Little Wolf (65 page)

“Am I correct in guessing that young sheriff?” Silas had to notice Tim’s thundering heartbeat, even if he couldn’t smell Tim’s internal alarm. He went on talking while Tim repeated
mate
to himself in silent disbelief. “You thought I wouldn’t notice? As though your scents are not already blended and you weren’t wearing a mark. Even if you hadn’t said his name with stars in your eyes, I would have known it was him. He’s the only one in this town near your worth, although he has failed to protect you.”

“Hey,” Tim protested, his voice creaking and rusty. His mind was trapped in another moment. He’d looked right at Nathaniel in the café. Tim had looked at Nathaniel and his heart had started pounding like this. It had been fear, or so Tim had thought, terror at the godlike alpha wolf in front of him with that incredible, glorious scent, welcoming and warm and delicious. Nathaniel had stared back, pupils dilated, his perfect mouth open and soft.

Tim was conscious of every ache in his body and how simply being near Nathaniel had made them seem to disappear. “Nathaniel protected me just fine,” he contested his uncle’s point. Then he frowned to think of how Nathaniel had done that, every single, careful answer.

The bastard hadn’t even lied, and he wasn’t the only one. The entire town must have known. There’d been too many tactful silences. Too many significant glances exchanged while Tim was distracted.

Tim took another step. Nathaniel had said mating was instinct telling you to look at a particular person. He’d said the awareness came first and that love followed it, but he’d never once fucking mentioned that Tim was his mate. He’d offered his protection because Tim was clearly frightened of something and then had let Tim insult him day after day without saying a single word about how it would have hurt.

Tim hid his face in his hands and struggled to breathe. Nathaniel had kissed him on the porch and then sent him off to…. “Fuck.” He brought his hands up to drag them through his hair. “He takes the ideals of this town too far. He doesn’t give up when he should. Oh my God. That bastard.”

Nathaniel had known since the beginning, and then today in the café he had tried again. He had
tried again
. Tim didn’t know anything about any of this, but he was guessing most weres wouldn’t have tried again like that. In front of people. In front of the same people. Gently telling Tim he wasn’t perfect but that he was perfect for him…. Fuck, he’d done everything but spell it out. He’d told Tim he’d never claimed anyone before, and yet he marked Tim for the world to see and let Tim do the same to him. What kind of masochistic jerk would do that to themselves?

The kind who watched cheesy human rom-coms and gamely went on fake dates to make his friends happy. A stupid, self-sacrificing asshole who bought Tim porn when he’d really been dying to touch him.

Tim belatedly became aware that Silas had stopped talking. He dropped his hands. “Okay. What you’re saying is….” He trailed off. It was too humiliating to admit to Silas he hadn’t known, although Silas had probably already guessed. Tim focused on something else. “There isn’t anyone else like Nathaniel. You can stop all that ‘worthy of me’ crap. He deserves better than someone who can’t recognize what’s in front of him. He should have something better. You don’t hurt him.”

Tim stepped forward again, clenching his hands and curling his lips into a snarl. “You will not hurt him, no matter what happens. Hear me, Silas? You aren’t going to hurt him or anything he cares about.”

“Timothy.” Silas was looking directly at him now, maybe had been for a while. “To hurt him would hurt you.”

“And you’d never hurt me.” Tim tried to be sarcastic, but it came out breathless. His heart was beating too fast. Silas moved forward, and Tim hurried backward with his hands up. “That could be true. It probably is, or you think it is. But I can’t handle that right now. No, I’ve had a lot to deal with today, and I need to go, I think. I need to go.” He made himself stop. Silas’s heart was beating fast too. “I won’t vanish again, I swear. Or not for so long this time. But I need to go, Silas. This is not where I need to be right now.”

It had no dignity, and it left too many things unresolved, but Tim left Silas there and went for the door. He was a little amazed Silas let him bolt, but then Silas had also had a hell of a day, and he’d claimed he wasn’t going to lock Tim up again.

Issues for another day, another time. The guard was still at attention when Tim slipped outside, and so were Carl and Albert. Tim stopped and stared at them blankly for a moment and then took off down the hall, hoping they wouldn’t follow, unsurprised when they did.

“Hey, what the hell?” Carl had no problem shouting at him as he made for the elevator. For an old man, he could move fast too. Tim practically jumped into the elevator when the doors opened. Albert slapped his hand away from the buttons and then stood in front of the doors, letting them close behind him.

“What’s going on?” After being around Silas’s locked-down emotions, Albert’s concern almost knocked Tim off his feet.

“Nathaniel is my mate.” Tim stood up to his full height. He glared at both of them. They’d both known, and instead of telling him, they’d let him discover it on his own. Which would have been ideal except that he hadn’t. Tim might never have known if Silas hadn’t told him, and why the fuck would Silas tell him if he was so against it? Probably some twisted way of telling him he was actually all for it.

Tim wasn’t likely to do anything Silas said, now or ever, but if Silas expressed direct concerns about the match, Tim might rebel and do the opposite. Silas probably loved the idea of Tim married off to a wolf of Nathaniel’s caliber. Like infusing new strength into the bloodline and gaining a pack the size of a town. Oh yeah, Silas would fucking love that.

“Littlewolf, you need to breathe.” Albert’s concern was more like alarm now.

Tim focused on him. “I’m Nathaniel’s mate, and Silas likes it.”

Carl and Albert exchanged a look, one they had exchanged before, but this time Tim understood it. The elevator pinged as the doors opened to the lobby. Tim kept moving. He was outside the hotel before the other two were in front of him again. The sky was dark. Couples were heading toward restaurants all around them for dinner. Tim didn’t know where Nathaniel was but, hey, he had only to sniff the air and he could find him. He could find Nathaniel anywhere. Now he knew why.

Carl’s sigh was so heavy that Tim stopped. “Glad to see you finally caught up with the obvious,” he offered.

Tim expressed, extremely nonverbally, the idea that Carl could go fuck himself.

“Where are you going?” Albert was less worried about Tim’s mental state. “The sheriff’s station is that way.” As if that was the only possible direction Tim might go. It was the kind of thing other weres assumed, the kind of thing Tim of course had no goddamn clue about.

“I don’t know,” he admitted stiffly after a few seconds of staring into Albert’s hopeful eyes. “I don’t know where I’m going. I didn’t know I was mated five minutes ago either, so that’s no big deal. I mean, sure, I’ve been dating the guy and living in his house and generally letting him do whatever he wants, because the things he does are amazing, but I am kind of engaged to him on a molecular level and no one bothered to tell me, least of all him!”

“When you put it like that, it sounds very confusing.” Albert was not helpful.

Carl provided a distraction. “How did everything else with the uncle go?”

Tim flicked him a sharp look. “Fine. Silas apologized for nothing, admitted to little, and then gored me right in the chest. I doubt he has any intention of leaving this town today or even tomorrow. Not until we’ve talked properly. Other than that… I kind of missed him. He missed me too, but he’s never going to say it. God, that’s fucked. He locked me up, and yet he wants me to take over, and to help me do it, he’s giving me….” Wolf’s Paw was not Silas’s to give, but he’d kind of given it to Tim anyway. He’d steered Tim toward staying, and he’d reminded him of his money and what he might do with it. He’d called Nathaniel worthy. “He’s so smart. Talking with him isn’t like anything else. Even when he’s a hundred percent wrong, he’s already considering new plans. I missed him so much. Fuck, I am messed up.” Tim closed his eyes. “Is it weird that even with that, all I can think right now is that Nathaniel didn’t tell me? Did Nathaniel not”—Tim made himself open his eyes—“did he not want me? Was he hoping it would go away? He has to know I’d make a terrible… one of those.”

He was wrong, and he knew it before either of them could form a scowl.

“He wanted to be fair to you. It’s what we do here,” Albert scolded him. There was a finger in Tim’s face and everything. Tim transferred his frown from that finger to Albert’s eyes as Albert went on. “And, of course, the first time you saw him, you yelled at him.”

“You cringed away from him,” Carl tossed in, in case Tim had forgotten even more deeply embarrassing memories. Everything Tim had done had been humiliating, and Nathaniel had hung around him anyway.

“Poor Nathaniel,” Tim groaned. “Instinct saddled him with me.”

“It’s too far past my bedtime for you to keep on pretending you don’t know Nathaniel Neri thinks the sun rises and sets with you.” Carl didn’t wave a finger; he jabbed it hard into Tim’s sore shoulder.

Tim hissed.

Carl remained stubbornly insistent.

“Old man…,” Tim snapped at him.

Carl poked him again. “Say it! Whichever you choose, you have to say it. Say it before one of you is gone. You don’t know what that feels like, Littlewolf, Dirus, whatever your name is, but I do.”

Tim didn’t have to sniff Carl’s overwhelming grief; it was in his expression. Albert closed his mouth and turned to Carl with a line of distress between his eyes, but Carl wasn’t giving Tim a moment of respite. His gaze was hard and bright. For a moment his bottom lip trembled, and then Carl firmed it. Several years and Carl continued to grieve. He got up, got dressed, came to the café to get out of the house just as he’d done since the day he’d retired, but he was still grieving. Carl’s eyes held so much pain Tim didn’t see how he could stand, much less get up to walk to the café every single morning.

Tim didn’t know details about his marriage. But it must have been for decades. Carl’s home was old, lived-in, filled with his wife’s things, but she was gone.

Tim found himself looking down at the street. “What do you want me to say, Carl? Nathaniel likes me? Loves me? What? That his instinct drew me to him? Because that’s what happened. He didn’t have a choice. He got me. After all his waiting, he got Little Wolf.”

“What exactly is a Little Wolf, except a boy who confronted the toughest werewolf alive to make sure he wouldn’t hurt the people he cares about?” Carl heaved a breath.

Tim stared at him. After a while he spoke again, his voice quieter. “His instincts have to be wrong. I’m not what he needs. I’m not good at those things, soft things.”

“Love is not a soft thing, Little Wolf.” Carl leaned into Tim’s space and curled his lip. “But if you’re scared of it, maybe you are the bitch you claim to be.”

Albert made a noise. A few people on the street stopped to glance their way. To Tim’s amazement, Albert scowled until each and every one of them averted their eyes before he turned back to Tim. “Are you really going to leave?”

Silas didn’t object to Tim staying here. Tim couldn’t decide if that was a point in the town’s favor or not. Albert and Carl and probably Robin’s Egg wanted Tim to stay. Zoe might too. Nathaniel wanted Tim to stay, even if he’d probably regret it later.

Tim had been Nathaniel’s boyfriend for less than a day before he’d managed to mess it up. It made no sense for him to try to live here and be Nathaniel’s perfect match. They’d tried. It hadn’t worked. Mostly because Tim hadn’t even known they were trying. And because Tim had no romantic skills of any kind. He’d been on the verge of leaving every second.

Only an idiot would try to have a relationship with Tim after that.

Nathaniel was that kind of idiot. Tim hated picturing Nathaniel at the station in bloodied clothes because he’d fought and bled for Tim, or Nathaniel waiting to see if Tim was going to come back. The image of Nathaniel wandering lost and alone like Blake was the kind of thing Tim wanted to scrub from his brain. “What will happen to him if I leave?”

Carl studied him and then Albert before shuttering his gaze. “It won’t be good, from what I understand, but you’ll live through it.” For a moment Tim couldn’t tell which of them Carl was talking to. Maybe Albert couldn’t either. He twitched, and Carl shook his head. “You had best ask yourself what you want. All the threats are eliminated,” Carl continued slowly, as if he thought they were both stupid. “Little Timothy Dirus is on his own and not running away, for the first time in his life. What does he want to do?”

“That’s it?” Tim couldn’t help asking in an incredulous voice. “That’s all you have to say? No other words of advice? No, ‘Dammit, Little Wolf, run to Nathaniel for the sake of the town?’ Or, ‘Dammit, Little Wolf, that boy will be devastated without you?’ Or, ‘What kind of horrible person would leave without even saying good-bye to Nathaniel when he’s probably waiting for you right now?’ Or… or…. Nothing?” Tim had had a very trying day, and now he was supposed to make a life or death forever decision while Albert’s hopeful anxiety filled the air? “That bastard had better not be yearning for me right now. If he is, I’ll… I’ll…. He deserves so much better.”

“I thought you were a Dirus,” Albert barked at him.

Tim drew himself up. “I’m
the
Dirus when Silas is gone.”

Carl seemed close to going home. “What does that mean?”

“It means I claim what’s mine,” Tim snapped, teeth bared.

“Then Main Street is that way,” Albert directed smartly. “Listen to your senses, and you’ll find him in no time.”

“The first time I followed my instinct I ended up walking right into the sheriff’s station,” Tim grumbled as he stared into the street. He tensed a second later. “Holy crap, I’m slow.”

“No arguments here,” Carl remarked, but so gently that Tim barely flipped him off.