Page 8 of The Bull's Head

Two sets of eyes blinked rapidly. “Did you… make a joke?” Alp wondered.

Fearing he’d done the wrong thing, Teddy held up his hands. “I’m sorry!”

“Why? It wasn’t as funny as mine, but let’s face it, what is? Still, it was pretty damned good.”

If pressed, Teddy would admit he liked these two men. When he’d first met them, he felt certain that Alp was flighty and irresponsible, and he also wondered how a wolf and rabbit could become a pair. Looking at them now, their hands on the table, fingers threaded together, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, he couldn’t imagine them not being mated.

“So, why were you out so late last night?” Mal asked, a grin playing on his lips. “Logs show you didn’t come back in until five this morning.”

Logs? “What do you mean?”

“They installed a system to show the comings and goings of people. After what happened with Hyde, we’re on the lookout for others who he might have had dealings with him in case they come back.”

Which made sense. “I was out running in the woods with Callum.”

The silence that followed that statement freaked Teddy out a bit. When he peeked up, he was met by Alp’s huge eyes and Mal’s dropped jaw.

“You…. Callum…. How?”

“What do you mean?”

“If anyone here goes out there, he shrinks back and bellows like they’re going to hurt him. We’ve tried repeatedly to explain no one will, but nothing changes. We’ve been trying for weeks to get him to understand.”

Was it wrong that Teddy felt… happy that Callum had opened up to him a bit? Probably, but he didn’t care.

“I went out and heard him. When I got to the pen, he was doing just what you said, but I talked with him, and he let me stroke his face.”

“I… I…. That’s incredible,” Alp gushed. “Were you able to get him to shift?”

Teddy sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “No. I asked, but he didn’t or couldn’t. Still, when I opened the gate, he eventually came out and we went tromping around in the woods. Afterward, he went back to the pen, exhausted, but seemingly at peace.”

Mal leaned in closer, his expression serious. “Would you be able to get him to go out with you again? Lydia—Doctor Hamilton—thinks the fact that he won’t—wouldn’t—leave the pen is what’s keeping the drugs in his system. She feels that if he moved around, he’d have a better chance of burning it off.”

“Sure, I can try.”

“In fact, if you’re amenable to it, I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d work with him. He needs to trust someone, and it seems you’ve got a leg up on the rest of us.”

Teddy had no issues working with Callum. Even if he wasn’t able to shift yet, Teddy wanted to spend time with him. Before meeting Callum, Teddy had usually hung out with Ivan. On occasion, he would go with Ivan to see Cece and Damon, but that didn’t happen as often as the invites came.

He wasn’t sure why, but to Teddy there was always a disconnect between him and everyone else in his old pack. They treated him fine, great even, but he couldn’t really be comfortable there.

You know why, yet you pretend you don’t. Because you failed. It’s because of you those kids died. Because of you, Hiram got away with what he did. If you had been strong, a real bear, you would have stopped him.

A familiar shame swept through Teddy. He hated himself, because so often when he closed his eyes, those kids—the ones he was responsible for—begged and pleaded with him to save them. When they’d found their bodies, Teddy had seen what was done to them. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t clean. It was obvious the killer took his time, toyed with his victims. Only after Teddy found out it was Hiram….

A hand on his shoulder startled Teddy out the memories that assailed him.

“Hey, you okay?”

He jerked his head up. “What? Oh, I’m fine,” he lied. “Tired.”

“Do you think you can work with Callum? We can put off the project we had for you for now.”

“What? Oh, no! I can do both. I truly believe that if I was with Callum all the time, he might be annoyed. He seems… I don’t know how to say the word. Perhaps broken?”

“Everyone who was held here is broken in some way,” Alp reminded him, holding up the arm that no longer had a hand. “I’m getting fitted for a prosthesis soon. Some of these people can’t get that. No amount of surgery can fix missing eyes.”

Teddy swallowed hard. “I wish….” He bit his lip, trying to keep the tears at bay.

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