By then the ache had spread up into Trevor’s skull. He lay on the couch and let Ezra come to him. Wolves didn’t bother locking their doors.
“Trevor?”
“I’m okay,” he said, then forced himself to re-weigh the evidence. “Feel a little sick.”
Ezra’s hand was cool on his forehead, and his scent spiked from concern to outright fear. “You’ve got a fever.”
“Oh. Great.”
Seconds later a phone was dialing from another room. “I’m at Trevor’s. He’s sick.”
A low rumble of concern came from the other end of the call.
“A fever. He had a fever last time.”
“I’ve been learning from Arlo,” Malachi said. “He’s with me now. He says—”
“Well, ask him what I can do, what Trevor needs so he’s not sick again.”
“You know what Trevor needs,” came the alpha’s voice, low and final. “He needs to claim his mate and be claimed in return.”
Ezra’s pacing footsteps picked up speed. “What, so if Kelsey doesn’t come home, it’s going to happen all over again and we can’t do anything about it? That’s Arlo’s great elder wisdom?”
“Ezra,” Malachi said on a low growl.
Ezra’s only response came as a long, quiet whine.
“Is he unresponsive?” Malachi said.
“Not yet. Mal, please, we’ve got to help him.”
Tears pricked Trevor’s eyes at the desperation in his brother’s voice, in his brother’s scent. Look how much trouble he was when he stopped absorbing it all. Look how much stickier it all got when other wolves shouldered some of the burden. Maybe it was wrong, the deep comfort that bloomed inside because he wasn’t alone with his hurt anymore. He tried to get up from the couch, but his body had turned to lead. The nausea made a roiling pit in his gut. The headache drilled into his eyes. He knew these things. His body was laboring through the loss of his mate. Again.
The call had ended. Ezra’s footsteps entered the room.
Trevor forced his eyes open, though they ached. “Hey, bro.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“No. It’s okay.”
Ezra dropped into Trevor’s favorite black leather chair and put his head in his hands. “I can’t tell if you’re dying or not.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“You were catatonic, Trev. Your chest barely moved for a week.”
“That was then.” And had felt a lot like now.
“How—how do I keep you with us? If I stay right here, if I talk you through it, will you please skip the still-as-death part this time?”
Trevor reached out, and Ezra grabbed hold of his hand. “I’ll try.”
Then he lost track of himself for a while. He swallowed water. Ezra covered him with a throw blanket. He smelled the arrival of Malachi and Arlo, and then their scents remained in his house along with his brother’s. So they must be worried for him. He tasted a mouthful of chicken broth, and his body retched and gagged, and his rib stabbed him. Through the haze his senses had become, he knew the pain-filled whine was Ezra’s, not his own.
Time must be passing, but he couldn’t measure it.
Images came to him through the haze. Kelsey. Kelsey at Maggie’s. Caring for her. Probably crying. Believing herself not to be worth her mate’s honesty. He had to make it right. He had to.
