Chapter 5
chapter
five
Alexander pulled his jawbone knife out, cursing himself for not bringing a crossbow. He needed to look up how to make a concealed one that he could strap to his wrist and would slide out when he pushed a button. He’d been watching YouTube tutorials, but hadn’t gotten around to constructing one.
A groan rattled through Tobias’s clenched teeth, bringing Alexander back to the situation at hand: parking lot.
Transforming werewolf. A knife which would likely only anger Tobias, not neutralize the threat.
Even if he could take Tobias down, Alexander didn’t want to stab Tobias to death behind a sports goods store.
Maybe it was the lingering attachment from when Tobias was Hot Scar Guy, but Alexander didn’t want anything bad to happen to him unless it absolutely had to.
Tobias’s head snapped up. His eyes were yellow, but only faintly. A spark compared to the glow Alexander had seen in the arena.
“He’s toying with me! Making it sssss—” Tobias bared his teeth, which were getting sharper by the second. “Sssslow. We have a few minutes, but you gotta box me in.”
Alexander grimaced. He’d never seen a full transformation before. It looked incredibly painful.
He crouched down beside Tobias, dangerously close to his growing paws. “Can you walk? I can get us to your apartment.”
Tobias said something gabbled. His face was bulging out, mouth turning into a snout. But Alexander thought he caught the words ‘so forward.’
His mother’s voice ran through his head, reminding him to never get close to a wolf once they had transformed.
Not transformed yet, Alexander told her.
“A few minutes until you turn,” he repeated. “You’re certain?”
“Yeth,” said Tobias, his tongue flattening mid-word.
Alexander sighed and sheathed his knife. “If you bite me—”
“Won’t,” Tobias insisted. There was a whine underneath it, low and oddly vulnerable in a way Alexander refused to examine.
Alexander stood, pulling Tobias’s arm over his good shoulder and ignoring the pain that raced through the other one. Tobias groaned, his head lolling against Alexander’s collarbone. His half-transformed nose brushed Alexander’s neck, and he shuddered.
“Ssshoulder,” Tobias managed. “Hurths?”
“It’s fine,” Alexander insisted, and started dragging.
Alexander was relieved Tobias lived on the second floor. Hauling a stumbling Tobias up one flight of stairs was difficult enough. Tobias wobbled as his legs became better suited to a quadruped.
“Almost,” Alexander said between gritted teeth as he shouldered Tobias’s front door open. “You just have to make it to the bathroom. There are bars on the windows, right? I can reinforce the door.”
Tobias made a string of unintelligible noises that might have sounded incredulous if Alexander ignored the pain in his voice.
Which he was trying very hard to do, but it was impossible with Tobias draped over him and shaking with agony.
He was obviously attempting to silence himself, but sounds kept ripping from behind his not-quite-fangs, spasms wracking his malformed body.
Several of his bones had snapped on their brief walk, the pain making Tobias yelp.
Despite the terror his body was being forced through, Tobias held himself together admirably.
Another thing Alexander was attempting to ignore.
He didn’t want to admire Tobias, even as he heaved him onto the bathroom floor and Tobias reached back to clutch his shirt, ruining the ironed material once again.
It took Tobias several tries to speak. But he managed it, slurring around his almost-fangs:
“Don’t let me hurt anyone.”
Alexander stared at those huge eyes, brown flecked with dangerous gold.
Monsters didn’t have a soul. But Tobias certainly acted like he did. Just like the vampires Alexander let go all those years before. Although by that stage, only one of them remained a vampire.
“I won’t,” Alexander promised softly.
Tobias stared up at him. He looked horrific: His jaw was dislocated into most of a snout, his lips stretched further than human lips were capable of.
His joints were stuck between human and wolf, one knee bending back and the other still clinging to its usual form.
Fur grew in strange patches over his face and arms. A bony tail bulged out the back of his jeans.
One of his ears was halfway up his head, elongated to a point.
His eyes were the most human thing about him. Other than the unnatural golden hue, they were still the same eyes that had crinkled with amusement when Alexander flirted with him over that spilled milkshake.
Alexander swallowed. He should’ve known that he didn’t get something as simple as a cute boy flirting with him. He wasn’t made for easy pleasures. He had a higher calling.
Tobias shuddered, dropping his hand from Alexander’s shirt. “Out.”
Alexander was already moving. He closed the door and heaved Tobias’s couch in front of it, forcing himself not to pay attention to the pained yells coming from the bathroom.
This was why they put monsters down, he reminded himself as he settled the couch in front of the door. Even the ones who meant well could go feral at any moment and hurt innocent bystanders. It was for their own good.
Alexander stood back and waited for the monstrous transformation to finish. For the last bones to snap and swell, pained yells to turn to roars, the door rattling as the wolf threw himself against it, no humanity in its howls.
Instead, the yells quietened. The bathroom went silent.
Alexander frowned. Was Tobias unconscious?
The silence stretched. Alexander leaned over the couch, pressing his ear cautiously against the bathroom door.
A voice echoed from the other side, far too close.
“Uh, Alex? You can let me out. False alarm.”
Alexander reeled back, confused. “What? Your bones were breaking!”
“Yeah, I know.” Tobias sighed, the noise long and exhausted. “They’re fine now.”
Alexander shoved the couch back into place and yanked the door open.
Tobias stepped out. His clothes were stretched, his skin pale and sweaty. He smiled wearily, his scar pulling around all his blunt teeth. “I really wish I’d remembered to go shopping. I’m starving.”
Alexander came back twenty minutes later with a bag of groceries and a scowl.
“You need to replace your electrolytes,” Alexander told him as he served microwaved rice, vegetables cooked from frozen, tinned salmon, and a glass of coconut water. “Among other things, I’m sure.”
Tobias nodded, eyeing the coconut water with a strange smile. He was sitting sideways on the couch, his socked feet pressing into Alexander’s thigh no matter how far away Alexander moved.
“I’ll pay you back for the groceries,” Tobias assured him.
“Don’t bother.” Alexander pushed Tobias’s socked feet away and asked, “Why would he only transform you halfway?”
“Like I said,” Tobias paused to take a mouthful of rice and fish. “Muzzle’s a dick.”
“Close your mouth when you chew,” Alexander told him.
Predictably, Tobias started chewing widely and obnoxiously. But before Alexander could scold him for it, he chewed sensibly again.
“Wasn’t just halfway,” he said, muffled through his next mouthful. “He kept me like that for a while, dude. Usually a transformation takes…what, a minute? Once it really kicks in, anyway. That fucker just dangled me there, letting me really feel it.”
Alexander winced despite himself. He’d felt the bones shifting unnaturally under Tobias’s skin as he helped him up to his apartment. It looked awful.
“Because he’s a dick?” he repeated.
“And he likes giving us reminders,” Tobias said darkly. “That the alpha can do whatever he wants. He pulls on my leash the most.”
“Because you’re…” Alexander paused. “Annoying?”
Tobias laughed so hard he almost choked. He thumped his chest, face red.
Alexander’s mouth twitched. He forced it flat. He had been trying to make a joke, a little bit. He often said things that he felt would be funny if the right person heard them. The problem was finding the right person.
“Get me some ice for that hot burn,” Tobias gasped, still giggling.
“Ouch, man. No, Muzzle wanted me to be…not his right-hand man, maybe. But more important in the pack. More active, you know? Going to shake people down or plant shit on his crime rivals, all that shady shit he gets up to. I refused. He did not like that.”
“That’s a big risk,” Alexander said slowly. He tried to imagine being in the same situation: work for the pack and be rewarded, or refuse and be punished? In any case, he wouldn’t have to deal with it. If he ever got turned into a monster, he would simply kill himself.
“You’re telling me.” Tobias took a large mouthful of coconut water, swishing it noisily in his mouth before swallowing.
“I spat on him once. He kept me feral for weeks, chained up in the barracks. I was skin and bone when he let me out.” He scraped the spoon along the bowl, not looking disturbed by this in the least.
“You must have been very dedicated,” Alexander said, reluctantly impressed. “To not give into him.”
“Hmm? Yeah, guess so.” Tobias looked away, scraping the bowl. “I think it’s why he let me live away from the pack. He couldn’t stand me pissing him off.”
Alexander bit his tongue, trying not to let the words out. They came anyway.
“That’s very brave,” he said. “Taking a stand for what you believe in, no matter the consequences.”
Tobias stopped scraping the bowl. “A compliment from Alexander White,” he said finally, clasping his chest over his stretched shirt. “Be still my lycan heart.”
“It’s not a compliment,” Alexander said, annoyed. “It’s a fact. It is brave. One could also say it’s stupid. You could get privileges if you went along.”
“Sure, if I do his dirty work. But I’d rather get the shit kicked out of me with this half-transformation bullshit,” Tobias said. He reached for the coconut water and downed the rest of the glass in two long swallows.