Stag and the Ash (The Rowan Harbor Cycle Book 5)

by Sam Burns

  He found himself telling his father what a horrible brother he was, asking him to apologize to Wade for him, and realized, dimly, that he was delirious. What did that even mean? He didn’t get human viruses like the common cold, and he’d never had a stomach bug before. The bleeding seemed to belie that as a possibility, anyway.

  His body was trying to throw up again when Sean’s soft touch was replaced by the firmer, more businesslike hands of Nurse Lane. “Tell me exactly what happened,” the man said, and Jesse didn’t know how he could do that while he was throwing up.

  But of course, the nurse hadn’t been talking to him. Jesse heard about half of Sean’s account of the events of the day, but it sounded right to him. Nurse Lane ran something smooth and cool over his forehead, and it made a beeping sound as he pulled it away.

  “I’ve never seen a werewolf run a fever before, but that temperature seems a little excessive, even for you.” He took the rag away and handed it to Sean, then ran a hand over Jesse’s neck and jaw. Jesse had no idea what he expected to find there, but the hum he made didn’t sound promising. “Are there leftovers from dinner?”

  Jesse’s mother’s voice came from far away, and for a second, he thought maybe he was dead—except that was silly, because she wasn’t dead. “You’ve obviously never fed a family of teenage werewolves, Eric. They’ll be lucky if there’s any food in the house at all.”

  “Do you think he was allergic to something? Can werewolves be allergic to things other than silver?” Sean sounded a little teary, and Jesse had the urge to comfort him. He didn’t think he could stand, but he held a hand out in his boyfriend’s direction, and Sean took it gently. “None of the others seemed sick after dinner. Should I wake the boys and check on them?”

  “They’re awake,” his mother answered. “They’re werewolves. They can hear us. They’re fine, but nervous, as anyone would be under the circumstances.”

  Jesse thought that usually, he could tell that for himself. He would hear their heartbeats, a little fast, but strong and steady through the wall. Now, he was lucky he could hear people talking right next to him over the rushing of his own heart.

  He looked up from the toilet to meet Nurse Lane’s eyes. The man was taking his pulse, and looked worried. Jesse wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the nurse look worried before, let alone about him. No one worried about him. They worried he was being ridiculous or making bad choices, but they didn’t worry for his life.

  Nurse Lane pulled Sean in by the hand that was still holding Jesse’s. Jesse could barely make out the whispered question he asked: “Who made dinner?”

  Sean paled, and Jesse felt sick again, but not because of the constant pain in his stomach.

  “Madison and Anthony,” Sean whispered back. “Together. But that doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t.”

  There was something he was missing, Jesse was sure. Some indication of what had happened, something that would tell him why he felt like his body was trying to turn itself inside out.

  Nurse Lane reached for the bag he’d brought with him. It looked like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. Jesse hadn’t known they had those anymore. After listening to his heart and doing a few other tests Jesse could hardly focus on enough to notice, he nodded to himself, then looked back at Jesse. “Do you think you can get back into bed? You haven’t been sick in almost half an hour. Does it feel like that’s going to stick?”

  Jesse tried to nod, but it made his head hurt. His stomach hadn’t settled, precisely, but the throwing up felt distant, like a dream that was thankfully fading from memory. They got him up and into bed, placing the trash can right next to him in case of emergency, and Nurse Lane took Sean back in the bathroom, whispering things Jesse couldn’t hope to hear.

  His dad didn’t seem to care, seating himself next to Jesse and running a hand across his forehead. “You always did like to be the center of attention, kiddo, but this might be a step too far to get there.”

  He returned a weak smile. If his dad was joking, that was either a good sign, or a very, very bad one. His mother focused on the bathroom door, trying to overhear whatever Sean and the nurse were talking about. She looked annoyed, so Jesse suspected she was having trouble. The nurse had probably used the old trick of turning the fan on to mask sound.

  Jesse’s brain tried to stir at the thought. There was a reason for that. A reason to keep things secret. There were secrets, and Jesse knew more of them than anyone else, but he was having trouble focusing on what he knew.

  He drifted off to sleep before Sean and Nurse Lane came out of the bathroom and dreamed that he was being washed away in a river of his own blood. He longed for the dream of the stag.

  7

  A Little Poisoning Between Friends

  Jesse woke to the smell of food, and his stomach grumbled. There was a little pain attached to the grumble, and it vividly reminded him of the night before. Sean was curled up next to him in a fetal position, and when Jesse moved to look at him, he woke with a start.

  “Are you okay? Do you need to get sick? Should I—”

  Jesse reached out and put a finger over his lips to stop the flow of words.

  “Water?” Jesse winced at his own voice. His throat didn’t hurt that much, just a twinge of pain, but his voice sounded like he’d been gargling broken glass.

  Sean jumped up to comply, running to the bathroom and filling a glass. Jesse managed to sit up a fraction while he was gone, much to Sean’s consternation. “You lay back down. You almost died last night, Jesse. They had to give you three IVs, and Nurse Lane kept taking your blood pressure and muttering. You are not ready to sit up.” The words were a whisper, but he meant business.

  “Everyone?” Jesse managed to ask between sips of water.

  “Your parents stayed. They’re making food”—he lowered his voice to the point where he practically mouthed the last words—“and watching the kids.”

  The kids. They had to be terrified, and that was a best-case scenario.

  His mother bustled in right then, and instead of the amazing bacon and who cared what else he could smell cooking downstairs, she handed him a giant bowl of oatmeal.

  “Don’t you make that face at me young man,” she said in the mom tone that had worked on him for many years. “Nurse Lane says your stomach is going to be sensitive, and you need to take care of it with bland foods and lots of calories to help your body heal.”

  She had dark circles under her eyes and didn’t look like she’d slept at all. Jesse wondered if anyone but him had gotten much rest during the night. His sleep had been disturbed, but deep, and it made him feel guilty that everyone had been worrying about him while he’d been completely out of it.

  He barely paid attention as Sean started feeding him spoonfuls of bland, boring oatmeal. “This isn’t how I’d have imagined feeding you in bed,” Sean said, a small smile on his face, but it barely reached his eyes. It was only the ghost of a real smile from Sean. The real thing made the sun come out and birds sing, like something from a cartoon.

  “Marry me,” Jesse managed to say between bites of mush.

  “Duh.” Sean rolled his eyes and pressed more oatmeal on Jesse. “Besides, what would we do with that swing your dad is making if we don’t get married? It would be a criminal waste.”

  Jesse reached down between them and took Sean’s hand in his, squeezing as tight as his currently pitiful strength allowed, and ate his oatmeal.

  Sean managed to keep them both in bed until late afternoon, when Jesse decided that possible injury to himself was less important than his need to do something.

  They had forced on him no less than three bowls of oatmeal, two bananas, and finally some crackers with peanut butter, which had been like a gift from the food gods after the culinary horror of the morning.

  He insisted on showering, because he needed to wash away the memory of being sick, even if he hadn’t gotten blood everywhere like it had seemed the night before. He had sweat through his—Sean’s—pajamas, though,
so he didn’t imagine he smelled good.

  As a small bonus, Sean accompanied him into the shower. Though to take away all possible joy, Sean didn’t allow anything untoward and insisted that Jesse not grope him, because Jesse was sick and might hurt himself.

  He felt weak, yes, but not sick anymore. He didn’t know how to communicate to Sean the incredible difference between how he felt last night and how he felt now. He hoped that wasn’t what most people went through when they got sick, because that was not okay. How did people live through stomach viruses?

  Sean helped him dress, because it was what Sean wanted and Jesse didn’t want to argue with him about it. Giving Sean what he wanted was almost always better than not.

  When they were finally both clean and dressed, Jesse went downstairs to face reality. Everyone was sitting around the living room in various poses of anxiety and concern.

  The kids were watching some cartoon movie, sitting in a row on the couch, looking like they were awaiting execution orders. Jesse’s dad was sitting alone on the loveseat, actually watching the movie with some enthusiasm, mouthing out the words to a song that was playing on the screen. His mother was sitting primly in the window seat, a wolf waiting for her prey to bolt so she could chase it down.

  The doorbell rang, and Sean reluctantly left Jesse braced in the door to the living room to go answer it.

  His mother looked up at the bell and frowned when she saw Jesse. “I hardly think you should be out of bed.”

  Meanwhile, Madison barreled into him, and only a firm grasp on the door frame kept him upright. “Oh my god, you’re okay. We were so scared you were going to die. What happened?”

  Anthony had turned around, kneeling backward on the couch so he could face them, biting his lip nervously like his sister always did. “Was it my cooking? Are you allergic to something, and I didn’t know? I’m so sorry.”

  “I sincerely doubt you would have accidentally put aconite in your cooking, young man, so no,” Nurse Lane said, coming into the room with Sean.

  Jesse huffed a sigh. “Really? Dammit, what have I said about watching shitty werewolf movies?”

  Everyone looked startled at his outburst, and Nurse Lane frowned. “You think someone has been watching werewolf movies because you were poisoned with wolfsbane?”

  More than one person gasped, and Jesse thought his father was one of them.

  He sighed and turned to look at Josh and Anthony, both still on the couch. “If I’d eaten all of my dinner, I’d be dead.”

  Nurse Lane surreptitiously stepped from between Jesse and the couch as he agreed. “Yes. The amount of poison we found in the trashed food was considerable. I think the amount you did eat would have killed a smaller or less healthy werewolf. And for the record, aconite isn’t specifically poisonous to werewolves, it’s just plain old poisonous.”

  Madison whimpered. Anthony looked confused more than frightened. Josh didn’t so much as twitch from his position on the couch, staring at his knees.

  Never having been a man of patience, Jesse stared into the back of Josh’s head. “Did Charles give it to you? I’d say you should both know better, but hell, it worked, didn’t it?”

  “He said it was poison for werewolves,” Josh finally muttered. “He said you’d die quietly in your sleep.”

  Nurse Lane scowled, but didn’t bother pointing out the many problems with that statement.

  “Who’s Charles?” Madison asked. She looked more frightened than before she’d seen Jesse alive, but there was anger growing in her too. Her hand kept balling up and releasing, and Jesse didn’t think she was aware of it. “I don’t understand. Why would Josh try to poison Jesse? Josh, why would you— He’s helping us!”

  Anthony made a small motion, as though to pull away from Josh, and lightning-quick, Josh grabbed the other boy and turned them so that Anthony was between himself and everyone else, his arm around Anthony’s neck, their backs to the wall that held the television.

  Madison made a tiny squeaking sound, reaching a useless hand toward her brother, but no one else in the room moved.

  “You don’t understand. It was supposed to fix everything. He promised it would fix me.” Josh was breathing heavily, eyes wide and pupils dilated. His panic put Anthony in more danger, so Jesse held very still.

  Madison seemed to be in shock that someone she’d trusted implicitly could have betrayed them. It said something impressive about her outlook on life, considering how much the world had already let down the Blake family. “Josh, I don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with you. What did you need fixed? And why didn’t you come to us with it?”

  Josh gave a hysterical laugh. “Come to you? You, and your ‘being a werewolf is super cool’ crap? You weren’t going to help me. Not even you,” he said, turning his gaze on Jesse. “ ‘It is what it is’? No. It can’t be. I’m not a fucking monster. I won’t be one.”

  In a flash, Jesse understood what the boy was talking about. It made him want to bang his head against the wall. “Dammit, Josh, I told you about the werewolf movies. How many times do you have to hear it? Did Charles tell you it would work? Did he—oh god, Josh.” He prayed he was wrong, but he had to ask anyway. “Did you kill Mr. Blake?”

  The arm Josh had around Anthony’s throat trembled. “No! No, we were looking for him, and I found him already dead. Charles was with him. He killed him, but then he told me I could still fix it. I just had to kill you.”

  “Why?” Sean asked, sounding utterly mystified.

  Jesse looked over at him. “I told you those werewolf movies were toxic. He thought he could change back into a human if he killed an alpha werewolf. Mr. Blake was already dead, so it couldn’t be him. But it wouldn’t have worked, and Charles would have told you all you had to do was kill another, and then another after that. Josh, he’s made you into a tool.”

  “He’s a tool all right,” Anthony agreed, despite the immediate danger of insulting the man who could kill him. His best friend. Jesse shuddered at the notion. Devon would never do that to him, nor the other way around, no matter the danger. Jesse would rather die.

  “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong. I can’t be a monster.”

  Madison was crying, but it wasn’t hard to understand what she said. “Being a werewolf didn’t make you a monster. You’ve done that all on your own. Let Ant go. He doesn’t deserve this.”

  “What, you want to trade for you? I’m not stupid. You’re a pack of wolves. You’ll kill me.” He started inching toward the window and Jesse’s mother, which seemed like an excellent idea and a bad one at the same time.

  Regina Hunter cleared her throat. “Only one person in this room is threatening to kill someone right now, and it isn’t any wolf I care to acknowledge.” She looked over to Jesse, and her lips turned up in a rare smile. “Not that I’m the pack alpha, to be making decisions like that.”

  Fortunately, Jesse had an excuse not to meet her eye, what with the hostage situation unfolding.

  “You don’t have to do this, Josh.” He held his hands out, facing up, and hoped Josh would see it as the peaceful gesture he meant it to be. “I get it. You’ve made some serious mistakes, and I won’t pretend that I’ll ignore them, but you don’t have to let it destroy your whole life.”

  “You don’t get it!” Josh had gone shrill, practically screaming. “My life is already ruined. Blake ruined it. He took away my future, and you’re saying I can never have it back. I can never be human again.”

  Just saying those words broke something in Josh. He reached down and picked up the lilacs, dumping the flowers and water on the floor and smashing the glass against the wall. He held the sharp edge of the piece in his hand to Anthony’s neck and glared at Jesse’s mother.

  “Get out of my way, or I’ll cut his throat.”

  She moved without hesitation, leaving him a clear path to the bay window. Jesse vowed to himself that he’d forget all about the cost of replacing the damn thing, since Josh was obviously planning on breaking it
, as long as he didn’t hurt Anthony.

  “Don’t try to follow me. You have to fix this first,” he told them all as he got to the window.

  There were a few sounds of confusion in the room, but Jesse and his mother exchanged a look. They both knew in that moment what would come next.

  Josh pulled away from Anthony, but as he did so, he cut a deep gouge along Anthony’s chest with the edge of the glass in his hand. Madison screamed and tried to jump forward, but Jesse held her back until Josh had turned and jumped through the front window. The last thing they needed was for her to get hurt too.

  Nurse Lane rushed to the bleeding boy as soon as Josh had disappeared out the window. He called for someone to help him. Sean was immediately there, helping apply pressure as Jesse’s mother called the police and Nurse Lane did what he could to stop the bleeding.

  Jesse hugged Madison tight and whispered to her, “I know you want to be there, but give them a second to help him before you get between the nurse and your brother. It looks bad, but he’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  Now, Jesse was perfectly capable of lying. In this case, however, he was sure it wasn’t a lie. It was as though he felt Anthony’s heart beating, strong and steady, in his own chest. It was bad, and he’d lost a lot of blood quickly, but he was going to live. Jesse was as sure of that as he’d ever been of anything in his life. So Jesse promised.

  Madison looked back at him.

  “How?”

  “Because I know. Josh wasn’t even trying to kill him, just distract us. And I’m—you know. I’m alpha. I’m sure.”

  She blinked repeatedly, trying to stem the flow of tears, and nodded. “Then you should go get Josh. I don’t care if you help him or not, but he’s going to keep trying to kill werewolves because he thinks he can magically be human again.”