Chapter Sixteen—Gregor
“THERE WASa time when I would have asked for this on prescription,” Nick said dryly as he tilted his head back for Gregor. His mouth twisted into a wry grin that didn’t hide the nerves underneath. “Even with the itch.”
Nick was perched on the side of an overturned kayak, the man-made fiberglass hull crazed and cracked from the cold, in the boathouse on the edge of the water. The wind outside whistled through the tarred cracks in the hut, thin streams of snowflakes scattered over the floor, and irregularly timed waves came up the gravel shore to batter at the door. His eyes were blistered and scabbed along the lashes, red where it should have been white, and lightly clouded like mist on a window.
Gregor took Nick’s chin in his hand and tilted his head to the side. He felt Nick’s affronted grumble against his palm at being manhandled. The inside of Nick’s ears was irritated as well, wet and red, as though the skin had been scalded. Gregor leaned in for a sniff and caught the bitter scent of the prophets’ drink under the sweaty musk of whoever had owned the coat.
“Gross,” Nick protested as he shoved Gregor away from his ear. He stuck his finger in to scratch at the inflamed skin. “Did you see anything? Is there anything in there?”
“Not now,” Gregor said. He grabbed Nick’s wrist and pulled his hand down. “Don’t scratch it.”
Nick sighed. “Easier advice to give than take,” he said as he wiped his hands on his jeans and then hugged himself. He tucked his fingers under his armpits and hunched his shoulders up toward his chin. Despite his pink rabbit eyes and restless knees, he still looked like a bird, just an ill one. “Do you… how long do you think it will last?”
“Does it matter?” Gregor asked.
Nick huffed out a laugh and then sniffed. “I’m not exactly much use like this,” he pointed out. “Human again.”
“You were never human,” Gregor corrected him.
Not that it mattered. Human, bird, or whatever slice of wolf his gran had made of Nick, Gregor loved him. He liked Nick’s restless hands and dry humor, his beaky, stern face, and the ridiculous way it creased around his sudden, delighted smiles. He liked Nick, the ability to turn into a giant bird or work out how someone died from their liver wasn’t anything to do with that.
“Human-ish,” Nick said. “Human-adjacent. I’m useless.”
Words worked better for Jack. He knew how to put things to make people follow him, cheer for him, fight for him. To make them love him. That had never come easily to Gregor. Most of the time, he didn’t care—except for the expected irritation that his brother existed to be good at anything—but Nick made him wish for a clever tongue.
“Fuck that,” Gregor said.
He cupped Nick’s face in his hands and leaned in to kiss him. The faint sourness that stuck to his skin—humans, sickness, and fear—faded as the familiar popcorn scent that was Nick thickened and sweetened. Cold lips warmed under the kiss. Nick reached up to grab Gregor’s shirt and pull him down. His long, lean body sprawled out under Gregor’s, all bones and wiry muscle like a stoat, and he moaned around Gregor’s tongue.
Gregor thought about it. It would make him feel better, remind him that Nick was his and there and the old bitch hadn’t managed to take him away again. He twisted his fingers in Nick’s hair and dragged his head back to kiss him deeper.
His cock thickened to a tender ache under his jeans, and then a muffled, distant retort cut through the drone of the wind. Nick went still under him, and Gregor lifted his head to listen. His breath silvered cold around his lips as he breathed heavily.
Sometimes Gregor thought he was used to the loss of his wolf, that he’d accepted the castration. Then he’d try to do something as simple aslistenand it split the crusted scar back open.
“They’re still looking for you,” he said as he pushed his weight up off Nick. “The Old Bitch wants you back.”
“She won’t find us here,” Nick protested as he tried to pull Gregor back down. “Let them look.”
Gregor snorted. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “The snow covered our tracks, but this is the only shelter for miles. If they’re willing to keep looking, they’ll find us.”
“Me,” Nick said. “They’re not looking for you, Gregor.”
There was asmellto martyrdom, a light, sickly smell of righteous determination and fear. Gregor had smelled it before—off his brother and his dog for each other, from the woman in Girvan that the monsters had taken. He’d always felt an itch of resentment for it—no one had ever wanted to die for him—but now it turned his stomach in a sour roil.
Gregor pulled Nick to his feet. He leaned in close enough to feel the scrape of Nick’s stumble against his jaw and growled, “No.”
“They’ll stop looking,” Nick pointed out, uncowed by the thrum of danger against his skull. “Once they take me back, I can find out what Gran wants with them.”
Gregor hissed out a sigh. He didn’t want Nick to be afraid of him, but wary might be useful sometimes.
“If what she’s doing matters so much,” he said. “Why did you try so hard to get away?”
Nick turned his head and kissed him quickly, tenderly. “You weren’t here,” he said. “Now you are.”
“No,” Gregor repeated through the metallic taste that clung to his tongue. The last time Rose got hold of Nick, she killed him. Gregor didn’t care what happened to the humans in their burrow, but he wouldn’t risk that death would give Nick back again. He rested his forehead against Nick’s and breathed him in. “Stay here. Heal. I’ll deal with them.”
Nick grabbed his arm and lifted it. The cuff slid back to reveal the still-raw welts that wrapped around his wrists, crisscrossed over the bone where they’d twisted the wire.
