Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) by S.P. Wayne Read Free Book Online Page B

the thin white sheet that was pulled up to his hips, and was distantly thankful for having some sort of cover.
    "Lots of times," Dana said. "I've been sent to track down feral wolves more times than I can count. They don't always come back from it, neither. I knew I had to get you before you were too far gone. You spend too much time in either shape and it's bad for you."
    "I've stayed wolf for longer than that before," Axton said sulkily. He did remember, clearly, what it was like to move and make decisions without words for his reasoning process. It was easy and beautiful and simple and he longed for it again already.
    But he remembered, too, being able to recall Leander's face but not his name, and what it was like to forget even the word for what they had together. Love .
    Axton did not like this new betrayal of his body. He felt uneasy in his human shape but part of him paused at the idea of changing back. He had never lost so much of his human memory before.
    "Sure," Dana allowed. "But not like this. Not ever--" he paused, seeming uneasy, "...not after a big...event."
    "Not after an emotional trauma, you mean," Axton said sharply, "and not after a stint in solitary confinement, what the fuck ." Good. He had the word fuck back. That felt satisfying.
    "I had to make sure you weren't going to run away," Dana said.
    "That counts as torture in some countries, you know that?"
    Dana shrugged.
    "I just shot you," he pointed out. "This is an abnormal situation."
    "And you couldn't have shot me once?" Axton seethed, now that they were back on the subject. "You had to just to keep on going?"
    "I had to get your body to turn back to human," Dana said, voice low and suddenly cold as he leaned back in his chair. "And since we only involuntarily switch back when we're about to die, yeah, I had to keep on fucking going."
    "So you had to use all the bullets?" Axton demanded.
    "Look, I don't fucking know how much damage you can take," Dana said. "I ain't ever had to try and kill you before."
    "Why didn't you let me stay wolf?" Axton asked, fully speaking the question that had been his first, finally asking the only question that mattered. His despair and his anger were not lessened by his increasing capacity for speech. If anything, they were sharpened.
    "Ax, you were understanding fewer words than a pet dog," Dana said, rolling his eyes and throwing his hands up towards the ceiling. "Fewer words than a fucking house cat. You'd gone completely nonverbal. You didn't even know your own name . I had to take action before it got any worse."
    "I was happier that way," Axton said.
    "Well, too bad," Dana said.
    "How does that even work--regaining the memory for words?"
    "How the fuck should I know?" Dana asked, incredulous. "We don't exactly do research. Mostly wolves that go feral get put down. You know that."
    "Seriously?" Axton asked. " Seriously ? Never in my pack."
    "I'm pretty sure that's because the Russian never lets anyone go feral in the first place," Dana said.
    "The Russian?" Axton echoed, freshly incredulous.
    "Yeah, your dad, obviously," Dana said.
    "The Russian?" Axton repeated. He let himself fall back into his pillows. "That's the best we can come up with? No wonder we're a dying breed."
    "No, look, it's ominous," Dana said. "Being known by one word is sinister and impressive. He's a legend."
    Axton screwed his eyes shut, like maybe the world would be less stupid if he ignored it for a second.
    "Like, what, the Undertaker," Dana went on. "The Russian has a menacing ring to it."
    "He hardly has an accent on his English anymore," Axton muttered. "He worked hard at it."
    "Anyway, I think it has to do with the regeneration of neural pathways," Dana said. "Our bones change shape wolf to human and our skulls are completely different shapes, right, so you have to figure the brain tissue itself undergoes--" Dana stopped because Axton had opened his eyes and was staring at him in wonder. "What? It's like we have a reset button,