16. Carnage vs. Milo
Carnage vs. Milo
Rowan
Milo’s hand in mine as we walk across the city is cold and small. Squeezing our threaded fingers, I guide him to a stop to wait for a break in the traffic—the school run is in full swing, and it seems like every road we cross has nose-to-tail queues.
His shoulder nudges into mine; he doesn’t want anything, his gaze focused on some far-off point in the middle distance, but I look his way regardless.
That same vacant expression and glassy-eyed stare has been in place ever since we left the coffee shop. Like a mask, it hides how fast his mind is working to process what just happened, and I have no doubt at all that if I let go of his hand, he’d walk straight into the heavy suburban traffic.
Suppressing the urge to wrap my arm around him and draw him closer for protection, I encourage my wolf forward to check again on Milo’s emotions.
I tell myself it’s field-medic protocol—I can’t have a witch going into shock in the middle of a densely populated neighbourhood that’s swarming with young families—but it’s not just that. Not really. I need to know he’s okay.
His crisp apple scent is much stronger now.
The acute stress of this last attack has boosted his natural fragrance over the minty aroma of his shower products.
Ignoring that, I push deeper through his layers to where confusion, fear, determination, awe, and overwhelm—mostly overwhelm—all take turns churning like horses on a merry-go-round at a fair.
Each is equal in size, colour, shape, and speed to the others, and while they loop around in a dizzying array, his body can only move on autopilot.
Exhaling heavily, I check the map on my phone as we cross the road and walk west. Milo’s house should be just a little further along… There!
The large, white-painted Victorian-era home has seen better days. Its gate is permanently open, held in place and half overgrown by some kind of weed, which also grows between the paving flags that form a path to the front door.
I steer Milo between the potentially hazardous lanky sprouts, up the wooden steps that creak under our combined weight, and turn the patinated brass doorknob. Locked.
“Milo?” I call softly.
He hums in recognition of his name, but that same thousand-yard stare remains in place.
“Pup,” I try again, using a firmer tone. “Do you have your keys?”
He blinks once, twice, three times, then tilts his head in apparent confusion. “Keys?”
“Aye, keys. For the door.” I gesture at it with my other hand, in case he somehow missed it.
“Oh, keys. Yeah, of course.” Milo retracts his hand from inside mine to pat down his pockets, then freezes.
Quizzically, he turns his hand over—the same one I’ve been holding for the last forty-five minutes—as if its existence is brand new.
Rainbow-grey eyes flick up to meet mine, and a dusky blush mists his high cheeks, then he angles his face down at the worn wood beneath our feet and his long lashes obscure my view.
He busies himself with checking his jacket pockets, then produces a long white cable—that I recognise to be the charger he swindled from the barista—and his phone.
“I, erm…” He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and worries at it, then turns both hands palm up as if this is an adequate substitution for the words, “I don’t have my keys.”
Nodding my understanding, I turn back to the wide front door.
Its chipped and peeling paint exposes over a century of comings and goings, and I wonder how many times someone might have jimmied it open before me.
With a quick glance about the street, I stoop slightly to access the pocket on my mid-thigh where I keep a small multi-tool.
Before I can flick it open, Milo steps forward, braces his palm on the underside of the doorknob, and gives a short, sharp shove with his shoulder. Just like that, the door unlocks. The weight of my brow creasing as it lowers dims my view of the entrance lobby beyond. That is not at all safe.
Without so much as a backward glance, Milo passes the antique table strewn with small parcels and junk mail, ignores the wall-mounted cubbies stuffed with letters stamped red for urgent, and climbs the dark steps up to the next floor two at a time.
His long legs, encased in heavy boots, are surprisingly light as he ascends, but I’m both burlier and heavier than Milo, and the aged staircase groans in protest when I follow behind him.
The first floor is no better lit than the downstairs, the only difference being that the ground floor benefits from the decorative glass panels set into the door. I look up at the light fitting, but of the three heads on the ornate fixture, there’s only one bulb—that’s obviously broken.
A little further down the hall, beyond two doors that must belong to different occupants, Milo stands shrouded in the darkness.
In his grey jeans and black leather jacket, only the silvery white of his hair gives his position away.
Motionless, he stares at this door almost exactly the way he did with the front door—head slightly tilted and with his lip pulled between his bottom teeth.
Ah. Clearly he expected the door to still be open, but he doesn’t know I sent Guardian and the others here after lunch. I scan the door frame, but the header doesn’t protrude far enough for Guardian to have hidden the key there.
My gaze lands on the hall table buried beneath a layer of takeout leaflets and grocery store coupon sheets.
The vase of dust-covered fake flowers is just off-centre, exposing a crescent-shaped ring of highly polished wood around its base.
Smiling to myself, I lift the vase to retrieve Milo’s house key and then use it to let us both inside.
Something obstructs the space behind the door, but Milo—with unseeing eyes—pushes his way in regardless.
Stepping over a fallen chair, his boots crunch on what looks like spilled salt and chips of pottery from a broken plate.
Milo makes it to a tiny patch of bare floor, then once again stands perfectly still.
Softly, without taking my eyes from Milo, I close his door behind me. Guardian’s earlier message used the word carnage, and yet I’m entirely unprepared for the state of the place.
If my job has taught me anything it’s that everyone handles a traumatic event differently. They also handle their first time witnessing a violent werewolf differently, and I don’t know Milo well enough to predict what support he might need from me.
He blinks, and the last of the sun’s rays that stream through the window above his bed glint from his eyebrow piercing.
“What…?” he asks, as if he’s just realised he’s home.
Keeping my voice low, I give him a clear instruction and a simple explanation all rolled into one. “I want ye to pack a bag of yer things—enough for a couple of weeks. I don’t know yet when it’ll next be safe to let ye come back here.”
Milo nods. Then shakes his head—no. Pulling that lip back between his teeth again, he nods once more.
“Sit, Pup.” I tell him, allowing a little alpha command to slip through this time.
Milo releases his lip in favour of scowling.
Ignoring him, I take a large step over a creased hoodie and a half-eaten croissant to right the fallen chair. Thankfully, he sits without further prompting, and I squat down in front of him.
“I can pack it for ye, if ye can tell me where things are?”
“Am I coming back with you? To the house? With the Dogs?” Milo’s eyes, wide and earnest, scan my face.
I give a curt nod, mildly irritated by the insinuation that after what just happened I’d have him anywhere other than under my direct care. Taking a deep breath, I aim to settle us both. “It can be a lot, the first time ye see a wolf-out…”
Milo snorts. “Is that actually what it’s called?”
The corner of my mouth tugs upward into a small smile. “Naw, but it’s pretty accurate.” His returning smile changes the aspect of his whole face, and something about it settles my wolf. “Are ye hurt, Milo?”
He cocks his head sideways, a puzzled expression replacing the tentative humour of a moment ago. “No, but you are.”
Milo reaches forward and takes my hands from where they dangle casually between my knees. The blood on them has dried now, and he turns them over to freely examine them. I can’t help but notice how much larger and rougher than his they are.
“Not my blood, Pup, but yer concern is noted.”
Milo blushes, yet he takes the time to lower my hands gently back down.
With his gaze fixed firmly upon them, he opens his mouth as if to ask something, then closes it again.
My encouragement for whatever he wants to know is on the tip of my tongue, when he stumbles over asking, “I, erm… I don’t even know your real name, but I’m pretty sure you just saved my life. ”
His blush deepens, and I find myself hesitating to answer just so I can watch it spread across his high cheekbones.
“Rowan.” I clear my throat. “Rowan Rangecroft.”
“Ranger…” he muses out loud.
Nodding, I drop out of a squat and onto my arse to be more comfortable, then lean to one side to pull free the hoodie from beneath me. I hand it to Milo.
“What ye did back there, the way ye held yer ground and got him talking, that was really brave. And really stupid.”
Milo’s bitten lip drops as he pulls in a shocked breath.
“Ye had no idea I’d followed ye,” I press. The nervousness I’d suppressed bubbles up now I have him somewhere safe. Safer, at least. “How were ye planning on getting out of there?”
Milo straightens defensively, discards the hoodie into his lap, and folds his arms across his chest.
“Thank ye, Milo, for figurin’ out what we obviously couldn’t,” he snarks. “You’re welcome, mister Mad Dog, sir.”
That god-awful Scottish accent pulls a loud and booming laugh from deep in my gut. This witch is a different breed entirely. There’s just something about him. He isn’t acting at all how I expected; he’s acting like… like a Dog.
“Alright.” I nod. “Thank ye, Milo Tobitt—powerful warlock—for uncovering not only exactly what the Luna del Lupo does, but also the scope of the threat against General Romulus.”
Stating that out loud has a sobering effect. Operation Magpie isn’t just about eliminating the threat toward the General, but about preventing harm coming to all Romulan Wolves.
Images and memories of my family—of Ben, Raina and the twins, Mum and Dad, even Riley—fill my mind’s eye. Does the General know?
I resist the urge to scoff at the incredulity of my own thoughts. Of course he does, it involves his brother. He remembers exactly what he did, and what the Luna del Lupo does. Bear’s hunch was right.
“Milo?” I allow my wolf forward so I can monitor his vitals. “We did ask ye, repeatedly, if ye knew about the trinket. Ye swore us up and down ye didn’t. So why’d that guy say that ye have it on ye?”
The crinkle at the corner of his eyes drops, but his heart rate remains steady. “I don’t know,” he exhales. “Truthfully. Time Guy is the first to tell me that.”
He drops his gaze to the hoodie in his lap and pulls at the drawstrings that looks suspiciously chewed.
Despite his fiddling, he’s being truthful. If Milo is in possession of the Luna del Lupo, then he genuinely doesn’t know what it is. And that makes the stakes of this mission even more dangerous.
“He’s not going to stop, is he? Time Guy?” Milo lifts his gaze from his knees to meet mine, and from under dark lashes his grey eyes remind me of the winter sea back home—powerful, and deadly if you misjudge it.
“He’s not,” I confirm. This time it’s my turn to take his hands and fold them gently inside mine. “But whatever this trinket is, it protects ye from his magic, and—if ye noticed—without that, he bleeds just like everyone else.”
Milo nods in acknowledgment of my words, but it lacks all his usual pep. I squeeze his hands, as if it might transfer some energy into him. “Besides, yer under my protection now, remember?”
“Neeps and tatties,” he says quietly, his lips curving into a small smile.
“Neeps and tatties.”
If you’d have told me even a day ago, that one chaotic witch would become the key to survival for the entire Romulan Bloodline, I’d have assumed Tuesday had gotten access to the water supply and laced it.
But as I sit here now, watching Milo watch me, I’m surprised to realise that I’m not mad about it.
Without him, we’d be in a much worse position.
Releasing his hands, I push to a stand, and dust chalk and salt from the backs of my thighs. “So, we need to get ye a bag packed…”
Suddenly, Milo stands too, almost slipping over on a discarded Sharpie. “That’s okay, it’ll be easier to do it myself.”
Morbidly fascinated, I watch Milo precisely select half-buried items as if he can recognise them by the tiniest corner that pokes out from under something else.
I hide a bemused smile behind my hand, and scratch through my short beard.
Something tells me this carnage is less breaking and entering, and more Milo.