I'd never shared what I could do with someone who hadn't already known. My uncle had always seemed to know. I couldn't recall when I'd noticed myself, how energized I could feel when I was in a room full of people. It was after my father had died, I knew that. And long after my mother, who had died giving birth to me.
Wyatt smiled, though his eyes were still slanted with worry. "Deal. Just let me tell the others you're okay."
"You can let them in. I don't mind." My life was odd in that I was often surrounded by people when I was in a crowded bar looking for a mark, but I wasn't often surrounded by family. It felt like that should make a difference.
But Wyatt looked away quickly. "Not yet. I'm not ready."
Poor guy. A one-night stand had snowballed into so much more. I was glad he hadn't left me passed out with the guys who'd come to attack him, but did he wish he could've left me? I braced my hand against the mattress and hefted my body into more of a sitting position. "I should be able to get moving soon. My headache is already gone."
Wyatt grabbed my shoulder. "You aren't moving. I want Nana to look at you."
"Is that a doctor?"
"No, she's my great-grandmother, but she's cared for many generations of people. And she's good with weird."
This was definitely that. Weird. "You aren't tapping your toe waiting for me to be able to leave and get out of your hair?"
His eyes rounded so wide I could see the whites on all sides. "I don't want you to go anywhere. Scratch that. You aren't going anywhere." His tone was hard, like he expected me to fight his decision. "I'm not embarrassed of you, if that's what you're thinking." He rubbed his throat and scratched the back of his neck. "I was really fucking scared when you fell. It was cool and strange when everyone else fell, but when I saw that blood coming down your face, my heart just about froze in place. And I couldn't wake you up. I tried everything."
"How long have I been out?" I'd assumed the last events I remembered had occurred only earlier that day. But Wyatt made it sound like longer.
"Two days."
I attempted not to let it show how shocking that revelation was.
"Longer than you thought?" Wyatt asked, staring at my face. I guessed I'd done a crap job not letting my emotions show.
"A little. When I overload, it's normally for a few hours, not days." No wonder I'd felt so strung out.
"Overload?" Wyatt dabbed a white paper napkin against the sides of my mouth.
"It's what I call it when I take too much too fast."
"Too much what?"
I closed one eye, trying to think of how to explain something that came naturally to me. Even with my uncle, who seemed to have known about my ability before I had, I hadn't needed to come up with words to describe the process. "Your energy, I guess?" I peeked at him with my one open eye, too scared to see his disgust with perfect vision.
There wasn't disgust, but he was wary. "You did that to me—sucked my energy?"
I nodded. No one had energy like Wyatt. The men who'd burst into the bar that I'd drained, they'd had energy at the same intensity, but it still hadn't been the same as Wyatt's. "What about you? What's your excuse?"
I wasn't going to be the only one of us laying myself bare for examination.
Wyatt took a deep breath. "Me and my cousins, their mates, and their children can turn into wolves. Those people you dropped could turn into wolves too. They live in what's called a pack that's located on the other side of the bay. The pack has a lot of rules they use to keep the peace, but now they are trying to claim they can apply those rules to us because there are so many of us living in one location."
That all sounded… surprisingly succinct. Though I figured Wyatt'd had a few days to think of what to tell me. He had to have known I would be curious. Just like he still was. He'd gotten a few answers, but I wasn't fooled into believing he was at all satisfied. "You can turn into a wolf? Those dogs… they were… people?" My first instinct was to take everything Wyatt told me as a prank or a tease. But he had no reason to prank me right now, and I could suck the energy from people and consumed it like food. Who was I to decide which weird things were worthy enough to be real life?
One second, Wyatt sat on the mattress. The next, a wolf sat in his spot. He tilted his head to the side, both ears stuck straight up, and my heart began to pound, my instincts telling me I was suddenly near a dangerous predator, and maybe I should run or something. But then his mouth opened, and his tongue flopped out as he panted with a doggy version of a smile.
"Wyatt?" I whispered.
Mr. Boots jumped on the bed, and I feared that I was about to witness a catfight, but he purred as he patted over to the wolf, rubbing his spine down the wolf's hind leg.
Mr. Boots didn't like anyone that much. Not even me.
Wyatt transformed a second time, but this time I was ready. I watched him carefully, until his form blurred, and I couldn't be sure of what I was seeing. Then a Wyatt appeared right where the wolf had been.
Mr. Boots looked up at him, hissed, and hopped back off the bed.
"Sorry, he's a quirky cat," I said, thinking after the fact that I probably should have commented on what Wyatt had just done.
Wyatt grinned and asked, "Where did you find him?" But he didn't ask with a hushed tone of awe and affection.
"On the street outside a pub in Oregon. I'd struck out and found him crying on the curb, and all these people kept walking by him."
"That sounds sad."
"Well, between cries he was trying to bite anyone who stopped to help him. He bit me twenty times by the time I rescued him. But we've learned how to live with each other." Mr. Boots had been thin but really angry. Now he was fat and just a little angry.
Wyatt watched Mr. Boots lick his side. Wyatt looked like he might try to pet him but then thought better of it. "You're taking this really well," he said instead, pushing his big hand up his forehead and through his black hair.
I wanted to do that. Run my fingers through his hair. Grab his strands and tug on them.
I looked away quickly before I let too much of my desire show. "You guys don't eat people or anything, do you?"
I didn't know who looked more offended: Wyatt or Mr. Boots. "No. We don't eat people. I could eat a person, I guess, if I wanted to. But I don't make a habit of it. Can you?"
"Eat you?" My voice sounded very high and breathless.
Wyatt's gaze turned scalding as his mind dropped down into the gutter with me. He studied the blanket covering me before asking, "Can you kill me with your power? Take too much?"
I shook my head. "Not that I know of. Once you pass out, the energy isn't consumable. So I would have no reason to continue draining a person."
"But could you?"
I shuddered. It wasn't a pleasant thought, draining a person for no reason other than to take their life force. Even the most asshole of marks didn't make me wish I could drain him dry.
You're a parasite, Kansas. And parasites need containment.
I hugged my upper half, rubbing my arms to try to wipe away the memory of my uncle. "I wouldn't. I never would." I swallowed around a lump of emotion that welled high in my throat, threatening tears. "No."