Leon’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about me letting them.”
Karl slammed his hand down onto the mattress. Not hard, but with enough force that his whole body jolted.
“This isn’t a game, Leon!” His voice cracked, ragged and raw. “You think I can live with that? Knowing you had a chance to get out and I—God—I stopped you?”
Karl’s chest rose and fell like he couldn’t get a full breath in, and he’d bared his throat without realizing, wolf instinctsurrendering under the weight of helplessness. Leon had never seen him like this. Never thought hecouldlook like this—exposed and desperate.
“If you could shove me out of here yourself, you would, wouldn’t you?” Leon’s voice was low. “You’d take the choice out of my hands. And you hate that you can’t.”
Karl didn’t answer. He just pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, hard, like he could control his feelings by force alone.
“I can’t protect you,” he said again, barely audible now. “I can’t move. I can’t fight. I can’t even fucking stand up. I can’t stop them. And if they hurt you—if they eventouchyou—”
His voice gave out completely.
Leon sat for a moment, watching him. Karl would throw himself between them if it came to that—would bleed for him, would die for him. And he thought he might finally be starting to understandwhy. Not because he didn’t trust Leon to fight, but because Karl didn’t know how to let anyone else carry the burden. Something in him drove him to be the one to protect, no matter what it cost him.
“You know, I’m not helpless,” Leon said quietly. “They come for us, I’ll make them pay.”
Karl rolled his head on the pillow, his eyes blazing. “You don’t fuckinggetit, do you? I know you’re dangerous. But youdon’t have to be here.You should never have come after me in the first place. Get out, and stay safe.”
Leon hoped to hell no one was lurking outside listening, because Karl had almost shouted that, his voice cracking at the end.
“No.”
He let it hang there in the air a moment, let Karlseethat was his final answer, before continuing. “You can order me around all you want. I’m still not leaving. I’ve got work to do, and so do you—yours is to get better.”
Karl breathed out sharply, promptly winced at the effect of that on his ribs, and stared at the ceiling, jaw tight and strained. Just as Leon was beginning to relax, to think Karl had accepted—however unwillingly—his decision, Karl turned his head to look at him again.
His eyes were bright and painful. “Please,” he said hoarsely .
Just one word, but one heneverthought he’d hear from Karl.
“What?” he asked, ready to go digging for those pills in his pocket, to run for Ruth, to do whatever it was Karl needed.
Karl reached out, and when Leon leaned in, his warm, dry hand clumsily rested on his cheek. “Go,” he said. “Be safe.”
KARL
It took everything he had to say it. Karl didn’t plead. But he had no other options. He was trapped in this bed, and he had no leverage over Leon, not even pack loyalty to call on. All he could do was beg him to run.
Tobias hadn’t run. Tobias had laughed, darted just a little farther into the road, and then—
Karl’s breath hitched. He clamped his teeth shut against the rest of the memory.
He hadn’t begged then. He was begging now.Pleasehad slipped out, low and ragged, and Leon was looking at him like he’d never seen him before.
Karl turned his face toward the wall, away from Leon. He didn’t want to see the refusal already forming in Leon’s gaze, because they were his decisions, bad choice after bad choice, that had brought them here. Forhimto be the reason, hisfailureto be the cause of someone being hurt…
And it wasn’t just someone. It was Leon. He had no idea when that had happened, or how it had happened. He just knew that it had.
The chair creaked as Leon stood, and Karl watched the wall and prayed with everything in him that Leon had listened, that the next sound he’d hear would be the door closing behind him.
Instead, the mattress moved, dipping as someone’s weight came down on it behind him. Then warmth pressed lightly against him, and a hand stroked back the hair that had fallen over Karl’s face.
“Karl?” It was gentle, and so unlike Leon that for an instant he thought he’d fallen asleep, that it was a dream. But if he were dreaming, he wouldn’t feel like this—draggingly empty, with nothing left inside him. No strength, not even a flicker of energy. Only pain, over and over washing him in waves from his leg.
Karl’s throat tightened. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’tbethis—weak, broken, letting others get hurt on his watch. He’d spent his whole life making sure that would never happen again.
