Lynx Northern Shifters 3

can’t help you with that.”
“My boss, Kingley, was watching me too carefully. I couldn’t afford to lead him back to you.”
“Okay.”
“But I should have. Better than you seeking me out and Horton finding you.”
“It’s done. I’m tired. I’d like to sleep.”
“I’ll have to leave in a few days.”
Jonah lay down. He should be happy to hear Trey say that, since he wanted the man gone. But it reminded him of the first time Trey had left and how painful that had been.
“I need to check in on my family. Make sure they’re okay.”
Jonah slung an arm across his face. “How’s the wife?”
“There is no wife, Jonah. I have a nephew, a niece.”
“A brother, if I recall.”
“That too.” There was a long pause. “I have a daughter.”
Jonah didn’t want to hear more about Trey’s family. He didn’t.
“She’s your age.”
“ My age?” Jonah let his arm fall, doing the math. Trey had been a teenaged dad—barely. Well what do you know, being indifferent to Trey brought out all sorts of confidences. Trey would never have told him anything if Jonah had actually been asking questions, shown curiosity, been invested in this conversation. Christ.
“I didn’t know about my daughter for her first fifteen years.”
“Oh yeah. You had a lot of sex at too young an age.”
Trey grunted. “I’ll come back.”
“Don’t bother saying that.”
“Look—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Trey.”
Trey’s face darkened. “I’ll be back.”
I’d rather you didn’t. But the words, dammit, stuck in Jonah’s throat and he couldn’t push them out. Fine, let it be an experiment. See how long it took this time. “See you in three years then.” Shaking his head, Trey clenched a fist. “You’ve got enough food and firewood for quite a while.” “Thank you for that.” Jonah closed his eyes, turned on his side, back to Trey. “I really am quite tired.”
He expected Trey to talk more, argue more, but the wolf remained silent, still. And in that stillness, Jonah fell asleep.

Chapter Seventeen
    It was a relief when Trey left. It was, and yet it galled Jonah that he missed Trey’s presence. He was too angry, too hollowed out, to miss anyone or anything. He wanted his place to himself, he wanted his life back. He’d never been the happiest person in the world, but at least he’d had his own way of living on his terms. The past two years had robbed him of something.
    Mostly he tried not to think about what had happened. In some ways, by going through the motions of his day, he slipped back in time. Okay, he slept more than he used to, still recovering, but otherwise the familiarity soothed him, when it used to drive him mad with boredom and loneliness.
    A month passed in this way—too early for Jonah to think that Trey was proving him right by not returning this time. He actually did expect Trey to come back, but in the far-distant future, in years. Trey after all was an important man with important things to do and Jonah…wasn’t.
    But he had killed for Trey, whether or not Trey understood it as such, and Jonah felt the same way about Horton’s murder as he did about Aaron’s. A long time ago, Jonah had silently vowed he would keep Trey safe and he had held true to that. Despite the way things had ended between them, that fact gave Jonah intense satisfaction.
    The first blizzard arrived. He spent some time as lynx, some as human, enjoying the snow that had not been his to enjoy in the city. Knowing he could shift back and forth between his two forms also soothed and healed him, made him feel less like a split personality and more whole. Still empty but not quite as broken.
    He was sleeping in his cot in the dead of night when someone tromped into the cave. Jonah surged awake, heart racing, as Trey’s voice reached him through the door.
“It’s me.”
Jonah could only blink in astonishment and watch while Trey pushed on through, flashlight in hand, clad in winter gear, carrying a backpack of all things.
He’d expected Trey to return as a wolf. He picked up his lamp on the floor and turned it on, holding it aloft.
“What are you doing here?” Jonah demanded and the barely there smile on Trey’s lips disappeared.
“I told you I’d come back.”
“In the middle of the night? As human ?”
Trey eyed Jonah, as if trying to understand his point. Jonah was trying to understand it too, to be honest. “I can carry things in as human. That’s how we get food supplies here.”
We . Jonah’s