Trials of the Bitten

Part 17

They had slit Luka's throat. They had slit it to silence him. They had tortured him. Slicing his arms and legs up. They had cut the tendons behind his knees. They had laced the blades with some drug to stop Luka from healing fast like werewolves could. Luka couldn't talk and was stuck in a wheelchair, looking grey and ill. Martin felt ill at the thought of what had happened. These people, they had done that to kill a monster, they were torturing a young man because of what he was. 

Still, nightmares were now filling his nights on a nightly basis and not all of them were about his uncle. Or rather sometimes it was his uncle doing those things to him. Sometimes it was faceless people and sometimes it was the people who used to bully him at school.  It wasn't fun.

 Especially as Nick had started crawling into bed with him to calm him down after them. The comfort was nice. Nick gave good hugs and whispered gentle words into his ears as he sobbed in fear. He didn't say anything to the others during the day either and during those moments, Nick oddly didn't make any moves at him. Every other second of the day sure, but not while Martin was having nightmares. The problem was, Nick only slept in his boxers. Martin was getting used to not reacting when seeing Nick shirtless, it was Nick's natural state, but waking up pressed against a firm chest and wrapped in long firm muscles made parts of him react that he had been falling out of bed to escape before Nick noticed.

He didn't succeed. 

"Come on, Martin, don't be shy. Happens to everyone," Nick teased, winking at Martin as he struggled on the floor caught up in the blankets. "Just a shame the showers have already been taken," he mused, standing up and stretching, his boxers riding low on his hips making Martin's cheeks turn redder. He still couldn't avert his eyes fast enough when Nick was like that. He grabbed a pillow and shoved it over his crotch to hide the tent in his joggers. The more relaxed he got with the family, the more things started to return to him. 

"Shut up," Martin muttered, curling slightly, incredibly embarrassed at that moment. He had never had a roommate before and he didn't really know how these kinds of things were supposed to go. 

"Not sure you should do that with my pillow," Nick chuckled, bursting into full laughter as Martin threw the pillow away from him like it was a hot potato. "Still, you feeling better?" he asked, grabbing a comb from the side and running it through his locks, sitting on the bed again and lounging comfortably. 

"Yes, thank you," Martin nodded, standing and walking awkwardly over to the wardrobe, opening the door to hide from Nick's sight. "What do you reckon I should wear today?" he asked, looking at his options, while willing things to go down.

Today was a big day. It was the check-ups. It sounded like a massive test day to Martin. There the pack families got together and all the pack youngsters raced, fought and showed off to prove who was the best in the pack. Martin didn't want to go but everyone was going. So the options were, be locked in the cage all day or go and sit on a blanket with Leon and Luka to watch. Leon was still weak from whatever had happened to him and Luka was still very injured from the hunters. It had only been a week since the incident. 

"Whatever you want, no one cares. We're wolves, remember?" Nick said dryly. "You're also not competing."

"True," Martin nodded, picking up one of the nicer T-shirts he had been given. Nicer in that it wasn't a solid colour only and wasn't a sports top. He dug out some greyish jeans and changed into those two, parts of him finally starting to cooperate and disappear. The pack men didn't care about clothes. Andy did, but it had already been pointed out numerous times that Andy wasn't the standard pack male. Martin still wanted to look good though.