Brothersong (Green Creek #4) - T.J. Klune Page 0,41
wearing nothing but a scowl appeared in the doorway, carrying pieces of wood from the stack next to the house. He hit the door with his foot, closing it behind him, the thin muscles on his hairy thighs flexing. He stomped over to the fireplace and dropped the wood next to it. He crouched down in front of the fire, feeding it with logs. The ridges of his spine stuck out, bumpy down his back to the top of his—
He said, “You’re staring.”
My face grew hot as I quickly looked away. “I am not. And you should put on clothes.” Not that I thought he had any. I’d looked through the cabin in his absence, and it was mostly empty. Nothing that could have told me anything about him or what the hell he was doing here. What his plan was. What I could do to convince him to leave.
“No.”
“Your dick is just… hanging out.” I stared furiously at the far wall. “That’s not cool, dude.”
“Don’t. Not dude.”
“I’ll make you a deal. I will absolutely try not to call you that if you just get dressed.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his shoulders hunch. “Don’t have clothes. Always wolf. Easier.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“How long have I been here?”
He scrunched up his face. “Two days.”
The full moon was Friday. Which meant it was Sunday. I ignored the pang in my chest. “Where did you go? What happened to the hunters? What happened to my truck? How far away from the house are we?”
“Talking,” he muttered. “Always talking.”
“Oh, am I bothering you? I’m so sorry. I feel just awful about it. I mean, sure, you’re probably not used to hearing another voice, seeing as how you decided to run to the ass end of nowhere and—”
“Stop.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. “You broke my phone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Stop it. Stop asking questions. Always questions. No more. Enough.”
Jesus fucking Christ. I wanted to knock him through the goddamn window. “Yeah, not gonna happen. Sucks for you.”
He huffed out a breath. “Tomorrow.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“You leave.”
I turned back to him. His face was illuminated by the fire. It was strange seeing him as he was now after all this time. It was like being familiar with a stranger. Wolves never looked like their human parts when they shifted, and vice versa, but there was something about his face, the set of his jaw, the way his eyes flashed. I would have recognized him anywhere. “Only if you’re going with me.”
He pulled his lips back over his teeth. For a moment I thought he was smiling, or at least trying to. But it twisted down like he was in pain. “Not going. You go. I stay.”
“The quicker you get that idea out of your head, the better off we’ll be. If you think I’m just going to go after all this time, you’ve—”
“You found me.”
I blinked. “I did.”
He didn’t look at me. “How?”
“Oh, so you get to ask questions, but I can’t?”
“Yes. No more questions. I get many questions.”
“Why?”
“That’s a question.”
The skin under my right eye twitched. Of all the aggravating motherfuckers for me to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with, I had to choose this one. I made terrible choices. “Maybe I don’t have to tell you anything since you won’t extend me the same courtesy.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
He stood and began to pace, shoulders stiff, hands flexing and unflexing. His feet scraped against the dirt floor.
I grabbed the shorts from where I’d set them on top of my bag and tossed them at him. He glared at me as he snatched them out of the air.
“Put those on.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t have to see your junk flopping around. Just do it. Please.”
He looked down at them, then down at himself. The light from the fire rolled over his bare skin. He’d lost weight since I’d seen him last, and though he wasn’t quite skin and bones, he was too skinny for his own good. Wolves needed to eat. We burned hot, our metabolism going into overdrive to compensate for our shifts. If we were too weak, we wouldn’t be able to turn wolf, or back to human.
“You don’t like. When I’m naked.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”
“No conversation.” He tossed the shorts back at me. I knocked them away, and they landed on the floor. “I stay like this. You don’t like it. Leave.” He jerked his head toward the door.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed at him. “You really think that’ll work?”