Page 22 of Wolf Reborn

But why?

He tried to remember—

The road. His car. He’d crashed his car.

Was this what dying felt like?

There was a firm pressure on his neck, and that spot stopped hurting first. The muscles of his neck unclenched, and the back of his head hit something soft. Then the lack of pain flowed like a wave through his body, slow, languorous, and he could have had an orgasm just from the sensation of fading pain.

Maybe Miles was a little kinkier than he’d ever thought, if a simple lack of pain was going to do it for him.

He became aware, very suddenly, that the pressure on his neck was a hand.

Gavin’s hand, something in the back of his head told him. But that was silly, how could he know that? He had heard Gavin’s voice. It was an extension of that—a presumption of knowledge based on common sense.

Alpha, the same voice told him.Gavin. Alpha is distressed. Fix it.

He forced his eyes open, half expecting the pain to return, but nothing like that happened. If anything, the lingering traces of its memory washed away at the sight of Gavin’s perfect green eyes, wet and worried, for him.

Miles had always been happy to see Gavin. Sometimes irrationally so, like he could float away at the tiniest crumb of attention from him. This was the same, but in stereo.

He was happy to see Gavin,andhe was happy to see Gavin. There weren’t two of him, or a voice in his ear, but everything was bigger, stronger, and just... more.

He sucked in a deep breath, and his lungs expanded with ease. He stretched his shoulders, his arms, his legs, searching for any hint of pain, or in fact, any hint of why he’d even been in pain, and found nothing.

In fact, he felt like he’d just woken up five years younger and full of energy.Energy to fix the alpha’s worry, his brain supplied.

And what the fuck was the alpha?

Gavin pulled his hand away from Miles’s neck, and he wanted to snatch it back, keep it for himself.

In that hand, Gavin had a handkerchief—a bloody one—and that was odd. It had always been odd enough that Gavin carried a handkerchief like a 1940s movie hero, but blood?

Miles felt for his own neck, and all he found—well, it was odd. He thought all indication of Gavin chewing on his neck had gone away over the course of the intervening week, but there were the tiny indentations of Gavin’s teeth under his fingers.

They were slightly tender, like Gavin had bitten him again while he was...

Oh.

Gavin had bitten him on the neck while he was unconscious.

He must have been dying.

And now he wasn’t. And because Gavin could do self-loathing and self-sacrifice like no one else, he was beating himself up for making a snap decision when Miles wasn’t capable of consenting.

Miles would have to show him some consent, he decided. It had nothing to do with the extra energy crawling through his limbs or the nearly desperate need to please Gavin—not that that feeling was entirely new—but about what Miles wanted.

And since the euphoric feeling of pain fading away had left him, all Miles wanted—

What Miles wanted was what he always wanted: Gavin.

Wordlessly, he pushed up and almost fell across Gavin’s lap, his limbs as awkward and useless as when he’d been a teenager just growing into them. He took a quick look around and realized he had no idea where he was, but almost immediately, his attention strayed back to Gavin.

Beautiful, strong, powerful Gavin.

He smiled down at Gavin, who still looked worried sick. That couldn’t happen. He gave him a peck on the lips.

The expression didn’t go away.

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