From the look Elaine gave him, she knew exactly what Nathan was up to when he re-entered the office and told her he would be stepping out for a bit.

“Did Simon go home?” she had asked.

“He wasn’t feeling well,” Nathan had responded briskly, which wasn’t exactly an answer to her questions. He also didn’t mention where he was going. He was aware of her eyes following him all the way to the front doors of the school, and he knew her thoughts would haunt him for a long while yet. She was a brilliant woman, and he would have been lost without her, though sometimes he thought she might be a little smarter than he liked.

He would just have to trust her integrity, because he didn’t have time to spare if he was going to follow Simon home.

His own car was a baby-blue Chevy Malibu, one of the latest models. He loved the little car to death. That fact didn’t matter. What did matter was that Simon had no idea what he drove, which meant he wouldn’t know that he was being followed. Nathan intended to do nothing other than follow the other wolf to ensure he got home safely. It wasn’t supposed to turn into anything creepy or significant. He was only a concerned employer, keeping his employee safe.

That was all. Right?

His intentions all changed the moment he saw Simon pause after opening his front door. Nathan drove slowly by, obeying the lowered speed limit—deaf children in the area and all that—and so he was able to see the odd hesitation. There was something about it that just struck him as wrong, sending a chill down his spine. He slammed his foot down on the brake, sending up a spray of gravel.

Simon didn’t seem to notice. He was staring inside the open door of his own home, talking to someone in the pitch blackness of the exterior. Nathan could see a vague suggestion of dark clothes and nothing else.

Slowly, Simon lifted his hands up. He held them with the palms facing the other person, as if he was trying to appease them or talk them down.

“Oh, fuck this,” Nathan snarled.

He got out of the car just as Simon stepped inside the house. The door was shoved shut behind him, slamming so hard that dust actually tumbled down off the roof.

Nathan’s fangs filled his mouth, summoned by fear and anger. The urge to become a wolf was overpowering, but he fought it back, knowing that he couldn’t be certain of who might accidentally see him. His hands curled into fists as he marched up to the front door and pounded on it. No one called to him and no one came to answer the door. He didn’t hear footsteps or any other sounds that might signal that anyone was even in the house at all.

Nathan growled again, “Fuck this.”

Trying the knob, he found it locked.

Taking a few paces back, Nathan stuck his shoulder out and rammed the door with as much force as he could manage. An enormous, resounding thud echoed out across the neighborhood, deafeningly loud. The door frame cracked, and the door buckled where he had struck against it. Bouncing off the bent surface, Nathan dug his feet against the concrete of the porch and threw himself forward again.

This time, he didn’t hear anything at all. He broke through the door, not knowing if he had shattered it or just knocked it off its hinges, and hit the ground hard; rolling over, he shifted midway through the motion and came up on all four paws as a wolf.

Distant shouting came from the direction of a nearby hallway. Flattening his ears back against his skull, Nathan charged down the hall as fast as he could. His senses were raging, blood pounding through his veins. Red fury covered his vision, casting everything in a sickly light.

Simon’s scent, mingled with a stranger’s, clearly led in this direction. Even without the trail to follow, Nathan would have known where to go. He could sense Simon, could feel the omega, was guided towards him like a magnet.

The hallway was short, and there were only a few doors. Nathan barged through the right one just as someone tried to shut it. The pads on his hind paw were slammed between the door and the frame. He hardly felt it, whipping around to face the unknown assailant.

The man held a gun, pointing it right at Nathan’s head. His face was obscured by a black mask, not that Nathan needed to see his face to know everything about him in an instant. Young male, early twenties, if that. He wasn’t drunk, wasn’t high, and he wasn’t angry; in fact, he was terrified out of his fucking mind.

The gun shook and jerked in his hand. His fingers were shaking like crazy. One wrong twitch and it would all be over.

“Shit,” the man said.

Definitely younger than Twenty. Eighteen at most.

The man’s voice rasped and squeaked, rising up in pitch. “There’s another one? He only told me about one! Shit!”

His fingers twitched again, and he tightened his grip on the pistol. The metal glistened with his sweat.

Digging his paws against the carpet, Nathan crouched down low. His hackles bristled. He snarled.

The man took an uncertain step backwards, and that was when the pistol fired.

Nathan didn’t move an inch as the shot went wide, thudding into the ground several feet behind him. Splinters of wood and shreds of carpet fiber hit his legs.

“Shit,” the man tried to say again. The word was forming on his lips, poised to fall. Pushing forward with all his strength, Nathan slammed into the man and brought him down. He opened his jaws, prepared to bite, prepared to do anything that was required of him to win this fight to save Simon’s life.

The man lay limp underneath him, breathing heavily. He clearly wasn’t dead, but all the combativeness had left him.

Nathan didn’t dare let his guard down. Keeping his huge front paws planted on the man’s stomach, he bent his head down low and snarled into the man’s face. All he did was turn his head away. He didn’t protest or even try to wipe away the threads of saliva that spattered his cheeks. Just like that, he was down.

Not human.

The shifter scent about this man was so incredibly faint that he hadn’t noticed until now. The familiar musk of another wolf was lost beneath the odors of human, suggesting that this man hardly ever embraced his animal side.

Feral shifters were people who lost their grip on humanity, succumbing fully to the animal nature inside them. This seemed to be the opposite of that. This man, whoever he was, had completely rejected his wolf.

“Who are you?” Nathan snarled. Most shifters were capable of communicating in at least some way while in their animal forms, though the effort left him breathless. “What are you doing in here?”

“Hey,” the shifter underneath him said, weakly. “You’re…crushing me.”

Nathan bore his weight down even harder on his front paws, making a gust of air burst from the winded shifter’s lungs. “Talk!”

The man stared up at the ceiling for a long moment. Nathan was on the verge of giving him some more incentive to communicate when his throat worked, and he licked his lips, preparing to speak. “Okay. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”

A damn weird thing to request when you were going to shoot my lover.

“I know Simon, okay? Simon Diamond. Right there. The PE teacher at my old high school.”

“I don’t recognize you.” Simon spoke from elsewhere in the room, sounding uncertain but otherwise healthy. The urge to run to him and embrace him, to shelter him from the cruelty of this world forevermore, was almost more than Nathan could handle. He held himself in check, tempering his joy and relief with the pure fury still raging around inside his veins. They needed answers. This confrontation wasn’t over yet.

“Never said I took your class, did I? Man…” The young shifter closed his eyes, the lids apparently too heavy to support now. “You hurt my friend. He told me about it. I knew who you were. He gave me the gun, okay? But I wasn’t going to kill you or nothing, I swear! I was just supposed to rough you up like you did him. Maybe take something. Jewelry or some shit. I don’t know. This is my first time, okay? I got no fucking idea what I was doing. He just acted like I was supposed to know, so I pretended I did. It’s not my fault!”

“You little fucker.”

“Nate!”

Nathan stopped in the middle of what he was about to say, pricking up his ears to let Simon know that he was listening since he wasn’t about to turn away from this troublemaker.

“I believe him,” Simon said. He spoke slowly, wonderingly. “I don’t think he was really going to hurt me.”

Maybe not, but he had clearly been nervous and unfamiliar with the gun. This snot-nosed little brat could have accidentally caused far more damage than he meant to, especially if he was unused to his shifter side and lost control of it.

“Get off him. I don’t think he’s going to attack.”

Nathan hesitated, then jumped backwards so he landed on all four paws on the carpet. The man sat up, making him bristle, but all he did was put his head in his hands. “Man…”

Nathan shifted back into his human form, pushing himself up from his crouching position so he towered over the destitute young man. “Take off the goddamn mask.”

Either the man didn’t hear him or else he just refused to obey. That irked Nathan more than anything else could have; lurching down, he snatched at the top of the ski mask and yanked upwards. The young man’s head snapped back with an audible popping sound as the joints in his neck protested the treatment, but he didn’t even make a sound.

The mask cleared his head, his hair rising up to follow the material from the static it generated before slowly settling down into its proper position.

The young man was really a young man, confirming for Nathan that they were dealing with someone who wasn’t even out of their teens yet. It was impossible to tell whether he was an alpha or omega, or even a beta wolf, despite the fact that most shifters started developing those telltale characteristics at a very young age. This youngster was clearly underdeveloped or a very late bloomer, since he hardly seemed able to wear his human body, much less to have filled it out. His hair was long and filmy brown, greasy despite its thinness. His eyes were very, very dark, his facial features indistinct and unimportant.

Nathan stared at him, puzzled. Something about this skeletal, awkward kid reminded him of something he had seen somewhere else. But where exactly he had seen it, when, and what it was, all escaped him. This kid looked like no one he had ever seen before, so why should he seem familiar?

And it clicked.

He didn’t know this wolf, but he had seen their picture very occasionally throughout the years. He had even mentioned him to Simon not all that long ago.

“Tobias Noble.”

A soft sound of surprise came from behind Nathan. “I think I know that name.”

“It’s Toby!” Tobias snapped. “How do you know me, you freak?”

Nathan was more than a little aware of a fierce grin forming on his lips. “Your father is Michael Noble, the superintendent of my school district. I’m a principal. I know him quite well.”

That was exaggerating, but it was worth it to see Toby’s face fall as reality came crashing down around him. He was in deep, deep shit and he knew it.

“As a favor to you,” Nathan said, “I’m not going to call the cops.”

A relieved, but wary light returned to Toby’s eyes. Despite their darkness, Nathan thought that they might actually be blue.

“I am, however, going to call your father and tell him you’re here after trying to break into my employee’s house.”

“Oh.”

Nathan pressed on, knowing he was bending some of his personal rules here but it was necessary to get what he really wanted. “I’m not going to mention the confrontation here, just that you were caught by Simon. Simon then called me because he recognized you and needed me to summon your father. That’s our story.”

“The gun…He’ll kill me!” Toby pleaded. “He’ll send me to jail!”

“No, because we’ll deal with the gun. This was merely a break-in, not an attempt at armed battery and robbery. Do you understand, Noble?”

Toby nodded, but the wary light in his eyes was as bright as a beacon. “What do you want in return?”

At least he’s not entirely stupid.

“The name of the bastard who put you up to this.”

“I…”

“You can’t tell me you don’t know your own friend’s name,” Nathan snarled. “If that’s what you tell me, I’m calling the police and you had better fucking believe they’ll find out about the gun.”

“Wait!” Toby lifted his hands up, much like Simon had before being forcefully guided into his own home. The brat was finally getting a taste of his own medicine. “Okay, wait! We’re not like buds, all right? I just hang around with him. We dick around. His name’s Richard Cox, but that might not be his real name.”

“You want me to believe that you’re friends with a man named Dick Cocks?”

Toby stared down at his hands, then shrugged his shoulders. “I told you it might not be his real name. It’s C-o-x. Believe me or not, I don’t care. I told you what you wanted. Can you just call my dad already? Or better yet, just fucking kill me.”

Nathan didn’t kill him, as much as he would have liked to. Now that he knew this little bastard was Superintendent Michael’s son, the adopted wolf shifter with whom the man had so many difficulties, he understood the situation a little better. It was a hot mess.

It just wasn’t his mess to fix.

He called Michael, and the man arrived practically in the same instant as he received the news.

Simon hid the gun under the bed for now, and he guided Toby to the living room to await his father.

The superintendent burst through the door like a whirling dervish of fury, his jaw clenched so tightly that he could hardly get the words out through his gritted teeth when he thanked Nathan and Simon for informing him about this. He was blazing with rage, far beyond simple anger. There was actual loathing pouring from the man. He was so far gone that he couldn’t even yell at his adopted son. Instead, he grabbed Toby by the ear and literally dragged him out the door.

Nathan went over to shut the door, then turned to look at Simon.

His lover stood in the middle of the living room, one arm crossed in front of his stomach with that hand gripping his other wrist. His face was pale, almost gray.

Crossing the distance between them, Nathan reached out and grabbed Simon by the shoulders. He intended to just stay like that but after the danger and stress of what they had just gone through, he couldn’t help but to do more. Pulling Simon tight against his chest, Nathan hugged onto him. “Are you okay?”

Simon sighed against his ear, his breath hot. What was normally exciting had become reassuring, giving Nathan yet more confirmation that they had gone through everything and come out of it alive. “I’m fine. I just can’t believe it. I remember hearing about the superintendent’s kid being a troublemaker, but I never really got to experience it for myself. He was on my class list for one day, and then he was removed.”

“Must have spent most of his time in detention.” Or not even in the school building at all. Nathan was going to add that part but he was distracted by Simon lifting his arms and gripping onto him, fingers pressing together along the small of his back.

“Poor kid. I don’t think anyone’s trying to help him.”

“You think he wants to be helped? Didn’t seem like it to me. Just another goddamn useless punk.”

Simon pulled back slightly, his body jumping with surprise and disapproval. “You can’t mean that. Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you? He was terrified. He needs help, even if he doesn’t want it. That’s what makes it so hard.”

Nathan’s heart twisted in his chest. “You’re too gentle for your own good.”

“Can you say that in front of my mother, please? She’s worried I’m not gentle enough.”

Opening his mouth to reply, Nathan thought better of it and shut his trap again. Meeting the parents was something couples did, not lovers. Making a joke about that probably wouldn’t do anything in his favor.

“Maybe she was a right to be concerned. After all, I hear that you hurt Tobias Noble’s friend recently.”

He actually felt Simon grimace. The expression seemed to encompass his entire body instead of just his face. “He was trying to rob my mother. I stepped in. All I did was bite his hand.”

Nathan’s heart twisted again, then started to pound as he thought of Simon doing something dangerous. There was no use worrying about it now that it was long since over with but he couldn’t help but to do it anyway. Simon could have been hurt. Or worse.

“Do you think that’s actually his real name? Richard Cox?”

Simon let out a soft little snort. His body was still pressed firmly against Nathan’s. Nathan certainly wasn’t inclined to move, and he was glad Simon felt the same way. “It wouldn’t be the stupidest name I’ve ever heard. I don’t know what some parents are thinking. I’ve met at least one John Johnson and a Stephen Stevenson.”

“Good god.”

“Yeah. It’s awful. At least Richard Cox is sort of subtle. I don’t think it’s his real name. It seems to me like something a guy would come up with if he was trying too hard to be smart. Anyway, why does it matter?”

“It matters,” Nathan growled. “And it matters because I can guarantee you that this Cox guy really wanted you roughed up a little. Instead, we’ve got his buddy in trouble. He’ll find out about it. These kinds of people always do.”

“What do you think will happen then?”

“I think you’ll have to deal with something a little more troublesome than a little punk who doesn’t even know how to be himself.” Nathan growled again, louder than before. It seemed to him as if they were surrounded by threats, danger pressing in around them from all sides even though it was much too soon for anything like that. “Makes me wish we’d kept the little bastard around so we could set the police on his friend.”

Simon leaned back and looked up into his eyes. His own eyes were very deep, eternally green like an endless forest. Nathan wished suddenly that he could see all the trees within that forest, that he could understand more of this fascinating wolf. “Why can’t we go to the police anyway? And why do you keep involving yourself? I’m the one who might be in danger. Or, god forbid, my mother.”

“I doubt your mother will be a target. She won’t be the important one in the eyes of a person like this.” Nathan spoke almost absentmindedly, nearly all of his attention taken up by the fact that Simon was pulling away from him, leaving the circle of his arms. The separation ached. “And I’m going to be involved. I’m not going to let you go through this alone, especially when you’re feeling unwell.”

“Is that why you followed me home like a creepy stalker?”

“I only wanted to make sure that you got here safely. I was worried about you.”

Simon looked away. “Well, thank you.”

You want me to leave. I can tell.

“We could go to the police, but I doubt this would be a priority for them, especially seeing as we just let an important suspect go. There’s no real evidence to suggest that all of this is going to continue.”

“But you think it will.”

“I want to be prepared just in case anything else happens. I’m going to do some checking around of my own, on my own. I’ll keep you safe.” Nathan was aware that he sounded paranoid, that he was overreacting for no reason. Deep down, he just felt like he had to be sure about this before he could let it go.

Simon frowned a little. The gentleness within him, the empathy that was an omega’s most dominant trait, had been swallowed up and replaced by Simon’s characteristic strength and stubbornness. “I think I can keep myself safe. Thanks, Nathan, but I’ll be fine.”

Nathan didn’t agree or disagree, just let the comment slide. He would do what he had set out to do, no matter what Simon thought. This wasn’t a situation where a person could go through it on their own.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to the school anyway? Elaine will notice you’re gone.”

“I actually told her that I would be leaving.”

“Right after I left? Are you crazy? Doesn’t that look suspicious to you?”

“I’ll deal with it,” Nathan said. “Don’t you worry about anything.” He hesitated, and then his shoulders slumped a little. “I guess you’re right, though. I should go.”

“I am right. And I should just go lie down.”

An idea occurred to Nathan just as Simon said that. He kept his face mask-like and impersonal and nodded. “You’ll lock all the doors and everything?”

“Doors and windows. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, okay? It’s a waste of your time.”

Nathan backed up towards the front door and opened it himself. He stood there in the foyer, gazing right at Simon’s eyes.

Simon gazed back, looking too tired to ask any further questions or to even deal with this situation at all.

Nathan finished with what he was doing behind his back, then dipped his head. “Remember, take all the time you need to feel better.”

“I will.”

Nathan shut the door and retreated. He went to his car and drove away, but he didn’t go far. Instead, he drove idly through to the next neighborhood before dialing Elaine on his phone. The device was connected by Bluetooth to the car, so he could have the call hands-free. It was an imperfect system that filled the calls with static, but at least it kept the cops away.

“Churchland Elementary, front office. This is Elaine speaking. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Elaine,” Nathan said. He knew from experience that he practically had to shout to be heard on the other end of the line. In addition, he had to enunciate every syllable as clearly as possible. It all added up to make him sound, and feel, like an idiot.

Elaine seemed not to notice anything amiss, however. She was used to this by now. “Nathan, is that you? You’ve been gone for a while. Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine but something has come up. I need you to cancel and reschedule all my appointments for the rest of the day. You can jam-pack my next few days if you have to. Nudge some things around to make it work.”

“I’ll do that.” Elaine sounded displeased but he heard her scribble his request down on a piece of paper anyway. “You said you were only going to be gone for a short time. Is everything okay? Is Simon okay?”

“Everything is fine,” Nathan said, deliberately ignoring the question about Simon. “I’m just needed elsewhere for something right now. Please give my apologies to everyone, if you will.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“You always do. Is there anything else you need me to do?”

There wasn’t, so they both said their goodbyes and hung up at the same time. Nathan put his car into drive again and got moving, driving randomly up and down through the streets of several neighborhoods. He didn’t want anyone to be suspicious about a distinctive, pricey blue car patrolling back and forth in the same place. All he wanted to do was waste some time.

After about half an hour, he called it quits and drove back to Simon’s tiny home. His nerves were jangling the whole way there, though it was practically impossible that anything could have happened in his short absence.

The house seemed quiet and all the lights on the inside were off.

Parking along the curb, Nathan turned the engine off and stepped out onto the street. He shut his car door so quietly that it hardly made a sound, then walked up Simon’s driveway to the front door.

Throughout their life, a person picked up on a few tricks here and there as a way of making their existence easier. When dealing with kids, these tricks were especially important. Children were wild bundles of pure potential who obeyed their own set of laws, like a black hole. You couldn’t argue with an enormous well of absence. You had to deal with it, go around it.

One of the many tricks Nathan knew was how to unlock a door from the outside. That wouldn’t work here because he could hardly be seen trying to break into someone’s house. That would make him no better than Tobias Noble in the eyes of Simon’s neighbors.

The other option was to prevent Simon from locking his door at all. A bit of tissue stuffed into the socket where the door latched together prevented that from happening, though it would look like it had. The only way someone would know what had been done was if they saw the tissue, or tested their door to make sure that it had locked properly.

Hardly anyone did that.

Simon didn’t do that, because when Nathan tested the door it popped right open.

Nathan plucked out the bit of tissue and put it in his pocket. He stepped as quietly as he could inside the house, then shut the door so slowly that not even his powerful hearing could detect the sound of the latch slipping properly into place. He gave the lock and the deadbolt the same treatment, then shifted into his wolf form. Moving on silent predator paws, he crept into the living room and curled up in the middle of the floor. Tucking his tail over his paws, he waited, guarding over his lover where he slept in the bedroom.

He was still there when Simon rose from his nap several hours later, sick as a dog. Nathan heard him retch, the sound coming faintly through the walls. He could feel the pain of those convulsions as fiercely as if they were his own.

Simon eventually emerged from his bedroom and came down the hallway. His gaze glanced over Nathan with resignation. “Get out of here.”

“You should get to the doctor,” Nathan said, rising into his human form. He followed Simon into the kitchen. “Do you need me to get anything for you?”

“Don’t need the doctor. I think I know exactly what’s wrong with me. What I need is for you to please get out of my house.”

Nathan left, and this time he left for good.

His thoughts stayed behind even as he returned to his own home. He sat in front of the TV, watching images flash by without paying any real attention to them. His mind was somewhere else, churning over the puzzle of what could possible by wrong with Simon. This didn’t seem like just an ordinary flu.

Or maybe he was overthinking it.

A commercial came on, advertising back-to-school deals. Nathan watched idly and shook his head. He would wait and see if Simon was back at the school within a few days. If nothing changed by that point, he would drag the stubborn omega to the doctor by his ear, just like Superintendent Michael had dragged his son out the door. It had looked quite effective, and Nathan was eager to try it out.

Until then, all he could do was wait.