Nero shook his head. “He can’t make you anything—we already know who you are.”
Josh nodded as he looked to Laddin. “I sound crazy, but I’m not wrong. And we can’t afford to have him meddle in what we’re doing. That demon will destroy the planet if we don’t get this right.”
“He won’t interfere,” Laddin promised.
“Exactly,” Nero said in a distracted kind of way. “Laddin’s got this, right?”
“Of course I do,” he lied. “I’ve handled lots of brothers who eat fairy fruit and turn hairy.”
Nero turned his attention to Laddin and grinned. And wasn’t that a sight to see? Laddin didn’t think he’d ever seen the guy so happy before. “That’s what I thought,” Nero said. Then he shifted the car into Reverse and hit the gas. Laddin had no choice but to hop out of the way.
Seconds later the others followed Nero, leaving Laddin alone with the big van and the mysterious brother inside.
No time like the present.
He unlocked the van door and hauled it open. Sunlight streamed in from the barn opening and illuminated the mess inside. Trash and supplies littered the floor in a haphazard fashion that irritated his sense of order. But all that faded into nothing as he got a look at the wolf in the cage.
OMG, he was beautiful. At first all Laddin saw was the fur, a rich dark brown with a cherry-red undertone that seemed to glow in the sunshine. He wanted to sink his hands into it. But as he maneuvered around, he saw an animal resting on his side, his breath steady and even. But there was power in his form—thick muscles beneath the fur and sharp claws. And though the mouth was closed, Laddin had no trouble imagining the teeth inside the long, sweet muzzle.
“Hey, Bruce,” he said, his voice soft with awe. “Time to wake up, buddy.”
Unable to resist touching the creature, Laddin unlocked the cage and swung the door wide. Then he sat on the van floor and reached inside to stroke the wolf’s fur. It was as soft as it was magnificent. Laddin’s skin tingled where his fingers were buried in the ruff, and even though his arm was perilously close to the animal’s mouth, Laddin slipped his fingers beneath the shock collar someone had put around the thick neck.
“Come on, Bruce. Wake up.”
He shook Bruce’s ruff hard.
“I’m sure you need to talk about something. Like why you felt the need to eat fruit given to you by a dangerous fairy?”
A single eye slitted open. It was yellow with burned edges, like crème brûlée, which was Laddin’s favorite dessert. And it focused unerringly on him.
“We don’t have to talk about that right now,” Laddin said, pitching his voice to make it as soothing as possible. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living? Josh ran out of here so fast, I didn’t get a chance to ask.”
There was a flicker of movement at Josh’s name, but Laddin had no idea if that was good or bad. Then the wolf bared his teeth while a low, rumbling growl shook his body.
“Don’t be like that. He’s your brother, you’re supposed to love each other. But tell you what. How about you switch back to being a human and I’ll listen to how he did you wrong, okay?”
Bruce lifted his head and shook it. Not in a denial, but in the way of a creature just waking up. Then he pushed up on his paws and tried to stand. Except the cage wasn’t quite big enough for him to rise to his full height, so he nosed forward, trying to get out.
“No-go, Bruce,” Laddin said. “You’ve got to change back to a human first.” Then he grabbed the wolf’s head and turned it so they were looking eye-to-eye. “Shift back to being human. Then you can do whatever you want.”
In response, the wolf raised his back leg and pissed all over the van. Some of it got Laddin, but he was quick on his feet as he jumped back.
“Ew! That was so not cool,” he said as he swiped at the splash on his jeans. But then he realized his mistake. While he was jumping backward, the wolf had leaped forward, out of his cage, to stand in the middle of the barn.
Damn, Bruce looked stunning in an intimidating way. He was a big wolf, larger even than Nero, and he stood there poised, his eyes taking in the entire place. Then he started leaning left and right on his paws as if testing out his weight and balance. He was figuring out how to manage a wolf body. Laddin smiled in recognition. After all, he’d done the same thing not so long ago.
“Fun, huh? It’s like you get to learn everything all over again, but you’re faster and stronger than ever before. Like toddler Thor or something.”
The wolf eyed him and bared his teeth.
“Bullshit,” he answered, though he didn’t know what he was responding to. “I’m your trainer, and you’re going to listen to me. Those are the rules, and frankly, this is not a safe place for you. You’ve been a wolf for long enough, Bruce. It’s time to change back to a human.”
The wolf turned his head away, and Laddin eyed the open barn door. Why hadn’t he thought to close the thing first?
“You need to stay inside, Bruce.”
Laddin knew he was in deep shit. If Bruce took off here, Laddin would have no way to control him. And without a human talking to him and reminding him who he was, Bruce was likely to remain a wolf forever. That wasn’t so bad a fate, except the human mind didn’t go quietly into oblivion. It asserted itself, it got angry, and that overwhelmed the wolf until the creature went crazy and killed everything
