“He said something…” Sebastian hesitated, a nervous edge to his voice, and Viggo waited for him to articulate whatever it was he was struggling to say.
Viggo couldn’t imagine what Bjorn could havesaidthat would upset their new human. There were a million things he could imagine Bjorndoing– sitting on him, manhandling him, and even biting him – but words were not something he’d been worried about.
“What did he say?”
“I asked him why he needed to patrol the territory,” Sebastian mumbled, looking down at his lap. “After we’d been swimming. I was curious, you know?” He turned his head and looked up at Viggo, catching his eye for just a second before looking back down at his hands.
Viggo’s erection flagged, the topic of Bjorn’s feral state like a wet blanket on his libido.
“Sure,” Viggo said, very confused. He’d tried asking that question himself, a month after Bjorn went feral and his wolf started using single words to communicate, but his husband’s wolf had taken offense at the implication that he couldn’t handle himself and so Viggo had backed off without getting an answer. “Makes sense.”
Had he missed something?
“He said that he had to protect the territory from hunters.” Sebastian glanced up at him to see his reaction, but Viggo just nodded for him to continue. He had no idea where this was going. The next words out of Sebastian’s mouth, he sounded upset. “And I figured he was talking about poachers, or something like that, but he said they were werewolf hunters.”
Viggo scrunched his brow, the idea of werewolf hunters making about as much sense as a quiet full moon.
“Werewolf hunters?”
Sebastian must have misunderstood. Bjorn’s wolf, learning to use his words aside, wasn’t human. There were bound to be miscommunications.
“Bjorn said that they shot him, and that he killed them.” Sebastian spoke quickly, like he was ripping off a band-aid. “He showed me the bumps on his side where he said he’d been shot.”
Sebastian snapped his jaw shut with an audible click, his shoulders tense and his scent unhappy.
Viggo had no idea how to react. Bjorn told Sebastian that he’d beenshot? It wasn’t untrue – Bjorn had been shot once back when he was a cop – but that hadn’t left any scar, and certainly not bumps.
Werewolves didn’t get scars. Either they were injured to the point that they died – usually from blood loss or catastrophic damage to their internal organs – or they healed completely within a week.
There were no bumps involved.
As for the killing people thing, Viggo had no clue what Bjorn could have been talking about. He’d once taken a chunk out of the side of a beta who trespassed onto their territory during the full moon about five years ago, but the beta had been fine by the next week and his alpha had come to them and apologized in person for the offense.
“It sounds like Bjorn was mixing up several things that happened in the past,” Viggo finally said, after a too-long pause, choosing his words carefully. “He did attack a beta who trespassed onto our territory, a few years ago, and he was shot once back when he worked as a police officer, but that didn’t leave a scar.”
“It didn’t?”
“No. Werewolves don’t get scars.”
“What are those bumps on his side, then?” Sebastian pulled away and looked up at him. “It looked like he’d been hit by a shotgun.”
Viggo shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ll check him over when he comes home.”
Sebastian didn’t look convinced.
“He didn’t sound confused,” Sebastian said, not rejecting Viggo’s dismissal but not accepting it either. “He said that hunters came and shot him, and that he killed them. It wasn’t two separate stories.”
As Sebastian spoke, his conviction seemed to harden.
Viggo felt his wolf rise to the surface, his temper getting the better of him as he growled, “So what, you think Bjorn was attacked by werewolf hunters, killed them, and nobody –me included– noticed?”
Sebastian sat frozen, heart racing like a trapped rabbit, and Viggo calmed himself. He smoothed his expression, wiping the snarl off his face, and forced his shoulders to relax. Sebastian jerked, trying to scoot away from him, but Viggo pulled him back and held him tight under his arm.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, his voice still rough. Sebastian pushed at the arm over his chest, and this time Viggo let him go. Rather than bolt off the couch like Viggo expected, Sebastian just scooted a foot over and pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged his legs. His heart was still racing and he was breathing hard.
“Werewolf hunters are a thing of the past,” Viggo said, wishing he hadn’t lost his temper. “I’m sorry I growled at you.”
Sebastian hadn’t accused Viggo of being a shitty alpha, but if something like what he was saying had happened to Bjorn and Viggo hadn’t noticed, then that was what he would be.
