He met Collier’s eyes and stared him down, the doctor looked away, but it gave Luke little satisfaction. The energy that had gathered in his body like an impending storm demanded release, and so he began to pace, letting the force of it drain away. Fighting to keep it from turning on Collier in its irrational violence.
“Well.” The doctor’s voice was very soft “It doesn’t matter now. The point is that you did what had to be done, got word to us soon enough that there was no lasting damage. Had her injuries been worse, or if they hadn’t been treated promptly, I would have had to try to get her to a hospital.”
In a few strides Luke reached Collier, and his hands shot out of their own volition, dragging the doctor up from his seat. He held the older man suspended in midair, the sound of his own pounding heart loud in his ears.
“No hospital.” He snarled the words inches from Collier’s face. “Hear me, Collier. She’s not going anywhere.” The color had drained from the doctor’s ruddy complexion, and his blue eyes were wide with shock, that rare sight alone almost disarmed Luke, but he felt himself shaking the doctor as he would a defiant rival. “She’s not leaving me.”
All at once Collier became a dead weight clutched in his fists. Turning his face aside, the doctor looked down, his breath very shallow, docile and yielding, Luke responded to the silent language instinctively. With trembling arms he lowered the older man until his feet touched ground again.
The primitive fury that had come over Luke was gone, turned aside by Collier’s wordless appeal to the wolf nature within him. His fingers twisted free of the doctor’s shirt as he backed away, forcing himself to settle into a crouch at a safe distance where he could steady his breathing and his racing heart. Collier sat absolutely still on the stool, his eyes were turned carefully away, but the tightness of his jaw and the palpable tension in the tall, wiry body revealed his anger.
Luke ran a hand through his hair and dropped his head between his shoulders. “I’m sorry.” It was all he could do to say the words. “I’m sorry, Allan.”
Collier looked up slowly. The color had come back to his face, heightened by indignation, but with Luke’s muttered apology the sharp edges of taut bone and muscle began to relax.
“I don’t suppose,” he said mildly, “you’d care to explain what that was all about.”
Feeling a perverse desire to run away with his tail tucked, Luke compelled himself to meet his friend’s eyes. It was a rare experience for him to find difficulty in matching stare for stare. “I can’t—it wouldn’t make sense to you, Allan.”
“Oh no?” Collier leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and winced. “Next time you decide to go wild on me, son, do me a favor and give me a little warning.” Luke flinched, but Collier was not finished. “So, you don’t think I’d understand—after all these years, and given what I know?” He shook his head, tutting under his breath “You’re a lot smarter than that, Luke. And I know there’s something very unusual going on here. With her.” He nodded toward the door behind which Joey slept in blissful ignorance.
Resisting the impulse to fling himself to his feet, Luke sighed reluctant acknowledgment. “It’s not something I can talk about, Allan. Even to you.”
His carefully restrained answer should have been enough to discourage Collier from prying, but this time too much was at stake. He knew it when Collier would not look away.
“Try me.” There was a sudden sadness in the older man’s voice. “You used to come to me when you wouldn’t trust anyone else. Have we both changed so much?”
Luke closed his eyes “You haven’t changed, Allan.” He opened them again, and this time he fixed his friend with a deliberately challenging stare. “But now everything is different. You know more about us—about me—than any other Outsider. But there are some things you cannot understand.”
“Because I’m only human?” Collier’s lips curved up in a bleak smile. “There was a time I would have given anything to be what you are.”