Lynx Northern Shifters 3

warm up.” Trey swept an arm towards the burgeoning flames.
“I’m fine.” Jonah shoved his hands under his armpits and looked for all the world like he didn’t belong in his own home, which was not what Trey wanted at all.
“Do you mind if I make us some porridge?”
Jonah simply shrugged, the gesture stiff, his expression suspicious.
All right. Porridge it was. Silently, Trey found the pot and the oatmeal, boiled some water and served out two bowls. He’d observed how the kitchen area was arranged yesterday so it wasn’t difficult to get what they needed.
He backed away from the fire and left Jonah’s bowl near it, hoping the lynx would move towards warmth because he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding the tremors running through his body.
When Trey was about halfway through his bowl, Jonah approached the fire, picked up his portion of porridge and gulped it down so that he was finished at the same time as Trey. Jonah proceeded to provide them with water and beef jerky, then washed the dishes. Trey’s offer of help was received with a shake of the head.
When Jonah finished his chores, he turned and looked startled to see Trey had hunkered down on the thick wool rug where he’d slept the night before, or perhaps he was just startled to see Trey. It might take more than an hour to get used to the idea of a visitor if you never had them. Trey wanted to tell the cat to sit and relax, but the only place to sit, besides the makeshift bench which Jonah had lowered himself onto, was the cot. Right now, Trey was blocking the way to the cot.
Trey scratched his beard, briefly wondering if he’d be able to borrow shaving supplies in the future, then turned his mind back to the matter at hand. The truth was, he was used to taking charge, laying out orders and being the tactician. He was widely regarded as cold and he liked it that way. But here he’d stumbled upon a young man who needed to be coaxed into at least a minimal amount of trust.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made connections with anyone. He just did his job.
“What do you want from me?” Jonah was staring at the dying fire. It needed to be built up again and, indeed, the young man crouched down and poked before adding a couple more logs.
There was a large pile of wood in the cave. He would’ve had to spend a lot of time cutting up trees. While it wasn’t a full-time job to live like this through the winter, it quite definitely took some effort, some forethought.
When Trey didn’t answer, Jonah glanced up, a mutinous expression on his face, like he wasn’t going to repeat himself. So Trey considered the question. What did he want from Jonah?
“I don’t want anything,” he began carefully.
“Then why are you here?”
“Would you prefer I leave?”
Jonah shrugged, which Trey found interesting. Good. Perhaps there was some curiosity to carry them past this awkward introduction.
He tried to start again, though honest to God, conversation had never come easily to him. “I was on vacation—”
“You work?” This asked in a tone that suggested Trey had accomplished the impossible.
“Yes.”
“What’s your job?” There was a kind of eagerness there, muted by Jonah’s suspicions, but Trey responded to Jonah’s desire for knowledge. He wondered how much Jonah knew or didn’t know about the outside world.
“Law enforcement.” Trey was not going to get more specific than that.
“So, you’re like police.”
“Yes.” He wasn’t police, but like police was close enough.
Jonah poked the fire again, making it unnecessarily smoky. “Do they know? Do the people you work with know you’re a werewolf?”
“No.” His handler, Kingley, suspected something was going on and was dangerously curious about Trey, but he was trying to fix that.
“Does anyone know?”
“Well, you do.”
This brought Jonah around to face him. His eyes were fire-lit green, his face pale with red splotches, perhaps from the heat of the fire, perhaps from his obvious stress.
“Who knows about you, Jonah?” Trey asked.
“Just you,” he mumbled, voice low.
“Where’s your family?”
“Dead.” Jonah probably wasn’t aware of the bruised expression that crossed his face when he uttered that one word. “Where’s your family?”
Fair enough. Jonah had questions and Trey tried to answer them, even if he didn’t want to. “My parents are dead. I have a daughter I never see. Not werewolf.”
“Oh.” Jonah’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t ask for more