Running Wild

crouched down and dipped his head to make Ri meet his gaze. “I have parents and a sister and a niece who all care about me. I am not going to hide out here and not let them know what is going on. Not happening. Okay?”
“I just want you to be safe, Seamus, that’s all.”
“I appreciate that sentiment. We’ll stay here tonight.”
“I can sleep outside.”
“God, no.” Seamus put out his hand, and Ri stared at it for a moment before rather gingerly putting his hand in Seamus’s. He could feel a slight tremor go through Ri’s body as he squeezed in reassurance. “We’ll figure this out together, okay? But tonight, we’ll sleep in the tent.”
“I’ll take the floor,” Ri said.
The cot was narrow, and neither of them was in any shape to sleep together, Seamus emotionally wrung out and confused, Ri trembling any time they touched. Though that strange thread of attraction seemed to bind them.
“I don’t mind taking the floor,” Seamus assured him.
“No, it’s good, I’m good.” Ri glanced once at their hands, still linked, as if he didn’t know what to make of it, and Seamus found the expression adorable. If he didn’t think that Ri was a candidate for either serious mental illness or a very, very difficult life, he’d be tempted to do more. Instead he squeezed a second time and released Ri.
“Okay then. Let’s go to sleep.”
    Ri never did sleep well. Horses didn’t. He’d lost the capacity to relax into a long, deep slumber years ago. Sometime after Zach had left.
He woke often through the night, aware that Seamus lay in the cot above him, breathing regular and slow, and that outside were the regular night sounds of insects and small animals.
Near dawn he slipped out into the damp morning and went for a short walk while he tried to figure out his next course of action. It was true, he hadn’t planned much beyond getting Seamus the hell away from the farm. He was a horse after all, he ran, that’s what he did. But as a long-term strategy, hanging out at the tent, no matter how appealing it was to Ri personally, was not going to work for his guest.
An hour later, when he heard the zipper sounding loud in the small woods, Ri loped home. By the time he reached there, Seamus was standing a ways from the tent, taking in the sights, such as they were.
“Good morning,” Ri offered.
Seamus tilted his head, gaze assessing. “I’m not entirely sure about that.” But his lips curved, a wry expression there, and he no longer appeared to be quite on edge like the night before. Something within Ri relaxed. Seamus wasn’t going to hate him, not today. “This has got to be the most unusual twelve hours I’ve ever spent in my life, and that includes the night I rode…Black.”
Ri supposed saying rode you sounded a little off.
Seamus marched up to him, stepping into his personal space yet not crowding him. He gazed up, slightly, as he wasn’t much shorter. “You’ve looked familiar to me, you know, since you strolled into the house in the middle of the night, and I figured out why.”
“Oh?” Ri couldn’t think of what Seamus was going to say, especially when Seamus raised his hand and lightly touched his jawline.
“I remember you from seven years ago. You carried me into the house and put me on the couch. Though you had a beard then.”
Ri stood stock-still as Seamus’s fingers stroked his stubble, watched as Seamus’s hand dropped back to his side. He was embarrassed to be breathing hard, and as if not to embarrass him further, Seamus turned so they stood side by side, staring at the tent.
Ri rubbed his chin. His facial hair grew in quickly. Grandfather had always emphasized that when he became human, he needed to clean himself up, make himself presentable. Acting like a wild man who never shaved or got his hair cut would set him apart from humanity, and for those who knew anything about shifters, it might help identify him, put him in danger.
“It was you,” Seamus said simply.
“Yes,” Ri conceded. “I couldn’t leave you lying on the ground like that. You’d collapsed. And my grandfather was too old to carry you.”
Seamus nodded.
“I think this means you believe me?”
“Not much choice, given what I know.” Seamus turned and his gaze intensified. “I want you to believe me. Pete is not a threat. I doubt he’s a werewolf.”
“He didn’t disappear the nights of the full moon?”
“Uh, well, I don’t know,” Seamus admitted. “Because we weren’t together all the