Vivian Arend - Wolf Flight

“Hmm, good sign. He’s being an asshole,” Shaun said.

“Why can’t I see you?” Tad thought his eyes were open but it was so dark in the room he couldn’t be sure.

A faint shimmer of light came through as Shaun cracked open the curtains. “It’s nighttime and we’ve got your summer light-blocking curtains closed. The pack doctor said with the fever you needed it as dark as possible to avoid complications.” He paced over and sat, the most concerned look on his face Tad had ever seen. “How do you feel?”

Tad tried a slow stretch. He had aches on tops of aches, his head pounded and there was something he needed to remember. “Did I catch the flu or something?”

Tad watched TJ and Shaun exchange glances. “Yeah, or something. Remember that guy you flew around for hours? He came down with a bad case of the nasties, and since you had the pleasure of his company in close quarters, you were a nice little time bomb waiting to happen,” Shaun explained.

TJ snorted. “Of course racing into a freaking blizzard didn’t help matters. The only reason you survived is—”

“TJ, go make some coffee. Thanks.” Shaun turned his back on TJ in dismissal.

Tad attempted a laugh as TJ left the room. “How did you do that? I thought no one could get TJ to shut up when he gets started.”

Shaun reached for Tad’s forehead. “It’s a wolf thing. I rank higher and I only use the authority when it’s needed.” In slow motion Shaun touched his skin.

Giant invisible ice picks appeared and starting jabbing him everywhere. He jerked away from Shaun’s hand, swearing under his breath. His head spun and his skin crawled. “What the hell is that about?”

“You really want to know?”

Tad threw a pillow at Shaun. “What kind of stupid-ass remark is that? Of course I want to know. My head is throbbing and I feel like I’ve been tied to an ant hill after being dipped in honey.”

“Ooooh. Nice analogy, flyboy. You remember where you got the honey from?”

Tad got ready to yell at Shaun to tell him to start making sense and then… “Oh shit, is Missy all right?”

Shaun clapped his hands together with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Finally, the right question. You are on the cutting edge of sanity this time. Yes, Missy is as good as can be expected.”

“What’s that mean? And why are you acting so weird?” Tad threw back the covers and swung his legs to the floor, intending to get dressed. The room had other ideas as it spun in a one-eighty, and the roof flipped to the floor. Tad found himself flat on his back, this time on the carpet.

“Let’s try this again. How are you feeling, Tad?”

Nothing was working right and his brain felt like it was iced up. “Good grief, what’s wrong with me?”

Shaun’s voice grew quiet with an annoying “I’m being patient” undertone. “You’ve been sick, Tad. You caught the flu from the guy you flew around—”

Fuck that. “Yeah, you told me.” Tad held a hand out to Shaun to get a pull upright. Shaun hid his arms behind him and Tad cursed. He rolled to his belly and gave a painful push onto his knees.

“Not that I don’t want to help but listening to you scream in pain every time someone touches you lost its appeal after the first dozen times.” Shaun sat on the chair next to the bed.

Tad crawled back onto the mattress and covered himself. The pressure of the quilt on his skin hurt less than the cold seeping into his bones. His mind cleared a little, enough to grow concerned. “Am I going crazy?”

Shaun shook his head. “Sorry if I seem a little short but I’ve explained what’s wrong five times already. I’m not sure you’re going to remember whatever I say so it’s difficult to get excited about sharing this again. But in the hopes six is the charm, here goes. It’s Thursday. You were—”

“What?” Tad exclaimed. “Missy and I did the set-up on Monday before we got stuck in the cabin.”

Shaun raised a brow. “Well done. First time you’ve been able to remember that without prompting. You remember anything else you did with Missy?” Tad swore and Shaun pumped his arm into the air. “All right, it seems we are getting somewhere. I know it drives your poor little human sensitivities wild, but I’m going to speak plain wolf for a bit. You began FirstMate with her and for some stupid, idiotic reason you stopped. You can’t stop a trigger in mid-pull, Tad. All you’ve managed to do is get the bullet in motion and you’ve hit a time warp. Until you finish what you started, neither you nor Missy will be able to touch another person without pain. That’s number one. Number two is none of us knew Missy is an Omega wolf and—”

“A what?” The pain in his body faded slightly as he remembered being in the cabin with Missy. How he’d almost decided to trap her forever.

“Omega. Instead of dealing with the authority and leadership of the pack like the Alpha and Beta, she helps set the emotional track. She knows what needs to happen by instinct. Packs without an Omega often have wolves go feral or head into the illegal side of things. You don’t even know they are there if they do their job right.”

Tad scrubbed his hand over his face. “Is Missy okay? Where is she?”

Shaun held up a hand. “In a minute. First I need to tell you something else.”

“Damn it, Shaun, you’ve already told me I’m not only an ass for fooling around with Missy, I’m also responsible for messing up the pack. What other bomb do you feel the need to drop?”

His friend leaned forward in his chair, eyes serious, lips pressed together. “You haven’t messed up our pack. Missy is visiting and I haven’t been able to convince her to tell me where she’s from.”

Tad shook his head in confusion. “She told me.”

“Well, she must have trusted you more than you realized. Keil couldn’t even get it out of her and that tells me she’s either damn strong or damn scared about something. I also never called you an ass for fooling around with Missy but for stopping. Big difference, bucko. I need to ask you something. If Missy wasn’t a wolf would you have liked to make love with her?”

What was Shaun up to? “Of course. You know I’ve liked her since high school and I didn’t know she was a wolf. I had even decided that—”

Shaun held up his hand and jumped in. “Right. Let me get this straight. You would go out with Missy, even sleep with her as a human. What if she fell in love with you? Do you think you could have fallen in love with her?”

Tad didn’t understand where this was going. “Yes.”

“Then you won’t be upset to find out she didn’t care if FirstMate triggered a false mate because she’s always been a little in love with you and she figured it was far better to love you even if you didn’t return her feelings.” Shaun dropped his voice, shaking his head slightly. “She’s hurting bad right now, Tad. She’s in physical pain because of the damn trigger thing, but emotional pain too because you managed to turn her down.”

“Because I didn’t want to hurt her!”

Shaun pulled a face. “Well nice going on that one, Einstein. She saved your butt and she needs you. Now you can get all human shy and shit on your own time, but if you’re any kind of man you’re going to go and make things right with her whether she’s your mate or not.”

A crash carried from the kitchen into the bedroom followed by loud cursing. Shaun leapt to his feet and stomped to the door. “Bloody idiot, TJ, you burning the house down or making coffee?” He looked back at Tad. “Well?”

He was glad his head wasn’t physically spinning anymore because it was doing triple lutz trying to keep up with this conversation. “Well what?”