Bound by Nature: Forces of Nature, Book 1

by Cooper Davis

  Hayden began shaking, fists forming in rage. He felt fur prickle across his chest, and couldn’t stop the threatening growls that rumbled forth from his center.

  “Like I told you, Hayden,” she said quietly. “All of it’s true. Now go to him.”

  “Or wait here?” he asked.

  “Just be with him. Here, there, whatever,” she said. “But don’t make him wait any more.”

  Josh stared at the sheaf of paperwork on his desk, but didn’t really see any of it. His mind was filled with other images, ones that plagued him nonstop, night and day, and pursued him with ravenous strength. Well, it was mostly one horrifying image: Hayden in wolf form, dead in the snow, frozen hard like the cold earth beneath him.

  Yeah, Josh was losing it, for sure. He raked a hand over his tired, bleary eyes, and bent over his desk. Paperwork. He hoped the mundane task would help keep his fears from gnawing him alive. As he hunched forward, pen in hand, a massive shadow filled his open office door. He recognized the man without even looking up. Nobody around the station loomed nearly as large as Ben Orson did.

  Nor did any of the others try to get in his business like Ben, either. For some reason the big grizzly of a man always came pawing around, even when all of Josh’s other friends in the department knew to give him a wide berth like they did right now. He’d heard them muttering under their breath out at the coffee machine. “Peterson’s in a shit mood. I’d steer clear.”

  “’Sup, Ben?” Josh kept his gaze fixed on the paperwork, throwing off a seriously uninviting vibe.

  He heard slow, purposeful footsteps until Ben stood right in front of him, forcing Josh to look up at him. “What’s up?” Josh repeated.

  Ben cracked a lazy smile, folding massive forearms over his chest. “Just making sure you’re still alive in here, that’s all, Sarge.”

  “Working,” Josh barked, bending back over the desk dismissively. “Just working. Which might be a good thing for you to go do, right, Orson?”

  But Ben didn’t move. Instead, he bent down, planted massive, paw-like hands on the edge of the desk, and in a barely audible voice announced, “He’s still alive.”

  Josh jerked back in his chair, eyes going wide and heart pounding. “Wh-what did you just say?”

  Ben kept his posture low, dark eyes locking with Josh’s intently, and said nothing until very slowly he smiled. And then he stood upright again, turned and lumbered out of the office without another word.

  He’s still alive. Still. Alive.

  How did Ben know about Hayden? The cop wasn’t a werewolf. He was only human—and it wasn’t common knowledge anywhere around town that Josh was gay or had a lover, much less one who’d been missing for almost seven weeks.

  What exactly was Ben Orson? More importantly, were the man’s words correct?

  For the first time in weeks, Josh’s heart surged and pumped with hope that his mate might still find his way home.

  Josh pulled up his cruiser in front of Hayden’s dark house, parking on the snow-covered drive. This was his nightly drill, to swing by and check on the place. To make sure his mate’s home remained secure, even as he desperately prayed that this time when he approached he would finally see lights on inside.

  However, as always since Hayden had split, no dice. Josh’s hope sank heavily, like a stone in the river that ran behind the little fishing cottage. For a long moment, he remained inside the vehicle, replaying Ben Orson’s words from earlier in the evening.

  He’s still alive.

  The sentence bounced around in his mind causing a dim flare of optimism—one that Josh wanted to outright curse himself for entertaining. For all he knew, Ben had just been talking shit or trying to get a rise out of him. Still, why would he have chosen those particular words? And why would Ben, one of the quietest, steadiest men he knew, ever play with Josh’s head?

  None of the gang at the station knew about Hayden, anyway. Well, no one other than the chief himself, and he was a sealed vault when it came to secrets or confessions, especially of the damningly personal kind. The man had never revealed the truth about what went down on that December night five years ago, or about Josh being gay. Not any of it, and there was no reason to think he’d start now.

  Josh blew out a bone-weary sigh and slowly reached to open the cruiser’s door. Easing his boots out into the snow-covered drive, his wolf instincts fired up immediately, almost at the same time as his cop ones did. There were fresh prints in the snow, and the very strong scent of a fellow wolf permeated the air.

  He froze, the swell of hope and longing that filled him now so strong that it nearly paralyzed him. Oh, by God, he recognized the scent, so familiar and gorgeous. So vivid and vital. Hayden was alive and nearby, so close Josh might actually find him.

  Instantly Josh went rock hard inside his uniform pants, his body reacting on every level. He caught his own mating scent as it wafted off his skin, felt his erection grow thick and tight and hot as it pressed against his fly. His eyes narrowed, his pulse went electric.

  But more than any of his instinctive reactions to having caught his mate’s scent trail, it was the way his chest grew tight as a drum that most affected him, the yearning nearly dropping him to his knees. Oh, God, how he’d missed his lover, how he’d longed to—just once more in his life—smell the heady, powerful scent of the Alpha who was somewhere nearby and meant everything to him.

  His whole body shaking, Josh stepped fully out of the vehicle, scanning the dark perimeter with his heightened wolf’s vision and sniffing at the air. He walked as if on autopilot, clenching and unclenching his fists against his upper thighs, hardly daring to hope despite his body’s primal reaction. One foot after the other he moved, following the trail that grew more overpowering as he rounded the left side of the fishing shack.

  All at once, he heard a low, guttural growl. The hair on his nape bristled and he whipped his head in the direction of the sound. There on the small deck that ran along the back of Hayden’s home, lined in silver moonlight, was the only wolf he’d ever wanted. The one he’d dreamed and prayed to find again. Hayden stood on the railing, his wolf’s chest thrust outward, his blue eyes ferociously narrow, his silver coat gleaming.

  Oh, God, he’s feral. He’s alive, but he’s fully wolf, lost to me, Josh thought, feeling tears sting his eyes. It’s too late now.

  Josh could barely breathe at all, transfixed by the low growling noise the other Alpha emitted. Not wanting to send him running into the woods all over again.

  “Hayden,” he murmured softly, touching his own chest. “It’s me. It’s Joshua. You’re safe with me.”

  I have to change, Josh decided in a panic, I have to become wolf myself so he won’t bolt.

  But before Josh had time to move a muscle toward transformation, Hayden leaped off that railing, bounding across the snow toward him at a lightning-fast run. Josh braced, preparing for the attack, ripping at his uniform so he could transition—and was knocked flat on his back when Hayden pounced at him with the force of a hurricane.

  Josh thrust a protective arm upward, wrestling with the other wolf, ready to fling him off…but was stunned when a rough, lapping tongue began licking at his cheeks, working at the tears he hadn’t realized were streaming down his face. He slid his fingers through the soft, warm fur that covered him from face to hips, rubbing, feeling. The wolf atop him whined lightly, snuffling his nose against the column of Josh’s throat.

  Then another shocking change—and it was Hayden in human form, spread atop him, naked. It was Hayden kissing Josh’s face, licking away the tears that simply wouldn’t be stopped.

  “I’m here, baby,” his lover murmured, finding Josh’s mouth with his own. “It’s okay. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere…not ever again.”

  Josh’s tears turned to sobs, and he wrapped both arms about Hayden’s bare body.

  Hayden led the way inside his house, Josh on his heels. He closed the door and locked it, neither of them uttering a word. In fact, Josh hadn
’t spoken at all since Hayden had jumped him out in the snow. The only sounds he’d made had been wrenching sobs as Hayden had licked and kissed away every tear, murmuring promises over and over. That he would never leave Joshua again, and that he’d spend the rest of their lives doing his level best to heal his mate’s broken heart.

  Reaching to flip on the hallway light, Hayden suddenly felt Josh grabbing him from behind. Those strong hands weren’t gentle as they seized hold of Hayden’s forearms, flipping him face-forward. And Josh was just all on him, pushing him hard with his own body, backing Hayden up against the wall until his bare back met the rough wooden texture with a forceful shove.

  Josh said nothing, his only sound a low, angry growl as he flattened Hayden against the log beams, framing him between forearms that he braced on both sides of Josh’s face. Josh lowered his head, still growling as he sniffed Hayden’s naked body, inspecting Hayden like a potential predator—as if it were the only way to be sure Hayden was truly himself.

  Hayden kept still, silent, even when Josh thrust his hips up close, aggressively pinning Hayden against the wall with his groin. With an erection so hard and thick, Hayden began shaking from unspent hunger for the man who held him captive. Five years had been far, far too long, and now? Standing naked and feeling his mate’s pulsing cock shoved against his own groin? He thickened, an instant, unstoppable reaction to such intimate, physical contact. The warm skin of his exposed cock scraped against the fabric of Josh’s uniform pants, and as he lengthened, Hayden attempted to shift his hips to accommodate the change—but Josh wouldn’t budge, keeping him pinioned with his own hips so that Hayden’s hard-on pushed against his mate’s own rigid erection. Hayden nearly came as their groins pushed and bulged together so harshly, skin against fabric, heat against heat.

  “Joshua,” he moaned with a ragged, desperate plea. “Touch me. Let me hold you.”

  Hayden lifted both hands, about to cup Josh’s face in his hands, but his mate ducked his head away, and Hayden let his hands fall back to his sides. Whatever Josh was doing right now, it was somehow critical to healing their ruptured mating bond—to drawing them back together.

  Josh stopped growling. He pressed his nose against Hayden’s neck, sniffing, then moved all along Hayden’s face and bare shoulders—and back behind his ear. Josh kept inhaling Hayden’s scent the entire time, inspecting, obviously needing to make sure that Hayden wasn’t some figment of the other Alpha’s imagination. Wanting to confirm that Hayden truly had returned from the wild.

  “It’s really me, baby,” Hayden finally whispered, daring to lift his hand again and touch Josh’s cheek. His mate flinched, jerking back, but kept both forearms in locked position around Hayden’s own face. Hayden felt the rough fabric of Josh’s police uniform, the starched sleeves brushing his unshaven cheeks.

  “Joshua, it’s okay,” he tried quietly. “I’m back. It’s me. You can see that it’s me.”

  “I can smell that it’s you, too,” Josh agreed hoarsely. “But I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?” Hayden stared at his mate, but Josh avoided his gaze, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall beyond Hayden’s right shoulder.

  When Josh remained silent, Hayden tried again. “Baby, tell me what you don’t understand,” he urged.

  Finally, after a long, silent moment, Josh blew out a sigh and leveled Hayden with a firm, hard gaze. “My mate would never have left me for such a long time,” Josh said in a voice like gravel. “My mate…knows I love him. My mate knows this in his heart, would always know this in his soul, even if he couldn’t remember the truth. My mate,” Josh said in a raw, broken tone, “would never have left me for weeks to wonder if he was alive or if I’d ever see him again at all. No, my mate wouldn’t leave me alone and hurting…like you did.”

  Hayden’s eyes slid shut and he felt the burn of tears. “I didn’t remember. I had to know. Had to figure it out for myself. It was the only way we could have a future, for me to remember it all.”

  Josh reached a shaking hand toward Hayden’s face, capturing a long lock of Hayden’s dark hair between his fingertips. Slowly Josh lifted it to his nose, testing even that scent. Then after a moment, Josh brought the lock to his lips, kissing it softly as he squeezed his eyes closed. “You are Hayden Garrett,” he whispered as if satisfied by the inspection. “You are still my mate, even if my marking scent isn’t on you after so many years.”

  “It is me, and I won’t ever hurt you like again,” Hayden promised fiercely, reaching to pull Josh into his arms, but the other wolf jerked away, stepping back by several paces until they were physically separated. The pain and anger in his magnetic eyes was visible even by the moonlight spilling through the room’s windows.

  “Everything I did,” Josh said slowly, “every choice I made was always to protect you. Don’t you love me at least a little bit in return?” Josh’s voice was so broken, so destroyed—the words uttered from such clear, brutal pain—that Hayden literally wavered on his feet.

  But only for a moment. Then he moved to Joshua and slowly knelt before his mate as if his very body were an offering. A pledge of love and fidelity, of worship. Taking both of Josh’s rough hands in his own, he pressed them to his cheeks. “Joshua, you are the love of my life. You’re all I ever wanted, all I ever will want. Don’t you know that?”

  He didn’t dare look up, didn’t even wait for a reply, just let the words come tumbling out of him in a torrent. “You are how I knew I was gay…why I knew I could never want any woman. Because of how badly I wanted you, all the way back in high school. I never got to tell you that, we were separated too soon…” Hayden kept his eyes shut tight, just letting the words spill out, vaguely aware that tears now streamed down his cheeks, dampening Josh’s hands that he still held tight against his face. “I mean, you figured out that I wanted you, I could never hide that, obviously. But the way I wanted you, it was like a fever, even when I was just sixteen years old. While the other guys were all after some girl or another, it was you I thought about all the time. Damn, being on the football team with you, playing baseball together, and seeing you naked in the showers? Watching you change clothes in the locker room, and burning for you but not being able to do a damned thing about it? It was enough to make me crazy. That’s why I picked Dartmouth—so far from our own land—because I thought maybe then I could find a way to forget you. Find a way to get past my fever.” Hayden laughed softly. “God, I actually believed those thousands of miles between us would help. That they would succeed in driving you from my mind, my heart.” Hayden shook his head slowly. “None of it ever did any good. You were inside me, down deep in my bones, living in my skin right along with me. You always have been…you still are. You’ll always be inside of me, beating like my own heart, flowing like my own blood. That’s what a mate does. It’s who you are to me…the best of me.”

  Slowly he dared to tilt his head upward and look at Josh, praying that he would glimpse forgiveness, see that Josh believed in his love. As he did so, Josh dropped down to his own knees, pressing his forehead against Hayden’s. For a moment, neither spoke, and then Josh moved his face slightly, until they were cheek to cheek, and he slid strong, muscular arms about Hayden.

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Josh whispered into his ear, “that if you’d stuck around Jackson, you might’ve made me fall in love with you sooner?” Josh kissed him slowly on the cheek, moving his mouth back to Hayden’s ear as he added, “And if you’d just kissed me the first time we went on that run together after your freshman year, I’d have followed you all the way back to New Hampshire and nothing would’ve ever kept me away.”

  Hayden buried his face against Josh’s shoulder, feeling the rough starch of his uniform. “I loved you…while I was in prison. I was just crazy in love with you, Joshua. Even after I got out, I still loved you, but I didn’t understand why I’d fallen so much harder than before. Why my fever had grown when all I could remember was that kiss.”

  “You did
n’t know we’d mated, couldn’t remember any of it.”

  Hayden closed his eyes, hating what he was about to ask, but he had to. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why didn’t you come to me, soon as I was out of the coma, and make me remember everything?”

  Josh tightened his arms around him, holding him even closer. Hayden could feel the rapid rhythm of his mate’s heart, sensed its tempo increase as he answered, “Do you remember the men? Rawlings and Keener? Do you recall seeing them dump that body…any of it?”

  Hayden sucked in a tight breath. “Josh, I remember it all. I remember…everything.”

  Josh stiffened against him, a small shudder echoing through his body. And he hated the shame that he sensed in his mate. “It’s okay,” Hayden soothed softly. “It’s all right, Joshua. I only regret that I couldn’t protect you…that I didn’t. A mate always protects his beloved.”

  Josh released him, leaning back on his heels with a long, penetrating gaze. “That is exactly why I didn’t tell you the truth about us. That is why I let you go to prison. It was the only place where I could be sure they wouldn’t try and harm you. If you were locked away, you were locked away from them, from their gang. Or at least that’s what I hoped…even though I knew they might have people in there, too.”

  “We could have gone after them together, gotten our packs together.”

  Josh shook his head forcefully, but said nothing.

  “Seriously, Josh, we could have taken them down…you didn’t have to suffer so much by yourself. You bore all of it on your own shoulders—”

  “Tate Rawlings came to me the first night you were in the hospital. He told me that if I ever told anything about that night—if I ever told you the truth when you woke up—that he’d kill you himself. That if I talked to the police, he would go up to the intensive care ward and make sure your life support was disconnected…that if you woke and left the hospital, he’d hunt you down. That he’d have someone else do the deed if I put him in prison by talking. He made one thing—one very definite point—abundantly clear, and repeated it until I put him away…that he would see you dead if the truth ever came out.” Josh raked a trembling hand over his brow. “That’s why I said you were the one driving, even though you weren’t.