Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

I leaned over Kelly, putting my face close to his, not sure of what I was looking for but damn sure I was going to find it.

He sneezed in my face.

It was wet.

He blinked in surprise.

Silence settled.

“He’s infected too!” Chris wailed. “We’re all gonna die!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Rico growled. “You’ve only been a werewolf for a year. Is it eating your goddamn brain? You seriously can’t be this stupid.”

“We’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna—hey. That was mean, Rico. Now is not the time for rudeness.”

Tanner nodded solemnly.

Now Jessie and Mark were choking at the same time. I hoped it would be swift and not painful for them.

“I love you,” Carter whispered to Kelly. “More than anything. I wish… I wish we had more time. Please, Kelly. You have to fight this. You have to fight this.”

The timber wolf howled, a long and mournful sound.

I heard Ox speaking to Elizabeth. “We really just going to let this keep going?”

“It got Robbie up and out of his self-imposed exile,” Elizabeth replied. “I don’t feel bad about it at all.”

“It’s just a virus!” Rico said, throwing up his hands.

“A virus?” Carter said, sounding outraged. “What kind of virus? Who gave it to him? I’ll kill whoever did! I’ll kill them all!”

I nodded furiously. “I’ll help. I’m going to tear them apart.”

“Still too soon,” Chris muttered.

“I feel bad for you,” Jessie said to Mark. “Seeing as how you’re related to most of them. I don’t have to worry about that.”

“They are what they are,” Mark said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

Before I could turn around and snarl at them for being so heartless, Gordo said, “You guys are fucking idiots, I swear to god. I don’t know how the hell you’ve survived this long. He’s got a fucking cold.”

Jessie and Mark burst out laughing.

Tanner and Chris were frowning. “A cold,” Chris repeated.

“Yes,” Gordo said, exasperated. “A cold. That’s it. That’s all it is.”

Tanner said, “I knew that. I was just messing with them. Idiots, right? You guys are so dumb.”

“A cold?” Carter asked. “How can he have a cold? That’s a human thing. Wolves don’t get… oh. Right. Shit. Human.”

I tried to think about how to fix a cold. I didn’t know. I hadn’t met many sick humans. Wolves didn’t get sick. Humans were weak and fragile, and even if it was just a cold, Kelly looked like death warmed over. His face was wet and puffy and his nose was leaking. “Soup,” I decided. “I saw in a movie once that you need to give soup to sick people. It makes them feel better, especially when it has noodles in it.”

“That you can remember?” Gordo asked. He sounded pretty much done with my shit. I wanted to snap at him that at least his mate was only an Omega, but fortunately my drive to stay alive overrode my mouth. That and the fact that I was slightly shocked how easy it was for me to think of Kelly as just that.

As a mate.

I knew what he was.