Page 21 of Wolf Reborn

His arm came away bloody, but it was fine. He’d heal. Quick or no, it didn’t matter.

He carried Miles in and closed the door behind him, pulling the curtain over the broken pane and mentally promising the Carpenters that he’d buy them a new window. A whole new door, even. As long as Miles was okay, he’d find a way to fix everything.

The phone was on a table in the hall, and he picked it up and pressed it to his ear.

Nothing.

No dial tone, no busy signal, just dead air.

He almost screamed and threw the thing, but for the fact that he was still holding Miles.

His cell phone still had no connection. He pulled the cell from Miles’s pocket, but it didn’t have a connection either.

There was no time to spend on searching out more phones, more connection. That had failed. It was time for Gavin to do what he could. He had basic first-aid training—more than basic, even—but he wasn’t prepared to deal with this.

He put Miles, carefully, onto the rug in front of the hearth in the main room of the cabin, and checked his vitals again. Pulse even weaker, and his breath was starting to sound wheezy.

Gavin didn’t even know what was wrong. Internal bleeding? Damaged organs?

Fuck, why hadn’t he gone to medical school like his mother wanted?

Miles full-body shivered, and that gave Gavin a purpose, at least. Heat. He found the thermostat, still functional, and turned the heat on. Then he turned to the old brick fireplace. It was set up, complete with crumpled newspaper, for a fire. So he made quick work of that too, and a few seconds later, the newspaper was ablaze and set to the logs.

He rushed back to Miles.

Sweet, beautiful, perfect Miles. Miles, whom Gavin had lied to. Miles, whom Gavin wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Miles, who was dying.

And Gavin, who wasn’t even werewolf enough to fucking bite him.

He screamed his anger and pain to the ceiling, and somewhere in the middle, it turned into a roar. He cut off, panting, and when he closed his mouth, his teeth didn’t fit together quite right anymore. A wolf. He was—he had—

He didn’t even stop to think about the consequences or the possibility of failure. He leaned down, popped the first two buttons of Miles’s uniform open to bare his neck, and bit down in the same spot he’d mauled on the full moon.

The skin under his teeth broke easily and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He didn’t draw on it—he wasn’t a damn vampire—but he left his teeth there for a long time, as though extended exposure would make it more likely to work.

That was it, right? Werewolves bit people, and they turned into more werewolves. Dez’s bite had been half his shoulder, and if it hadn’t turned him, it might have killed him. Instead, it was healed long before they got him airlifted out, and the medic had asked whose blood was all over his shoulder.

When Gavin pulled back, he snatched his handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it against the wound. It was a perfect half-moon of tooth marks on either side; nothing like Dez’s ripped flesh.

If that was what he had to do, Gavin would just have to find it in himself to do that. He’d killed the alpha, even if the feeling of the man’s neck under his blunt, human teeth still gave him nightmares.

This was different from that, he reminded himself as he tried not to gag at the lingering taste of blood in his mouth. Biting Miles was to help Miles.

He refused to be horrified by what he’d done, but oh gods, what if it didn’t work? He sat there, holding the handkerchief to his neck for a long time, too frightened to look beneath for fear that he’d find nothing but torn flesh.

11

(Man in Motion)

Every part of Miles was on fire. It was like when he’d been ten and had an allergic reaction to morphine, but instead of those painful prickles of a limb fallen asleep through his whole body, it was a dozen times that, like he was also trying to stand on the sleeping limb, and the limb was every inch of him.

He thought maybe he was trying to scream, but all that came out was a pitiful, tiny burble of sound. He hadn’t even managed to open his mouth.

“Miles?” That was Gavin’s voice. What was Gavin doing in hell? Dammit, why was Miles in hell? He’d always tried to be a good person. “Oh god, Miles, I’m so sorry. Please, no, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to...”

Was he crying? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t feel wet. He felt like he was being eaten alive from the inside. Maybe they were in a sci-fi movie and a monster would explode out of his chest in a moment.

---