by Marcy Jacks
fuck, however you wanted to call it, was there, and it was strong.
He shifted his legs, trying to will down his penis and hoping that Chris wouldn’t notice. At least he was a human. That meant he
wouldn’t easily smell the change in Eli’s body.
“I heal quickly. The stitches helped close the wound a little faster, but I don’t need them anymore, and it was starting to itch.” Eli held his arm out so that Chris could see for himself.
Chris leaned forward, his eyes glued to the pink line. “That’s impossible,” he said.
He’d seen Eli transform. He’d watched as Eli fought off those other werewolves, and then he brought him here to nurse him back to health. He knew it was possible, but Eli decided not to push it.
“Does anyone else know I’m here?”
Chris hesitated and then shook his head. “No. I tried to make sure
no one would see use when we came in,”
Eli nodded. “Thank you for that.”
“What are you?”
The inevitable question that usually came when humans discovered there were things in the world they thought had only been the product of some twisted writer’s nightmares.
This man was his mate, Eli reminded himself. If he revealed what
he really was, he would have the law of his pack on his side. “A
werewolf.”
Chris seemed taken aback by that. “But I thought werewolves only changed under the full moon and were all ferocious and couldn’t control themselves when they did transform.”
Eli shook his head. “That’s the odd case. Wild werewolves are
usually like that, and most of the time they can’t even control
themselves when in their human forms.”
“Wild―?”
“Shh!” Eli raised his hand for silence, his ears picking up a sound
26 Marcy Jacks
from just outside their door. Sounded like an empty can or something
being kicked around.
“When you brought me here, did you travel along the streams?”
“What streams?” Chris asked.
Right. He was new in town, and that response certainly answered Eli’s question.
He slunk over to the door, still naked and trying not to notice the way Chris blushed and hid his eyes under his hand as he passed. Eli looked through the peephole. He saw nothing.
That didn’t guarantee that Lloyd and his man hadn’t gone back to their pack and decided to return with some reinforcements.
Eli didn’t smell the men, and he had their scent for sure. He would
never forget it. Maybe it was just some soda can blowing in the wind.
He didn’t want to take the risk. “Where’s the phone?”
“On the nightstand. Did you want me to go out and, I don’t know, find you some clothes or something?”
Just the way he said it let Eli know how uncomfortable Chris was over Eli’s nudity. The rise in his heartbeat also told him that it wasn’t because he found the male body repulsive. Not by a long shot.
“Probably best you don’t leave here after what happened. At least
not yet,” he added quickly, finding the phone and picking up the
receiver.
Chris swallowed. “Because of those other men?”
Eli looked at him straight on, remembering the way that one slimy fuck had tried to rape Chris. “Yes.”
“But I have nothing to do with any of this!” Chris said. “I’m not a werewolf.”
“No, but you have the night-and-day eyes,”
“The what?”
Eli could barely concentrate on dialing the number he needed to. Instead, he walked over to Chris and got down on his knees in front of him. “Night,” he said, pointing at the one chocolate-colored eye, so dark it was nearly black, then at the bright blue one. “Day. The weird
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 27
thing about the name is that, even if you had one eye that same dark brown and the other hazel instead of sky blue, it would still be called day-and-night eyes by my people. Having dual-colored eyes is a good luck symbol for werewolves. It means you’re blessed by Romulus and Remus. Maybe it’s more instinctual than I thought, too. Either way, any wild wolf without morals is going to want a piece of you.”
Chris reached up with his hand, touching the skin just under his lower lash. “But…”
“Don’t think about it right now,” Eli said, getting back to his feet and moving toward the phone. “I need to make a call so we can safely get out of here.”
“You’re a werewolf,” Chris said, and Eli heard him getting to his feet. “Do you want a piece of me, too?”
His voice was defensive. Not good.
Eli looked at him then noted where Chris’s eyes were pointed, and he shifted around to keep him from staring too long at Eli’s erection. “Yes, but I won’t hurt you. I would never do that.”
“Why?”
Jesus Christ! Eli wet his lips. “Because I’m not like that, and neither are my friends. You traveled in a way that those other wolves can follow our scents here and bring reinforcements if they want. I need to call my pack alpha and tell him to come and get us.”
Eli had the phone in his hand again when that kicked can sound came again. This time they both heard it, because Chris’s head whipped toward the door.
“There’s someone out there,” he said. Those mismatched eyes of his were alert, and he looked to Eli as though asking, What should I do?
“Stay there,” Eli whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”
Chris swallowed and nodded.
Eli walked naked over to the door again. He looked out the little peephole, and this time, a shuffle in the bushes, just on the outskirts of the parking lot, caught his eye.
28 Marcy Jacks
The sun was setting, however, and the shadows were long, making it difficult to see who exactly was out there.
Goddamn it. He was still hungover. Whose scent was that?
“Who’s there?” Chris whispered.
Eli signalled him for silence then motioned to the door lock. Chris nodded, getting the message loud and clear.
Lock the door behind me.
Eli stepped out. He wasn’t too worried about giving some old ladya heart attack or anything with his nudity, because, despite how shitty his nose was working at the moment, he couldn’t smell any humans nearby, but he was definitely catching that distinct dog smell that came with being a werewolf.
As to the individuals, however, he had no idea who they were.
Eli quietly shut the door behind him, and he heard the click of the bolt sliding home as Chris locked himself inside.
Not that it would help him if Eli couldn’t stop whoever these wolves were from getting to him, but it would buy him some time to call for help, and hopefully that would be enough.
Eli kept his eyes on the prize, those shifting shrubs just over there, where he knew his enemies were hiding. They would see him coming, but he marched over with his back straight, itching to transform and
attack.
When he made it over, he lifted his hand, his fingers clawlike, ready to bring it down in a killing swipe.
Someone popped out and jumped back, putting his hands up to keep Eli from attacking. “Hey! Hey! Relax, it’s me!”
Eli couldn’t believe it. “Isaac?”
“No shit! Put your claws away!”
Oh. Right.
He lowered his hands. The second he did, a heavy fist punched him on the back of his shoulder. “You prick!” It was Adam, and he didn’t look very happy. “Where the hell were you all this time? We thought you were kidnapped or something.”
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 29
Eli stiffened. “We?”
He looked over, and it seemed that nearly the whole pack of alphas appeared, all of whom had been hiding in various places around the parking lot. Andrew, Gordon, Lyle, Nick. Everyone was dressed in their regular clothes, meaning they h
adn’t shifted and run here but had stayed in their human forms.
Even James. Out of everyone, he looked the least pleased. His scarred face was turned down in a frown. “We came looking for you
and scented your blood and the blood of other werewolves minutes from our road. We followed it here and have been trying to get your attention. We were just about to charge in there and get you. What the fuck is going on?” James paused then leaned forward and sniffed. His nose crinkled. “You smell like you’ve got alcohol leaking from your pores.”
All things considered, his alpha had a reason to be pissed. He might as well tell the truth, seeing as he couldn’t hide the fact that he’d been at a bar.
“I had a couple of drinks and was just heading home when two of those new werewolves Deacon turned found me. I fought them off and came here to heal up.”
Eli didn’t bother with lifting his arm so that James could see the healing scar. His eyes were already looking down at it, and the bandage on Eli’s face was still pretty noticeable.
“I smell a human in there,” James said, nodding his head toward the motel. “Should I ask what you’re doing with him?”
James, as tactfully as he could, merely glanced down at Eli’s still half-hard cock, before turning his eyes back up and looking at Eli’s face.
Eli cleared his throat. “He’s my mate. I haven’t told him yet though. Christ, I don’t think I even told him my name yet.”
Mentioning that he’d found his mate and using the word he in the same sentence, didn’t bring about much of a reaction, except all the men seemed to look at each other.
30 Marcy Jacks
When James found his mate in Corey, he’d had to go and speak to their wise woman to see if something like that was even possible. Two male mates was just such a rare occurrence, especially when, up until recently, it had been assumed that one only found their mate because nature was telling them it was time to have pups.
Currently, there were four male couples in James DeWitt’s pack who were mated.
Eli and Chris would make the fifth mated couple, once he told
Chris about them. He wondered how the other man would take it.
James sighed. “All right, there’s nothing I can do about it if he’s your mate. I’m assuming he’s also the one who gave you that?”
James pointed to the bandage on Eli’s face, and he nodded. “Right. I was getting ready to call you, and because he’s human, he wasn’t sure what I was or what attacked us until I told him, and when
he brought me here, he left our scent open to be hunted.”
“How do you think we found you?” Adam asked.
“Christ, even I was able to track you, and I don’t have a
werewolf’s nose,” Isaac said.
“Your scent was all over the place,” Andrew said. The guy rarely spoke about anything, so for him to point that out was just too much for Eli.
Irritation bubbled inside him at their comments. “Yes, well, he
was never trained to hide like we were. James,” Eli said, turning to his pack alpha. “One of those weres that attacked us, they saw his face. They have his scent and they know what he looks like. They’ll be sniffing him out.”
James nodded, understanding immediately. “He won’t fight if we take him with us?”
Eli shook his head. He would make sure that Chris understood
perfectly what was at stake here. Chris needed to hide now, or those other wolves would track him down, rape him, and kill him, maybe not even in that order. “I’ll explain to him that it’s important he comes with us. I’ll make sure he understands.”
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 31
Eli had never done that thing before that some mates could do to each other, where one could gently manipulate the emotions of the other.
Now would be a good time to learn, however, if Chris did decide he didn’t want to travel with a group of dangerous creatures he didn’t understand. Eli wasn’t ready to part with him just yet.
“All right. Go in, get him, and come back home. I’ll have a talk with you privately there.”
Of course. Eli wasn’t out of the woods yet for going back to drinking in the bar.
“There’s one more thing, James.”
“What is it?”
“Chris, he has day-and-night eyes.”
James’s eyebrows lifted, and he turned to look toward the motel
door with its big gold numbers, where Chris was still hidden.
“Well, shit.”
32 Marcy Jacks
Chapter Four
Chris jumped at the knock at the door. He looked through the peephole and quickly unbolted the door. He was surprised to see the man he’d taken in wearing a pair of jeans.
“We need to go.” It was all he said as he grabbed Chris by the arm and yanked him out.
“Hey!” Chris tried to fight the guy off. Seriously, he didn’t think he was that small of a guy, he did have muscle on him, but even using all of his strength he couldn’t pry his arm out of this man’s grip.
“Stop that. You’re going to bruise yourself,” he said, halting suddenly and looking Chris in the eyes.
Too weird. “I have my stuff back there. My wallet and cards,
everything.”
“My friends will get it all for you.”
“Your friends?” Chris looked over and saw all the men suddenly hanging out on the parking lot. Each of them varied in size, but they were all huge as far as Chris was concerned. Some of them looked downright scary, like professional hit men with their sunglasses. Was that guy wearing gun holsters?
Chris would have looked a little closer, had his attention not been
taken by the gray wolf behind the shrubs, head bent, orange eyes
glaring at Chris.
Jesus Christ! It was another one of them.
Without realizing it, he tried to back away. The man holding Chris’s arms shook him a little, grabbing his attention. “Listen. You’re not safe here. These men are part of my pack. They’ll help keep you safe until we can figure out what to do about those wolves
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 33
who saw you.”
Chris looked back at the group of men standing before him. He didn’t feel much too safe in their presence either. Not with the curious way they were all looking into his eyes.
Chris could still feel that other man on top of him, holding him down, trying to remove his pants and pull out his erection.
Chris shook his head. “No way.”
“Chris.”
“Forget it. No way. I’m glad you’re okay and everything, but I’ll
be fine on my own.”
“You can trust these men.”
“I don’t even know who you are!” Chris shot back, and again he tried to pull his arm out of the man’s grip, and again he failed.
“My name is Eli Martin,” he said, and Chris became still and quiet. Not because of the tone Eli had used when introducing himself, finally, but because of the pleading way in which he was staring at Chris. “That’s my name. My brother was Eric Martin. He was my twin and my best friend, and those men that tried to fuck you and kill me, they killed him already. That one wolf saw your eyes, and he has your scent. They found us here without any problems at all,” Eli said, pointing with his hand to the whole group of his friends. “And after what I just told you about your eyes, you’d better believe they’ll come looking for you, too, to get back at us for what I did to them.”
Chris’s heart pounded, and he swallowed hard. He was never the brave sort of guy. He didn’t even much like survival horror video games, or roller coasters, but he had seen what he had seen, and he knew Eli was being perfectly serious.
“Please,” Eli said, his eyes, those dark, kicked-puppy eyes, pleading with him to not fight him on this. “Come with me.”
Chris couldn’t believe he was about to do this, but he reminded
himself of Dean, and now, knowing that Eli also had a brother m
urdered by werewolves, well, maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to get him to help Chris find out about his brother, seeing as they shared
34 Marcy Jacks
that sort of bond between them.
“All right,” he said.
* * * *
Eli was glad Chris decided not to fight him on going to Eli’s pack. Though it had been a bitch to open up about his brother in front of the rest of the alphas like that, they all knew about Eric. Christ, they’d been there when he was murdered, but saying it out loud like that, in front of them, and knowing he had that kind of pain in his voice, wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on.
He’d been happy, however, when Chris made sure to walk especially close to Eli during the walk back to pack land. He wondered if Chris had been aware he was doing it, that he was looking to Eli for protection. Well, he had been doing it, and whether Chris knew it or not, they were mated.
All Eli had to do was tell him.
That was going to have to wait. The second they got back to pack land, which after carefully watching every step they all took just in case they were about to run into an ambush or something, took way more time than it needed to, Eli ran to his cabin to be alone. He
barked orders at Adam to find Chris a decent cottage and a decent
room to stay in as he ran.
Adam flipped Eli the middle finger as he ran away, and Eli couldn’t be bothered with turning around and beating the living shit out of the man for the offense.
Nope. Before that could happen, hell, before his little meeting with James could happen, there was something that he needed to take care of first, and it had been killing him all day.
Eli’s cabin was one of the newer ones that Isaac was being commissioned to build, and despite the fact that it had three bedrooms that were more than big enough to be shared with other members of the pack, he lived here by himself.
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 35
No one wanted to hang out with a depressed drunk all the time, and that suited Eli just fine. It meant he didn’t have to hide his booze very well from prying eyes, and he could keep the place in whatever condition he wanted.
