“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Nick puts his arms on my chest like he’s trying to rein in a wild animal. Well, he is. “Deep breaths, Matty,” his voice soothing.
I retract my claws. Oliver is safe. He’s back at my home. No one would dare to touch him there. I take those deep breaths.
“What the fuck, dude? You okay?” Nick huffs out, relieved.It’s not an overreaction, considering I don’t lose control. Like ever.
“Oliver came to my apartment, scared out of his mind. He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but he had this smell lingering on him,” I gesture around us.
Nick’s eyes go wide. “You think they told him?”
Fuck, did they?
“Wait, do you smell something else here?” Nick asks, walking to the wall opposite the door.
I follow him. It’s barely a hint, almost impossible to catch over the strong smells of the place. But it’s there, imbued in the walls and the floor.
“Rotten flesh,” I say.
“And the chemicals we got from the other bodies,” Nick adds.
“They were using this place for their sick experiments, too?”
“Dude, we need to get forensics here right now.” Nick is already taking his phone out, making calls.
Oliver was here with those dangerous werewolves. While they were storing bodies here. Just the idea makes me want to light this place like a matchstick again.
But at the bottom of all that boiling anger, there’s a feeling hard to ignore. Fear.
What if something had happened to him? How did he find this place? Why did I not know he was coming here?
In all my attempts to distract him, was I the only one really distracted?
“Do you know where Oliver is right now?” Nick hesitantly asks after he’s disconnected the call.
“He’s at my place,” I reassure him. But I need to check onhim right now. In fact, I’m not letting that little menace out of my sight from this day on. Wait, did I just…
I look at Nick, and he’s grinning like we’re not literally standing in a crime scene. “Marcus owes me fifty, too,” he says.
“C’mon, dude!” I groan. “And why is Marcus so sure I couldn’t have seduced Oliver?” Is this what I should be worried about right now? Nope. But the mind wanders.
“Nah, he just thinks you’re too stubborn to actually try and be happy,” Nick assures me.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“At least he doesn’t doubt your sex appeal,” Nick points out.
Fair enough.
“But Oliver’s safe and well, right?”
I nod. “And he might know about us,” I groan.
“You feel whatever you wanna feel about that. I’m happy about this development,” he announces.
“Yeah, well, he might know about the existence of werewolves, but he doesn’t know I am one.”
“You gonna tell him?”
“Of course not!”
