Little Wolf (61 page)

If not, then he wouldn’t be any farther than Carson, and while Luca might have been the one he’d thought capable of tracking Tim, Silas would have other weres around town to keep an eye on things. They would blend in with any other tourists.

He wondered what Silas would think about Luca in jail facing charges, and if Silas had been careless enough to explicitly demand Luca drag Tim home, or if he had never intended Luca to make contact like that and Luca’s own feelings had spurred him to act.

Tim nearly put a hand to his neck, though he doubted Silas could have known about his hickeys or predicted what Luca would do when he saw them.

Silas might not, in fact, know everything. Tim had remembered him as being all-powerful, all-wise, but then Tim had come to Wolf’s Paw. Werewolves were different here. Humans were different here. And Nathaniel led a bigger pack with very different rules than Silas had ever taught Tim. Silas barely led a pack anymore. It didn’t mean Silas wasn’t dangerous, but it changed the way Tim had always imagined a reunion with him.

Tim blinked. “Will Luca give you more trouble?”

Nathaniel was startled by the question, but glanced at Luca for the first time since their fight. Luca averted his eyes. Nathaniel turned back to Tim. “No.”

He was so hot. There weren’t enough words in any human tongue to express how much Tim hoped Nathaniel had forgiven him enough to let him go home with him later and practice sucking him off. The idea of trying made his stomach tighten.

Nathaniel had saved him. Nathaniel was happy Tim was okay. Tim was
so
not worthy of him. “Listen….” Tim took a moment before going on, letting Nathaniel know he was truly okay by ensuring his voice was calm and his heart was steady. “I’m going to go make sure Robin’s Egg is all right. I won’t be alone. Right, Albert?”

His uncle’s men were in town, and Tim wasn’t stupid enough to risk being alone. One kidnapping attempt per day was enough. Nathaniel scowled at him anyway. At least it wasn’t at Albert. Tim pointedly sniffed at him. “You are going to have work to do.” He was guessing, mostly based on television shows, that Nathaniel was going to have statements and paperwork and things. Tim probably was too. “I will do that, and then I will come to the station.” He brought his eyes up, calculating how pleading he could look before Nathaniel got suspicious. Turned out Nathaniel was like any other alpha wolf when Tim gave him a wide-eyed, soft look. He let out a breath and seemed unhappy, but he didn’t move.

“I’ll have to give a statement, right?” Tim pressed, and almost changed his mind when Nathaniel smelled of irritation and worry. Tim inspired only the best emotions. “I can’t do that yet. Give me some time.”

“Albert’s hurt.” Nathaniel’s argument was gruff.

Albert practically hopped he straightened up so fast. “It’s nothing.”

That was a blatant lie. Albert’s jeans were stained with blood, and he still wasn’t moving his arm. “I should get him to the doctor too,” Tim reasoned, “if his arm doesn’t heal like it should.”

Nathaniel studied Tim until Tim was close to itching out of his skin. “I thought—” Whatever he was going to say, he kept it to himself. He pressed his mouth into a thin line and glanced away. “I can’t stop you.”

Nathaniel knew Tim was leaving, even if he didn’t know why. But Tim wasn’t about to tell him. This was something he could not allow Nathaniel to fix. Really, there wasn’t anything Tim could say that wasn’t a lie. Well, there was one thing. Tim just wasn’t sure about the value of it at the moment. He propped his forehead on Nathaniel’s shoulder. “I love you.”

He expected Nathaniel to touch him, but Nathaniel kept his hands to himself. “Then stay.” He was so quiet Tim didn’t think Albert heard it. “Or I could go with y—”

Tim lifted his head. His heart was doing wild things, but he had enough sense to keep Nathaniel from finishing that sentence. “Do you know how greedy I am?” he demanded. “I warned you I was raised to think everything was mine. Don’t say things like that, or I will take you up on it, and you’ll hate it.” He dropped his head back down to avoid Nathaniel’s reaction. “Okay. Okay. I am doing this. I will meet you at the station. It just might take me a while. I have something I have to do before I can… before I can join you.”

Tim was an asshole. He’d told Nathaniel that over and over again. And now he could lie without really lying too. It wouldn’t fool Nathaniel, but it would make him listen. “Obviously,” Tim went on, in a thick voice that reminded everyone he had just been crying, “you can’t go with me because you have things to do here. But if it takes too long, you are welcome to track me down.”

Worry
, and a heavy weight of a different scent, like the absence of happiness, or just absence.
Loss
. Then Nathaniel lifted his head and each scent drifted away. Nathaniel was motion. He got to his feet and then helped Tim up.

“Is this the kind of something you have to do yourself?” Nathaniel understood, perfect creature that he was.

Tim exhaled and nodded. His whole being was shaky at this point. “That is how you deal with bogeymen, right? And monsters of the hopefully metaphorical type?” Nathaniel would know what Tim meant,
who
Tim meant.
Worry
flooded over Tim again, stronger than before, but Nathaniel held back. Tim had no control at all. He flung himself at Nathaniel in a painfully tight hug. Nathaniel bent down, probably breathing Tim in, in big, soothing lungfuls. Tim did the same. “I’m not kidding about the tracking me down. If I take too long, you track me the hell down. Rescue me. Rescue away. Okay?”

Nathaniel’s nod was serious. Tim didn’t doubt for one second that Nathaniel would do exactly as he asked. He was far, far too good for Tim. He was probably too good for everyone who had ever left him, people too stupid to claim him despite that. Tim wanted to be good enough for him, but even if he wasn’t he couldn’t see any reason not to go home with Nathaniel every night. If Nathaniel still wanted him.

He forced himself to move.

Looking back was bad. So was stopping for more than a second to smile shyly at the townspeople milling around. If Tim stopped, he was going to think about what a bad idea this was, how an army that sought out an enemy was automatically weakened. And if he thought that, then he was going to feel an overwhelming need to run.

In fact running was starting to sound better and better the farther he got from the alley. But then Albert caught up with him, and kept giving him glances while cradling his arm, and Tim did not need the extra guilt. He’d told Albert not to do anything, but Albert had tried to help him anyway, and now here Tim was with a town filled with people like Albert on his conscience.

Fuck. It was worse than that. He owed them. They were his responsibility. How was that fair? They were Nathaniel’s people, not his.

“What’s going on?” At least Albert didn’t pretend to know more than Tim did.

Tim stopped in front of a restaurant, well out of even Nathaniel’s earshot, and looked Albert over. “Are you really okay? Do you want to go to the doctor?”

Albert waved him off with his injured arm and got stern. “What is going on?”

Tim wasn’t sure where to start. He glanced around, very aware of how bloody they were, and the people on the street. Tim had caused quite a scene. Well, Luca had caused it. Tim had run screaming through the streets while covered in blood, but he hadn’t caused anything.

“Tim.” Albert broke into his thoughts.

Tim met Albert’s not-so-innocent gaze. “Nathaniel thought he had to earn me.” So that was where he chose to begin. Albert stared, so Tim growled and started to walk again, lifting his head to sniff the air. “Clearly,” he went on as Albert kept up with him, “only an idiot would think that. Nonetheless, he’s a perfect idiot who is going to keep thinking that way despite what a total coward I am. It doesn’t sit right. He thinks of me like I’m a Dirus.”

“You are a Dirus.” Albert spoke like he thought Tim was slow. “Even if most of us only learned that today.”

“Well, Greenleaf, I wasn’t acting like one.” And he should. Tim should act like a real were and deal with this before the town, and Nathaniel, took the brunt of it.

“What does that mean?” Albert kept pace with him easily.

“It means….” Tim turned to track the scent, which he could be getting wrong. He probably was getting it wrong. But if he had to, he’d ask around. “It means we are going to face down another Dirus.” To do that, Tim would need more than Albert. He would need a pack of his own. He sniffed the air again while Albert stared at him in awed horror. “Now where the hell does Carl live?”

S
ILAS
WOULD
have no interest in highly rated chefs or Spanish-style architecture, but he would want the best room in the best hotel. Silas might have been able to survive in the woods, but Tim doubted he’d choose to, even with all his talk of tradition. Even Silas would find it more difficult to intimidate humans while sleeping on the ground and picking small forest animals out of his teeth.

According to the brochures, the hotel Las Flores was a building of historic significance, with modern additions and a charming view of the mountains, as well as a full spa. The lobby felt old, with polished, worn wooden floors covered by thick rugs. It had been a while since Tim had been around anything close to luxury, and so far it was making him twitchy. But that could have been the alarmed look the guy behind the desk had given him when Tim had walked in with Albert and Carl flanking him and asked if Silas Dirus was staying there.

Tim almost felt sorry for the guy. The werewolf the town’s leader was screwing had marched in and demanded to know what room Silas Dirus himself was in. And though Silas had probably booked the room on the corporate account, there was no mistaking who he was. The rumors about Silas’s presence in town would have probably already been buzzing if not for the scene between Luca and Nathaniel earlier. The clerk had been on edge before Tim had ever mentioned the name Dirus.

He wasn’t the only one. Albert had been fidgeting since the elevator doors had closed. Carl was suspiciously quiet. Tim studied himself in the reflective panel for the buttons and noticed for the first time Carl was taller than he was.

“You guys don’t have to do this.” The hotel only had three stories, not including the “scenic tower.” That gave Tim enough time to reconsider how stupid this was. That Silas didn’t know for sure about him yet. That Tim could have run without involving an eighteen-year-old and an old human. What kind of an idiot walked into a showdown without any leverage? His only advantage was the element of surprise and that wasn’t going to last long.

“If you’re scared of the man, then don’t go,” Carl remarked, sounding as irritated as he had when Tim and Albert had knocked on his door. Carl had been in his pajamas and on the couch watching TV with a microwaved dinner on his lap. Apparently Carl’s wife had been the one to do the cooking. She had died several years ago, and no one had bothered to tell Tim about it.

He still wasn’t sure what to say. Carl had not appreciated his shocked apology. But irritated or not, Carl was there with him, dressed again, with his veteran’s cap firmly on his head. Tim turned to meet his stare, and then the doors pinged and slid open.

Down at the end of the unoccupied hall, because of course Silas would take up a whole wing during tourist season, was a large, stone-faced guard in a suit cheaper but tighter than Luca’s. He looked like a wolf in a suit, a bored, built animal ready to pounce on the three of them simply for something to do.

The guy could have a wife and kids at home for all Tim knew, and might not be the sort to take risks for Silas. Or he could be fiercely loyal to Silas and have a deep-seated hatred of young wolves and old humans. Tim directed his whisper at the two behind him. “If something bad happens, make sure to tell Nathaniel everything. So he’ll know I tried at least. Stupid jerk thinking I’m brave. Asshole throwing himself in harm’s way for me. Dammit.” Tim stopped and then started walking again. “Dammit. I should have run.”

“Why didn’t you again?” Albert was glancing from side to side as if he’d never been to this part of the hotel before, but he stayed at Tim’s right. Carl lagged behind at his left, which might have been arthritis more than fear. His heart beat the slowest of the three of them.

Tim stopped. The wolf guarding his uncle’s room stopped too, as if Tim were going to leap on him in a vicious and overwhelming attack. If Tim could have, he would have laughed, but his throat was too tight to let out a sound. He was so tense even throwing up would have been a relief.

“He thinks we’re a threat.” Strained amazement was the best he could do for the moment. Although when he glanced over, he remembered Albert was still covered in blood. So was Tim for that matter. Because, oh right, they’d already fought a big-ass were today, and they’d lived to tell the tale.

If Nathaniel deserved most of the credit for that, well, this were didn’t need to know. Tim cocked his head to the side to study his uncle’s bodyguard and thought of the many other nameless weres in his uncle’s employ he’d seen through the years. These guards were replaceable. Carl and Albert meant more to him. They’d already fought for him for better reasons than a paycheck.

“Why aren’t you running now?” Carl prodded from next to him. “Still can if you want.”

“Instinct.” Tim swallowed. The guard seemed puzzled. That was an advantage of sorts, a unique, little wolf sort of advantage—confusing the enemy.

“Instinct?” Carl grumbled. “I thought his name was Nathaniel.”

“Old man, this isn’t about him. Not completely anyway. This is about me.” Tim jerked his head up. “I’m a grown-ass were. I should act like one.” He kept his eyes on the guard. “I am a Dirus after all.”

There was only a small reaction from the bodyguard. He could have recognized Tim already, but at Tim’s words his posture stiffened, and he began to regard Tim more intently. Tim stepped forward again, moving a little faster since it was too late to run.