He was off tomorrow so he got out two of the zero-calorie gluten-free pale ales she’d brought over a few hook-ups ago (but had yet to actually get drunk on), cracking the first one open with his bare hand before passing it to her.
“Thank you. By the way, you have amazing hand strength,” she observed, before taking it from him.
He didn’t answer, just cracked open another beer for himself.
“I thought you didn’t drink.”
“Special circumstances,” he answered, taking a swig.
The beer was cool and crisp against his throat. Exactly what he needed after sewing up a kid in his bathtub.
“Probably not how you imagined this night ending when you sent that DTF text,” she said with a wry smile when they were done drinking.
“Now I’m wondering if you remember what DTF means?”
She laughed. “Dog to fix?”
But he didn’t laugh with her. Calling a shifter a “dog” was akin to using the N-word in his culture. But she didn’t know that. She was only human. A fact his wolf needed to stop ignoring any day now.
She also doesn’t know what she did tonight, his wolf shot back at full defensive. That child might have died if she hadn’t brought him to the one person who could give him the help he needed.
Whatever, he answered his wolf. Then he set his empty beer bottle aside and took hers away, placing it on the counter. “Hey, Hot Social Worker?”
“Yes, Buddy?” she asked.
“You’re a good person. A real good person.”
She shook her head at him with a sexy smile. “Thank you. But why are you suddenly giving me compliments instead of telling me what to do?”
He sighed, sometimes hating how she often zeroed in on the real point even when he was intentionally beating around the bush.
Also because he did want to fuck her. To throw her down on the bed and tell her what to do. But…the kid was in the bathroom. And the meth in Jandro’s system would probably shift him back to human as soon as his wolf was done healing him. Knight couldn’t risk it.
“I appreciate you bringing him up here, but um…I’m not DTF anymore.”
An embarrassed beat of silence passed. Then she recovered with, “I completely understand.” As if eager to change the subject, she glanced over her shoulder. “How about the dog? He doesn’t have any tags, and if he survives, I’d like to make sure he ends up in a good home. I have a list of no-kill shelters…”
“Don’t worry about the…patient,” he answered. “I’ll take care of getting him to a good vet tomorrow. And I will make sure he ends up at a quality, no-kill shelter.”
“Oh, that’s kind of you. Thank you,” she murmured.
Then came another awkward beat before he said, “I can call you a ride if you need one but you should probably get going. I have to wake up early tomorrow.”
“I don’t need to…” She trailed off in that way of hers, like her mind was throwing up a wall to block what she was about to say, and forcing her to manufacture a new and improved sentence. “I’m truly fine with walking home. I prefer it. And trust me, I can take care of myself.”
His human did trust her to get home by herself, and moreover refused to entertain the notion of caring either way. But his wolf glared at him for letting her go anywhere alone this late at night.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take the dog with me?” she asked.
He winced, hating the sound of that word on her lips. Even though she couldn’t possibly know what she was saying. “Nah, I got it.”
“Okay, I’ll take my leave then.”
Yeah, that’s what should happen. She needed to get out of here so she wouldn’t be anywhere in the vicinity when Jandro shifted back into his human form.
But instead of letting her go, he did the opposite. Caught her by the hand and said, “Hey, L-heart,” giving voice for the first time to the name Jandro had given her. “I’ll text you.”
“Yes, you may.” She smiled up at him. But it was all wrong. Bright and happy mouth on the bottom. Sad eyes on the top. “But it’s not necessary to make any promises. In fact, we should probably establish more boundaries so our arrangement doesn’t become inconvenient for either of us.”
She was right about that. Nonetheless, he repeated, “I’ll text you.”
And when another protest formed on her lips, he said it again, “I’ll text you.”
“Okay,” she answered, her voice whisper soft. “You’ll text me.”
“And when I do, you’ll text me back. I can’t host tonight, but I want you to text me back.”
This time when she smiled it actually reached her eyes. “I will text you back,” she finally agreed. “But for the record—”
Her “I will” was all he needed. He quickly kissed her before she could finish whatever she was about to say. Yeah, she still talked too much. But he was beginning to find he liked shutting her up so much that he really didn’t mind.
Chapter Nine
Early the next morning, Knight sat on the lid of his toilet waiting with a cup of morning coffee until…
The skinny black-and-tan wolf in his tub suddenly shifted into a skinny nine-year-old boy. Fuck…. Was it possible the kid had actually become even more malnourished than the last time Knight saw him? He was little more than skin on top of bones now.
“Bucket!” Knight called out, setting his cup of coffee aside so he could make the sign for “bucket” which required both hands. He then quickly pointed at the plastic mop bucket he’d set at the boy’s feet inside the tub.
A confused look crossed the kid’s face right before his unasked question was answered by a sudden heave of his chest. Sadly, meth withdrawal symptoms were one of the few things shifting into wolf form couldn’t fix.
The kid might be skinny but he was quick. He managed to grab the bucket and upchuck the pitiful contents of his stomach into the plastic container instead of all over himself.
“Good work,” Knight signed to him when the upchuck session finally died down to pitiful dry heaving.
Knight took the bucket to the kitchen and cleaned it out. “You’re lucky. This apartment is so old it still has a tub,” he said to the kid when he returned, and turned the knob on the wall to fill the bath up with warm water.
“Me not lucky,” the kid signed back morosely, his hands shaking with shivers despite the fact that wolf shifters ran at much higher temperatures than their human counterparts.
Poor kid wasn’t lying about that. Meth withdrawal was a bitch—which was why no shifter doctor ever advised it as a good way to keep your wolf under control. But since shifters weren’t supposed to exist, there wasn’t exactly a PSA going around about this. It was one of those things parents were supposed to know and pass down to their kids.
But obviously Jandro had drawn the shittiest hand when it came to the parent cards he’d been dealt.
“Hope you ain’t into bubbles because I don’t have any of that shit here,” he spoke signed to the kid.
The kid squinted at him. “You don’t talk like doctor.”
“Yeah, I know,” he answered. “Hot Social Worker brought that up, too.”
Knight got a towel out of the bathroom closet and set it on the toilet lid before speak-signing to the kid, “Good job crawling your ass over here, by the way.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know where else to go,” the kid signed apologetically. “You said I could—”
“DON’T apologize,” Knight cut him off, angry that the kid would even think for a second he’d done something wrong when all the wrong shit had been done to him. “I’m being serious. You did the right thing coming here. And I’m glad you made it. Now, can you tell me what happened?”
Jandro did, signing jerkily over the details. He’d scored some meth from one of the older kids at the home and that got him through the last full moon. But this time the withdrawal symptoms hit him way worse than before.
He couldn’t go to the WCH social worker because the home had a
strict no drugs policy. If he started throwing up again they’d take him to the doctor. And even though Knight had helped him before, he had no way of knowing if he’d be able to cover for him a second time. So he’d stolen a bag from the drug dealer when he wasn’t looking. Just a fourth of an eight ball. But the dealer caught him in the basement trying to steal from him. He didn’t even give Jandro a chance to explain, just stabbed him in the gut and walked away, leaving him to die in the home’s basement.
Good thing Jandro had a way out…with his wolf, Knight thought to himself after the fucked-up story was done. But not really lucky because he shouldn’t have still been at the home in the first place. Damn system.
“Finish cleaning up,” he signed. “I’ll take you back to the home.”
“Okay,” Jandro agreed. “But my clothes downstairs. Can you get them for me?”
“No, I can’t get your bloodstained clothes for you because I threw them away,” he answered. Then he pointed to the work stool he’d placed next to the bathtub. “Wear those instead.”
Jandro’s eyes widened when he saw the pair of shorts and Deadpool tee on top of the stool. “You buy clothes?”
“Yeah,” Knight signed back.
“For me?” Jandro signed.
“No, for me because I like dressing up in kid clothes. That’s what I call fun,” he answered.
But Knight immediately stopped with the sarcasm when he saw real tears pooling in the kid’s eyes. Like kindness felt rough on his skin. Hurt him in ways that ODs and withdrawal symptoms couldn’t.
“Anyway,” Knight said aloud. Then he cleared his throat and raised his hands to speak sign, “I think they fit. Got a size nine. But I’m still not clear on this kid sizing stuff.”
Jandro didn’t answer. Just downshifted his eyes.
No words. However, Knight got the message. Thanks for the clothes, but could you get out of here so I can cry while naked in the bathtub without feeling like I’ve lost my pride, too? For real, man, it’s the only thing I have left.
As Knight stood up and headed for the door, he decided he wouldn’t just drop the kid off. He was going to talk to Olcan himself, make sure she prioritized getting this kid a fucking placement already.
But as it turned out, she had.
“I’m sorry,” she told the shifter who’d pushed his way into her closet of an office at the children’s home. “I contacted the Kansas pack and they said they’re already at full capacity as far as meth orphans go.”
What the hell? “Kingdom towns are required to foster all orphans in their state,” Knight answered.
“Well, that’s not actually an official law. It’s more like a code of conduct that’s not really enforceable,” Olcan answered tightly.
“Okay then, I guess I’ll just go pay the Kansas king a visit,” he said, shaking his head at her bureaucratic bullshit.
“You could do that, Dr. Knight,” she answered with an irritated look. “But from the sound of it, the kingdom is overwhelmed with this meth orphan epidemic. They also don’t have the resources for a boy in Alejandro’s…” she stopped, reminding him of Hot Social Worker but not in a good way, before she quickly finished her sentence with, “…situation.”
“His situation,” Knight repeated, feeling the old red anger rise up in him for the second time in as many days. “What does that mean?”
Olcan thinned her lips. “It means I have a roster full of human boys I can’t find foster homes for. This boy is deaf, can’t write, barely reads, and he doesn’t have bioware. So far, I can’t find a single deaf wolf in all of Kansas who knows ASL and is willing to foster him. ASL is the new Latin as far as humans and wolves are concerned. And from what I understand, there’s only one person in our entire department who speaks the language and she’s technically only interning with us because—”
“Yeah, I’ve met her,” he said, cutting Olcan off.
Knight hated this. Hated the way Olcan talked about the kid like he was nothing more than damaged goods. Jandro not only hadn’t made this lady’s job any harder by wolfing out during the last full moon, but he’d also managed to stay alive after being stabbed by one of her precious human boys.
But of course, Knight couldn’t tell her any of this since she was the person in charge of making sure the boys at the home remained drug free. So instead he said, “You talk about him like he’s a lost cause, but he’s worth something, dammit. He’s worth fighting for—”
“I’m doing the best I can, Dr. Knight,” she answered with an aggravated roll of her eyes.
At which point, he leaped out of his seat to roar, “Well, the best you can isn’t worth a damn if that kid has to spend another full moon in this mangy shithole!”
Silence descended, fraught with tension as she stared at him in wide-eyed fear.
And there it was. The red anger. This is how it worked. It hid out in the shadows. Pretending to play dead as Knight went about his carefully controlled life. But as soon as any kind of conflict arose, no matter how small, BAM! There it was. There it always fucking was.
He wanted to shift. His wolf called to him in those moments, offering him a reprieve from the red anger and the shame it always left in its aftermath. But the first rule of Wolf Force: don’t shift near civilians. For any reason.
He sat down with the voice of his childhood therapist ringing in his head, Apologizing after an episode is always better than just shifting out.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “What I’m trying to say is he’s worth something. Jandro’s worth something.”
Olcan regarded him with tight-lipped defensiveness. “I’m sorry if our little mange state doesn’t compare to whatever state pack you’re from…”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he started, though he realized how she might interpret his words that way. Even more so if she knew his real family name and his background.
She kept on going. “But Oklahoma withstanding, there aren’t many resources for boys like Jandro. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but that’s the reality. And though I’ll try my best to find him a placement before the next full moon, I’m afraid…”
She went on like that for a little while longer, but Knight stopped listening soon after the two words he hadn’t expected to hear. Oklahoma withstanding…
Oklahoma withstanding…
Fuck, he thought to himself. He might have to do something to help this kid. Something he really, really didn’t want to do.
Chapter Ten
Knight spent the rest of his day putting a “just in case” plan together. Taking a pay-as-you-go phone out of his stash and placing it in a manila envelope, just in case. Covering the envelope with enough federal Forever stamps to get the thing to Timbuktu, just in case, before writing down an address deep in the panhandle of Oklahoma.
He almost wrote his fake name across the fake return address he’d put on the envelope, but no…he couldn’t risk them throwing the phone out, seeing as how there wasn’t any kind of note inside.
So just in case, he wrote his real name above the fake address.
Then he drove all the way down to Braman, Oklahoma. A little nothing town with a population of 300. But it did have a solitary USPS office going for it, and a gas station so that the very few people who still drove gas-powered manual cars could fill up on their way to places that actually mattered. Knight took advantage of both, filling up at the gas station before sliding the yellow-orange envelope across the blue laminate post office counter.
“Wolf Haven,” the old guy behind the counter read. “Never heard of it.”
Yeah, most humans hadn’t. And despite the fact that Oklahoma had risen quite a bit in status since it’s mange state days, it’s kingdom town still had a “no humans allowed” policy on the books.
“Where’s it at?” asked the old timer.
“Deep in the pan-handle,” Knight answered.
“No wonder I haven’t heard of it. They probably don’t have many more people than we do.”
Wolf Ha
ven was up to 2,000 people these days, but Knight didn’t bother answering because the mail clerk would likely be surprised and ask questions. This was a just in case mission, which meant everything should be kept capital NTK.
But the old timer kept reading the envelope like it was the most interesting thing he’d come across in years.
“Knud…” the man said, pronouncing it all wrong, like nude. “Well, isn’t that an interesting name...”
Knight didn’t hear the rest of the comment because he was already pushing open the door without bothering to say good-bye.
He was surprised when his pay-as-you-go phone dinged just as he got back in his truck. And his wolf sat forward, wanting to know if the message was from the woman it desperately wanted to hear from.
It was—which made this the first time Hot Social Worker had ever initiated contact.
“Thank you for dealing with the poor furbaby last night. May I come over this evening around 9pm, so we might hit it and quit it?”
He didn’t laugh, but his mouth quirked up as he typed back. “Yeah. Come over if you wanna.” He kept his language casual, even though his wolf’s tail was at full wag.
She arrived at 20:58 with a sheet of old-fashioned paper in her hand.
“Hello, Buddy, thank you for having me over,” she said as she walked in. “You’ll be happy to know I followed up on our boundaries conversation from last night.”
“That wasn’t really a conversation…” He inhaled deeply. Her scent had a weird undertone tonight. He picked out the smells: heightened adrenalin and cortisol. Acrid and bitter. Upset. She was upset about something and it had happened recently. “What’s going on?” he asked carefully.
“Great question, Buddy. I’ve been doing some research on sex buddy boundaries, and as it turns out the internet has quite a lot to say on the subject. Taking that into account, I’ve made a list of governing rules for our arrangement—do you by chance have any tape?”
The Brothers Nightwolf Complete Trilogy: A Sci-Fi Shifter Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 23