Page 22 of Wolf's Fate

I heard them both chuckle, and I remembered the man from this morning. “I have a question, and it’s going to sound…stupid…but if I ask, will you promise not to ridicule me?”

Royce lost his smile a little. “We would never make fun of you for wanting to know about us,” he chided gently.

I felt guilty again. I was definitely winning on the “thinking bad thoughts of your peers” day.

“I walked into a guy today. But he was big, bigger than Cannon.” When neither of them looked impressed, I carried on. “He was rude, and as I walked away, I called him a jerk.”

“I thought you saidhewas rude?” Doc teased.

“I said it so low he could never have heard me if he was…well, you know.”

“Human?” Royce supplied, and I nodded. “Describe him.”

I did as I was told, and Doc must have thought that me agitated and fully invested in my topic with Royce was the best time to examine me. I didn’t protest as I got poked and prodded, still discussing details with Royce.

He asked for details no one would notice or even know they had noticed. The one on the smell of his aftershave caused me the most consternation until I concluded he must not have been wearing any. That answer wasn’t supposed to make them react like they did.

“I’m going for a walk around town,” Royce told Doc. “No one gets in, okay?”

“Roger,” Doc confirmed as he fiddled with an ear thermometer.

“I have friends coming to work on the store,” I told Doc.

“That’s fine. He means the ones you don’t know.”

Right. God, how was this my life? “Should I be worried?”

Doc looked up at me as he placed a cover over the ear prod. “Are you?”

“Yes?”

“It’s normal.” He stuck the thermometer in my ear. “How have you been feeling?”

I heard the machine beep to indicate it was done. “I’ve been okay, considering.” I thought about Lorna. “I’ve been staying with a friend. She was a student here. An older lady, got two sons, they’re in college, so she’s missed looking after people.” I gestured to the shop. “Her husband’s been doing the work here actually.”

Doc nodded as he looked around. “Handy friends.”

“Yeah, um, Lorna, that’s her, she said this morning that I look better for staying with her, and being well…looked after?” I saw him studying me, and I looked away as I continued. “She thinks I look healthier.”

“Your symptoms?” Doc asked me, taking out a small notebook. “I have here a pattern of sorts that I’ve been observing.” He gave me a quick smile. “It’s a bad habit of mine, I do it a lot. So, here, I have your sleep patterns, your feelings of fatigue, listlessness. Eating habits. Your temperature from the few days you were with the pack.”

“Oh my God, how long were youobservingme?”

“When you were in the bunker, a couple of times before, you know. Normal stuff.”

We held each other’s gaze, mine inquisitive, his looking dodgier by the second. “Caleb?” I guessed. “He took notes for you?”

“He’s very observant,” Doc mumbled, flipping his pages back and forth. “His observations were quite informative.”

“I bet they were,” I snarled as I started to pace. “What else did heobserve?”

“Just things that he asked me that he should look out for. Your illness isn’t one a shifter would come across before. Being told someone suffers from constantfatigue, it’s the exact opposite of a being that is continuously energized andactive. You’re the polar opposite of a shifter. He had no idea what he was looking for. You were unconscious for days, he needed guidance and told me he had already had a doctor consult, and he needed more. He had your notebook, but he didn’t understand your code.”

“He could have asked.”

“You were unconscious.”

“Then he should have waited for permission.”