Chapter 13 Bleeding Through
BLEEDING THROUGH
DANIEL
The cascade thundered over ancient rocks into a pool so clear you could count the stones at the bottom, mist rising in silver curtains that caught afternoon light and scattered it into rainbows.
Sacred ground, this place. One of the old spots where pack magic ran thickest, where the boundary between wolf and forest blurred into something neither quite recognized as separate.
Nate sat on a flat boulder at the pool's edge, bare feet dangling in water that had to be freezing this time of year. His rust-colored hair caught the mist, darkening at the ends, and his eyes were closed, face tilted toward the spray like he was listening to something only he could hear.
I made noise as I approached. Not because I needed to, but because sneaking up on someone with Nate's instincts seemed like a good way to end up wrapped in vines or worse. The forest liked him. Protected him. And I'd learned the hard way not to startle things the forest had claimed as its own.
Nate's eyes opened. Storm-gray, like his father's, but shot through with green now since the change. He didn't seem surprised to see me.
“Daniel.” He pulled his feet from the water, tucked them under him. “Evan's at the mill. If you're looking for him.”
“I know where Evan is.” I settled onto a neighboring boulder, close enough for conversation but far enough to give him space. “I was looking for you.”
That got his attention. His eyebrows rose, curiosity replacing the peaceful contemplation. “Should I be worried?”
“Depends. Have you done something that warrants worry?”
“Not today.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Give me time, though. Day's still young.”
I snorted despite myself. This was what I appreciated about Nate. No dancing around topics, no careful deference because I was Alpha. Just straight talk delivered with enough edge to keep things interesting.
“How are you settling into the fur?” I asked. “The shift getting easier?”
“Some days.” He flexed his hands, studied them like he was still getting used to seeing human fingers instead of claws.
“Other days I wake up and forget which shape I'm supposed to be in. Evan found me half-shifted in the shower last week. Fur from the waist down, human everything else.” He shuddered. “Not a good look.”
“It gets better. The first year is always rough.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” He picked up a stone, turned it over in his fingers. “Can I ask you something? Might be out of line.”
“Ask.”
“When you turned your mate, was it like this? This constant negotiation between two selves?”
I went still. Most people didn't ask about Claire. Didn't dare bring her up around me, like her name was a wound that would start bleeding again if touched. But Nate wasn't most people.
“Claire was born wolf,” I said quietly. “She never had to learn. It was just... who she was.”
“Oh.” Nate looked down at the stone. “I'm sorry. I didn't know.”
“You couldn't have.” I watched the waterfall for a moment, letting the thunder of it fill the silence.
“But to answer what you're really asking, yes.
The negotiation is normal. Human and wolf aren't meant to share space. They have different wants, different instincts, different ways of seeing the world. Learning to make them work together takes time.”
“How much time?”
“Depends on the person. Some wolves find balance within months. Others take years.” I met his eyes. “You've got something most new wolves don't, though. The forest already knew you before the bite. That connection, that recognition... it should help.”
Nate was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: “Evan was terrified. When he bit me. He thought he was killing me.”
“He was saving you.”
“I know. But he still carries the guilt.” Nate's voice went soft. “Like he violated something. Like the choice should have been mine to make, even though I was bleeding out and couldn't make any choice at all.”
“That's Evan. Always carrying weight that doesn't belong to him.” I rubbed my jaw, feeling the stubble there.
“Wonder where he learned that.”
“You're not subtle, are you?”
“Subtle is overrated.” Nate tossed the stone into the pool, watched ripples spread across the surface. “You want to know what I think? About you and my dad?”
I blinked. The subject change was so abrupt it took me a moment to catch up. “I wasn't aware there was a 'me and your dad.'”
“Please.” Nate rolled his eyes with the particular exasperation of someone who'd been watching adults fumble around each other for far too long. “The whole pack knows. Hell, the whole town probably knows. You two look at each other like you're starving and the other person is a seven-course meal.”
“That's... an image.”
“It's accurate.” He turned to face me fully, crossed his legs, settled into a posture that said this conversation was happening whether I liked it or not.
“My dad's been alone since my mom died. Really alone, in that way people get when they convince themselves they don't deserve anything good.
And you've been alone even longer. So why are you both being so stupid about this?”
“It's complicated.”
“It's really not.” Nate's voice went sharp. “You like him. He likes you. You're both consenting adults with no actual barriers except the ones you've built in your own heads. What's complicated about that?”
“He's grieving—”
“He's been grieving for a while now. At some point, grief becomes an excuse not to live.” Nate's expression softened slightly. “I loved my mom. I'll always love my mom. But she wouldn't want Dad to spend the rest of his life alone because he feels guilty about being happy.”
“What does Michael think about all this?” I asked carefully.
“I think he's scared. Scared of wanting something and losing it again. Scared of what it means to love someone who's not human.” Nate shrugged. “But I also think he's tired of being scared. He just needs someone to meet him halfway.”
“And you think that someone should be me.”
“I think you're the only one who could be.” Nate met my eyes, and there was something fierce in his expression. Something protective. “You see him, Daniel.”
I didn't have a response to that. Didn't have words for the complicated knot of want and fear that had been living in my chest for months.
“I'm not trying to pressure you,” Nate continued. “I just... I want him to be happy. He deserves to be happy. And watching you two dance around each other like teenagers at prom is getting painful.”
“Painful for who?”
“Everyone. Literally everyone.” He grinned, and suddenly he looked younger. More like the boy Evan had fallen for and less like the wolf-druid who'd helped kill a corrupted Alpha. “Jonah has a betting pool going. On which one of you breaks first.”
“Of course he does.”
“Sienna's got fifty on my dad. Says humans crack faster. But I've got money on you.” His grin widened. “Wolves are more impulsive. One of these days you're going to stop thinking and just do something about it.”
“You seem very invested in your father's love life.”
“I'm invested in my father being happy.” The humor faded from Nate's expression, replaced by something more serious.
“He spent twenty years making sure I had everything I needed.
Putting his own wants aside, working himself to exhaustion, never asking for anything in return.
I just want him to have something that's his. Something good.”
The confession was raw. Honest in a way that made my chest tight.
“He raised a good man,” I said quietly. “Whatever else happens, he should know that.”
“He knows. I tell him.” Nate smiled, soft and fond. “But it wouldn't hurt if you told him too.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the waterfall thunder, feeling the mist settle on our skin. The forest breathed around us, patient and watchful, and I could feel Nate's connection to it like a second heartbeat. Strong. Getting stronger every day.
“Are you going to turn my dad? If you two... if this becomes real. Would you bite him? Make him pack in blood as well as bond?”
The question knocked the breath out of me.
“That's not a decision I'd make alone,” I said slowly. “That would be Michael's choice. His body, his life, his future.”
“But would you want to? If he asked?”
I thought about it, because Nate deserved more than a reflexive answer. Thought about Michael running through the forest beside me, four legs instead of two. Thought about pack bonds strengthening to include him fully, about never having to worry about human fragility in a world built for wolves.
Thought about what it would mean to claim him that completely.
“Yes,” I admitted. “If he wanted it. If he truly wanted it, knowing everything it meant, I would.”
Nate nodded slowly. “I thought so.” He stood, stretched, bones popping in ways that were slightly louder than they should be. Wolf physiology bleeding through. “He might ask, you know. Eventually. Once he figures out what he wants.”
“And what do you think he wants?”
“I think he wants to belong somewhere.” Nate's eyes met mine, and there was wolf in them now. Gold flickering at the edges of gray-green. “I think he wants a family again. And I think he's starting to realize that family doesn't have to look the way he expected.”
Before I could respond, he cocked his head. Listening to something I couldn't hear.
“The forest is restless,” he said. “Has been all day.”
I opened my senses, let my wolf rise enough to sharpen awareness. And underneath the normal pulse of territory and pack bonds, I felt it. A tremor. A wrongness. Like a tooth loose in its socket, not quite ready to fall but nowhere near secure.
“The wards,” I said. “Something's off with the wards.”
“Yeah.” Nate's expression went serious. “I felt it this morning. Thought I was imagining things, but it's getting stronger. Like something's pressing against the boundaries.”
“We should check the perimeter. Before dark.”