Page 124 of Slow Heat
Jason turned around then. Pater was unconscious, as he had been since the worst of it began, resting on his side with towels around his lower half. Father knelt by his head, soothing him with strokes over his brow.
Urho ran a hand over his face and cursed softly. “Who do you know close by? Anyone who might have Wolf 3? A neighbor? A friend?” His face brightened. “Vale’s Wolf 3,” he said urgently. “Call him. Now.”
Jason ran to the study again to place the urgent call but once again there was no answer. He hung up and tried again. And again. And again. And again. Finally, the phone was picked up.
“I need your help,” Jason blurted out. “It’s an emergency.”
“Jason?”
It wasn’t Vale, though. It was Rosen.
“Hi, yes, it’s Jason. I need Vale. It’s an emergency. He needs to come to my house right away. It’s life or death. We need his blood.” He scrubbed a hand over his sweaty face. “My pater is… Look, Urho’s here. He said for Vale to come. Please send him. We need him or my pater might die.”
“Oh, wolf-god. Jason, Vale can’t go anywhere right now,” Rosen said urgently.
“But he has to!”
“I’m sorry, but he can’t. Can you tell me more? What’s going on? CanIhelp?”
“Isn’t he home?”
“Yes, but—”
“This isn’t a joke!” Jason’s mind raced, trying to think of anyone else he could ask for blood. Knocking on a neighbor’s door was still an option. They’d take anyone’s blood. Anyone at all. So long as they were Wolf 3. “My pater needs blood or he’ll die. Vale has the right kind of blood. I know he’s upset with me, and I deserve that, because I should have told him everything in his past didn’t matter immediately. But I was an idiot and I didn’t say anything at all. I know I’ll need to beg for his forgiveness and I will. But I also know he wouldn’t want my pater to…to…” He couldn’t say it again.
Rosen was quiet for a long second that lasted for an eternity. “Jason, Vale’s in heat.”
The room fell away and Jason sat in his father’s chair, dizzy and helpless. “No,” he whispered. “Not now. It can’t be now.”
Rosen ignored his denials. “Can I help you? What does your pater need? You said he needs blood? What type?”
In the background, behind Rosen’s soft breathing, he heard shrieks and cries for help, and then, in Vale’s ragged voice, somehow muffled and strange, he heard his own name. Over and over.
It was too much. Life was hot and heavy and coming down on him like a storm. He couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating. He forced himself to whisper, “Who’s with him?” Urho was here, so he knew it wasn’t him.
“No one.”
“He’s doing it alone? He’s suffering?”
“He didn’t say he wouldn’t consent to you, but he didn’t intend for you to know.”
Jason hung up the phone. He pressed his hands to his mouth, holding back the shout of agony. He closed his eyes, searching his mind desperately for a solution, and he burst into terrified tears when he finally found one.
He dialed Xan’s parents’ number, nearly weeping when Xan answered, sounding groggy but no worse for wear after their binge drinking. “I need your help. Now.”
“Anything.”
Grateful, Jason’s shoulders dropped. “Thank you.” Then he said, “Don’t ask questions. Just do as I tell you. There’s no time.”
He hoped his friend could be selfless for once and do as he asked. Everything depended on it.
Sleep was soprecious during the violence of an alphaless heat that Vale ruthlessly resented whatever had woken him from it. The next wave wasn’t on him yet, and he’d managed to drink some water and collapse into the nest for rest. Earlier, at some point, he’d heard the phone ring some more and then there’d been a lot of pacing, but eventually as the heat wave passed, things had grown quiet again.
The sound of footfall on the steps brought him to full consciousness with a soft curse. “Go away, Rosen. I’m not fit to be seen like this.”
“I’ve seen it all before,” Rosen said, appearing at the bottom of the steps. He was annoyingly handsome with his dark hair swept back in a bun and his equally dark eyes burning in frustration. He had no right to look so good while Vale was a mess of suffering. “You’ll want to come upstairs now so I can help you shower.”
“What?” Vale shook his head desperately. “No. It’s not safe. I could run off again.”
