Wolf Teeth || Book I : Summer {M/M} ❄

Chapter #2

When Taron woke, it was with a sharp spike of fear and a gasp for breath. He smothered both when he realized where he was. The smell of antiseptic, flowers and bleached cotton brought everything around him into sharp focus. He lay in a hospital bed, aching. It felt as though someone had twisted each muscle around a whisk, setting all his joints crooked. The curtains were drawn and the lights extinguished, leaving only a small yellow lamp to illuminate the other occupant of the hospital room.

Edrik sat curled up in the fetal position in a chair much too small for him, head bowed in his arms. Taron was glad he hadn't woken. It gave him a moment longer to take stock of his situation.

It was a dire one. The events of—yesterday? The day before? How long had he been out? They came back to him in quick flashes and bursts. The failed raid, Benny's slit throat, the werewolf and her moment of vengeance. Taron's skin burned with fever. He quietly threw the thin white sheet off himself. As he did, his arm protested with a lance of pain that shot from wrist to shoulder. He sucked in a breath and weathered it, but the pain had drawn his attention to the bandages. They wound all the way up from knuckles to armpit, dark stains at intervals along. The horror of that moment replayed and Taron thought, I'm going to be sick.

Then Edrik stirred and all thoughts of having a stealthy vomit in the adjoining toilet vanished. Taron tried to replace the feverish fear on his face with curiosity. Oh, look. How inconvenient that I've been bitten by a werewolf. Well, at least I'm not dead.

Yet.

"You're up," Edrik said softly. The ward was so quiet; it felt odd to speak louder than a whisper. "Are you—How're you feeling?"

"Like they didn't give me enough morphine," Taron said with a wry smile he hoped looked genuine. "You?"

"They told me," Edrik said. "They told me if you didn't wake up in another 24 hours, well..."

"How long have I been out?" Taron cut in incredulously. He didn't want to hear the end of that sentence. He knew what happened if you were bit—there were two options and neither were desirable. Survivors of the lycanthus contagion either became werewolves, or their bodies couldn't handle the virus and they died. Since Taron was still breathing, that meant he was in the former camp.

The implications of which he did not, for the moment, want to talk about.

Edrik stared at Taron awhile, mouth slightly ajar. Then he scrubbed his face and seemed to drop his concern. "Three days."

Taron blew a raspberry and plucked at the edge of his bandage. "The werewolf?"

"Dead."

Taron let out his breath slowly. It was no relief. Though Benny hadn't been shown a lick of mercy, the Fens weren't intended to be enforcers of capital punishment.

The room went quiet. Taron felt Edrik's eyes on him. Eyes he couldn't meet when he said, "So I'm a werewolf now."

He said it to make it real, and now it was. The way the room had not come into visual focus first, but instead in various smells. The flowers by his bedside, the caustic medicine, soap, and bedsheets. The changes were already happening, and his sense of smell was the first.

Edrik looked like he might be the one to throw up now. "Feel any different?"

Taron's lip quirked. "I can smell you from here. And you haven't showered since our spectacular failure of a mission, have you?"

Edrik gawked a bit. Then, because taking the piss was comforting and familiar, he smiled. "Don't flatter yourself. I've showered twice since then."