Should have Put a Leash On It (7 page)

“No doctors,” he promised. He’d agree to just about anything right now to calm Rylan down.

The scent of fear on Rylan’s skin lessened and the wolf seemed to settle again. Micah kept his grip on Rylan’s hand, comforting them both with the touch and tried to process what just happened. They needed to find out whether fearing doctors was a normal response. He hoped to hell it was, otherwise he was scared to think about what terrible things Trevor had done to result in that reaction.

The rest of them sank into a less-than-comfortable silence and Micah looked at the others, silently sharing his worry. Asher walked over and stood next to him so their shoulders brushed.

One look at his brother told him they were on the same page. As soon as possible they were looking up everything they could find on fear management. Micah was thankful for the silent offer to help because he was sure he wouldn’t be able to understand all the medical lingo or the obligatory verbiage.

Skylar broke the silence by glancing at the door and giving them a warning. “Doctor is on his way over.” The vampire exited the room quickly, probably to run interference.

“Get rid of him, Micah,” Remy ordered, taking over trying to calm Rylan.

Micah swore under his breath when Rylan started to get worked up again. It hurt to let go of Rylan’s hands, but he broke their connection and headed for the door.

The moment he reached it, he pushed the door open enough that he could see out. Skylar was playing the blind card and asking the doctor to guide him to the bathrooms, but the man quickly shook him off and left the vampire standing there alone.

What a dick. Anger rumbled in his gut.

Micah growled too low for the human to consciously pick up, but the doctor froze on the spot, eyes wide and he scented the beginnings of fear. It was an instinctive reaction, the same as when a rabbit froze in a headlight.

Good.

He recognized the doctor’s type. They took advantage when they thought they had the power. It would be fun to update the human’s knowledge in that there were bigger, badder things above him on the food chain.

The older man’s bushy eyebrows rose almost into his receding hairline and Micah grinned, letting his wolf show in the smile. The doctor took a shaky step backward.

Skylar was smiling, too, as he came closer, knocking the doctor’s shoulder on the way past. “Oops, silly me.”

“I need to see my patient,” the doctor demanded in a voice Micah bet the man thought was intimidating and authoritative. Micah glanced at the name on the man’s ID tag. Doctor Riley.

“Sorry, not today, Dr. Riley.” Micah, opened the door enough to allow Skylar back inside the room and shut it when the doctor tried to force his way inside and casually leaned against it. The doctor pushed against the door again, but it barely moved under his weight. Remy and Rylan watched him and it might have been his imagination, but he swore Rylan was trying to smile under the bruises.

“I’m fetching security!” The irate doctor slapped at the door.

Micah stood firm, and smiled when he scented a familiar vampire approach. Elder Lavi must be working overtime with all the people they were pissing off.

A smooth, deep voice spoke to the blustering doctor. “Dr. Riley, I wondered if I may have a moment of your time?”

Sage threw him one of the pudding cups they’d liberated from somewhere. Micah caught it easily.

He had no idea where Sage had gotten them, only that there was a pile of them on the little table in the far corner along with a packet of plastic spoons. They wouldn’t last long with five hungry shifters. Luckily Skylar still refused to try a chocolate one and glared as if they were trying to poison him any time someone offered him one.

“Hey, vanilla, my favorite.” Micah ripped open the top and licked the lid.

“You’re such a pig,” Remy told him before getting Sage to throw him one as well.

Just like that the tension in the hospital room evaporated. Skylar just gave them all looks that said they were disgusting and had no standards. Vamps were kind of touchy about food which was weird considered they sucked neck for a living. Literally.

Sage smirked and walked back over to his spot by the window, causally resuming watch over the exit route, taking his own pudding cup with him.

“It seems Trevor is a fan of Narnia.”

Rylan’s comment caught him by surprise, he’d thought the wolf has drifted back off to sleep. At least that was what he’d hoped. Shifters healed faster when they slept.

Micah stretched as he stood up and strode back over to the bed. Tiny hospital chairs were not made for beta bodies to nap in. He passed Remy and Skylar, tapping his brother on the shoulder and repeating what Rylan had said.

“Huh?”

Rylan sighed, then winced as the move irritated the cracked, dry lips.

Micah immediately reached for the cup of ice chips that sat on the cabinet next to the hospital bed. He fed Rylan a small spoonful of ice, but didn’t want to give him too much in case it made him sick.

Stepping up to the other side of Rylan’s bed, Remy clutched Rylan’s hand as if Rylan would disappear at any moment. This was much more like the Rylan he knew. Angry and pissed off with a hint of irritation.

Rylan looked from him to Remy and back again. “The books?”

“I don’t understand,” Micah said, looking anywhere but at Rylan.

The words burned like acid in his throat. He hated having to admit he was unable to follow a simple reference. He’d been read the stories as a pup by his father, though he didn’t really remember them. His father had worked with him on improving his reading skills before he died, since he was the only one Micah had told about his reading difficulties besides Asher.

Rylan had walked in on him one day practicing on his own and offered to help. Unfortunately Micah had thrown the offer back at the pup, embarrassed at needing help from someone less than half his age. Realizing he was twenty-four years old and not able to read as well as a ten year old had been humiliating.

A whine brought him out of the past and back into the present. When he looked down again, Rylan’s eyes were closed again and there was a drop of blood on his bottom lip. Micah panicked, thinking that the wolf must have an injury the doctors had missed.

“Rylan? Rylan!” Micah gently shook Rylan’s shoulder.

Rylan opened his eyes and Micah almost wished he hadn’t as the normally bright green orbs were harsh and cold. Rylan’s tongue darted out and licked the blood away to reveal teeth marks. The wound was self-inflicted, as if Rylan was feeling something so intense he couldn’t process it. With a barely healed split lip, it wouldn’t have taken much to break the skin anyway.

“He said he couldn’t get the pelt of the wolf he wanted, but mine would do.” Rylan’s voice dropped an octave deeper and Micah sensed the dangerous stirring of the wolf beneath the surface, scenting the anger and fury. But underneath that were the sour notes of shame and humiliation.

Micah masked his horror as best he could. The others in the room weren’t as successful with covering their reaction as they realized what Rylan meant. Skylar looked dismayed, Asher appeared at a loss for words and Remy seemed on the verge of tears. None of this was going to make Rylan feel better.

Rylan looked around at the others, face growing more tense and the scent of pain and shame growing by the second. Any minute now Rylan was going to snap and retreat into the wolf and shift right here in the hospital.

“Rylan, calm down,” he said softly.

Once a shifter gave over to the wolf completely, they hardly ever came back to human. He couldn’t let that happen. This wasn’t like what had happened to him earlier—if Rylan retreated in his weakened state, it would be permanent. Rylan wouldn’t be able to turn back.

Rylan stared at Remy with trembling lips and a look akin to betrayal as Remy seemed unable to successfully get himself under control.

Smothering the disgust at what he was about to do, he forced a harsh look on his face and cut off his emotions. “You’ll heal and your fur will grow back,” he said with a bored tone.

He ignored the gasps from the others in the room and focused on Rylan.

If there was one thing guaranteed to make Rylan spitting mad enough to try and get out of bed and ready to kick ass it was Micah opening his mouth. Angry was better that devastated.

“Is that what you think I am, a coward? I may not remember everything, but I remember him branding me like fucking cattle!” Rylan ripped the covering that smelled like honey off his arm to reveal a T,
branded
into Rylan’s skin.

He could feel Rylan’s eyes burrowing into him, but Micah couldn’t look away from the T-shaped wound. The red, puckered and blistered skin was raw and angry. It was a mark of ownership. That fucking bastard Trevor had marked Rylan as his forever.

Becoming deadly still, Micah remembered his dreams, the ones that tormented him with the smell of burning flesh.

His stomach rebelled and Micah slammed out of the hospital room. Asher grabbed him by the arm and all but dragged him to the bathroom while Micah focused on staying conscious and not throwing up.

The scent of disinfectant penetrated his nose as they entered the restroom.

Asher shoved open the nearest cubicle door and pushed Micah inside.

Micah only had time to push up the toilet lid before he expelled what felt like his stomach, lungs, liver and at least half a kidney. Asher left him to it and Micah heard the sound of a tap being turned on somewhere in the distance.

Soon after a plastic cup appeared in his vision beside him. Micah took it and rinsed, spitting into the toilet. “Urgh.”

He pressed the button to activate the flush and lowered the lid. Despite trying to do it gently, he still flinched when the hard plastic made contact with the porcelain with an echoing clang. It was like he’d been hit in the head with a fucking sledgehammer.

Micah turned and sank down onto the closed toilet lid. He put his head in his hands and tried to erase the image of the branded wound on Rylan’s lightly tanned skin from his mind.

“What the fuck was that about, Micah?” Asher shoved wet paper towels at him and Micah took them, pressing them to the back of his neck. “I’ve only ever seen you chuck that time Zeke dared you to swallow a mystery alcoholic drink when we were eighteen and managed to sneak into one of the clubs in the city. Hell, I still don’t know what that was, but I never go near anything green in a glass.”

The thought of that nasty ass drink made his stomach churn again.

“It was blue, not green, and I don’t think it was a real drink. I think Zeke chatted up the barmaid and somehow talked her into letting him loose behind the bar for a minute.” Micah grumbled and got to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

He gingerly walked out of the toilet stall and headed to the sinks, turning the cold tap. He filled his hands and splashed the water over his face, spluttering and wiping his eyes with a dry paper towel Asher held out for him.

Asher was still waiting for an answer, but Micah wasn’t sure what to say without sounding crazy. Micah kept his gaze fixed on the swirl of water as droplets ran off his hair. He should really get around to cutting it, he hadn’t shaved for a few days either so he was beginning to look as tired as he felt. “I had nightmares.
I
smelled Rylan’s skin burning.
”

Asher froze next to him. Micah couldn’t blame him. “Is that why you’ve been acting like you’re a Crayola short of a box?”

Metaphor aside, Micah took offence at that. “I haven’t—”

“Yes, you have. Why do you think I’ve been shadowing you everywhere? It certainly wasn’t for your sparkling personality. I was afraid you’d go and do something stupid.”

Shooting Asher a disparaging look, he mumbled, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, I do what I can with what I have to work with.” Asher shrugged, not bothered in the slightest by Micah’s anger. Asher leaned against the door, similar to the way he’d guarded the door to Rylan’s room not so long ago. He guessed overprotectiveness ran in the family. Micah just wasn’t used to being the one that needed protecting.

“Ass,” he said, shaking his head and brushing his damp hair back with his fingers.

“Ouch. Now explain to me about these dreams and why you were a complete douche back there?” Asher scrunched up another paper towel and threw it at him.

The paper ball hit him square in the face, bounced off and landed in the small pool of water collected in the sink in front of him.

Grinning, Micah scooped up the soaked ball and flung it back. His brother ducked and the ball sailed over Asher’s head. Asher smiled cockily, but Micah had the last laugh as the sodden paper rebounded off the dark wooden door and smacked Asher on the back of the head with a satisfying splat.

Asher grimaced and reached back to flick the soggy paper towel away. “Such a brat, I can’t believe you’re the big brother around here.”

Micah’s humor fled at the reminder. He was supposed to be the one with all the answers, he was responsible. Mom had put him in charge after Dad died. “Show some respect then. You know I’m a full seven minutes older than you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now talk.” Asher stopped smiling, too, and Micah saw how truly worried Asher was. Just how bad had he been these past weeks?

“Every time I’ve slept for the last two weeks I’ve had the same dream. It’s gotten to the stage where I stay awake until I collapse. But still, I can smell burning flesh and sometimes, when I wake up in a cold sweat, shaking, I swear I can hear Rylan’s voice.”

Micah stared at Asher as he told him about the dreams. He saw Asher’s eyes fly wide and knew what Asher was going to say. It was all in his head, a delusion of exhaustion.

“Micah...” Asher pushed away from the door, clearly searching for the right words.

“No, Asher. You don’t get it. Remy said the that the burn was about two weeks old, that lines up too perfectly with when the dreams started.” Micah dragged in a stuttered breath and continued, the words tumbling out of him. “My wolf has been on edge since Rylan was taken. I’m angry all the time and my aggression has gone through the roof. Hell, I took a shot at Remy for fuck’s sake. I might end up exiled or worse when all the excitement of finding Rylan dies down.”