After that, he and Ellis would take to the trails, slowly at first. Then when Ellis’s strength began to return, their hikes grew steeper and longer. Returning exhausted, they would have dinner—an often daunting task, considering none of them could really cook—and after a couple of hours spent with Gibson with the occasional appearance of Ellis, Zach would go home to the inn.
It was both a satisfying and frustrating existence. The exercises were helping, and they couldn’t take Ellis to an actual physical therapist since explaining Ellis’s rapid recovery from an alleged life-altering injury was as problematic as taking him down to an emergency room with a healed-over bullet wound. It was odd seeing parts of Gibson’s features and body on another man, a similarity that grew when Ellis shaved off the beard he’d grown during his time as a wolf. Taller than Gibson, he’d been almost painfully lean and odd-looking with a musculature defined by hours of agitated roaming, but the high-protein diet Gibson insisted Ellis eat and the range of exercises they used to restore Ellis’s balance and awareness of his body returned his shape to a more human one.
Speech was a harder thing to recover. Unused vocal cords atrophied, and Ellis’s frustration at not being able to clearly communicate grew even as his body returned to normal. When he did speak, his words were halting and thick with a rusty purr. During one of their talks on the cabin’s deck before Zach left for the day, Gibson let slip he mourned the changes in his brother. The once cocky, charismatic brother who Gibson looked up to had been replaced by a shattered, silently angry, broken man.
“I just wish he’d tell me what he is thinking or how he feels about all of this,” Gibson confessed that day. “I know that I’d wanted him to come back to being a human—come back to being my brother—but I hope this is what he wants too. I just don’t know.”
That had been nearly a week and a half ago. Ellis grew stronger but remained silent for the most part, working very small words out of his throat and using gestures rather than speaking out loud. Gibson alternated between stressing over forcing Ellis to remain human, then being grateful at his brother’s dedication to recovering his form.
The moments Zach stole with Gibson were fleeting, especially since Ellis was usually present. The older man still slept on the futon in front of the fireplace, sprawled out on mounds of pillows, eschewing blankets or any other sort of covering. He spent only about ten hours awake in the day, his changing body requiring both large amounts of food and long stretches of sleep. Still, Zach didn’t feel comfortable doing anything other than stealing a few kisses from Gibson as they watched movies or he talked about the endless frustration and joy of writing books.
His kisses were often stolen outside with Zach pressed against the railing and Gibson leaning over him. Winter had hit full force, and the snow fell thick and furious, feeding the ski slopes the area depended upon for its livelihood. He’d grown used to the chill and took an oddly silly delight in Gibson insisting Zach wear and keep one of his leather jackets to stay warm.
However, after spending an hour outside trying to keep pace with Ellis, Zach would have gladly shed the jacket in exchange for a tall glass of iced tea. He’d at some point lost feeling in his fingers despite the gloves he wore, and his feet felt numb, but his leg muscles were on fire, and his heart was never going to forgive him for the cardio workouts he was forcing his body through every day.
“Almost there,” Ellis ground out unexpectedly, startling Zach to the point where he stopped and was forced to jog to catch up. “Cool down inside.”
Those five words might have been the most Ellis had ever spoken to Zach in the entire time he’d been human, and he didn’t know how to react. If he said anything, it would be insulting, but if he was quiet, Ellis might be offended by Zach not replying. A few feet down the trail, Ellis glanced back at him, a ghost of a smirk on his wide mouth.
“Say it,” he rasped. “You are loud. Can even hear you thinking. No talking, suspect you dead.”
Zach’s relationship with his siblings was an icy détente. He’d been the only child from his father’s second wife, and the first wife’s offspring were nearly a decade and a half older than he was, so he’d grown up alone, unused to familial teasing from Gibson and Ellis’s pranks. But the Keller boys seemed to thrive on it, and he was slowly learning that not everything said sharply was meant to hurt. He just hadn’t worked up the balls to return fire, especially since he didn’t think he could play at their level of snarky banter.
But he was going to give it his best shot.
“Are you saying I talk too much? Maybe I have to talk, because I’m sure as hell not getting intelligent conversation from the two of you most the time.” He wasn’t sure of his reply, especially when Ellis shot him a dangerous look through narrowed eyes, but Zach pressed on. “You’re not exactly an engaging conversationalist during these hikes of ours.”
He was about to apologize, thinking he’d gone too far after Ellis was tight-lipped for a few moments. Then the former wolf let out a creaky laugh.
“Hurts to talk,” he confessed, his mouth twisted into a full grin. “’Sides, have to wait ’til you shut up. Takes forever. Race down. Loser washes dishes.”
Then Ellis left Zach choking on the spray of snow his boots kicked up when he bolted ahead.
“Oh, you fucking son of a bitch,” Zach shouted, breaking into a full run. “Goddamn cheater.”
There was no chance in hell he was ever going to catch Ellis. Yet, much like the banter, Zach was going to give it all he had in him. It wasn’t the first time Ellis trapped him into a household chore in a losing race, especially after the other man’s body regained its full human strength, but this time it was made very clear to Zach that he had no chance of winning. They nearly tumbled down the rest of the way, the trail’s steepness throwing them off-balance—or at least throwing off Zach’s equilibrium. By the time they made it to the cabin’s front door, Zach was nearly dizzy and was sure he sported a couple of new bruises from when he tripped and fell over a stone on the path.
“I swear to God, you are more were-goat than wolf.” He stood on the deck shivering while his throbbing leg muscles protested the hard descent. “It’s not fair racing me when you know I can’t keep up with you.”