Little Wolf (58 page)

He lowered his gaze and kept it down. Then he swallowed and wet his mouth. His breathing was heavy. Surrender worked even when the alpha in question was Nathaniel, who knew better. Tim didn’t have to manufacture his shiver. “Silas trusted you,” he repeated, darting a glance up. He didn’t know if Luca could sniff out the truth, but Luca had stopped to watch Tim warily.

In case he wasn’t believable, Tim glared at him. But then he angled his head to leave as much of his throat bared as Luca would allow. “I’m Nathaniel’s now.” Tim licked a canine, a dare. “And he’s mine.”

“He rejected you.” He’d never seen Luca’s eyes so fierce, never heard the furious rasp in his voice when he held himself back.

Tim clung to Luca’s arm and felt his pulse under his fingertips, quick and enraged. He was nothing to that strength, and they both knew it. “Yes.”

Albert was shocked, off in the background, but already tossing his head to deny the obvious lie. He’d been there. So had Robin’s Egg. They’d witnessed what had really happened. Tim just hoped Nathaniel meant what he said. If Tim was going to trust him, then he had to be strong, he
had
to be able to save himself.

Luca inhaled the
hurt
from Tim. “I can kill him for you.” The promise was hoarse, and as far as Tim could tell, genuine. Tim gave a start despite himself. Luca didn’t seem to realize what he’d given away.

Alpha wolves had their soft spots too. Tim closed his eyes. Luca was so focused on Tim the little bitch, he forgot Tim was a grown-ass were with teeth and claws of his own.

Tim grunted and shifted to give himself claws. He tore them through Luca’s stomach, going as deep as the suit would allow. He dropped when Luca released him, then scrambled up from the floor. His paws became hands and then paws again before he regained fingers and crawled away.

“Get Nathaniel,” he gasped out at Robin’s Egg and then climbed clumsily to his feet as Luca shouted in surprise and pain. He hoped Albert wouldn’t attack, but he could already see him springing toward Luca. Luca wasn’t going to let Albert delay him for long. His orders were to get Tim, and that was what he would do. He wouldn’t let Silas down again, and now his wounded pride was there for more motivation.

Tim struggled with the door and then burst out into the street. He was aware of eyes on him, on his bloodied, clawed shirt, but shook the stares off and began to run. He did not look back. Tim was fast, but Luca was pissed. His retribution would be ugly.

“Nathaniel!” Tim panted at people as he ran, hoping someone would get the goddamn hint and call the sheriff. His chest and stomach were burning, but his legs carried him across the street, down the block. His eyes were stinging. If he stopped, if he shifted, he’d be faster, he could howl. Nathaniel had promised to come if he howled.

But there was commotion behind him, innocent people shoved out of the way and loud, furious breathing. Tim didn’t need to stop to know it was Luca. He kept running, changing direction, and skittering down an alley to another street in the hope the narrower passage would slow Luca down.

“The sheriff!” he yelled breathlessly as he knocked over trash cans and disturbed a fairy and a were he didn’t know in the middle of a passionate moment. They both turned, wide-eyed at the snarling were coming up close behind Tim, and Tim darted down, skipping around cars and the corner of another building. “Nathaniel!” His voice was no kind of howl, but he tried, circling around to the main street and lunging through traffic to get to the sheriff’s station. “Nathaniel!” he screamed, his voice cracking, and had just reached the wider alley beside the drugstore when Luca caught him by the throat.

Tim didn’t get a chance to try his claws again. Luca kicked aside a crate and slammed Tim into the wall. Tim turned his head in time to save his nose but not his cheek. Everything went hot. He scraped his hands over the cement painted with the drugstore’s logo, but he had nothing to reach for. His cheek was throbbing. He didn’t think the inside of his mouth was bleeding, although he wasn’t certain of anything. Silas couldn’t be close if Luca felt free enough to hurt Tim like this. Or maybe Tim had finally pissed off Luca so much he no longer cared what Silas would do to him. He hadn’t hesitated to make a scene in the café in front of witnesses.

“What happened to Albert?” Tim’s mouth was oddly numb, though his body was tense and quivering. He wanted to turn his head, deny that he was shaking, but Luca’s hand was flat against his skull. He kicked Tim’s legs apart and dug his other hand into Tim’s hip.

“Got in my way.” Luca’s disregard for Albert was evident. Tim tried to draw in deep breaths to tell how much blood was between them, but though the metallic warmth was everywhere, he couldn’t tell if any of it belonged to Albert. “That was a nice trick,” Luca murmured above Tim’s ear. “You learned something in your time among the humans.”

Tim was too surprised to hide it. “You think this town is full of just humans?” There was no way Luca didn’t know what this town was.

Luca squeezed Tim’s hip with strength enough to fracture bone if he wanted. The sound Luca made wasn’t quite a laugh. “You haven’t been in this town long. I know that much, despite your attempts at staying hidden.” For a few seconds, Luca lowered his hand to tug at the necklace of charms Tim still wore. “Of course you’d use human magic.”

“Fuck off.” Tim jerked away, which only got his head pushed into the wall once again.

“It was as weak as the rest of you. We could still track you.” Luca snapped the cord and yanked the charms away. They clattered to the ground somewhere Tim couldn’t see.

“Took you five years.” Even now Tim couldn’t shut up when it counted. The skin of his neck was burning, and the broken spells made his thinking fuzzy. “Take me back and I’ll escape again. I’m not a kid anymore. I know things now.” He touched his tongue to the swollen corner of his mouth. “They know me in this town. They know my real name. I told them. They know I’m a Dirus. I’m no longer hidden.”

“You were always a Dirus.” Luca was still too close. “The secret one, but you act like him, don’t you? His Timothy, his heir. Kept away from the rest of us.” Luca’s teeth were at Tim’s ear, then down the nape of his neck. Tim couldn’t hide his shudder. “Don’t worry,” Luca assured him in the low, rough voice he’d used in the gift shop. “You think I don’t know I’m not good enough for you? I’m not going to leave any marks to upset the old man.”

Silas might be near after all. It didn’t give Tim much relief. His chances of escaping were dropping by the second. He took a breath, wishing he’d never learned to read scent. “Oh yeah?” he challenged in a faint voice. “You call him that to his face, or do you still approach him with your tail between your legs?”

Cement was unforgiving. Tim grunted but stopped struggling when he felt Luca’s chest at his back. “You have to give me time to heal,” he argued quickly, pushing out the words. “Is Silas close? Is he expecting me soon? Then you don’t have much time.”

“I have enough.” But Luca hesitated.

“I notice he didn’t come and get me himself,” Tim pointed out in the moment of silence, going for Luca’s fear with all he had. “He wouldn’t do it publicly. He couldn’t associate with me. He wouldn’t want the world to know our shameful human secret. I’m like you. Not good enough for him.”

“Shut up.” Luca was leaking feelings that no amount of soap could have washed away. “You have the name. You don’t know what you’re talking about. He gave you
everything
.”

“And yet you’re the one out here doing his dirty work,” Tim agreed with everything Luca wasn’t saying. “You’ve been watching, learning,
obeying
. Why not take a small bonus for yourself?” He cracked a hysterical laugh, because absolutely nothing about this was funny. Nathaniel would have frowned at that joke if he’d been there. But it was Luca exhaling over Tim’s ear. He exuded satisfaction when he sniffed Tim’s neck, and the itch of magic was gone.

“You were always meant to be mine.” Luca’s mouth was warm. “You left clues for us to follow. You got careless, even with your sad attempts at spellcasting.”

Careless. That was true. Tim had taken off the necklace that day in the Meadows with Nathaniel. He’d done it without thinking, while aware that Silas and Luca had hired a magic user who had tracked Tim to his room at Mrs. Pinsky’s.

“You took things with you,” Luca continued, running his thumb over the top of Tim’s spine, then sweeping it over the side of Tim’s throat. Tim thought of stolen library books from libraries he’d never had a chance to return to and his mother’s picture, the one thing he’d kept tucked away but never had the heart to leave behind. “The witch said your wards weakened here.” Luca actually seemed confused by that instead of gleeful or gloating. “Did you do it for him? Did he remove them to give you these?” Luca touched whatever was left of Nathaniel’s marks, and Tim bit his lip hard to keep from shouting for Luca to stay the fuck away from them.

“What can you give me?” he asked instead, because it had worked the first time. “Anything like what he can give me?” Tim filtered out the background distractions and focused on the twisted, unpleasant aura around Luca. Longing was as much of a shock as his jealousy. The anger was only to cover it up, but Tim could make the anger stronger. He was going to end up hurt, he was going to hurt a lot, but it would end this faster. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t think you could give me much of anything.” Tim was going to die painfully, but he was going to die like a fucking Dirus. “Nathaniel challenged Silas. You were there. You saw it. I bet Nathaniel took your fucking breath away. I bet in that moment, you would have begged for his cock too if you weren’t too scared to admit you want it.”

Everything was pressure and heat and straining muscle, but Tim could take it. “Have you ever challenged Silas?” Tim wondered with mock-innocence. “You ever get in the old man’s face and tell him off?”

Luca hadn’t ever challenged Silas, though he would have known it was possible. He’d been in the same room when Nathaniel had done it. Luca might see himself as taking Silas’s place, but he would never dare. If he’d felt sure enough in his place, he wouldn’t have snuck around with Tim.

The knowledge was exhilarating and terrifying. Tim inhaled that jealousy, that rage, that
fear
, and snapped his teeth. “You haven’t, have you? You little punk. That’s you, Silas’s little bitch. You try to act all old ways because it’s all you know—” Luca squeezed tighter, but somehow Tim could barely speak through the rising bursts of pain. “Someone taught you that shit, didn’t they? But you aren’t like them. Only Silas is, and he’s the last of them. Next to him you’re as puny as the rest of us.”

“Shut up.” Luca was going to break Tim’s bones.

Tim squirmed against the wall and pulled in the deepest breath he could manage. “It’s no excuse for this. This only makes you more pathetic.”

“Shut
up
.” Luca pressed his hand against the side of Tim’s face to stop him from moving. “That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble.”

“You would not believe how often I hear that,” Tim sniffed. “Like every day. And you know, I’m in trouble now, and yet I’m still talking, so what the fuck are you going to do about it? It had better be good if you want to shut me up. If you think you could even try, because I don’t know that you could. Anything you do is going to bring down that trouble back on you. If I howled, what would you do? Run from my uncle and Nathaniel too? Run from my pack?”

“Your pack?” Luca cut Tim off. “You don’t have a—”

“Excuse me?” a tiny but melodious voice interrupted. Tim opened his eyes to stare at the pixy from the drugstore, dressed in their work clothes, unsmiling. The pixy stared back with their wide, painted eyes before turning to face Luca. “Before this goes any further, you should probably let Littlewolf go.”

“No, no, no,” Tim interrupted, trying to shake his head. “This is dangerous. Go back inside and call the sher—” Luca silenced him with a hand over his mouth.

“Nonsense. We aren’t going to leave you here.” Mr. Shimizu rounded the corner with only a hint of being out of breath and a single nervous twitch. He wasn’t much bigger than Tim.

Luca spoke before Tim could try to get his hand off his mouth with his teeth. “Back off, kitty cat. This isn’t your business.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Was that Jerry? Without the baby at least, Tim hoped. He couldn’t see him, but he could hear his voice. Tim shut his eyes again. He didn’t want to think about what he looked like right now with Luca behind him. But when he reopened his eyes, there were more people there. Humans even, which was extra embarrassing. He could feel himself trembling, but at least Luca had eased off him a degree. Not so much of Tim’s air was infused with him anymore.

Mr. Shimizu rolled his eyes. “Of course it’s our business.” He flicked a look to Tim, his pupils mere slivers for a moment before he was back to being cool and collected. “He’s part of this town. That means he’s ours to protect.
Obviously
.” Tim couldn’t have been that bitchily precise if he’d tried.

“I’m not—” Tim began, voice muffled against Luca’s hand, then he stopped and met Mr. Shimizu’s gaze again. Tim wasn’t a part of their pack, except he was apparently, because that was how they were acting. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. But, fuck, he
was
. He’d helped plan their stupid festival. He answered tourists’ questions. He’d gotten Albert a job. He was dating their sheriff. “I’m one of you, and no one told me,” he snarled into Luca’s palm. “I can’t believe this.”

“That’s enough.” Luca took his hand from Tim’s mouth and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt. “Come on.”

“Oh hell no.” Tim ducked and wriggled, forcing Luca to twist his hand for a tighter hold on him. “I’m not going with you now.”

The others must have closed ranks or done something else to get Luca’s attention, because Tim found himself shoved into the wall. Luca grew louder. “It doesn’t matter what your friends here do, I’m taking you. If the pixy and the cat and the wolf with the baby want to stop me, they are welcome to try, but we both know what will happen, don’t we, Timmy?”