else to go.

Luca smiled, quirking one side of his mouth. “Like nothing has changed, has it?” His accent was faint, but he’d never managed to fully erase it. Tim used to wonder why he bothered trying, but it was one of the many things Tim hadn’t let himself think about in the last five years. Luca wanted to be more like Silas. If that meant wearing suits and shedding his Eastern European accent, then he did it. But nothing would ever make him Silas.

“Still my uncle’s lapdog, I see,” Tim offered, and hitched a breath at Luca’s small pause. There was tension in Luca, like he wanted to pounce, but then he eased back to sweep a long, intimately close look up Tim’s body.

“Not everything has stayed the same,” Luca commented after a while. “I almost didn’t recognize you when I first saw you. You managed to gain a few inches.” He leaned in. “I couldn’t think how to inform Silas of your… situation. I wasn’t sure which would disappoint him more. His precious Timothy as a cashier, or as the fucktoy of the nearest strong male? If I tell him you’ve managed to reach his chin, he might be willing to forget the rest.” He flashed his teeth. “
Might
.”

Albert made a noise of protest. Tim lifted a hand without taking his eyes from Luca. He needed Albert to keep out of Luca’s crosshairs. If Luca took Tim, at least Albert could tell Nathaniel where he’d gone.

“Didn’t I call it?” Luca sneered. “You and Silas sat in that library night after night, yet he never saw it, never smelled it, but I always knew what you were.”

“No.” Tim frowned at the floor before bringing his eyes up. He shook his head. “Silas knew what I was. Why else would he have hidden me away? He knew. He feared it.”

There was only one werewolf in the mainstream human media—one
type
of werewolf. The type that even other werewolves admired, the kind they all wanted to be, or so Silas told himself. There was Blake, and there were the heroes of Ramona Greenleaf’s stories, and there was the Dirus name that even humans knew meant strength and ferocity. Tim wasn’t that. Tim was a little wolf, a survivor, partly human, a bitch. He liked strength and ferocity, but he liked it over him. He liked it pinning him down and fucking him how he wanted. In another family, in a town like this one, that might have been okay. Instead Silas had added locks to the doors and built more fences and kept Tim on the wrong side of all of them.

“Silas knew.” Tim exhaled and looked up into Luca’s scowling face. “Of course he knew. I was hardly subtle, was I? I exuded my every confused fantasy every time you came near me, and then only got more muddled and desperate when you’d touch me and it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t know I was telling you both everything, and if I had, I still wouldn’t have known how to control it. But he knew. He saw and he decided to keep me even further from the public eye. Hoping I’d grow. Hoping I’d grow out of
that
. That it was a crush. Then he kept me away from
you
,” Tim spat, getting louder when Luca emitted a short growl. “I was the one dumb enough to keep breaking out of my part of the house, the one running into you. But he knew what I… what I wanted. Of course he fucking did.”

Luca narrowed his eyes. His scent hinted at surprise. Tim exhaled heavily. “Oh, did you want me to tell you he didn’t? Was I supposed to think you were smarter than him? We both know that’s not true, even if he didn’t guess just how much you wanted me.”

The move was too fast for Tim to catch. Luca shot his hand out and grabbed Tim by the neck before slamming him into the shelf. Tim gasped in pain and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hey!” Albert shouted, somewhere far away but getting closer. “Let him go!”

Luca responded by tightening his grip. Tim grabbed at Luca’s wrist with one hand and extended the other, trying to warn Albert to be quiet. Luca would seriously hurt, if not outright kill, Albert. Luca had to bring Tim back to Silas alive. Tim would live through this. Albert might not.

“Albert,” Tim began hoarsely, glancing toward a madly twitching Robin’s Egg and then over toward Albert’s angry, glowing eyes. “I’ll be okay. Stay where you are. I’ll be okay.” He shuddered at Luca’s curving grin. “This is Luca. Luca isn’t going to kill me.”

“Albert is a pretty one, and so very friendly.” Luca stepped in, filling up the air with his scent. There was still too much soap, but beneath it was heat, want,
pleasure
. Tim tasted it and closed his eyes again.

“He’s a Greenleaf.” Tim couldn’t open his eyes yet, but he could bare his teeth. “Go ahead and try it. See what they do to you.”

The second slam into the bookshelf wasn’t as hard as the first, but it created pain on top of pain. Luca’s heart was beating almost as fast as Tim’s. Tim cracked his eyes. “That scared you.” He could identify Luca’s fear-scent now. Nathaniel had been right; learning about weres had given Tim new weapons. Tim continued to snap at him, aiming better than he had as a kid. “Albert’s young, but he’s not like I was. He was raised to this. He knows what he wants and what he deserves. He’s not ripe for a bully like you.”

“There’s that mouth of yours,” Luca panted over his face. He met Tim’s gaze for a moment, then deliberately bent his head to sniff at Tim’s neck. The bruises from his fingers were going to obliterate Nathaniel’s mark. It couldn’t be an accident, although Tim wondered how Luca was going to explain Tim’s new bruises to Silas. Perhaps Silas wasn’t in town. If he was close, Luca would have worried about leaving marks.

Albert was low-level growling in the background, trusting Tim enough to hold off, but not for much longer. Robin’s Egg gave a start, like an aborted dash in another direction.

Luca didn’t bother to turn. “Another move, fairy, and Timothy is going to bleed.”

Robin’s Egg stopped. The customers had noticed their waitress was gone, but so far none of them had gotten bothered enough to do anything about it.

Luca stayed focused on Tim. “Attached to you, aren’t they? Or is it that they don’t want to offend the alpha by letting his little punk get hurt?”

Tim raised his chin with effort. He strained to pull Luca’s arm down, to no noticeable effect. It hurt to swallow, and his shoulders and back throbbed, hot and bruised. The discomfort was nothing to the pain to come when he opened his mouth. He did it anyway. “I’m not his punk. You know that. It’s why you’re here now. If I was… if I was his, you’d still be lurking in the shadows.” He bit out the words. “Watching. Pathetic. Scared.”

The world went sparkling bright. Tim dragged in what little air he could and kept his head up despite the overpowering wash of scents from Luca, a hundred times worse than Nathaniel’s bloodied smell or his rare moments of bitter sadness. The scents burned through Tim and at last got the attention of the were tourists in the other room. They fled, taking the humans with them.

Luca squeezed, cutting off Tim’s oxygen until Tim kicked the bookshelf and Robin’s Egg cried out. Then Luca relaxed his grip without letting go. He leaned in again.
Anger
, Tim got, want again,
want
seemed to always be there, but the rest was harsh, stinging pain, more for what it made Tim feel than what he imagined Luca was feeling.

“His mark is already fading.” Luca was happy to share the news, smug in Tim’s face. “Guess he couldn’t take your mouth anymore. I would have taught you to use it better.”

“The fuck you would have,” Tim snarled without thinking, then wheezed when Luca pressed his other hand to his chest and curled his fingers. It wouldn’t take much. Luca hadn’t shifted, but he was fast, and he could do a lot of damage with his claws before Tim could think to struggle.

“Where’s your big sheriff now?” Luca’s whisper slid over Tim’s skin, but Tim couldn’t turn his head. His thoughts were blurred, as frantic as his heartbeat. Luca had never hurt him like this before, never this bad. His words, his breath, were sneaking down under Tim’s clothes, but no matter how much Tim pushed, he wouldn’t be able to get Luca off him. Luca spoke over Tim’s mouth. “Was he too soft to give you what you needed?”

“Oh, he gives it to me.” Tim showed his teeth again, too dizzy to think better of it. “Vigorously and often.” The spike of Luca’s claws was almost sweet after that. Robin’s Egg said something; Tim thought she was trying to calm him down, or Luca, or Albert, but that was secondary information compared to what he had just learned. That tidal wave of a scent, that hot vortex of misery that left Tim’s nostrils stinging, was
jealousy
. It was everything that went with jealousy—envy and pride, fear, hurt, ego. It hurt to be near it, and yet Tim wanted to crow a laugh. Nathaniel had been right. “Nathaniel likes my mouth,” he taunted, then choked when Luca pushed his claws in deeper.

“No.” Albert’s voice was unusually loud. It echoed through the room and took even Luca’s attention for a moment. Robin’s Egg kept speaking, to Albert, Tim realized, Albert who was glaring down Luca with every intention of attacking. Robin’s Egg was advising something else, waiting for the sheriff.

Tim looked to the window, and though no one was there, Luca followed his glance. It made him pause, and Tim smiled again. “You’re so scared of him.” Tim was risking more blood, but whatever Luca did to Tim, he wouldn’t anger Silas with any serious damage. Luca had never been willing to chance angering Silas, yet he called Tim the bitch. “It’s fine, Albert.” Tim raised his voice, hoarse and strained. “Luca’s not going to do anything, not without any cars around anyway. He needs a weapon. He’s too afraid to do anything directly.”

He could barely hear himself with his heart hammering in his ears. He tensed and shut his eyes a second before Luca moved in. Tim sank his teeth into his lip to keep from making any noise. Luca’s claws were in his skin. Even drawing a breath hurt.

“You should have challenged him to his face,” Tim hissed, letting his head fall forward. It was the easiest way to breathe, even if it brought his face closer to Luca’s. He opened his eyes at the feel of Luca’s breath over his cheek. “He’s better than you, you know. You never got me to shut up and you never will.” Tim brought himself closer, shivering when their mouths almost touched. Luca stopped, barely seeming to breathe. If he was anticipating a kiss, Tim was going to be sick. “He likes it when I’m loud, when I howl for it.” Nathaniel had been so right about this, but Tim wasn’t going to think about it now. He was going to stall until the others got away or Nathaniel showed up. If that didn’t work, then he’d run, like he’d promised. He focused on Luca and pretended Nathaniel was in front of him. His satisfied purr was weak, but it would do. “Look at the mark he gave me. How proud he is of me.”

“You little bitch.” Luca’s snarl was barely audible.

Tim lowered his free hand and angled his chin as high as he could with Luca’s hold on him. “I guess I am a bitch when it’s for the right cock.”

“Yeah?” Luca pushed in, his body, his mouth, way too close. Tim realized he’d made a misstep. No way would he get a chance to run with Luca this near. He struggled and hated how weak he was. Luca didn’t have to strain to hold him. He spread his fingers over Tim’s throat. Tim thought of Nathaniel and that first kiss and looked away until the thought was gone.

“Yeah,” Tim exhaled shakily. “Turns out I was gagging for an alpha wolf, and that was never you, was it?”

He braced for more pain, but there was nothing but the slow trickle of the blood already seeping from the holes made by Luca’s claws. Even that would heal if Luca let it.

Luca’s hold slipped, weakening for a few seconds until he slid his thumb down over Tim’s carotid. He angled Tim’s head to the side and bent in to sniff the bruised skin. “Don’t lie. You presented yourself often enough,” Luca said, the words too torn to be smug. “You should have smelled yourself. You knew who was in charge.”

Tim shook his head, or tried to, although it was probably true. He had tried to flirt with Luca in the beginning. Too bad teenagers were notorious for bad decisions. Tim had been young and impressionable. Luca had been young too, but he should have known that. Instead he’d pushed for more.
Little princess
, he’d whispered again and again,
Precious little Timothy
,
the last Dirus
, mocking Tim when he’d wanted it too.

“In charge?” Tim scoffed. Luca was a full-grown man now, but he’d been young then, a glorified guard for Silas’s private wing of the house at first, and then moving up to better jobs as he’d proven what an asshole he could be. “You were never in charge.”

He froze at his own words and stifled his gasp when Luca’s claws dug in that much deeper. It took effort, but Tim kept his eyes up, on Albert, who had slipped his shoes off in preparation to shift.

“Silas trusted me,” Luca argued in a growl, raising his head, and Tim sucked in a breath, because Silas trusted no one. Silas had no pack except a nephew he’d locked away. He sure as shit hadn’t trusted Luca, but Luca wanted to believe he had.

Tim took a moment, reconsidering what Luca was telling him. Then he angled his body up, stretching to display himself with what limited movement he was allowed. It hurt, but it was worth it for the confusion flickering through Luca’s expression. Tim had no strength, but he did have knowledge. Luca wanted to be an alpha wolf, and Tim had learned some things about alphas.