Little Wolf (44 page)

Feverishly hot hands pulled Tim down onto the bed and partly onto Nathaniel’s lap. “Don’t,” Nathaniel instructed him as Tim swore and tried not to put any weight on him. “Don’t worry.”

“Fuck you, don’t worry,” Tim spat and scrambled up to his feet. “No, fuck you in general!” He pointed a finger in Nathaniel’s face, all the while thinking he’d truly lost it. This was not what Zoe had meant. “You don’t get to make me feel this way and then… just… make me feel this way!” Tim should not be a nursemaid. He shouldn’t be with Nathaniel in any way. He wasn’t nice, whatever Carl and Albert thought. “I learned about the town today.” Tim stabbed at him. Nathaniel continued to regard him steadily. “I can’t take care of you. I’m not that guy. Sharp edges, remember?”

“Sharp Teeth,” Nathaniel corrected him, still far too soft. His normally impassive expression was gone. Tim could see the emotions cross his face.

“Little Wolf,” Tim corrected him in return, and crept forward when Nathaniel smiled. That smile was terrible. It did awful things to Tim, made him think about what he might do if he ever found the person who’d hurt Nathaniel, what someone who knew that about him might do and how they might use it. Then he thought about why Nathaniel would have been safe in the hospital, yet he’d insisted Zoe call Tim.

“You should sleep.” Tim gave in because he didn’t understand any of it. “Let me get these blankets off the bed. Dammit, Neri.”

Nathaniel reached out to wrap his arms around Tim and wouldn’t let him move. He put his face against Tim’s stomach and breathed in deep.

“Don’t go.” He smelled like
hospital
, although no longer like a stranger.

Tim put his hand on the back of the Nathaniel’s neck once again, and Nathaniel went still. Tim was starting to become aware of the scent from the bed, mingled layers of the two of them and lots of sex. It also, faintly, smelled like roses, or what Tim thought of as roses, warm and heady and red, in addition to dried semen and sweat. It was fantastic. But Nathaniel was inhaling Tim instead.

Tim closed his eyes. “You’re supposed to be sleeping. You know, healing?”

“Heal better with you.” Nathaniel’s tone was scolding, like Tim had skipped class on the day when the lesson had been werewolf anatomy and healing faster when in the arms of the were you were currently boning.

Except they weren’t just boning. Tim might tell himself that, but Nathaniel didn’t think so. Nathaniel had claimed him.

“If I stay, you’ll be better?” Tim opened his eyes to squint at him. “Fine. Give me a second.” He ignored Nathaniel’s protest as he moved back but blushed at how Nathaniel looked at him as he stripped his shirt off too. Getting undressed when not in the heat of the moment was a different prospect than it had been when Nathaniel had been pulling his clothes from him. Nathaniel was in no condition to conceal his admiration for Tim’s bare skin. Tim stumbled over to the other side of the bed to tug most of the blankets to the ground. Then he climbed onto the bed and crawled to Nathaniel. He swore again when Nathaniel twisted around to keep an eye on him, but then Nathaniel lowered himself onto his side to watch Tim from a reclining position, and Tim could breathe again.

Disgruntled, he came closer to get Nathaniel’s legs on the bed too and push more blankets to the floor. “Are you still in pain?”

“Yes.” Nathaniel didn’t hesitate in his answer, but when Tim bent down to peer into his face, he frowned and began to murmur. “Don’t worry. I’ll be better now.” He ran a concerned hand over Tim’s face, and Tim nearly bit him.

“No. Stop moving.” Tim shoved him by his shoulder until Nathaniel was flat on the bed, and then he held himself up over him. His worry made Nathaniel worry, he understood that. Nathaniel could smell it, and he responded the way the leader of a pack, or any other were in his condition, would have. It couldn’t keep Tim from worrying. Nothing seemed able to make him stop fretting over the image of Nathaniel crushed under his truck. “Believe me, if I could get rid of this feeling in my chest I would.”

He felt mean for saying it and thought of Albert calling him a liar. “I mean, I’m not the injured one here,” he amended his words as he lowered himself carefully at Nathaniel’s side. He was on Nathaniel’s arm, which was multicolored with different stages of healing and deep bruises, and partially covered at the shoulder by sticky patches of either sedatives or narcotics. Nathaniel moved to give himself room, then bent his arm around Tim and dragged his fingers through his hair. He turned his head, and Tim blinked at how close their faces were.

Nathaniel wasn’t supposed to be moving. His face and his body were a mess, but he brought his other hand up and stroked his fingers down Tim’s neck before letting his hand fall to the bed. Tim inched forward to exhale against Nathaniel’s throat. He pushed his nose into the unbruised skin until Nathaniel was marked with his scent, then sighed and shut his eyes.

“You said you wanted more,” Tim commented, trying to be funny. “Too bad you got me.” He felt like if he moved something inside him would break. Nathaniel turned in toward him and let out a small sound as if something hurt. The tiny nip at the tip of Tim’s nose made Tim open his eyes.

Nathaniel was so close. “I’m better already,” Nathaniel assured him, sounding much more like himself than he had when he’d first come into the house. Maybe he
would
heal better here. Maybe the doctors knew what they were doing. Nathaniel wasn’t going to relax in the hospital, but he could relax in his home, with Tim, who smelled like he adored Nathaniel even when he didn’t want to. Instinctual reactions were probably what it was. Nathaniel probably couldn’t help reacting to the strength of what Tim was feeling.

Tim blinked away the sting at his eyes. “You know, don’t you?” Nathaniel’s puzzled frown made it harder. Tim forced himself to maintain eye contact. “You know how I feel about you. You knew before I did.” The cessation of Nathaniel’s breathing bothered Tim enough that even when he was probably about to be humiliated, he scowled at Nathaniel until he was breathing again. “It’s pure weakness no matter what Carl says, but I’m hardly going to hurt you. You can sleep.”

“Timothy.” Nathaniel tangled his fingers through Tim’s hair.

“And your mark is gone. This is stupid. There is absolutely no advantage to this.” Tim went on despite having told Nathaniel to sleep. “Anyone who knows me could use you against me. I mean, imagine if you felt the same and everyone in town knew it. They’d approach me in an effort to get to you. Shit, I should be hiding everything better. I should—”

“Little Wolf.” Nathaniel stopped him. He met Tim’s stare with a brief, startled twist to his mouth, then quickly bent his head. He whispered against the crown of Tim’s head. “Would do.” Nathaniel seemed to fight through his clouded thoughts. “I would do anything you asked me to.”

“What?” Tim forgot how to think. “I. What?” He put his hands over Nathaniel’s chest without applying any pressure. He felt the rise and fall and the thrum of Nathaniel’s nervous heartbeat. He took a moment, then disregarded scent because he was never going to read into scent the way Nathaniel did. His own heart started to beat faster as he panicked and ducked his head. “You’re giving me a lot of power,” he answered after a while, aware of having said it before.

Nathaniel’s shudder said he knew exactly how much power he was giving Tim. That he could be so brave was terrifying and further proof of what he was.

Unless it was just instinct and whatever had been pumped into his system. Tim shut his eyes. “Say it again.”

There was a skip in Nathaniel’s chest, a moment of holding still, and then Nathaniel’s heartbeat was stronger and faster than before. “I would do anything you asked me to.”

“Why?” Tim tensed when Nathaniel did, although it couldn’t shut him up. “There’s nothing about me to say I’m worthy of that kind of…. You don’t know me really. I was raised to dominate. Even if my kingdom was one house, one person, I was bred to rule, and that’s all I know.” Something made his voice brittle. “I sound stupid. As if I could hurt you.”

The serene scent around him intensified, as if somewhere in Tim’s illogical argument there was something making Nathaniel very happy. Tim peeked at him. He immediately closed his eyes again to bask in sunshine. It was worse than that. It was sunshine and puppies and cake, and it was all coming from Nathaniel because of what Tim had said.

Tim’s face was hot against Nathaniel’s skin. “Anything I asked you to?” He felt like squirming. “You could scratch my back,” he mused, because his uncle would have told him to demand something. “Vanquish my enemies. Kiss me.”

A moment later Nathaniel’s voice was rumbling through him. “Roll over.”

Flushed and stupid, Tim did. His lips parted at the first slow scratch between his shoulder blades. He shook his head before he moved in so that Nathaniel couldn’t get at his back anymore but they were still pressed together. “I shouldn’t have said that,” Tim decided. “I should have told you to lie still.” His voice rose at the end when Nathaniel placed a kiss behind his ear and then along his neck. He stopped to nuzzle there, and Tim was getting hot in a much better way. He put his face to the bed. Nathaniel gave him another small kiss, then rested the way he was supposed to.

Tim immediately turned around and sat up to study him. He wanted to pin Nathaniel to the bed and keep him there and look at him. “Two out of three isn’t bad.” Tim judged him despite how the corner of his mouth kept turning up. “You didn’t vanquish my enemies.”

“Give me time,” Nathaniel replied, utterly serious. And if that wasn’t the greatest thing Tim had ever heard.

He picked up Nathaniel’s hand and brought it to his face to smile into his palm. “You smell good.” It was a dumb compliment. Tim didn’t care. “You need anything else?”

“Don’t go.” Nathaniel had that answer ready, as if he’d thought it before. He wasn’t talking about the bed anymore; at least Tim didn’t think so.

“For me to stay….” Tim trailed off. His smile fell away. He trusted Nathaniel to handle Luca. He even believed Nathaniel could take care of Silas. But the damage Silas would inflict first, the damage not only to the town but to Nathaniel, was too great. Tim couldn’t look at Nathaniel still bandaged up and think about what furious weres could do to each other in a fight.

A king was willing to go to war for Tim, and Tim’s first thought was to protect him. The town was rubbing off on him. Uncle Silas would have been so disappointed.

“Where else would I even go right now?” Tim huffed and released Nathaniel’s hand so he could slide down against him. Then he refused to think about anything else and shut his eyes. “Yeah, okay,” Tim agreed quietly after a few minutes, because Nathaniel already knew anyway. He slid an arm over Nathaniel’s chest and dug his fingers into skin and muscle he hoped wasn’t bruised. “But don’t.”

He didn’t know how Nathaniel knew what he meant this time, any more than how he knew any of the other times, scent or instinct or some werewolf magic Tim had never heard of. But Nathaniel put his lips to Tim’s forehead and curled his arm once again underneath Tim so he had Tim held close to him. “Sorry.”

“Don’t,” Tim told him again. He wasn’t that big of an asshole to make Nathaniel apologize for what wasn’t his fault.

“Soft Tim.” Nathaniel exhaled. “Timothy Little Wolf with no pointy edges.”

“I hate you so much,” Tim lied, knowing Nathaniel already knew the truth. It made him quake, made him turn to shove his face into Nathaniel’s armpit and curl his hand lightly over the tape at Nathaniel’s ribs. “Sleep already,” he grumbled, because with Nathaniel asleep Tim could get up, move, pace the room while he thought about running. But the contented, relieved scent lingered when Nathaniel’s breathing evened out, and it was a long time before Tim thought about slipping away.

H
UNGER
FINALLY
drove Tim from bed sometime after sunset. He slipped on a shirt and then spent a few minutes frowning at the floor. His feet were easier to contemplate than the large hunk of werewolf snoring and healing before his eyes.

The night before there hadn’t been much sleeping, which could have been the reason Nathaniel hadn’t immediately noticed the car speeding toward him. Nathaniel shouldn’t be so calm if that were true. Tim had spent a lot of time thinking about it, and even if someone wasn’t trying to take out Nathaniel because of Tim, Nathaniel had still been distracted. That was a problem Tim didn’t know a way to solve.

Well, he could leave. Nathaniel wouldn’t like going back to screwing tourists and waiting for his mate, but he would no longer be at risk because of Tim.

If what had happened was due to Luca, and therefore Silas, as Tim suspected, then leaving was the right thing to do. Unless of course Luca’s plan was to drive Tim away from the relative safety of Nathaniel’s town, to get Tim on his own. Luca, like every other were but Tim, might have heard of towns like Wolf’s Paw and the sanctuary they offered. It was equally possible Luca was scared to confront Nathaniel alone and had used a car as a battering ram to try to even out his odds.