Page 47 of Wolf Lost

Hurt

Exhaustion clawed at him, but he didn’t fall asleep. For one thing, falling asleep in water that could easily cover his head seemed like the worst idea ever. For another, there was no way the constant throbbing in his leg was going to let him fall asleep. He hoped it was better by bedtime, since painkillers made for humans didn’t do much for him.

Some days, like this one, his grandfather’s voice still rang in his ears at unexpected times.

If you were any kind of man, you’d work through it instead of wallowing. You’re weak because you were raised by a woman.

Dez let his head fall back against the edge of the tub and stared at the ceiling. His mother had worked to support him through the cancer and the chemo and months of misery before the illness had taken her. Twelve-year-old Dez had known all of that, but he hadn’t truly understood it.

Now it was easy to understand that the woman who’d grown rail thin and breakable, who’d shaken and cried as she’d hovered over the toilet, sick from the chemicals they were pumping into her, was the strongest person he’d ever known.

Like Sawyer. Dealing with the loss of his father, his life, and in a way, his whole pack, Sawyer hadn’t “manned up” and drunk himself to death like Dez’s grandfather. He’d gotten up in the morning and done what he had to do.

When Dez had woken up in the hospital to the news that his grandfather had finally died, gotten drunk and fallen down the stairs in his big empty house, Dez hadn’t felt any sense of loss. It had been a relief that he wouldn’t ever have to face the man again.

When the same lawyer who’d come to inform him of the old man’s death had told him that since his grandfather hadn’t left a will, as his only living relative, Dez inherited everything, he’d laughed. He’d only laughed harder when the confused man explained to him that he was now very, very rich, as though that was supposed to help.

Maybe the morphine they’d been filling him full of at the hospital really had affected him. That was the excuse Gavin had offered the lawyer as he’d led him out, explaining about the injuries and Dez being given an “honorable discharge for medical reasons.”

Gavin and Ash had never asked about his grandfather, and he’d never offered to talk about it. It was over, no longer a part of his life.

Except when he held in all the anger his pain was causing, and it came out in destructive ways, like telling Sawyer what he was and wasn’t allowed to do.

He needed to apologize to Sawyer when he got home. He let out a heavy sigh, and it felt like a weight came off his shoulders. His leg still ached, but a tightness in his chest that he’d hardly been aware of eased.

There was a trilling from the other room, and it took Dez a moment to recognize his own phone. It rang so infrequently that he didn’t carry it out of his bedroom some mornings.

But it might be Sawyer.

He cursed and lifted himself out of the hot tub, dripping water across the floor and barely managing to keep his balance without his cane. When he got to the door of his bedroom, the phone fell silent.

He leaned against the doorjamb for a moment, sighing and resting his newly angered leg. Without conscious thought, his gaze strayed to Sawyer’s side of the bed.

Where Sawyer’s phone lay, still on his nightstand next to his nightly glass of water. Sawyer took his phone everywhere, and he’d left it because Dez had picked a fight with him.

Fucking hell. What if he got in a car accident and needed help?

Dez’s phone started ringing again.

He didn’t miss it this time, snatching it up and answering without checking to see who was calling. “Sawyer?”

For a moment, there were only shallow breath and a quick heartbeat on the other end of the line, but then the high, stressed voice of their bookstore-owner neighbor whispered. “A man kidnapped him. A—another werewolf.”

Dez went very still. “Ma’am?”

She let out a huff of air, almost like a laugh, and he could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “Being human doesn’t automatically mean being ignorant, you know. I read books. A lot of books.”

As much as he wanted to point out that he hadn’t known about werewolves until he’d met Asher, he didn’t have time for that conversation. “Sawyer, ma’am?”

“He said the man killed his father. They argued, and the man tried to get him to go with him, but when Sawyer refused, he knocked him out and carried him away.” She’d gone breathless again, like she was panicking, and he couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t far off panic himself.

“He carried him away?” he prodded, hoping for more information.

She moved around, and he heard paper crackling over the line. “I called you because you’re—you’re Sawyer’s boyfriend. I wrote down his license plate number, but I didn’t know if I should call the police. He might kill them, don’t you think? Or Sawyer, if they come?”

And she was right, of course, but what else could they do? She gave him the information even though her voice was shaking, and he wrote it down.

He almost took down the information and hung up without checking on her, but Sawyer would never forgive him. “Are you all right, Ms. Noble?”

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