An Alpha for Me [Santiago Pack 1] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove)

by Toby Aden

  Gavin could do everything. He could do anything. Make anything possible. Gavin would never let him down. He would take care of him. As their oldest brother, Gavin was their caretaker. The one who made sure they were all okay. Gavin was the one to find, and that was who he was headed toward.

  The journey felt as though he was walking for a thousand years and without an end in sight. It felt as though he would never reach Gavin and would be caught where he stood. He could not let that happen. Already, he could feel his throat closing in on him, and if something did not change, he would die of a heart attack right there.

  Finally, finally, he could see salvation in front of him. Gavin’s door was only a short distance away, and he needed to reach it. In a burst of energy, he felt his legs carrying him faster and faster until he fell into the door, twisted it open, and collapsed into the room, face down. The crash of the door and his body into his brother’s room must have alerted the other man because it was not long before Will felt the safe and protective arms of his brother around him. He was lost in the grip of fear, but the fear eased a bit as Gavin shouted at him, demanding to know what the matter was even as he carried him to lay him down on the sofa in his room.

  He felt Gavin shake his shoulder to get his attention, but nothing was registering in his mind even, though he stared straight ahead into Gavin’s eyes without blinking. He could hear the worry and fear for him in Gavin’s voice, but the words would not cooperate in his mind. Instead, he shook his head.

  “Victor. Here,” were the last words that came out of his parched lips, and then he succumbed into blessed unconsciousness.

  * * * *

  “What the hell happened to him?” Kelly demanded, staring down at the sickly white features of their youngest brother.

  Gavin shook his head, dipping a washcloth into the basin of water Jason had brought to treat Will. He squeezed water out of the cloth then began dabbing at Will’s forehead, lines of worry etched into his own forehead and cheek.

  “I don’t know. He collapsed into my room. Literally. Just fell in and passed out on me. His pulse was erratic, and it looked as though it was hard for him to breathe. I’ve never seen him like this before.”

  “Does Gregory know of this, or is he a part of why this happened to him?” Jason asked, the usually calm and collected brother raising his voice in a near shout.

  “I have no idea,” Gavin said, repeating the process of keeping Will cool. “Only Will can answer that and possibly Gregory.”

  “This makes no sense. I need answers. I can’t wait around for him to wake up to get some answers from him!” Kelly said, pulling at his hair in frustration and worry. “I have to talk to Gregory,” he said then turned around, headed toward the door.

  Just before Kelly would have turned the doorknob and walked out, Gavin said, “He said something before he passed out.”

  “What?” Jason demanded.

  Just then, Kelly swirled on his feet and asked also. “What did he say?”

  “He said ‘Victor here,’” Gavin replied quietly, not looking at his other brothers. He shut his eyes tightly, as though it would be enough for him to control his emotions but it wasn’t. Turning, he eyed his brothers, his expression grave.

  The two brothers paled, color leaching out of their skin as they swerved on their feet. “No!” they muttered together as one.

  Gavin nodded, his expression grim. “It might not be who we’re all thinking of, but something tells me otherwise. Nothing could put the fear and anxiety in Will than the Yenassi pack being here. I’ll take a guess and surmise that Colin sent his son, Victor Yenassi.” Gavin turned to his brothers then, taking in their reaction to his words.

  “We’ve been caught!” Jason whispered in a hoarse voice, collapsing onto the seat behind him.

  “What will we do?” Kelly demanded. “We can’t run. No time, and with Will in this condition, running is out of the question.”

  Gavin nodded gravely. “We have no choice than to face it head-on.”

  “Noooo!!”

  The sound had not come from any of the brothers, and so as one, they all turned to stare into the frightened glazed-over look in their youngest brother’s eyes. He flailed about on the couch, trying to get into a seating position as he thrashed about, but Gavin’s strong arms around Will deterred him from moving an inch except relaxing back into the couch, which Will did not at all relent to.

  “Will! Will, stop! Calm down,” Gavin demanded.

  Kelly and Jason also rushed to Will, surrounding him and placing their arms around him to settle him down and to ground him, but Will was having none of it.

  “No! We must run. I’m fine. We’ll leave now. I’m fine. I can go. They can’t catch us. They’ll kill you no. No. No,” Will said, his breathing getting more frantic by the minute as he rambled on, shaking his head and staring at them with tearstained eyes, begging them to relent and adhere to his words.

  “Settle down, Will. No one is killing us. It was self-defense, and if I had believed they would believe us and listen, we would not have run in the first place. Colin is mad, yes, power mad and dotes on his youngest son, but Will, it’s different now,” Gavin said, trying to reassure their frantic brother.

  But even he could see Will was hearing none of it. It was as though Will had checked out and he was operating purely on instinct. Despite his brother’s grip, Will had shoved them away with unholy strength, adrenaline no doubt fueling his strength until he sat upright.

  “No! Why will you not listen? They will kill you, and then they will kill me. We will all die. We must run. Please. Father and other already died because of me. You can’t die, too. Please. Please!” Will sobbed, hysterical and clutching Gavin’s shirt, pleading with a wild, unfocused look in his eyes.

  “Jason!” Kelly barked.

  “On it.”

  “It’ll all be fine, Will,” Kelly said, stroking Will’s head even as he slipped behind Will and held on to the small wiry frame from behind, Gavin holding on to Will from the front.

  They’d boxed him in and were holding him tight against them in an effort to contain him while Jason brought out his nursing kit to retrieve a sedative to send the distraught one to sleep.

  “No. It won’t be fine! You will all die, and it will be my fault. It is always my fault. I should have not been born.”

  “Don’t ever say that again!” Gavin snapped.

  When Kelly gave him a pointed look, Gavin softened his tone, “You are not a mistake, Will, and it was not your fault Mother and Father died.”

  “It’s my fault. It’s my fault,” Will protested, his eyes suddenly going blank. In a move totally unexpected, Will tore out of their grasp, stumbling out of the couch, uncaring that he’d almost lost his balance in the process. “I deserve to die. Once I’m dead, you will all be okay,” he said, mumbling to himself and nodding as though he was right.

  At the words he uttered, Kelly and Gavin jumped off the couch, fear stuttering in their hearts and dashed after Will. Jason had also tossed away the sedative he was drawing into a syringe and rushed after his youngest brother. They all caught him in their arms a short distance away from the door, and Lord knows where he was headed had he left the room. They lifted him off his feet, ignoring the kicking and screaming, wiggling body they tried to subdue.

  “Jason. Get the goddamned sedative, damn it,” Gavin yelled, not letting go of Will one bit.

  “Fuck!” Jason yelled then dashed after the syringe. He quickly siphoned the liquid from the bottle into it before approaching his struggling brothers. “Now,” he cried.

  Kelly forced out one of Will’s hand, and with both he and Jason holding it still, Jason injected the sedative into Will’s vein. The sedative was one made specifically for shifters. Developed to counteract their fast metabolism so that it worked rather than flushing out of their system after a few short minutes. It was potent enough that, should a human use it, it would probably kill them but just potent enough to serve its purpose in the body o
f a shifter.

  After a few minutes more of Will thrashing about and screaming, the small body gradually became lethargic until Will finally succumbed to the medicine and became still, unconscious.

  “What happened to my mate?”

  Those words surprised all three brothers, as they had not heard the door to the room opening with all the commotion going on in their rush to get Will calm and medicated. All three pairs of eyes rose from the still body they were holding and touching in one form until they stared straight at Gregory, Annalise, Alpha Steven, and a few of the betas standing at the doorway, all mirroring looks of shock and confusion and even pity.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He’s been sedated,” Gavin said, breaking the charged silence in the room.

  “I’m a registered nurse. I knew what I was doing,” Jason added when Gregory pinned a distrusting look on the syringe in his hand. “It’s a simple sedative to knock him out.”

  “We would never harm our own brother,” Kelly said, his voice hard and unrelenting.

  Gregory gave a barely-there nod of the head to acknowledge their words, even though he knew that already. He had just not been able to restrain himself from hearing and ensuring in their own words that they would never hurt Will. If he had doubted that for even one second, his wolf, which was itching at the back of his mind to be let out, would have shredded them to pieces before they could say boo.

  He stepped into the room and went straight toward his mate. “I’ll take him.”

  The brothers wrapped their arms protectively around Will as though wanting to shield him away from Gregory and the world.

  “How do we know you were not a part of the problem that brought this on?” Jason asked.

  Gregory clenched his hands at his side in annoyance but also appreciation that they were willing to rally around their brother and protect him, not just hand him over after the breakdown the man had experienced. From the little they had all heard and walked in on, it was clear that Will needed help, professional help, even if his brothers would not be willing to admit to it.

  “I would never harm my mate. I will die before I let anyone touch a hair on his head. I am not stupid. It’s not a coincidence that we have an Alpha successor chasing after you all for retribution and Will winds up breaking down. Right now, I just want to take care of him. Once I have him settled in our room, we will talk.” He then gestured toward Will. “May I have him now?”

  The reluctance was clear for anyone to see on the brothers’ faces as they all stared down at their youngest sibling, their faces lined with worry and concern.

  “I will make sure he is okay,” Gregory said, trying to reassure the brothers.

  He could see clearly that it was hard for them to let Will out of their sight, but he was also not willing to let Will go when it was glaringly obvious that Will needed him and it was up to him to take good care of his mate. He’d already made the mistake of allowing the Alpha successor to step into the compound, and he had a nagging feeling that Will had known about it. When they had all heard the struggles and commotion with their super hearing ability all shifters had, he’d commanded one of his enforcers to see to it that the Alpha successor left the compound and was placed somewhere in town before running and following the sound to his mate.

  The little he’d heard, and what he’d ended up seeing along with all the others who had come to see the reason for the commotion, was enough to break his heart. To feel the vise of pain squeeze his heart on behalf of his mate. It should not have come to this point. He should have pushed Will to open up to him and not just waited, and now, he felt weighed down by guilt that he had inadvertently been a cause for this happening.

  “I will look after him. I give you my word on that,” Gregory said, reaching to brush a finger over Will’s cheek, holding his breath.

  Finally, it was Gavin who gave a brisk nod, obviously not pleased from the thinness of his lips and the frown on his face, but the other brother relented and took a step back. Gregory then collected Will from Gavin’s arm and swung his mate into his. With a nod, he turned and carried his mate out of the room, knowing without looking behind him that the brothers were all staring right at him. They might have relinquished Will to him, but that did not mean they were not watching or worried.

  * * * *

  Gregory, Annalise, Alpha Steven, Gavin, Kelly, and Jason, along with the betas and enforcers, all gathered around in the living room, the tension in the room palpable, not to mention the memory of what had happened with Will still fresh in everyone’s mind.

  “Victor Yenassi of the Yenassi pack is here.” Gregory paused, allowing the words to sink in.

  The Yenassi pack was the third largest in the U.S. with their territory bordering the U.S. and Canada. They were also a wealthy pack, especially with Colin Yenassi defeating most of the surrounding packs and adding them to his territory. For a long time, the pack had been left alone to handle their own issues, but everyone knew that the Yenassi pack were slowly getting out of hand. If they were not handled and dealt with, they would decimate any and everyone who came into contact with them, leaving fear in their trail.

  Still, even though they were increasing their territory with unconventional methods, they were still not the largest and most powerful pack there was. That role fell to the Santiago pack. Now that the war with the vampires was finally over, it was time to begin getting all the other wolf shifters in line. To ensure that they were all following the laws that governed them and were not rabidly going after other peaceful packs by force and trying for world domination.

  “Before I make any decision, I want to hear in your own words what happened to force you to leave your pack. I am assuming that is your birth pack?” Gregory questioned, throwing the question Gavin’s way.

  The brothers all eyed each other, and with a nod at the others, Gavin faced Gregory and the betas and enforcers. “The Yenassi pack is our birth pack.”

  “Hmm. We have already heard what the Yenassi have to say for themselves. Now, what happened if you please?”

  “The ruling Alpha of the Yenassi pack had two son. Victor, the oldest, and Dirk, the youngest. Things in the Yenassi pack are not done the way things are here. They were much more strict and stifling. We realize that now. After years of moving from pack to pack, place to place, we came to realize things were not normal at the Yenassi pack. We were used to it, so we did not know any better.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Henry McKay, one of the betas, questioned.

  “Every family was to send in their youngest sons or daughters, at the age of eighteen, to the Alpha’s pack. They became…whore for the Alpha’s family. We paid in fifty percent of our earnings to support the Alpha. During runs with the pack, everyone was fair game. The strong dominated the weak sexually. At least, they made the minimum age of anyone partaking in the runs fifteen.” Several gasps of horror filled the room at each word Gavin uttered, and the expressions of everyone ranged from bewildered, to sick, to angry.

  “We had no parents to watch out for us, so we all rallied around Will. We were already planning to run away before Will turned eighteen. There was no way we were going to hand Will over to be used. But…” Gregory shook his head. “You’ve seen Will. He’s so beautiful and innocent and good and kind. Everyone wanted him. Yet we could all do nothing but watch in disgust as Dirk always dogged Will’s steps. We always made sure Will never left the house without at least two of us around him. Each time Dirk would try to corner Will or make a pass at him, we would warn him off, but he took pleasure in reminding us that, when Will turned eighteen, he would take pleasure in breaking Will,” Gavin said shaking his head and clearing his throat.

  Gregory jumped to his feet in a blinding rage. His face distorting between turning wolf and remaining human. His fists were clenched so hard that when his fur blurred and he sprouted furs and claws, they drew blood on his palm, which leaked to the ground.

  “Calm yourself, son,” Alpha Steven said, laying his ha
nd tentatively on Gregory’s shoulder.

  Gregory snarled at his father, but the man did not back down. Instead, he grabbed Gregory’s nape and drew his son’s forehead against his.

  “Breathe!” he ordered. He might have given the reins to his son, but he was still an Alpha and Gregory’s sire.

  They remained like that for a while, everyone giving them space, and some even taking a step back and eying Gregory warily. Alpha Steven continued the breathing exercise with Gregory until Gregory stopped alternating between his human and wolf form and settled into his human form. Gregory released a breath and nodded at his father before settling himself back into his seat.

  “Please continue,” Alpha Steven said as he, too, took his seat.

  Gavin stared warily at Gregory, and when the man gave him a curt nod, he continued. “We always made sure we ran with Will, protecting him from everyone and plotting our escape from the pack. It’s not easy to leave the pack, which is why most do not know what goes on in there. Jason was the one who sorted out how we would escape without anyone knowing.”

  “And how did you manage that if leaving was not an option?” Beckley Ashford, another beta, questioned.

  “I would prefer not to say,” Jason said.

  “That is not acceptable. We must know how you managed it to avoid unnecessary alterations with the pack.”

  Jason pressed his lips in a grim line. “I will not give up who helped us. There’s nothing that would make me give the person up, so I suggest we move on,” he finished, his voice hard and unbending.

  When they all saw that Jason would not be moved, Gregory waved off any more attempts to get the other man talking. “It does not matter. Please continue.”

  Gavin nodded, and Jason let out a sigh.

  “It was just once. We were making sure the route out of the pack was really secure and there would be no surprises coming our way. Just the once we left Will alone in the house with orders not to open to anyone.” Gavin’s voice became hard. “When we got back, Dirk had managed to gain entrance into the house. He had Will backed against a corner. He would have succeeded in raping Will had we gotten back a second later, and we fought him off. He was angry. He would not leave. We fought, Jason got Will out of there, and Kelly stayed to make sure I would be okay, and I fought against Dirk. He would not relent. He was an Alpha, I am an Alpha, but I did not want Kelly or the others getting involved. Dirk thought he could subdue us, take us all down and have what he wanted. He was a spoiled little boy, but I was enraged. He had no right to have Will, but he wanted him by force if necessary. I killed him, and we hightailed it out of pack territory.”