Page 57 of Wolf Reborn

Miles wasn’t looking at her, too busy crossing the room to curl himself into Gavin’s side. His adrenaline was crashing, and while he ought to be calling in what he’d found to the station, he didn’t have the mental energy. He had no idea how he was going to explain it—though he expected the answer was going to be that there had been a break in, but there was no one there anymore. It would be written off since the property damage was minimal, and the “perpetrator” would never be seen again.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Gwen said, then bit her lip and cocked her head. “But you’ve changed completely. It’s strange.”

Seemingly at random, Gavin looked around the room and huffed. “You should come back to the house with Miles, Lyndon, and me. No one should live in this mausoleum.”

She let go of her lip, a soft smile crossing her face, and nodded. “I’d like that a lot.”

Lyndon appeared in the mouth of the hall, looking tiny in a plain white T-shirt, sweatpants rolled up repeatedly, and white tube socks that probably went halfway up his thighs. His long blond hair was messy, covering one eye in a practiced way. This was a child well versed in looking small.

“I’m sorry I almost killed the alpha mate,” he said, voice tiny and tear-filled, then added, “Twice.”

Gavin cocked his head. “Twice?”

“The bear,” Miles answered, then took a guess that had been rattling around in his mind. “And before. Last month in the blizzard. He ran out in front of my car.”

Gavin sighed, more a release of air than frustration, but Lyndon flinched. He looked up at the boy. “Why didn’t you come to us?”

“I was looking. I found this place, but it wasn’t quite right. But then I almost killed the alpha mate, and why would you want me after that?” His voice held the same whine the pup had been giving as he had cringed away from Gavin.

Gavin leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “Lyndon, that was an accident. You didn’t do anything wrong. You weren’t trying to hurt Miles, were you?”

Miles noted, with smug self-satisfaction, that Gavin hadn’t disagreed that he was the alpha mate. But he wasn’t preening.

Much.

Lyndon shook his head vehemently, so much so that Miles worried he was going to hurt himself. “I would never, alpha—”

“Gavin,” Gavin corrected. “The pack doesn’t call me alpha unless they want to. We’re not like that.”

“But—I can? You’ll be—” The boy broke off and bit his lip, eyes huge and watering threateningly.

“I talked to the triumvirate in charge of your pack just after you disappeared.” The boy cringed at Gavin’s words, obviously convinced they meant he would have to return. “They were sorry about the way you’ve been treated in California, and they agreed that if you came here, we’d discuss the option of you moving to Kismet.”

Without another word, the boy launched himself at Gavin, sobbing into his neck and muttering “alpha” and “sorry” and “thank you” over and over again. It said something about how worried he was that Gavin didn’t even cringe at the alpha part of the chant.

Gwen stood abruptly. “Well then. I think it’s time we all vacated this museum to our pitiful childhood, Gabby. You’ve found something better, and it’s damn well time you shared it with your little sister and her houseguest.”

Gavin’s grin in return was blinding.

30

Daydream Believer

“Come on, Miles,” Lyndon whined from the passenger seat of his new cruiser.

When the snow had melted away, what had been left of the old one hadn’t been pretty. The station counted themselves lucky they hadn’t lost him too, the sheriff reminded him he worked too hard and needed to stop when he got tired, or when the snow was coming down too hard, and everyone had moved on.

Well, and he’d gotten a new car. It was pretty nice, and he was parking it carefully, dammit, however much of a hurry Lyndon was in.

“You’ll understand when you learn to parallel park,” Miles told the boy, though that time was thankfully a long way off. Lyndon didn’t have the patience to watch an entire episode of a television show without wandering off yet. Driving was out of the question.

Lyndon sighed and bounced up and down in his seat impatiently as Miles finished parking, but the second the car was off, he jerked off his seatbelt, threw himself out the door, and ran into the shop.

Thank goodness Miles hadn’t been forced to park across the street. No way he’d have looked both ways before running off.

At a much more sedate pace, he got out, locked the car, and headed in. It wasn’t that he was unexcited; he just didn’t want to look like an overeager nine-year-old.

Lyndon was already standing at the counter, waving the envelope around like it was a holy object and deserved all the attention in the store.

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