by Alex Kidwell
Baring his teeth, Jed snorted out a shaky laugh, shoving David away from him. “What the fuck,” he hissed, pushing himself to his feet, wincing. Jesus, the bastard might have bruised his already battered ribs with that stunt. “I don’t know what kind of game you and the boytoy are playing, David, but it’s not funny. Werewolves aren’t fucking real. I don’t need either one of you coming in here and giving me fairy tales.”
“Fairy tales?” Victor sighed, although he looked somewhat shaken at the violence. “Technically they’re—”
“Everybody needs to leave.” The voice was so quiet it was barely heard. Redford was emerging from the blankets now, uncaring that he was naked, padding over to the table. He picked up the muzzle from where it was lying on coiled ropes, tugging the bandage off of his sprained wrist. “It is the full moon. And it’s rising.”
Oh. Okay. Redford was naked. Really naked and really right there and right then Jed wasn’t actually concerned with much else. “Hey,” he breathed with a stupid, lopsided smile, half shy and half trying really hard for a leer. “Yeah, it’s definitely rising all right.”
Everyone else absolutely needed to leave. Jed ran his hands down Redford’s arms, eyes wide as he took in the slim strength of the other man, the faint trail of dark hair that trailed below his belly button, down to the divots of his hips. “You are so gorgeous,” he managed, willing to forget David’s interruption for what he assumed would be them kicking the two intruders the hell out and getting back down to business.
“Oh, Lord.” David rolled his eyes, taking Rathbone’s arm and tugging him toward the door. “I will be sitting by my phone, Walker, when you want to call and apologize. Try to keep all your limbs intact.”
“But I want to see what happens during the transfor—” Victor was saying, and the door shut. Thank God.
Redford barely seemed to notice that they were gone. There were lines of pain at the corners of his eyes now, and his hands were shaking slightly as they rose to fit the muzzle around his face, tightening the buckles at the back of his head. He didn’t wait for a reaction, just lifted the ropes and pressed them into Jed’s hands. “Can you tie my wrists?”
Startled, Jed stared at him. “No,” was his immediate reaction, his fingers going up to smooth along the leather standing out so brashly against pale skin. He fumbled for the latch, trying to get the damn muzzle off of him, but Redford wouldn’t let him. “Jesus Christ, what the hell is happening?” Jed caught Redford’s hands between his own, worry twisting his face. “Are you okay, sweetheart? You should sit down. Do you want water? I can get you water. You look….”
Like shit, actually. Clammy and gray, pain standing out like jagged tears against the lines of his face. Jed felt something twist horribly in his gut, a helpless, sick feeling that he hated. He wasn’t ever helpless. That was the deal. He had guns and explosions and a cocky smirk, and he wasn’t standing around, wringing his hands. Only now, he honest to God had no idea what to do next. “Talk to me, Red,” he begged quietly, smoothing a hand through the other man’s hair. “What’s wrong?”
His only response was a choked scream of pain. Redford tried to grab at Jed’s arm as he went down, but all he managed to do was collapse onto his knees, curling around himself. “Ropes,” he ground out. “Please, Jed. Please, there’s not much time. It’s happening sooner than I expected.”
Following Red down, Jed was at a complete loss. One second they’d been fine, in bed together, all smiles and quiet laughs and hands and lips meeting. Now it looked like Redford was tearing apart from the inside, and there wasn’t a damn thing Jed could do about it.
It’s the full moon.
All that werewolf shit, it was a load of crap. It had to be. What kind of world would it be if werewolves were real? What next—the fucking Loch Ness Monster? Some parade of the wacky and weird, the Wicked Witch of the West leading the leprechaun marching band? Jesus Christ, this could not be real.
And yet….
“I’m not going to tie you up,” Jed said, voice cracking. It was more him begging than a promise—please, don’t make me do this. “You’re gonna be fine, sweetheart. Hear me? It’s going to be fine.”
Hospital? That was an option, though one that Jed wasn’t a fan of. Hospitals meant paperwork and insurance and questions. All things they’d be better off avoiding. Then again, what if this was serious? What if it was, shit, some kind of ruptured something? That happened, right? He watched television sometimes. People died from rupturing things or pulmonary whatevers.
Redford was twisting in his arms, agony turning any attempt at words into a prolonged scream. Desperate, Jed laid Redford out on the floor and ran to his doorway, jerking it open and shouting David’s name. No answer. The cocksucker was gone, along with his nerdy bitch boyfriend, and whatever help they might have given was gone with them. Damn them both.
Although what kind of help could they possibly offer? More fairy tales? Stories about garlic and silver bullets? Jed needed some real assistance. He’d been entertaining the notion of children’s stories for too long now. This was the real world. And in the real world, when people were hurt, they needed a doctor, not a professor of goddamn linguistics. Whatever the fuck that was.
“Okay,” he muttered to himself, jerking on some pants. “Hospital. We’re going to the hospital, Red, you hear me? You’re going to be just fine.”
Gathering Redford up in his arms, he grunted a little at the weight. The man seemed more… solid, now, if that was possible. As he grabbed a pair of sweats to dress Redford in, there was a horrible shift. A cracking sound, like bones snapping into place, like joints sliding around like Legos, and Jed almost dropped him. “Jesus fuck,” he gasped, eyes wide, staring down at….
That wasn’t Redford.
That terrible grinding sound was still happening, the joints in Redford’s arms shifting and changing direction. His eyes were yellow, fangs beginning to protrude from his mouth, the bones in his jaw elongating, filling out the muzzle. Redford was struggling out of his arms, dropping to curl up into a ball on the floor again, and Jed watched with horror as his spine shifted under his skin, stretching out.
Okay, well then. Maybe he’d owe David a call after all.
He hadn’t lived this long without being able to adjust on the fly. It was still utterly unbelievable to him, but Jed figured he’d take time to curl up into a gibbering wreck later. Right then he had about two minutes until there was a very large, hairy something on his floor, and unlike Knievel’s contributions that fit that bill, this thing had fangs.
No time to do the tying-up thing. Jed grabbed his tranq gun, chambering a couple of rounds of the good stuff in. Not that he planned on using it, unless absolutely necessary. This was still Redford, no matter how furry he’d gotten, and there was no way he was going to hurt the guy unless his ass was literally on the line.
Warily watching him, Jed couldn’t do much but wait. The last agonizing spasms were trembling through Redford’s body, fur growing over his skin, a bushy tail laying prone on the floor, his eyes glazed with pain and staring blankly up at the ceiling. He really was a wolf. Goddamn him right back to Sunday school.
Amazement turned to something else, some primal shot of cold, clammy fear, when the wolf stirred itself to its feet. Lips skimmed back to show fangs, ears pinned flat against its skull, the wolf growled a low rumble that echoed in Jed’s chest. This wasn’t a fluffy puppy. This was a killer.
Just fucking great.
“Nice doggy,” he urged, holding out one hand, keeping his eyes on Redford. “Let’s not get overly hasty with the ripping and tearing, all right?”
Paws the size of dinner plates scuffed on the ground, claws clicking against his floor. Right then, the wolf seemed more concerned with the muzzle, growling in frustration and trying to scrape it against the floor. When that didn’t work, he twisted around, banging it against the wall instead. Thank God Jed hadn’t gotten that off in time.
“Hey,” he murmured, moving forward sl
owly, a frown creasing his forehead. “Cut it out. You’re going to hurt yourself, silly animal. Come on, hey, it’s me. Remember me?”
Apparently his getting closer was enough to tear Redford’s attention away from battling the muzzle. Yellow eyes focused on him, and the growl changed pitch from a constant rumble to a threatening burst of sound. Jed froze, breath caught in his throat, the sour clench of panic making his muscles clench with the urge to flee. “Okay. Guess that’s a yes.”
Swallowing hard, he set his jaw, determined. He’d never run from one thing in his whole damn life. He sure as hell wasn’t starting for some scruffy wolf, never mind that his teeth were big enough to eat Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the whole hundred-acre whatever. “Cut that out,” he snapped, holding the wolf’s eyes, glowering right back. “Don’t you growl at me, you oversized dust mop.”
He’d seen this documentary once, something on one of those nature channels that he usually flipped past in favor of the far more interesting Big Brother shows, but there had been this guy with a massive beard talking about wolves. Meeting their eyes was a sign of challenge and domination, and it certainly made the wolf in front of him pause. Which was good, right? Anything that wasn’t ripping his head off was good.
Reaching out, Jed wrapped his hand around the top of Redford’s muzzle, holding him and staring straight into his eyes. Another thing he thought he remembered from watching dog training shows one rainy Saturday while he was waiting for his current fling to get out of a meeting and fuck him into the couch. It was all about showing who was boss. He just hoped to the ghost of Lassie that this worked on werewolves, too.
“Got that?” he asked in a growl of his own. “We good?”
It was like he’d just said the magic words. Raised hackles went down, the muzzle slowly dipped to point at the floor, and all of a sudden he had a big wolf flopped down at his feet, baring its neck. He could even swear that the damn thing’s tail wagged briefly. Huffing out a quiet sigh of relief, Jed slid down to sit on the floor next to the wolf, fingers tangling in the fur behind his ear.
“See?” he muttered to himself, staring up at the ceiling, trying to process. “Told you I wouldn’t tie you up.”
Chapter Nine
Redford
REDFORD awoke with the feeling of claws in his arm.
He opened an eye warily, coming face to face with Knievel, who was regarding him in slit-eyed contentment, kneading his forearm, purring loud enough to rival the growls he’d no doubt been making last night. There wasn’t time for anxiety to make an appearance, because Jed was fast asleep next to him. He wasn’t injured.
Breathing out a silent sigh of relief, Redford craned his head up to look around the apartment, wincing at the light of the sun pouring in the windows. He always ached after those nights, but he didn’t feel the usual pain of bruises and cuts. He never remembered what happened when the wolf took over, but he could figure out easily enough that it turned its frustration onto itself, gnawing at itself, throwing itself against walls.
There was no blood on Jed or himself, but there was a broken chair. A plate on the ground bore the remains of the casserole. Had Jed fed him? Redford wasn’t the type of person to look a gift horse in the mouth, but there was an alarming lack of damage to the apartment. It actually looked like Jed had made the wolf get onto the bed and sleep. Knievel had evidently brought him all of her toys, cloth mice and plastic jingly balls strewn about the covers.
He was curled on his side, Jed a warm weight pressed against his back. The cat had apparently decided to lie on his outstretched arm. Redford had read somewhere that cats brought their owners dead birds, rodents, and their own toys because they were trying to teach the stupid humans how to hunt, like they did with their own kittens. From the amount of toys Knievel had brought to him, the cat thought he was absolutely useless.
“Hey. You awake?” Jed’s sleepy murmur came with a gust of air over the back of his neck, the arm looped around Redford’s waist tightening.
“Yeah,” Redford murmured, dislodging the cat so he could settle his arm over Jed’s, fitting their hands together. He reached up with his other hand to unbuckle the muzzle, only to find that he wasn’t wearing it anymore. Panic shot through him. Had Jed taken the muzzle off, or had the wolf somehow managed to break free of it? “You’re okay.” He still couldn’t believe it. “What happened? Where did the muzzle go?”
He felt Jed smile against his skin, shifting closer, probably not completely awake yet. “You turned into a giant, furry wolf. I used the knowledge of Discovery Channel to establish myself as in control. You seemed a little frustrated, but mostly you just followed me around and wagged your tail. I took the muzzle off so you could eat some leftovers, and you didn’t rip off my face or anything. Oh, and Knievel stared you down, and you gave in so quick.” Jed laughed lowly, rubbing his hand over Redford’s stomach. “You’re now my cat’s bitch.”
Silent, Redford just attempted to process. That had never happened before on the full moon. Granted, he’d never had company on those nights either, but he’d resigned himself to the same thing happening, every four weeks for the rest of his life. He’d change, he’d get violent, and he’d change back in the morning with numerous injuries.
Not last night. Last night the wolf had apparently done everything but play fetch.
“What happened to the chair?”
Another quiet laugh, accompanied by Jed pressing his lips to the back of his neck. “You jumped on it. I was sitting down with my maps, and apparently you thought you were people.”
“Oh.” Redford had been expecting something worse, like, he’d gotten violent and Jed had had to hit him with the chair. The real explanation was far more domestic. Just an old chair and a heavy wolf.
“Hey, so what do you think about what I said last night? About the gun show?”
Redford frowned, trying to remember what Jed had said last night. He remembered David and Victor. He remembered starting to turn. Jed had talked about getting him to the hospital, but then his mind had been taken over by the wolf, the instincts, and the far more primal mind. “If you mean what you said when I was changed, I… don’t remember anything from those nights,” he replied hesitantly. “The wolf mind takes over.”
“I didn’t know you got two brains in there, Fido,” Jed teased. Redford would swear that he sounded almost relieved. What else had Jed said last night? “Must get awful crowded in your skull.”
Snorting a little, Redford tightened his fingers around Jed’s, grateful that Jed wasn’t running out of the apartment screaming monster. “It’s what happens when I turn. There’s nothing but feral instincts after the change.”
He always woke up in the basement. The cold stone floor and the cage were his old friends now, the first-aid kit a staple in his life. Redford was almost sure he was dreaming about waking up in a comfortable bed, Jed’s arms around him, his reassuring weight at Redford’s back. This couldn’t be real, but somehow it was, somehow this was actually happening.
“So.” Jed shifted a little, bumping his thumb over Redford’s knuckles. There was an awed note in his voice, a breath of wonder, as if he was just as surprised by all of this as Redford. “I need to do a bit of shopping of my own today. There’s a gun show at the arena, lots of fun toys, some of my contacts will be there. I thought, if it sounded interesting at all, you could come?” If Redford didn’t know better, he would have thought Jed sounded almost shyly hopeful. “I could introduce you?”
A gun show didn’t sound like the most fun idea to Redford, but he nodded anyway. Honestly, he didn’t get the whole fascination with guns. Society seemed to be obsessed with them, loving them or fearing them—either way most people held a strong opinion about them. Still, Jed was interested in them, and Redford couldn’t turn him down when he sounded like that.
“Great.” Jed grinned against his neck, giving him a little shove. “Go shower, furball. Show starts in an hour.”
Grumbling at being forced out of bed, Redfor
d sighed and shuffled toward the bathroom. As hot water beat down on his shoulders, he idly contemplated why most of their conversations had taken place in the bed lately and the shampoo that said “Brand New: Mint Scent!” It didn’t smell like mint at all, just chemicals.
Jed had set himself up so that he could see Redford as soon as he exited the bathroom. A few days ago, Redford would have gotten embarrassed and stammered. Now he just smiled at Jed, a little wryly because it was perfectly obvious what Jed had been doing, even if he had attempted to look like he was reading the newspaper. It didn’t make him feel embarrassed anymore. He felt wanted, like there might actually be something about him worth looking at, even if Jed was a little conflicted about that want.
It was a very good feeling.
They were in the car half an hour later. Apparently Jed had borrowed one from a used-car lot. Redford was pretty sure that wasn’t how things worked—he might never have owned a car, but he was fairly certain that money was usually involved in the transference of ownership. Jed just waved off his concerns with a grin, though. Apparently he knew a guy. Whatever that meant.
Redford had apologized so many times about the broken chair that Jed had sworn he would get him an apology jar. Which, with further explanation, was like a swear jar, only Redford had to put money in it every time he apologized. Redford didn’t particularly see the point of that, so he was glad that Jed hadn’t decided to make the idea a reality. The radio in the car was shouting something about possessing his body and possibly making him burn, which Redford thought was fairly morbid, but Jed assured him that the band was “awesome.”
“So,” Jed said, out of the blue as he drove. “Maybe you should tell me about this werewolf thing, darlin’, because I saw it with my own eyes last night, and I’m still confused.” He was still facing forward, and his casual tone was a little forced, like he still hadn’t entirely processed what had happened.