Wesley (24 page)

Flesh gave beneath his claws. Wes saw the man’s eyes go wide in shock, and he saw the flash of the blade as moonlight struck it.

What he didn’t see, until it happened, was the enormous wolf surge forward. The wolf’s maw was full of huge teeth, saliva dripping from them as the beast growled and snapped. At first Wes thought it was coming for him, and he figured he was likely going to die, but the wolf lunged and those sharp teeth tore into the side of the man who’d hurt Armando.

If the wolf wanted the honours, Wes was giving them to him. He backed away and ran to Armando, who was sitting on the ground holding his left arm. “Fuck! Armando, let me see.” God, at least Armando was alive. Wes had never been so grateful for anything in his life.

“It’s not too bad,” Armando said weakly. “I think. I’m scared to look.”

“It’s deep,” Alisa said from where she knelt between Sue and Armando. “Not like cut his arm off deep, but he could use stitches.”

“Why is a wolf attacking that man?” Sue asked.

“Don’t look,” Wes told her, peeking himself and immediately wishing he hadn’t. “I don’t have an answer for that, Sue. Just be glad the wolf isn’t coming after us.”

“But he might.” Alisa stood, pulling Sue up and pushing her behind her. “What if it’s rabid? We need to go!”

Wes knew the wolf was no such thing, but he wasn’t going to explain to Sue and Alisa that shifters existed. “Come on, Armando. Can you get up?”

“We aren’t leaving without Dyan.” Armando glared at him. “She needs us, and I will be damned if I got cut just to walk away without her.”

A gurgling sound threatened to turn Wes’ stomach inside out. Sue cringed and Alisa turned to hold her. “Don’t look. Don’t look!”

“Come on, up!” Wes hefted Armando to his feet. “Does this count as a time I can carry you without pissing you off?”

“Fuck yes,” Armando hissed, almost crawling up him. “Scary wolf is a good excuse.”

Wes put Armando over his shoulder and told the women, “Go, get Dyan. We’re going to be right behind you.” As far as he could tell, none of the lights that had been turned off had come back on. It was entirely possible that the people inside hadn’t heard the ruckus outside, especially if they’d soundproofed their walls to keep wanderers from overhearing their ‘techniques’.

Something made him pause as Alisa and Sue ran for the building. Wes heard a familiar sound of bones and tendons popping into a different shape. He caught Armando’s eye and Armando nodded. Wes set Armando on his feet then turned, keeping Armando behind him.

“Holy shit,” Wes muttered, taking in the big naked man standing over a bloody corpse. “Cliff?”

“Cliff?” Armando repeated, pulling at him and peering around Wes.

Instead of answering, the man they had met online groaned and stretched as if he’d just awakened. Then he grunted and looked at them. “Better go help your friends.”

And with that, he turned and grabbed the dead man’s wrist, and began dragging the body.

“Fuck.” Wes wasn’t sure if the guy was a saviour or a psycho.

“Both,” Armando opined. “Or neither. Maybe he was just trying to help a girl who was being held against her will.”

“That’d make him a hero to me,” Wes said. He turned and Armando shook a finger at him.

“Nope, I can walk now that I don’t think a killer wolf is coming after me.”

Wes took his hand, though, and they quietly made their way to the side door of the building. Wes didn’t even get a foot in the door before he spotted Alisa, Sue and Dyan sneaking down the hall.

“They got her,” he told Armando, grinning despite all the horrors of the night. “You doing okay?”

“It’s not that bad, I keep saying.”

Armando sounded irritated, and Wes could feel it, too, just as he felt his mate’s pain. The sharp burning wasn’t pleasant, but at least it wasn’t unbearable. “We’re calling Remus as soon as we get out of here.”

“Okay, I’m not going to argue with that.”

Dyan came through the doorway looking scared and battered, bruises on her cheek and chin, but she smiled as if the world was new and shiny the second she spotted them.

“He’s hurt,” Wes told her when she started to reach for Armando.

“Not so bad I can’t give her a one-armed hug,” Armando retorted before doing just that. “Now, let’s get out of here before any more thugs or wolves attack.”

Chapter Sixteen

“He isn’t going to die from this, or even lose his arm, Wes. Stop hovering.”

Armando peeked through his lashes at Wes as he scowled at Remus, who was suturing the worst part of the gash. Remus turned his head just enough to look at Wes. “You keep blocking the light, so if there
is
more damage done…”

“Urgh!” Wes flung his hands in the air and resumed pacing half of the office. “I should have been faster—”

“Wes, don’t.” Armando was relieved when Wes stopped moving. He patted the couch. “Come sit by me.”

“Spending time chastising yourself for something you cannot undo is wasting time you have with the people you care about,” Remus said as he continued stitching away. “It is selfish.”

Wes sat down and glared at Remus. “How is it selfish? I would do anything to keep Armando from being hurt. That makes me a jerk?”

Remus nodded. “Dwelling on it can. It can make you a jerk to think you are a god-like being who is responsible for every other person’s actions. Or that you and you alone had the power to prevent what happened. And that also implies little faith in your mate—”

“I get it, I get it,” Wes huffed. “But I still would give anything to have been able to prevent you from being hurt,” he said softly in Armando’s ear.

Armando barely repressed a shiver. Remus had a steady hand, but even he could mess up if his patient was twitchy. Armando leaned his head on Wes’ shoulder and thanked God for anesthesia. Remus had used some kind of topical stuff that Armando was certain he made himself, but it worked like a charm, numbing Armando’s arm from his shoulder to halfway down his forearm. A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Alisa, who didn’t wait for a ‘come in’ before doing so.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?” she asked, walking over to stand by Remus. “Remus, it’s good to see you again, except I wish it wasn’t in these circumstances. Are you coming to the Cinco de Mayo Festival again this year?”

“Of course, and it is going as well as possible. Armando is lucky the cut wasn’t deeper. He will be healed up in no time, I’m sure.”

Armando hoped so. “How’s Dyan and Sue? Is Dr Young here?”

Alisa nodded. “Yeah. He insisted on being here, said he knew we were going to get Dyan, and I trust him, anyway. He won’t narc on us.”

“He’s a good guy,” Armando agreed. “Has Dyan said anything?” She’d been mostly quiet on the drive back, cuddling with Sue and snoozing in the rear seats.

“She said the ‘treatments’ for her hadn’t started yet, since she’d been deemed too violent. They were giving her time to calm down and see reason—by starving her, and giving her minimal water. Fucking assholes.” Alisa planted her hands on her hips. “They could have killed her doing crap like that. It’s just crazy. I will never understand it.”

“Me either,” Wes said. “How do they not see that as abuse? Or inhumane, whatever. We won’t understand it because we aren’t batshit crazy.”

“No kidding.” Alisa moved over to sit on the floor by Wes’ legs. “That whole wolf part was weird as hell, too.”

“It was, but maybe that was a guard dog gone bad, not a wolf,” Armando offered by way of explanation. He’d been thinking about what to say if the subject came up. “There’s malamutes, shiba inus, American tundra shepherds, and that’s just a few off the top of my head.” And with the help of Google and his cellphone.

Alisa leaned her head back and looked up at him. “Are any of those breeds freaking monster-sized? That wolf was twice as big as any normal wolf I’ve ever seen.”

Armando shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s so many cross-breeds nowadays, there is just no telling.”

“I guess. Makes as much sense as a wild wolf coming to our rescue.” Alisa made a humming sound and nodded. “Yeah, I like that idea. The dog was a guard dog, and the jerk was mean, maybe teased him or tried to hurt him while the dog was chained up. That works for me.”

Armando gave himself a mental pat on the back. Remus tied off the last stitch and sat back, turning Armando’s arm this way and that way. “It will leave a scar, but not a bad one.”

“A sexy one,” Wes said. “Make you look rugged and macho.”

Armando canted his head as he looked at Wes. “So what are you saying I look like without the scar-to-be?”

Wes answered without hesitation. “A sexy stud.”

“Smooth,” Alisa snickered. “Excellent save.”

“It’s the truth.” Wes rubbed his cheek against Armando’s. “The scar just adds another layer of sexiness to you.”

“You’re so full of it.” Armando liked it, though. “We should check on Sue and Dyan, and we need to figure out where to shelter them for the next thirty-six days or longer.”

“Longer would be good.” Wes looked at Alisa. “Any ideas?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you’re smart.”

Alisa studied Wes, probably trying to see if he was messing with her. Finally she muttered, “Thanks, but I don’t have a clue.”

“I do,” Remus offered. “I have a cousin who has family in Arizona. They are good people.”

Armando didn’t miss the almost imperceptible stress Remus put on the word ‘people’, and he guessed that meant his relative’s relatives were humans. “If you could find out whether they’d consider helping us out, that’d be great, but I do need to talk to Sue and Dyan first, see what they want to do.”

“Tomorrow,” Wes said, using two fingers to turn Armando’s face towards him. “Like tomorrow afternoon. It’s late, and we’re worn out, and you are injured. We can deal with more plans tomorrow.”

Everyone agreed on that. Remus and Alisa cleared out of his office and Wes stood, offering a hand to him. Armando took it, not too proud to admit he felt a bit wobbly. There was something he needed to do before they left, though. “Can we check on Sue and Dyan? I’d just like to see them, if they aren’t in their room asleep.”

“Of course.” Wes kept his hand as they went up the stairs. They didn’t have to look too far once they reached the second floor, because almost every one of the shelter’s residents was asleep on either pillows or blankets or both on the living area’s floor. Rooty, the kids’ dorm guardian, waved them over to the kitchen.

“I figured, after all the bad that happened, it was good to let the kids comfort each other.” She tipped her chin in the direction of the kid-sprawl. “I can wake ‘em up and make ‘em move if necessary.”

“No,” Armando answered immediately. “Please call me if there’s any problems, though.”

“Will do, Armando.” Rooty waved and went back to whatever she’d been doing before they came up.

“Let’s get you home and in bed.”

Armando narrowed his eyes at Wes. “I’m not fragile. I don’t need to be tucked in and all of that.”

Wes grinned at him. “Never said you were, and I think you’re taking the whole bed part to mean sleep. So
not
what I had in mind.” He waggled his eyebrows and Armando felt the beginnings of arousal even though Wes looked silly.

Adorable, and silly—and sexy.

“All right, then, as long as we’re clear on what is going to happen in the bed when we get home, but how about we go to mine this time? No stairs, no nosy brothers and all of that.”

“Sounds perfect,” Wes said. “Take me home, Armando.”

Armando thought it might really be home, for the first time since he’d moved there.

Epilogue

“Bobby’s really not happy about the whole Cliff thing.” Wes sighed and flopped on his back as Armando sat on the bed beside him. “I swear, he would
not
shut up about him, and it’s been almost a month since the whole deal went down. Like I studied the big naked dude when I was thinking he might kill us. All I could tell Bobby is he was fucking huge, and had black hair and black fur and really big teeth. Like I’d know what pack he might have come from.”

“I can see how Bobby would be concerned. Cliff, or whatever his name is, could be a loose cannon, a threat to shifters, period, if he’s mentally unstable.”