Little Wolf (43 page)

Tim staggered and glared at her, then at Nathaniel when Nathaniel tried to straighten up and argue some point with her. “I said not to tell him until I—”

“You need to shut up now,” Tim told him, holding up a hand. Nathaniel grabbed Tim’s hand easily but instantly released it to put his face into Tim’s hair.

“
Little Wolf
.” There was a world of information in the way Nathaniel said the name. Tim’s throat momentarily locked up. He turned to Zoe.

“He’s drugged.
Really
drugged,” Tim commented, as if his own thinking had also been slowed with the help of a narcotic. It took more than a couple of aspirin to render a werewolf pain free.

“Doc Diaz happened to be a few miles down the road and came upon the accident.” Zoe shook her head before Tim could unleash the stream of profanity building in his throat. “I know he’s a vet, but he lives in a town filled with werewolves. He knows how to handle most emergencies, and he had the drugs with him.”

“Nathaniel is on cattle tranquilizers?” Tim yelled. Nathaniel began to snuffle and pet at him again. Tim lowered his voice. “What happened?”

“Just the first shot was cattle tranq. Everything else was human pain patches from his kit. As a vet, Diaz is licensed to treat and dispense some medicines to weres too.” Zoe wiped her forehead in weary relief. “Be glad he was there. He said when he pulled up, Nathaniel was pushing pieces of the truck off himself instead of lying still to heal, which wouldn’t have mattered that much, except the idiot had broken ribs, several of which went in his lungs.”

Tim was cold all the way through now. Even his skin was cold. He turned his face until he found Nathaniel’s shoulder. On his own, Nathaniel’s body would have kept trying to heal the ribs and his lungs, painfully, over and over again, draining his strength, getting slower each time. Tim grunted, and Nathaniel pulled him closer to kiss his ear again. “I could punch you,” Tim told him tightly, then turned his face toward Zoe at the hurt sound Nathaniel made. Nathaniel’s skin smelled wrong, like antiseptic and human hands and latex. “He was in the hospital?”

“They reset the bones, drained his lungs, pumped him full of everything they had, in the vain hope it would make him be still. It’s never worked yet, but they had to try. That’s when I thought of you.” Zoe paused when Tim jumped. Nathaniel huffed, sort of in her direction, and she continued. “Well, when I listened to him as he thought of you. We realized he’d heal better here as long as you can get him to stop moving.” She went back to staring at the ceiling.

“Me?” Tim restrained himself from furiously snapping at her, but only just. “He should be in the hospital, chained to the bed if necessary.” Nothing would heal if Nathaniel wouldn’t let it. “I know he’s your boss, but dammit, Zoe—”

“Dammit, nothing. He wasn’t going to behave until he was exactly where he is right now.” Zoe pointed at Tim and curled her lip into a snarl. Tim snarled back at her and realized he was holding Nathaniel too tightly when Nathaniel grunted. Zoe gentled her tone with obvious effort. “Littlewolf, they said to tell you to keep him as still as you can. They gave him patches. They’re on his arm; pull them off in the morning. They’re time release or something to keep him slow-moving and hopefully suggestible. Now I have to go tell everyone he’s okay, check out the scene again, fill out reports—”

“Find who hit him,” Tim finished for her, while imagining the worst. Nathaniel hit on purpose. Nathaniel hit on purpose by Luca. “And, Zoe… we can’t—he’s weak, like this.”

Her gaze slid down to him, and then she nodded as if she understood everything Tim was afraid to say. She reached for her radio and in moments had deputies on their way to keep an eye on the cabin. “They’ll keep their distance, but they’ll be here, count on it.” She was awesome. “If he says anything else about it, let me know. He already gave a statement.”

Nathaniel dragged his hands down either side of Tim’s face. “Timothy.” He said it low and sweet before putting his hands back under Tim’s shirt. “Timothy.” It was like he could only manage that.
Hospital/strange man
was burying the rest of what Nathaniel was trying to convey, and Nathaniel’s words weren’t giving Tim much to go on.

“What did they give him?” Tim’s legs were getting shaky. So were his arms and his hands. He blamed Nathaniel’s weight on him for that and for the way all the deep breaths in the world weren’t giving him the air he needed. Nathaniel’s face smelled more like blood than the rest of him.

“They used glue over the skin where they needed to. Not stitches, so keep him clean and he should be fine. Maybe get him to bed—to sleep,” Zoe suggested.

“I wasn’t going to jump him.” Tim tried not to notice Nathaniel’s mournful sigh. “But I can get him to bed if he wants to go to bed.” He didn’t like the way Zoe snorted at his statement. What was Tim going to do, force Nathaniel to take a nap? Like Nathaniel was going to listen to Tim. “You going to help me?” he asked Zoe.

She stopped studying the ceiling to give Tim an incredulous look. “You really want me to put him to bed for you?”

Tim shut his mouth hard to stop his growl. Zoe was going nowhere near Nathaniel’s bed.

At his glare, she turned toward the door. “Thought so. He wouldn’t listen to me, if it makes you feel better. He’d nod politely and accept my concern and do whatever he was going to do as if I wasn’t there.” Tim must have had a blank expression, because Zoe explained more. “Just”—she waved uncertainly—“do whatever it is you do that makes him do things for you.”

Tim had had a lot of confusing moments today, and this was possibly the biggest. Nathaniel made it worse by rubbing his big hand in a circle over Tim’s hip and dipping his fingers down under Tim’s jeans. Tim bit at Nathaniel’s shoulder in frustration, then spat out the shirt that tasted like someone else.

“You smell good.” Nathaniel was going to be very embarrassed about this later.

“You smell like the hospital. Because that’s where you were. Because you almost died.” Tim shot off each sentence in an increasingly loud voice, then shut himself up at Nathaniel’s distressed whine. He shivered as Nathaniel again licked under his ear. Nathaniel’s thinking was probably not entirely human at the moment.

“Sharp Teeth. Smell good,” Nathaniel responded seriously. It took Tim far too long to realize Nathaniel was referring to
him
.

Zoe made a strangled noise and briefly covered her ears. “I should go now. This is weird.”

“Sharp Teeth?” Tim demanded, but softly.

“Person can have many names. Not just one. Change with you.” Nathaniel’s thinking was apparently more human than Tim had thought, but what he was saying sounded like a wolf given the power of speech.

Tim ran his hand down Nathaniel’s neck. “You’re Nathaniel.”

Nathaniel gave a small shake of his head, accompanied with an even smaller sound of suppressed pain. “Porn Star Cop,” he complained to Tim’s jaw. “Hotness McNoShirt. Sex god.”

Tim vaguely remembered calling Nathaniel “Hotness McNoShirt” when he’d once again undressed with his door open. It sounded less playful when Nathaniel said it.

Tim turned his face to Nathaniel’s throat, mindful of healing bones. “How about Sheriff McWorksTooHard instead?” He wanted to crush himself against Nathaniel until Nathaniel didn’t smell like hospital and hurt anymore. “I didn’t mean….” Tim recalled Zoe’s presence and amended what he’d planned on saying. “King Neri?” he suggested quietly, breathing out over the ever-darkening bruise at Nathaniel’s collarbone. That bone had been broken too. “Big Wolf?”

“Yeah, I’m going to go,” Zoe announced loudly as Nathaniel whuffed happily above Tim’s head and began to pet him again. “You seem okay.”

Tim’s heart started to race again. “Wait, don’t leave me here!” He turned to find Zoe. “I don’t know what to do. Should you really be leaving him with me? You live with him for a reason. He trusts you. You must know things.” Tim was admitting to so much ignorance today that Silas would have disowned him if he hadn’t already. “I don’t know what to do here. I can’t be a nurse or whatever you think I am. I’m not nice like that!”

At Tim’s alarm, Nathaniel curled even tighter around him, probably cracking his bones again. “Stop it,” Tim snapped at him. Nathaniel stopped.

“Do what feels natural.” Zoe gave them another uncertain wave, as if their current position said everything she couldn’t, but then she seemed to take pity on him. She walked over to Nathaniel and studied him until Nathaniel raised his head. “I brought you here, like you asked. Remember what you said when you first brought me here?”

“This is home.” It wasn’t until he heard all the soft need that Tim realized how firm and controlled Nathaniel’s voice usually was.

“This is home.” Zoe nodded again, as if Nathaniel weren’t speaking into Tim’s skin or petting Tim’s hair over and over again until some new part of Tim’s body would distract him.

“Tim,” Nathaniel sighed, with far more happiness than a were in pain should have been feeling.

Tim suddenly couldn’t meet Zoe’s eyes without effort. “Nathaniel brought you here?”

“I was in the system for a long time. Teen weres are hard to place in most homes, surprise surprise. State finally sent me here. Jonah—the old sheriff, had Nathaniel pick me up, so Nathaniel was the one to bring me here.” Zoe smiled a personal, quirky smile. “He scared the shit out of me. I mean, look at him. He’s unreal.”

Their bond was not at all what Tim had been thinking. He already knew Nathaniel and Zoe had never been lovers, but they weren’t close friends, and they weren’t mere coworkers. He wouldn’t have guessed a sibling bond. He supposed because he’d never had siblings.

Nathaniel had said they brought the drastic ones here. Tim should have asked, but he’d been too worried about being in the house with other weres.

Nathaniel reached out to pat Zoe’s cheek. “Don’t worry, Zo’. Just tired.”

“Tim’s going to put you to bed.” Zoe’s suggestive tone was at odds with the shy expression on her face after Nathaniel’s affectionate touch. She shook her head at Tim when she saw him looking, then distanced herself from both of them. “So do that. Have a nap or something.” She moved quickly to the door, then seemed to notice Nathaniel’s blood on her arm for the first time. She left it there, but her voice went higher. “I’ll spend the night elsewhere. Call me if you need anything.” She was out the door a second later.

Tim waited until he heard the truck start up and then let out a sigh.

“No,” Nathaniel told him sternly, ruining the effect by once again stroking Tim’s hair. Tim very gently put his face against Nathaniel’s chest. “Little Wolf.” Nathaniel continued to pet him. “I’m okay.”

“You are stoned out of your mind,” Tim shot at him and hated his tiny voice.

“Really not.” Nathaniel was actually attempting to argue in his condition, and yet Zoe thought Tim could get him to listen. That was funny.

“Really are.” Tim tried to get past the foreign smells until he found Nathaniel again, smoky and strong. “You don’t smell like you. I hate this shirt. I really… I really hate this shirt. No!” Nathaniel immediately started trying to shrug the shirt off. “No. The shirt stays on until you’re better.” Or Tim could cut it off him with his claws. It wasn’t a bad idea.

“Hotness McNoShirt,” Nathaniel remarked, as if that said it all.

Tim closed his eyes, thought about it, and then opened them again. “I am sorry I ever called you that. Just, you know what you look like, and I can’t be reasonable about it sometimes. But right now you wear a shirt. And you don’t move. Except to go down the hall. Is that okay? You want to go to bed? Everybody says you have to stop moving around, so get in bed and stop fucking moving around.”

Nathaniel started walking. One second he was leaning his full weight on Tim and then next he was striding forward and taking Tim with him. Tim pushed at him, winced at the damage he was doing, and then growled. At least that made Nathaniel stop. “No, no, keep going but go slowly,” Tim got out at last and turned to put himself under Nathaniel’s arm. “The goal here is to get you into bed in one piece so you heal. Also to keep the town from killing me for not taking proper care of you.”

“They won’t kill you.” Nathaniel started sniffing Tim’s ear. “Robin’s Egg touched you today.”

“So they won’t kill me. How reassuring,” Tim panted at him as they reached Nathaniel’s bedroom. The bed was… a mess from the night before. Tim did not want to think about the condition of the blankets. He strained the next few steps, then swore under his breath until he had Nathaniel seated on the bed.

“Albert touched you too,” Nathaniel commented quietly, looking up.

Tim stopped. “You can—never mind.” He leaned down to meet Nathaniel’s eyes. He’d never had to do that before. “Only on the elbow. We’re… friends, I guess. You know he’s interested in someone else, right?”

“More than that. He’s about to—” Nathaniel closed his mouth and angled himself forward to rest his head against Tim. “This hurts, Little Wolf. This hurts. I can’t make it better.”

“Can I?” Tim asked without thinking and felt Nathaniel tense even more.

Nathaniel spoke with his face hidden, as though he were confessing a secret. “Need you close.” He focused on kicking his shoes off, which was good with Tim supporting him so he wouldn’t fall over, but when Tim tried to get closer Nathaniel firmed his voice. “Not in this. Cut the shirt off.”

Considering that Tim was still shaking, he didn’t think that was a great idea, but he wasn’t going to argue if they both wanted it. He focused and shifted enough to have claws. They were small but sharp enough to tear a line through the fabric down Nathaniel’s back. With that, Tim could pull it away and throw it on the floor. It took him another minute to get his hands back, but he didn’t care much about that once he caught sight of Nathaniel’s body.

Nathaniel was healing, that was the good news, but the pattern of the bruises was like seeing the impact of the other car. A human probably wouldn’t have survived the punctured lungs. The binding tape to keep Nathaniel’s movements minimal was hiding most of the bruising, but there was enough to make Tim freeze.