Page 16 of The Night Wolf
“Please. I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt him.”
The sneer that spread over Ryker’s ugly face caused Sean to tremble. “You’ll do what I want regardless.” He nodded toward the door. “Get lost, kid. I’ll settle up with you another time.”
“Go, Sean. Please.”
There were tears in her eyes, and Sean’s heart clenched. She was one of the only friends he had, and she was in trouble. He ran home and told his father, who said that was how Alphas were and there wasn’t anything to be done about it. Despite Sean’s protests, he was told to go to bed and not speak of it anymore.
He never saw Lottie again.
God, how had he forgotten? She used to bake him cookie bars, giving them to him with a glass of milk, and then made him sit and tell her all about school. She was like a big sister to Sean, and somehow, in the intervening years when he was running for his life, he’d forgotten her.
His stomach heaved, and Sean darted for the bathroom just in time to drop to his knees and dry heave in the toilet.
“Get Frank here, now!”
“Right away, Alpha.”
Sean waved, hoping to forestall Dani, but she was gone before he could say anything.
“Tell her to come back. I’m—”
“Shut up.” Gareth came up from behind, knelt down, and put a hand on Sean’s back. “Are you done?”
He had nothing in his stomach, so yeah, he was pretty much done. “I think so.”
Sean yelped when Gareth snatched him from the floor, stood, and carried him to the bed. “This is the only place you’re going today. I’ll have Dani make you something light, maybe just broth. We’ll revisit the idea of a tour tomorrow.”
“No, I’m okay. It’s just—”
“Tomorrow, Sean. Today you’ll rest. Do you understand me?”
Words. Gareth only spoke words. He made no attempt to use his Alpha compulsion to force Sean to obey. He cared about Dani and, seemingly, about Sean. Gareth was the first person Sean had met who might be worthy of the title he held.
He drew in a breath. “Yeah, okay.”
Gareth grinned. “We’ll talk later. I promise.” He reached out and stroked strong fingers over Sean’s hair. “Get some rest, okay? Let Dani take care of you.”
“Okay.”
Surprisingly, Sean was asleep moments later.
THE SHOWERhad been freaking heaven. It had been another two days of poking and prodding by Dr. Franklin before Gareth let Sean try to get out of bed again. This time, with the memories under control, he had no problems. He stood in the shower, the jets blasting near-scalding water, reaching crevices that had gone unwashed for far too long.
“How’s your soup?”
His gaze snapped to Dani, who stood there chopping vegetables. Then he looked down at the nearly empty bowl, already sad that there was no more.
“It seems that you need a refill.”
She took the bowl to the stove and ladled another helping before returning the soup to Sean.
He inhaled deeply, allowing the savory scents to tickle his nose. God, it had been far too long since Sean had anything remotely homemade. He happily slurped a spoonful, then winked at Dani. “This is amazing.”
Dani beamed a smile. “It was my great-grandmother’s recipe, which was passed down through the family until I got it. I made this a lot when Caleb was a boy.”
“Oh?”
“After his father died, he needed comfort food, and this was the best I could offer him.”
