“I need to see you.”
And with that, both women left. Hailey hadn’t even looked at him or Karl. If he hadn’t overheard her conversation with Michael, Leon would have assumed either she was rude as hell or she deemed them of no account. As it was, he had the uneasy suspicion she hadn’t wanted to make any kind of contact with them so that Michael’s decision would be easier for her to live with. His heart kicked hard in his chest.They’re really going to kill us.
He sat next to Karl in the lamplit room and tried not to feel like they were out of options.
Chapter Twenty-three
KARL
Karl woke to a relentless drumbeat of heat and pain from his leg, but his brain felt clearer. Notclear, but at least he was no longer fighting for every thought. They might be able to plan a way out of this, at last.
He rolled his head on the pillow, looking for Leon, and found him curled in the too-small chair again. One ankle was hooked over his knee, and he held a book in the low light like he might absorb its contents through sheer force of will. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his hair falling over his shoulder, restored to its usual gleaming smoothness.
Karl watched him, and something warm filled his chest, too soft to name and too big to dismiss. But he had to ignore it, had to find a way to get rid of it, to behimselfagain. They weren’t mates.
Even if they had been, it could never work. Leon was a cat. A beautiful, smug,infuriatingpeacock in combat boots. Everything in Karl’s world was built on control and discipline, and Leon waschaos wrapped in silk. Wanting him was like wanting the kind of fire that would burn him up. Not that Karl wanted him. He absolutely didn’t. He hadn’t thought even once about how it had been under that tarp in the pouring rain and the cold, with Leon writhing sinuously under him, practically purring in satisfaction.
Didn’t matter what his wolf had thought—oh.Thatwas why he had that softness, thatlongingeach time he looked at Leon. It was his wolf, who hadn’t yet understood that Leon had been lying to provide a cover story, nothing more.
He wasn’t sure now whether it was his wolf orhewho’d reacted when Leon’s voice, low and certain, had breathed the words in his ear. For reasons he didn’t understand, he hadn’t fought the declaration. He’d accepted it, letting it settle over him like a warm blanket on a cold night.
He hadn’t thought,that can’t be true.He’d thought,finally.It had felt like finding home.
It had been no more than a calculated move to gain tactical advantage. And that was fine. He didn’t want a mate. He’d built a life that didn’trequireone, filling his days with the rhythm of work, with things that mattered.
But now, lying here, that felt somehow empty. The life that had sustained him felt like it wasn’t enough. Which was ridiculous. Must be the drugs. Or the shock of Leon still being here, still watching over him, when anyone sensible would have run.
He moved slightly, drawing a sharp breath as fire lanced down his leg. The sound made Leon look up, and for a moment his face lit with a smile before he pushed it back, carefully neutral again.
“Hey, you’re awake.”
Karl nodded. “Yeah.”
Leon set the book down and stood. “Need anything? Water? Food? Style tips?”
“Water,” Karl said, ignoring the rest. Leon smirked anyway, and reached for the mug, steadying it with careful hands while Karl drank.
He pushed the empty mug back at Leon with a hand that trembled.
“You have to stop them giving me those painkillers,” he said, voice gravelly. “I can’t think properly.”
He slid his hand under the pillow before Leon got a chance to voice his objection—because he’d somehow learned to read Leon, and he knew that tilt of his chin signaled an argument about to erupt—and closed his fingers around two small white pills. He held them out to Leon. “Take them and bury them somewhere a pup can’t dig them up, will you?”
Leon eyed them cautiously, making no move to take them. “Why do they look like reconstituted chalk that someone sat on?”
“Because I had to keep them in my mouth till Ruth wasn’t looking,” Karl said. “Get rid of them.”
The reluctance with which Leon reached out his hand was matched only by the revulsion on his face as Karl put the misshapen tablets in his palm.
“I thought regurgitating processed meat was the low point of spending time with you,” he said, as he slid the tablets into the pocket of his borrowed sweats, fastidiously wiping his hand on them afterward. “Should’ve known, I suppose. Wolves.”
But when he looked at Karl, his eyes were warm and worried, nothing like his disdainful drawl. “There’s food if you want it.”
Karl wasn’t sure he’d ever felt less like eating, but he knew he had to fuel his healing to make it out of here.
“It’s not exactly haute cuisine, but it’s just about edible,” Leon said as he helped Karl sit up, propped by lumpy pillows. “I’d probably give them one star on Yelp rather than zero—can you even give zero stars? I must’ve tried that before, but I can’t remember. Buthonestly? The one star would be for the artisanal wooden bowl rather than what’s in it.”
Leon didn’t hesitate to let his opinion be known, but he didn’t usually chatter in a way that reminded Karl of Tristan’s stream of consciousness. Maybe he’d seen Karl struggling to keep his eyes open as black spots danced before them and was giving him space to recover from the exertion of changing position in the bed.Fuck,he was weak. And he resented that more than anything. He wasneverhelpless. He refused to be.
