Page 14 of Wolf Reborn

Miles opened the bottle of tequila.

By the time noon rolled around, the tequila was half gone, and he was inspecting his neck in the mirror.

Gavin had left quite the hickey there, like an overzealous teenager trying to mark Miles up so everyone knew they were together. Or a werewolf who wanted everyone to know Miles was his territory.

Miles giggled and leaned his head against the mirror.

His territory.

Maybe he’d wanted to piss on Miles too. If so, Miles had bad news for him—he was all for juvenile marking, but he was never going to be into watersports.

There wasn’t a break in the skin.

He’d gone over it a dozen times, checking to be sure. At first, he’d been convinced he was afraid of the possibility. What if he turned into a monster on the next full moon and started mauling people?

Slowly, as he’d checked again and again, his mood growing darker and darker, he’d realized it was nothing like that. He wasn’t afraid of what he might do as a werewolf. He knew a bunch of werewolves, and knew they didn’t go around attacking innocent people every full moon.

No, it was so much more pathetic than that.

If Gavin had accidentally made him into a werewolf with all his mauling, he’d have had to accept Miles, wouldn’t he? No more three steps back days. No more “busy with family, maybe another time” days. No, if Gavin had accidentally turned Miles into a werewolf, then he was stuck with him, had to take care of him.

If Gavin had bitten him, he had to keep him.

But even on a full moon, a little wild and uncontrolled, Gavin had been in control enough to not trap himself with Miles permanently.

In a few days, the bruise would fade.

The feeling of Gavin’s hands on his skin was already gone, stripped away by the stress of the morning and the numbing effect of the alcohol.

And that was the end of it, right?

This was the new normal. This was Miles’s life without Gavin.

By five, the tequila bottle was empty, and Miles was asleep.

* * *

The unopened bottleof vodka taunted him the next few days, reminding him of why he’d bought it every time he walked past it into the kitchen.

He didn’t have a lot of time to think about werewolves and full moons and the feeling of being so unwanted that Gavin didn’t even bite him when he was out of control.

He didn’t think about it first thing when he woke and last before he went to sleep at night.

Nope.

No time at all.

How he made it through his work week, he had no idea. He accepted a few extra shifts, but the sheriff noticed at some point, and told him he needed to “scale back” on the extra hours, because he looked like hell.

Okay, so the sheriff was sixty and had actually said Miles was “looking a little peaked, son,” but it was the same thing.

Before he knew it, it was six days later, and Miles was looking at two days off in a row, neither of which he wanted.

The vodka bottle stared at him from its spot on the table.

* * *

What was he doing?

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