Page 45 of Brock’s Mate

The door was open and a huge man was crouched in the doorway, shirtless, bleeding from dozens of deep gouges. A white wolf hurled itself at him and he braced himself to catch it, stopping it from getting out. He held its jaws shut so it couldn’t bite him, and threw it back into the shed, talking the whole time.

Then she was inside the boy’s head, and she realized the little boy was Brock and the man was a grizzly bear shifter called Tank. The white wolf was named Tristan, and he’d forgotten how to be a person, and Mr. Tank was trying to help him remember because they were best friends.

Mr. Tristan White Woof was mad and scared and kept attacking Mr. Tank to try to get away, but Mr. Tank didn’t care that he was bleeding, he just kept catching Mr. Tristan and talking to him to help him remember about being a person. But it didn’t work, and even though Brock finally fell back asleep, he dreamed about the white wolf all night, and about Mr. Tristan all trapped inside because he couldn’t remember.

And when he woke up in the morning, he knew what to do. It was very early and nobody was up, not even the sun really, and he climbed out of bed very quiet and went to the shed. Mr. Tank was gone and the door was locked, but he saw where the key was hanging and he could just barely reach the padlock but he did, he unlocked it and opened the door.

The white wolf was awake. It was still angry and scared, but Brock didn’t mind that. “Hello, Mr. Tristan White Woof,” he said.

Behind him he heard his mom’s voice. She must’ve woke up when he left—she always knew when Brock was doing something he wasn’t s’posed to. She said very soft, “Don’t go near him, Brockie. He’s dangerous.”

But he had to. Mr. Tristan was watching him, and Brock couldn’t leave without fixing him. Not looking away from the wolf’s pretty gold eyes, he said, “He’s just scared. And sad. People hurt him.”

Brock’s friend Mr. Noah Gray Woof was there too, with his mom. “How do you know?” he asked.

Brock could feel it, but he couldn’t ‘zactly explain. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just do.”

He went to Mr. Tristan White Woof and started to pet him, hoping that would make him feel better. He tried to put good feelings into Mr. Tristan’s head instead of bad ones. “You’s a good woof,” he told him. “A nice woof. But people hurt you and you’re mad about that. That’s okay. It’s okay to be mad. You can kill a rabbit when you’re mad and eat it all up. But not if it’s somebody’s pet, okay? Because that would make them sad. Mr. Noah Gray Woof says so.”

The white wolf was all stiff at first but now his body went kind of softer and he closed his eyes. Brock could tell he liked the pettings and the good feelings. Brock put his arms around the wolf’s neck and leaned on him, still petting him.

The white wolf started to feel better and it was easier for him to listen, so Brock whispered in his ear that he could be a man or a woof, whichever he wanted, and he really needed to be a man now because he might get lost forever if he didn’t.

He could tell Mr. Tristan was listening but he was still confused, so Brock said it all over again like the teacher did in preschool when someone didn’t understand.

Mr. Tristan still didn’t come out though, so Brock decided maybe he needed more help. He whispered, “I’ll show you and then you’ll know.”

He knew it would be hard because he’d just learned to turn into a wolf himself, but he had to do it to help Mr. Tristan. So he asked his wolf to help him and he tried really hard and he did it! Then he Changed back, sitting down on the shed floor and looking up at the big wolf looming above him. “See?” he said. “Like that.”

The wolf shook really hard and his bones made cracking noises, and he started to Change but he still couldn’t get out. He was stuck, his skin bulging and his bones breaking over and over. He gave a horrible howl.

Brock put his hand on the heaving, monstrous shape of the white wolf. He could tell Mr. Tristan was trying to come back but he was hurting a lot. In his head Brock could see all kinds of awful things that bad men did to him, like a movie on TV fast forwarding.

Brock started to get scared because he could feel inside him how much all those things hurt Mr. Tristan, and he didn’t know what to do and he was afraid he might get lost too.

Then he felt his wolf next to him somehow in his head, and they were all together and then the pain wasn’t so bad, it went away like it was draining out of a bathtub and all of a sudden the white wolf turned into a dirty naked man with long silvery hair. He looked sick, but he wasn’t lost anymore.

Brock had fixed him. Everything was okay now.

“See, Mr. Tristan,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “I knew you could do it.”

The memory faded, and then a parade of others flickered through her mind. Brock growing, helping more people. His innate sweetness, his innocence, and the kindness of his heart.

And how all of those qualities struggled to survive as he got older, and was forced to confront the world’s darkness—and his own.

Oh, Brock. Her heart ached for that little boy, and the man he’d become. She reached out her hand and Brock’s closed over it.

And then she was back in the real world, in the living room of the cabin, standing face to face with Brock, holding his hand.

She could see the little boy behind his eyes now, and the wolf, and the man he’d become. Tougher, more wary, his spirit exhausted and his heart broken.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and she could see the naked vulnerability in his eyes—and then the anger.

He pulled his hand away. “You shouldn’t have gone there,” he said. “You had no right.”

And he walked away.

Chapter 18