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Perhaps Roy had lost his mind. Maybe he’d gone mad with loneliness out here. It happened sometimes.
He shook his head against the thought. Roy wasn’t the type. If the old man had lost his mind and gotten hitched, some stupid mistake by that city-slickin’ lady would surely bring him around again.
By the time the house came into view in the distance, his worry had convinced him that Roy had probably only cut his finger or some other such injury common in the daily life humans led. The small amount of blood had probably sent the skittish woman into a tither. Roy was likely sitting up in his house with a bandage on his pinkie drinking moonshine, and they would have a good laugh together over the dramatic tendencies of city folk.
Then he came upon Roy, lying in the dirt of his front acreage, barely moving and soaking the earth beneath him with his blood. He smelled the thick iron scent well before he reached him. Garret cursed and jumped off the horse before the panting creature had even stopped moving. Cookie was right behind him, pulling quickly-gathered medical supplies from the saddlebags of his own horse. By the amount of blood and the paleness of Roy’s skin, the bandages would be of no use.
“Roy. Roy, you still with me?” he asked the old man. The man who had acted as a father for him when his had failed.
“Garret,” Roy breathed with a pained smile. “I thought you wouldn’t get here in time. I’ve been holding on.”
“C’mon, old man. Save your strength.” He leaned closer to block Roy’s view of his stomach.
“I’ve already seen it.”
Garret took Roy’s trembling hand. “It’s not so bad,” he said as he shook his head slowly in denial of a fate that, by the grim look on his face, Roy had already accepted.
“Listen to me. Listen!” Roy demanded hoarsely. “The woman you met. Eliza.”
“I don’t care about that woman—”
“Please, Garret. The woman is Elizabeth.”
Garret frowned, his hand putting pressure on Roy’s stomach. “Elizabeth, who?”
“My daughter.”
Garret frowned, absolutely stunned into silence. Roy had a daughter? Wait…Garret racked his brain. That sounded familiar, but he’d been left with very few memories of his human life after he’d been turned into a werewolf.
Roy ground out, “I want you to marry her.”
“You want me to what?” he yelled. He stood and paced away. “Oh, piss off, Roy. Piss all the way off! I didn’t even know you had a daughter.”
“Yes you did. You were great friends when you were…”
“When I was human? I don’t even fucking remember that!” Garret roared.
“She remembers you,” Roy said weakly.
“Oh yeah? She remembers a boy I have no connection to? You’re really asking me to tether myself to some…some…human woman?” His yell echoed across the clearing.
“Garret,” Cookie murmured in a gentle warning.
“You ain’t thinking straight, Roy. You don’t know what you are asking.”
“I do. It’s gotta be you, Shaw. I don’t trust no one else to take care of my girl out here but you.”
“I’ll ruin her, and you know it. I don’t want anything to do with her.”
“It’s what I’m asking. It’s my last ask.”
“I can fix this,” Garret growled out. “I can fix it, Roy.”
“By making me like you?”
“It ain’t so bad.”
“Boy, I seen what it did to you. I don’t want that.”
