Chapter 17 Theodore #2
Rory’s face twisted. Clearly he still didn’t want me to see him all inside out.
“I’ll close my eyes,” I promised, letting my eyelids fall shut.
“Hold Freddy for a second.”
Something cold and wriggling was thrust against my chest. Great.
The air grew hushed, broken only by soft grunts of effort.
Then pain exploded through my body—muscles screaming as if they were being torn apart and rebuilt, bones feeling like they were snapping and reforming.
I gasped, dropping Freddy as I pressed my hands to my ribs, my spine, anywhere the agony seemed most intense.
Christ, is this what Rory goes through every time?
But more importantly, what the fuck is happening here?
The pain faded as suddenly as it had arrived. I inhaled sharply, opening my eyes.
Wolf-Rory gazed up at me with those same blue-green eyes, now gloriously larger in his lupine face. For a moment, I couldn’t tear my eyes off his coat—it was such a rich tapestry of golds—from pale champagne along his belly to deeper amber across his shoulders and back.
Two silver hoops still glinted in his left ear. I reached down instinctively, stroking the soft fur of his muzzle.
“That felt painful.”
Rory simply yelped, already wiggling out of my grip and bounding towards a nearby rock. Freddy launched himself onto Rory’s head, clinging to the thick fur with tiny claws.
Rory’s nose dropped to the ground, working methodically across the terrain.
His movements were fluid, purposeful—following some invisible trail that only he could detect.
We moved deeper into the thicket, Rory weaving between trees.
Finally, he stopped at the huge stone wall, his attention focused on a gap near the base—a hole just large enough for a person to crawl through.
“This must be where Priya and Felix snuck through,” I said, eyeing it. Would I be able to fit?
There was only one way to find out.
I threw my rucksack to the ground to toss through, then fell to my knees before Rory could dash through the gap and leave me behind.
I squeezed through the gap in the stone wall, my jacket catching on jagged edges as I scraped my way to the other side.
Freddy scampered through, his tiny paws pattering against the ground, followed immediately by Rory. Then they were off again, Rory’s nose pressed to the earth.
He moved so bloody fast I had to break into a light jog just to keep pace with him, my breathing already becoming laboured in the Highland air.
“Christ, Rory, I’m going to have to put a collar on you at this rate,” I muttered under my breath.
A sound that could only be described as a wolf’s laugh burst from Rory’s throat—a huffing, almost wheezing noise that was utterly ridiculous and entirely endearing. Contentment poured out of him like warm honey, and he veered towards me, nuzzling against my legs with his massive head.
For one mad moment, I had a vision of myself walking him through Hyde Park on a lead, tourists stopping to photograph the “unusually large dog.”
The moment of levity shattered as Rory’s behaviour shifted dramatically. His entire body went rigid—then he started dashing ahead in short bursts, then stopping abruptly to look back at me with urgent eyes.
“What is it?”
He took off again, and this time I didn’t bother trying to walk. I broke into a proper run, keeping pace alongside him as we moved through the heather and gorse.
We emerged into a wide, open patch of Highland moorland, the landscape spreading before us under the moonlight. That’s when I saw it—a dark shape on the ground about fifty metres ahead. A body, face up.
Rory zoomed off like a rocket.
“Rory!” I shouted, but there was no stopping him.
I sprinted after him, my lungs burning as I closed the distance. As I got closer, details became clearer—tall frame, brown skin, a face that could have graced magazine covers with its sharp cheekbones and perfect symmetry. Yes, this was definitely Dev.
I felt rather than saw Rory beginning to shift back, and squeezed my eyes shut as that same excruciating pain tore through my body again. I kept my eyes clamped closed until the agony faded, leaving only the sound of ragged breathing.
When I opened them, Rory crouched naked beside Dev’s still form, Freddy on his shoulder, his hands hovering uncertainly over his ex-boyfriend’s chest. Part of me hung back, watching this reunion with a churning mixture of relief and something darker.
What if this turned into some Sleeping Beauty situation?
What if Dev woke up, saw Rory, and pulled him into a passionate kiss whilst I stood there like a spare part?
For fuck’s sake, Theodore, I chastised myself. There’s an unconscious man on the ground.
I moved forward, dropping to my knees beside Dev to check for signs of life and put him in the recovery position. The professional thing to do.
Pressing two fingers against Dev’s neck, I searched for a pulse. There—faint but steady. His breathing was shallow but regular. What was he doing out here? How long had he been unconscious?
“Dev?” Rory’s voice cracked with emotion. “Dev, can you hear me?”
Without warning, Dev’s eyes snapped open—not the gentle awakening of someone returning to consciousness, but the violent alertness of a predator.
His hand shot out with inhuman speed, fingers wrapping around Rory’s throat as he launched himself upright and hauled Rory off the ground entirely, Rory’s feet kicking uselessly in the air as his hands scrabbled desperately at the iron grip.
What the actual—
Freddy launched himself from Rory’s shoulder with a furious chittering battle cry, tiny claws extended as he went for Dev’s eyes in a kamikaze dive.
Dev’s free hand shot out, catching the ferret by his tail mid-flight and flinging him through the air like a discarded toy.
Freddy’s pained squeak echoed across the moorland as he disappeared into the darkness.
“Dev,” Rory managed to choke out, around a strangled wheeze.
Molten fury boiled within me.
We might have found Devraj Bassi alive, but he wasn’t going to remain alive for very long at this rate.
“Get your hands off him!” I roared, reaching to fist his grey jumper. “Now!”
Dev turned towards me with cold, empty eyes that held no recognition, no humanity. His free hand slammed into my chest with the force of a sledgehammer, ribs creaking under the impact as I was lifted clean off my feet.
The world became a sickening carousel of sky and earth as I flew backwards through the air: sky and earth trading places, stars scattering like broken glass.
Time stretched like toffee—the moon spinning overhead, the distant lights of the village wheeling past my vision, the ground rushing up to meet me with malicious intent.
I crashed down hard, shoulder blades slamming into the unforgiving moorland with a bone-jarring impact that drove the air from my lungs.
My skull connected with something sharp and jagged—a half-buried stone.
Pain exploded through my head like a firework, white-hot and blinding, as warmth began trickling down my neck in sticky rivulets.
Through the haze of concussion and rage, I sensed rather than saw Rory’s transformation beginning—the agony of his shift tearing through my own nervous system like shared lightning as fury poured off him in waves so intense they made my teeth ache.
I tried to push myself upright, but my arms wouldn’t cooperate properly—everything felt disconnected, like my brain was sending signals through treacle.
Through the ringing in my ears and the pounding in my skull, sounds filtered through the haze. Then, a low, rumbling snarl that raised every hair on my body.
Please, please don’t let him get himself killed.
A sudden thud echoed across the moorland—bodies colliding with brutal force. Then another. The wet slap of flesh meeting flesh, accompanied by grunts of effort and the dull crack of bone against bone.
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision enough to see what was happening. Shadows moved in the moonlight, a violent dance of tooth and claw that my concussed brain couldn’t quite process.
A sharp yelp of pain cut through the night—unmistakably Rory. The sound stole what little breath I had, more agonising than my own injuries. I tried again to force myself upright, but the world tilted sickeningly, bile rising in my throat.
Get up, you useless bastard. Get up and help him.
More sounds now—the wet, tearing noise of claws ripping through fabric and flesh.
A horrible whining whimper. My own helplessness pressed down on me like a weight, every instinct screaming at me to move, to act, to do something other than lie here bleeding into the heather whilst Rory fought for his life.
The violence reached a crescendo—a final, bone-deep growl that spoke of triumph or defeat, I couldn’t tell which.
Footsteps followed—the heavy thud of human feet pounding against the earth. Running. The sound grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared entirely into the night, leaving only the whisper of wind through the gorse and my own ragged breathing.
Rory?
I tried to call his name, but only managed a hoarse croak that barely carried beyond my own lips.
When my vision finally cleared enough to focus properly, Dev was gone, swallowed by the darkness as if he’d never been there at all. Rory knelt beside me in human form, naked and shaking, blood coating his lips and chin in a crimson smear that looked black in the moonlight.
“Shouldn’t you… be chasing after him?” I managed to say. “We’ll lose him again.”
…God, what little he thinks of me…as if I’d just leave him here like this…
Oh.
“Hey,” I managed, reaching up to cup his face. “Come here, baby.”