He rounded the corner as he headed to his favorite hunting ground: the park, but pulled up short. It was weirdly quiet in the city that night. So quiet in fact that he could hear the electric hum of the street lamp on the corner. It felt like the beginning of a horror movie and he might have been scared if he wasn’t fully aware that he had long since become the thing that skulked in the shadows.

He was just about to go on his way when he heard the faint sound of footsteps walking towards him. Since the sodding mayor had sent hunters out after the supernatural inhabitants of the city he had done his best to lay low. He was out for nobody. His interests tended to be self serving at best and he didn’t want to be an arrogant hunter’s story to tell his buddies at the bar.

Now though, he felt the pulls of hunger, the need to hunt. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to feed and he didn’t care if it was human or not. He crouched, bracing for attack when he saw a familiar figure coming towards him. Annoyance replaced any other feeling as he stood up and moved to where he could see him. “What are you doing here, dog?” He snapped, pacing uneasily against the edge of the curb. “Shouldn’t you be running home to daddy?”

He grinned slyly as he crossed the street and headed towards the park. He paused at the water fountain to get a drink when he noticed someone sitting on a bench alone. He sidled over and sat beside him, crossing one leg over the other, studying the brown haired boy with careful eyes before speaking in softly accented English. “What’s bothering you, little one? You seem troubled...”

He also knew he couldn’t keep hating Doug. As far as hunts went, he was more what Dominic needed and from the looks of things, if he hadn’t have been there, he would be preparing for a funeral instead of making sure that Dom got home to Belle safely…. The thought made him sick. Dominic had been his friend for as long as he could remember and even with his feelings muddying the waters, he couldn’t imagine life without the difficult man there to be a part of it.

That realization was what had him up on his feet looking for Doug the day after he’d talked to Dom in Tiana’s. It had hurt him to see him so wounded; pain visible in his eyes. The image of him slumped in the chair as they talked for the first time in months haunted him to the point of making sleep impossible so he was up, dressed, and looking for the young wolf as soon as it felt like a decent time to be awake

He couldn’t be sure of what took him by Dom’s house but he walked there on auto pilot, his palms sweaty as he saw a familiar figure sitting on the steps. He inhaled slowly and joined him, resting his hands on his knees as he thought of what to say. Finally, he spoke, staring at the tops of his boots as he did. “Thank you, Doug, for protecting him.” His voice seemed to echo down the empty streets. “I don’t think I would have been able to, even if I had been there so I’m glad he had you there…. I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d—“ the sentence dangled there as he swallowed. “He’s my best friend…. I don’t even want to think about it….”