Wolf at the Door (Wolf Winter #3) - T.A. Moore Page 0,62

to you. Just give me him.”

“How?” he hadn’t meant to ask.

He could hear the slime of satisfaction in her voice. “You’ll know.”

Something cold pressed against Gregor’s palm and she was gone. He glanced down and then shoved the dented metal flask into his pocket. The dogs were out of the kennel and fell in behind Jack—a pack of sorts. Gregor swallowed the gross taste in his mouth, the temptation, and pushed his heavy legs into a lope.

“You don’t need me for this,” he spat the truth out like a weapon. “I’m going to find Nick. Whatever Rose’s plan is, Nick’s part of it. We can’t let her get him again.”

Jack looked torn. It was probably a lie. They both knew that without his wolf, Gregor wasn’t much use. Or maybe Jack hoped Gregor would get killed and let Jack off that hook.

“If we wipe them out here, her plans are done anyhow,” Jack protested. “Without the prophets….”

“They’re just tools,” Gregor said. “Just like Lachlan, just like the monsters she made back in Girvan. As long as she’s not here, this isn’t over.”

Jack pressed his mouth together in a grim line, but he couldn’t argue.

“Go,” he said as he clapped Gregor on the shoulder. “I’ll take care of Bron till you get back.”

Gregor curled his lip. “I don’t need your permission, Jack,” he said. “You aren’t anything yet. A pack of dogs won’t make you Numitor.”

He reached for the Wild, and it answered. Even through the silt of the Sannock Dead’s rot that streaked through it, it pulled him sideways out of the world.

Chapter Twelve—Nick

“YOU’RE LUCKY you still have your toes.”

The clipped voice didn’t give Nick any clue as how he should take that. Was he lucky that they’d been able to save his toes, or that the owner of the voice hadn’t cut them off? He lay on what felt like an actual bed and stared at the inside of his eyelids as he debated whether to open them and find out.

“Mister, if you don’t want to go back out in the snow,” the voice said harshly, “you better sit up and tell me what you’re doing up here.”

Doctor. The prickly correction stung the tip of Nick’s tongue. He swallowed it before it got away from him. Until he knew where he was, and why, let them make the assumptions.

Nick gave in and opened his eyes. It turned out to be a grim-faced man in a suit—in a tie—flanked by two soldiers, assault rifles cradled across their bodies as they stared at him. Nick was sprawled over the thin mattress of a narrow cot, padded cuffs around his wrists attached to the raised sides. An IV was plugged into his arm, the familiar itch of surgical tape against his skin, and the walls were the yellowed white of a dozen wards he’d been in over the years.

For a second Nick wondered if he’d had the psychotic break he’d spent his life afraid of, if the last weeks had been the hyperrealized work of a brain destined by nature and nurture to slip out of true eventually. It should have been a relief—that none of the monsters were real and his evil gran hadn’t sacrificed him to… something—but all he felt was a terrible hollow loss in his chest.

“Gregor…,” he muttered… or tried. His tongue was so dry it was nearly leather and stuck to the roof of his mouth. His eyes burned too with a hot, sun-scorched itch that his cuffs stopped him rubbing at.

“Is that your name?” the suited man asked. He gestured for one of the soldiers to lower his gun and get some water. Nick reached for the glass as it was held out but was brought up short by the rattle of his cuffs. The soldier had to hold it to his lips for him so he could suck the tepid water down. “Gregory?”

Nick waited for the bird to cackle. It was mute. His head felt empty.

“No, I was…. Nick, my name’s Nick.” He lifted his arm as far as the shackles would allow. “Why am I in these? What did I do?”

“James Malloy,” the suit introduced himself instead of answering. “Do you remember how you got here?”

Nick thought about it and then shook his head. He remembered the Run-Away Man, childhood monster given flesh and bones, and that he’d done what Gran had always told him. Run.

Smart as budgie.

A slideshow of memories flickered through his head, out-of-sequence and oddly framed. Snow and fear, pain in