Fucking hell. It wasreal!
Panic churned in his gut and he tasted bile. He might be a werewolf, but all of a sudden, even that status wasn’t enough. Dammit!
Weak werewolf.
The impact of that thought nearly crushed him. All his insecurities rushed at him; all the emotions that he’d been so desperately trying to avoid came back to mock him. Even as a badass werewolf, he could barely stomach food, had been jerked off by his captor, and now an asshole actor had shown him how limited he was among the paranormal set.
He was going to fucking kill—
Nero stepped in front of him, breaking the hypno-lock and grabbing Josh’s arm to haul him toward the stairs. “Time to geek out,” he said loudly. In fact, it sounded very much like an order. He even gripped Josh’s hand and slammed it down on the hand reader before half dragging him downstairs.
Josh followed, mostly because he didn’t have a choice. Nero was bigger, stronger, and he had leverage. And then the idiot made the mistake of trying to be conciliatory.
“Look, I know that didn’t go so well, but werewolves are really volatile, especially in the newbie stage. And we didn’t even plan for Bing. We got him by accident. So don’t go picking fights with people, okay? He’s had his entire life turned upside down, and he’s not handling it so well.”
That was a really rational thing to say. Really great with the comrade-in-arms thing. Except as Josh felt fury physically rise in his gorge, he knew that rational wasn’t going to cut it right then. Because his life had also been turned upside down. But all the change had shown him was that he was still the weak, puny creature he’d always been. And no amount of science was going to stem the tide of rage at that single thought.
Which is when Nero must have realized he’d said something wrong. His eyes widened and his hands went up in a placating gesture. “Um, maybe we should take a moment to reassess—”
Before he could say anything else, Josh attacked in the one way he always won.
Chapter 10
“ARE YOUfucking kidding me?”
Words started boiling out of Josh. Lots of words, most of them in a multisyllable, complex grammar fury. Nero could follow the words. Well, most of them. But after the first “Are you fucking kidding me?” Nero tuned them all out. He didn’t need to hear the words, he needed to listen to Josh’s body and understand the things that Josh’s really big brain was ignoring.
First thing he checked—always—was whether a werewolf had eaten. Nero hadn’t missed that Josh managed a couple bites of eggs at most. That meant his body wasn’t fully grounded in the here and now.
“Are you even listening to me?” Josh demanded.
“Every word,” Nero said.
Josh hadn’t waited for an answer but kept screaming about his dissertation and mutant something or other. Nero focused instead on the color of Josh’s skin. A guy in this much fury ought to have flushed ruddy, but Josh was getting paler by the second. And though he was gesturing and pointing, the movements had only average force behind them. About human normal for a guy his size, which on a werewolf was low. Any moment now Josh would get unsteady on his feet and Nero would have to catch him. No problem, but it was hard waiting for the guy to collapse before he could help. At the moment Josh was too wrapped up in his anger to allow any kind of support.
“…and you have the fucking gall to tell me that pretty boy….”
He had to watch the eyes. Josh’s were growing darker. His pupils were dilating as he lost focus and connection to his own body. That was bad, but not dangerous. But if the eyes started to glow, the shit would really hit the fan. That would mean Josh was moving to an energy state before a shift, and it was way too soon to go there. Without being grounded back in his human body, Josh risked dissolving into energy and dissipating forever. He’d just sparkle away like fireworks. Nero had watched it happen once and the memory stuck as the most beautiful, horrible thing he’d ever seen. He’d be damned if he let that happen to Josh.
“…I need my phone….”
Josh’s voice had lost its pitch, the words cracking or dropping.
“…fucking abduct….”
Grammar was going too as sentences became phrases, words became salad.
“…touch… couch… shit!”
There it was. The knees started to buckle, but Nero was there to catch him.
“No!”
“I’ve got you.”
“No!”
“I’m keeping you from hurting yourself.”
