Little Wolf (13 page)

Tim started speaking without considering what he was saying. “Not you. Even in that first moment I knew
you
wouldn’t. You were so shocked. I meant in a general sense of you are the alpha wolf and there are rewards that come with that. That’s how most weres think, right?” Tim heard himself repeating Luca’s words and raised his head at the alarming kick of Nathaniel’s heartbeat. The air seemed to go still. He could smell burning, spiking anger from Nathaniel’s direction.

“Do you even hear the ignorance coming out of your mouth right now?” Nathaniel demanded and surged to his feet again. He took a step toward Tim but then turned on his heel and stalked to the other end of the porch. “Alpha wolf?” he echoed in disbelief. “Rewards?”

“I—” Tim wasn’t even sure what his defense should be. He hadn’t meant to say it. He knew Nathaniel wasn’t like Luca. He also knew his value wasn’t in attracting creeps who wanted creepy things. “You aren’t about to lose control like a kid, are you?” It was a poor attempt at humor, but Nathaniel’s fury was sharp in the air, and Tim wanted it gone.

Nathaniel lowered his head to glare at him. Tim had never seen so much anger without wanting to flee in the opposite direction, but with Nathaniel there was no sign of extending claws or fur.

“Who made you think that was right? Who hurt you by making you think you had no value, no choice?” Nathaniel was almost shouting. Tim stared at him with wide eyes, and must have looked scared, because Nathaniel shook his head and visibly tried to calm himself.

Tim kept his eyes on him, watching Nathaniel take a deep breath and then taking a breath of his own. He was shivering too, the hair on his arms standing up in the human equivalent of raised hackles. When Nathaniel stayed where he was, Tim risked a glance down at himself, at his feet, which weren’t going anywhere.

“Sorry.” Nathaniel probably never had to say that to people, but he sounded like he meant it. “I don’t mean to frighten you.”

“I’m not frightened!” Tim declared instantly, lying out of his ass. “I just… I was surprised at your reaction.”

“They hurt you. How was I supposed to react?” Nathaniel clenched his jaw but didn’t quite hold back an unhappy sound. Growl, howl, or protest, Tim couldn’t define it, but he lifted his hand from the bench. It was what people did when facing a wild animal, at least on TV, not that Tim expected Nathaniel to kneel down and push his face against his palm.

Nathaniel glanced at Tim’s outstretched hand. He bowed his head.

Tim dropped his hand and glanced away, feeling stupid. “Nobody hurt me.” He was a better liar around humans, but he should at least seem calmer now. “Not really. Nobody hurt me. I am so not hurt, even a little bit. I’ve never even been heartbroken or anything, so there’s nothing for you to worry about. I was doing fine.” Tim gulped air. He could only guess what Nathaniel might have done if Luca had been there in that moment. He suspected if Nathaniel ever met Luca, he would confront Luca about this whether Tim wanted him to or not. “Just because you’re all that is man and wolf doesn’t mean you have to challenge Luca….
Shit
. Do you have magical powers I don’t know about?” Tim whined. “It’s like I can’t stop telling you things.”

“Hard to stop yourself, isn’t it? Like your body betrays you when we’re around each other.” Nathaniel said it like he knew exactly what Tim was talking about. His gaze stayed fixed on Tim, and he was standing at attention, as if waiting for something else. Tim debated telling him all about his teenage years with Luca, then giving him permission to hunt Luca down, anything to get Nathaniel to stop staring like that. Then he remembered that Nathaniel didn’t need or want his permission.

“Well, I meant it, so you know.” Distraction wasn’t a bad alternative, especially since Tim really did seem to want to keep talking to Nathaniel about anything that came to mind. “Nobody’s touched me, not really.” Not with his consent, and even Luca hadn’t dared much, not with someone like Silas Dirus to contend with if he did.

“But they wanted to.” Nathaniel could fill in the blanks.

Tim rolled his shoulders and shook off the memories of Luca crowding him into walls, holding him down.

“I don’t think it was about me, not with someone like that. It’s always about power for certain assholes, isn’t it?” Tim scraped his shoe against the ground. “Anyway, it’s true. I’ve never even dated. So no one has hurt me.”

Nathaniel’s head came up.

“I know, right?” Tim sighed and took Nathaniel’s surprise at face value. “I know how I seem to other wolves, and humans, like tasty little prey, and well, some
are
interested, but I can’t….” Tim lifted his hands but didn’t allow them to shift into paws. He’d been so out of control during puberty it was probably a good thing his uncle had kept him away from the world. “I can’t trust myself around them.” Not without experience anyway. He thought of those werewolf mothers in the store wanting their kids to mess around and blinked. “Shit, that’s what they meant, isn’t it?” he asked and assumed Nathaniel’s silence was confusion. “I overheard Scott’s and Rebecca’s mothers in the store. They were discussing their kids’ sex lives, and they wanted them to mess around. Which isn’t like how humans do it, by the way. But now I get it. We’re supposed to slut it up when we’re teenagers to figure things out, aren’t we?” Tim hadn’t been just horny as a teenager; his shifting had been hard to manage, especially at first. Another werewolf his age to mess around with might have helped him learn control faster.

“Slut it up?” Nathaniel’s voice kept getting quieter and quieter. He cocked his head at Tim. “Little Wolf.” He exhaled shakily, as if Tim was too much for him to take. Then he squared his shoulders and raised his head. “Little Wolf, tell me something.” Tim waited without agreeing to anything. Nathaniel looked pained. “Do you really think we all go around humping pups who don’t know any better, as some sort of alpha privilege?”

“Did you really just say ‘humping’? I don’t even know how to react to that word being used in conversation,” Tim responded, then jerked his head up a second later. “Hey, I’m not a pup!”

“‘Taking,’ then.” Nathaniel crossed his arms. “Don’t make me use another. I’m not some kid out at the Meadows.”

Tim snorted. “No, you are very obviously a grown-ass man.”

Nathaniel ignored that and continued on with his lesson or lecture or whatever it was. “
That
,” Nathaniel spat the word, “that thing you are afraid of is not something that you should think is normal, Tim. It’s not something weres do, or—” He made a noise like something bitter was on his tongue. “—it’s not something they
should
do, whether they are in charge or not. It’s not something that is often done. There are some who are only too willing to offer themselves to the nearest dominant figure, but no one should be
taking
anything. It’s a crime, the same as it would be for humans.”

“Okay!” Tim twitched uncomfortably. “I’m sorry I implied you were a creeper when I met you.” It sounded worse out loud.

“Don’t be.” Nathaniel shook it off. “I can take it, and you were protecting yourself. But I don’t want you thinking that what happened to you is something that should happen to you or to anyone else. When I meet the person who convinced you that it was, I will make that very clear to them, with your permission.”

“I… what?” Tim couldn’t think. There was a jumble of words in his throat, and nothing was coming out in the right order. “Wolves but. I thought. You shouldn’t.
Permission
?”

“We’re not wolves and we’re not men.” Nathaniel curled his hands at his sides. Tim didn’t know how to untangle the unhappy scents coming from him, or how to respond to them despite how his body was straining to crawl over to Nathaniel, but he could see Nathaniel’s clenched jaw before Nathaniel relaxed enough to speak again. “Not all of us are human saints, but not all of us are monsters either.”

Tim straightened at the human insult.

Nathaniel had a determined expression on his face. “We are more like humans than most would like to admit,” he went on, staring at Tim in the moonlight. Tim kept still and waited, trying to understand. “Which means werewolves are good and bad. We are also creatures of instinct, and there are some weres who think the supposed ‘old ways’ are better. If the old ways were even real, which I doubt. Usually those weres are people who weren’t good people to begin with, because werewolves don’t act like that any more than real wolves do.” He had his hands at his sides, and Tim wondered if Nathaniel was thinking about shifting, or having his claws out, and who he might use them on if he did.

Nathaniel would be quick, Tim guessed. He wouldn’t draw out a fight for the sake of it, because he wouldn’t have to, and maybe because Nathaniel simply wasn’t the kind who enjoyed hurting others. If he was, the people in town would fear him, not love him. And they did love him. They addressed him as
Sheriff
, with respect. The people who ran from Nathaniel were those with something to hide.

“Even weres need a sheriff,” Tim commented as he got it. He didn’t know what his uncle would say about that, but then, his uncle had kept a close watch on his employees. Maybe he’d known that.

What had his uncle done, Tim thought a moment later, hired the worst motherfuckers out there thinking they were the most badass? That he had to make up for Tim’s weaknesses that much? No wonder he had always stressed the responsibilities of being in charge to Tim. He must have been constantly policing his own pack.

Tim turned to Nathaniel with sudden curiosity. “What are the old ways? Are they like that movement for weres to go live in the forests again?”

Nathaniel took a moment to consider Tim, and as he did, some of the tension left him. He took a step in Tim’s direction.

“It might help you if you knew the new ways. Or
any
ways.” Nathaniel smiled at him but then closed his eyes. Tim watched Nathaniel take another steadying breath, then quickly glanced away when Nathaniel opened his eyes again. Tim wondered if Nathaniel knew how Tim had been studying him, because Nathaniel’s voice was as warm as his scent. “May I touch you?”

Tim had to be hearing things wrong. “You’re asking to touch me?” He recognized that Nathaniel was trying to respect his feelings, but that wasn’t a request Tim could be expected to answer calmly. He licked his mouth. “Yeah, okay, sure, why not?” He could do breezy, really. Breathless-breezy, tense with anticipation-breezy. “Knock yourself out, you beautiful weirdo.”

Nathaniel crossed the rest of the space and stopped in front of him. Then he reached out and let his palm rest on Tim’s neck. “Beautiful weirdo?” he echoed, almost tenderly, and Tim pulled in a quiet breath. Nathaniel brushed his hand up over Tim’s throat, his fingertips trailing over Tim’s skin before he took his hand away.

Tim didn’t know whether to be grateful or whine for more. At least even Nathaniel wouldn’t be able to see his flushed face in the dark. But he could have felt it. Tim met his stare and thought, distantly, about how his head was up, leaving his throat exposed, but he couldn’t seem to care.

“Was that like a scent thing?” Tim licked his lips again. “Like to protect me or something? Do you, uh, do that to everyone?” He shut his mouth, then reopened it. “I didn’t smell you on Zoe. I thought you guys might be….” He trailed off at the expression on Nathaniel’s face. It was a mix of horror and despair, and it said Tim had gotten something terribly, terribly wrong. Again. Then Nathaniel sighed, and Tim knew for sure that he’d messed up.

He pursed his mouth and ignored the heat emanating from Nathaniel. Tim wanted to curl up around that warmth. He tried to think about wolves instead, despite what Nathaniel had said about weres being different.

“You’re….” It was a struggle to try to think of the right terms. “You’re
socializing
me,” he announced. “Teaching through touch, the way social animals like wolves do.”

Nathaniel wiped his hand over his eyes. After he sighed, again, he studied Tim and arched an eyebrow. “You read about weres, but you’ve never interacted with any others? Aside from Ray Branigan, that is?”

“I read about
wolves
,” Tim defended himself. “Actual ones.” He crossed his arms so he wouldn’t rub his neck. When he looked up, the soft stare Nathaniel was giving him almost made him melt off the bench into a puddle. It really wasn’t fucking fair that Nathaniel could stare at Tim like that with his scent begging Tim to climb him.

“That isn’t exactly what we are, Little Wolf.” Nathaniel’s voice was gentle.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m hardly either one—” Tim’s voice rose when Nathaniel touched him again, putting a hand on his shoulder so two fingers rested against Tim’s pulse.

“If you imply that you’re worthless one more time, I might bite you to prove to you that someone would want you enough to claim you. You’ve dared me enough.” Nathaniel’s words were hotter than his hand. Tim stared at him, barely understanding English after the word “bite.” He wasn’t sure he was even supposed to. Nathaniel had joked about claiming Tim. Tim tried to think of things that would keep him from popping the world’s most inappropriate erection.

“Nathaniel,” he murmured, drawing in lungfuls of air. “Have you been reading minds?”

Nathaniel, the bastard, was looking right at him. “No.” He sniffed the air. “You know I haven’t.”

“Asshole,” Tim breathed in reply, though he was more impressed than upset.

“I’m being honest, Little Wolf.” Nathaniel took his hand away and put his shoulders back as if he was about to pick up something heavy. “I will try to answer all of your questions as directly as I can. But you have to ask me for me to do that.”

“Questions?” That brought Tim out of his daze. “That’s what you want from me?” He looked into Nathaniel’s eyes and caught a glimpse of something he didn’t understand before Nathaniel lowered his gaze.

“That you have to ask that question tells me you have so many more things you should be asking.” Nathaniel seemed tired again. He moved away from Tim and away from the moonlight and headed toward the door.