Page 56 of Wolf Reborn

Given his own week of avoidance, Miles was impressed with how quickly Gwen had processed the information and simply accepted it. Miles felt a little less intelligent, in fact, for not having figured everything out sooner.

Gavin kicked him with one outstretched hind leg.

Gwen looked up at him, at them, and frowned. “You should, um, do whatever you did. To be two-legged Gavin again. I kind of get what’s going on, but I’m really going to need you to explain it.”

Sawyer stuck his head out the back door then, smiling amiably. “Dez and I are just going to pop over to the hardware store and grab a replacement front door, cool?”

Gavin nodded, and Sawyer stopped and stared at him. “Whoa. Um”—he turned his head to bare a surprising amount of neck, and mumbled—“alpha.”

A moment after he disappeared back into the house, Gwen looked down at Gavin’s phone in her hand. “Sawyer says, ‘We’ll bring pants for everyone.’ Was that Sawyer?”

“It was,” Miles agreed. “That was Sawyer. Dez is his boyfriend. Dez is good with his hands—he’ll have that door fixed right up.”

The pup whimpered again, and Miles reached out absently to scratch his head. “The kiddo here will apologize for the damage and for scaring you when he’s got the vocal cords for it again, but he didn’t mean any harm. He must have just been looking for a place that smelled like Gavin.”

She looked at Gavin, then the pup, and her expression turned to pure sympathy. She leaned down and whispered into the pup’s ear, “When he left home after college, I stole his aftershave because it reminded me of him.” The pup gave a little whine but licked her cheek, and she grinned at him. “And you. Are my brother’s boyfriend. Why didn’t you say anything when I came into the station?”

Miles winced. He’d known he would have to address it at some point, but he hadn’t much wanted to.

Apparently, Gavin decided he still didn’t have to. He huffed and circled around his sister, opening the back door with his teeth and a paw like he’d been turning into a wolf his whole life.

“I guess Gavin wants to get the kid warm,” he said, holding his hand out for Gwen to precede him. Her “you’re not fooling me by dodging my question” face was disturbingly similar to Gavin’s. So as he followed her in, he sighed. “I didn’t know anything about Gavin’s family. We haven’t been together all that long, and—”

“Almost nine months,” Gavin’s voice called from the living room. “You know me, Gwen. You know the Lloyd communication skills.”

“I’ve got ’em,” she agreed. “You never mentioned me, and you were tight-lipped about your whole family, so he was worried we’d had a falling out. He didn’t want to make me uncomfortable and you unhappy, so he kept his mouth shut.”

“I take it there wasn’t a falling out?” Miles asked as he followed along.

Gwen scoffed and put a hand on his shoulder, then looked stunned at herself and snatched it away. “There was a falling out all right,” she said, looking at her hand like it might explain the out-of-character behavior of touching a stranger. Miles guessed he could explain it, what with her—apparently beloved—brother being a powerful alpha werewolf. “Gavin and our father. Mother would never do anything as emotional as argue, so she’s still pretending that Gavin’s gonna come home one day, apologize for his behavior, and sit down to Sunday dinner.”

Gavin was sitting on the sofa, a black throw-blanket wrapped around himself, holding the pup in his lap and scratching his head. The kid was clearly in heaven. Miles knew the feeling, and he was a little jealous. Gavin gave one last scratch and set the kid down on the floor. “That means there’ll be clothes in my room. I’m sure you know which one it is. Go ahead and take what you need, get dressed, and come on back.”

The pup hesitated, hanging his head and whining, but Gavin shushed him and patted him on the butt. “You’re not in trouble, Lyndon. Go on.”

“Lyndon,” Miles hissed. When the pup hesitated and cast him a nervous glance, he rubbed the back of his neck and offered a wry smile. “I’m sorry. I forgot your name. Was trying to think of what it was so I could ask you to stop running, but I couldn’t remember.”

Lyndon looked at Miles, then at Gavin, eyes wide and confused, then ran off toward the bedrooms in the back.

“So you’re a werewolf,” Gwen said, matter of fact and not at all hysterical. “How long has that been a thing?”

“Just under a year,” Gavin answered, equally as calm and blank-faced.

She lowered herself into a chair across from him, a high-backed leather thing. “You’re gonna have to give me a minute to process this, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Werewolves.”

Gavin nodded.

“A real thing.”

“You want me to shift back?”

She snorted and waved him off. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re Gavin. You wouldn’t lie to me about that.”

He shrugged but leaned back into the couch and crossed his ankles, then reached a hand out to Miles. “I wouldn’t, but I could have changed. You don’t have to trust me.”

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