by Marcy Jacks
He wouldn’t leave Craig. He couldn’t leave him. This time he was going to save him.
“He went down that way! Go and get him!”
“I can see something glowing down there!”
“Did a fire start?”
Shit. Bloody hell and shit. Sometimes it was a pest having the abilities that he had. Edward had to calm himself to get the green glow of his body to go back down. He crouched low to the earth and focused one of his other strengths. Camouflage. He blended in with the scenery, with the leaves and the twigs and the earth, so well that one of the hunters who walked by carefully searching for him with that weapon of his, a rifle, Edward believed it was called, did not even see him, and Edward’s snout was a paw’s length away from his boot.
Edward peered around. There were no other hunters with him. They’d split up. The others would hear the scream, but by that time it would be too late.
He lunged for the kill, and the hunter barely had the chance to yell out in shock before only a wet gurgle escaped his throat as Edward’s jaws clamped down around his chest and neck.
Edward was larger than normal wolves in this shape, as were his three brothers. He was the only one who could hide well thanks to his abilities, and he hated to kill a man in such a sneaky fashion. There was nothing honorable about it, but at the moment, he did not care for honor, and he would never care again so long as it meant that Craig could live.
The hunter barely had the chance to scream, but he did, and as Edward predicted, the others came rushing to him, calling out to him.
“Bob! What happened?”
“We’re coming!”
Edward opened his mouth, allowing the body to drop lifelessly from his teeth before he darted off, just in time to keep those other men from seeing him as they came upon the body of their friend.
An agonized scream came from one of them as they discovered the body, and that was just fine with Edward as he rushed back to where his mate was. He stopped ever so briefly to scope out the area. Craig was where the hunters had left him, tied up to the tree and forgotten, like he was nothing.
Edward was going to kill the lot of them for this.
He stepped into the clearing, and Craig clearly saw him. It was hard to miss a wolf Edward’s size when he wasn’t hiding himself with his camouflage.
The man’s perfect amber eyes widened at the sight of him, and even though his heart was still thumping like a drum behind his ribs, Edward knew it was because of the general excitement and fear that he felt just from being here, rather than from Edward himself.
Edward shifted into his human shape. It always took him a second or two to get used to being on two legs again, especially after spending such a long amount of time on four paws, but he thought that if he looked like this, showed the man his face, then maybe it would be easier to free him.
“Craig,” Edward said, whispering and savoring the word.
Craig’s heart literally stopped for the length of two beats before it started back up again.
“It’s me, it’s Edward,” he said, but then said nothing more.
If Edward could, he would speak to the man and reassure him, but that had to come later. Now was not the time for words, especially considering Craig had a pup to think about and likely wanted to be gone from here more than he wanted introductions.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Edward said, and he rushed forward and grabbed at the chain that was around his mate’s neck. He found it to be the most offensive of already offensive items that were on Craig’s body, so he ripped it away first, before grabbing on to the chains that held his hands above his head. “You have nothing to worry about now. I will keep you safe, and you can…return to your mate,” he said.
Edward had to make a painful swallow when those words left his mouth.
Craig was suddenly struggling harder against the cuffs that held his hands, and he was speaking frantically through his gag, but of course, Edward could not understand a word of it. The sound of a twig snapping behind him made him realize that Craig was attempting to warn him, and he turned around slowly to face the man who was pointing a crossbow at him.
At least it was a weapon that Edward recognized. “You’re not going nowhere, son,” the man said. “You killed my friend, now you’d best back away from him before I kill you, too.”
Edward didn’t move, but he did tilt his head up a little so he could sniff at the air. The other two hunters were still with their dead friend. Edward was shocked. It wasn’t like there was a hope of saving the man.
“Why do you want him?” Edward asked. “He’s an omega, clearly with child. He’s otherwise harmless to you.”
“You quit talking, now,” said the hunter.
“I was under the impression that the people in this place were much more…civilized than they were in mine,” Edward said. He had trouble thinking about which word he wanted, but when he got it, he knew that civilized was exactly what these men were not.
“I’ll make you a trade,” Edward said again when all the hunter did was point his weapon. “Myself for him. He can be free to go, and you can have me in his place. I killed your friend, so you would want me to stay over one omega, yes?”
The hunter’s eyes squinted a bit. The man was so damned dirty that it was difficult to make out any specific details of his face.
Then a light seemed to go off, and the man smiled, revealing teeth that were surprisingly cared for. “You his mate or something?”
Edward’s heart stopped, much the same as Craig’s had not a moment earlier.
“You are, aren’t you?” the hunter asked, and the man was smiling now. He shifted on his feet, clearly excited. “We thought we’d keep that one, see if we couldn’t take the pup he was carrying and use it for leverage once he finally gave birth, but we were hoping the alpha that mated to him would come along soon enough. The alphas hate it when we take their mates, and they always come for them. Easier to kill an alpha when they come to you, you feel me?”
Edward wasn’t sure what the man meant by that last part, but he understood him perfectly. They were kidnapping omegas and using them as pawns to hunt and kill their alpha mates.
Whoever Craig had mated with was either a coward who’d abandoned his mate, or he was dead.
“So then,” Edward said, “now that you have me there’s no need to continue holding him. Allow me to release him, and I will make no trouble with you. You can have me.”
The hunter shrugged. “That sounds like a good idea, but I think we’ll keep you both,” he said, and then he fired off his arrow.
Chapter Three
Craig screamed as he watched the arrow launch and plunge right into Edward’s chest. He tried to get away, to wiggle his hands free of the cuffs so he could go to the man, to help him, but all he did was make his wrists bleed.
Edward barely fell back a step, even as a bit of blood formed where the arrow had imbedded itself into his perfect chest and then rolled down his finely shaped abs.
Edward looked down at the arrow and then back up at the man who’d shot it.
Both seemed to have confused looks on their faces, and even though Craig felt like he couldn’t breathe, he was still able to calm down enough to take note of what was going on.
“You should be down by now,” said the hunter, and he was forced to lower his weapon so that he could reload the thing, but that was all the time that Edward needed to rush forward and grab the hunter by the throat. His hands were claws, and his palm seemed to get bigger as he lifted the hunter clear off his feet.
Craig couldn’t look. He closed his eyes because he knew that something bad was about to happen, and there was no way he could stand to see it.
He was right. He didn’t see it, but he heard the muffled sounds that came from the man right before there was a sickening crack, and then a dull weight sounded like it was being dropped onto the dried leaves and twigs.
Craig kept right on breathing, sucking air through his nose, which helped,
oddly enough. He opened his eyes, and he didn’t know whether or not he should be scared at the sight of Edward, standing there, still naked, staring down at the hunter.
With his back facing Craig, it was easy to forget about the fact that there was an arrow in the man’s chest, and that he was staring down at a dead man. Craig could almost even allow himself to admit the muscles of the man’s back and shoulders were incredibly attractive, and he had the most perfect ass that Craig had ever seen in his life.
The guy certainly looked like he could rip someone apart with his bare hands, that was for sure.
But even the sight of an incredibly gorgeous man couldn’t make Craig relax, or forget that death was all around him, and that he was still tied up and helpless.
Still, he thought it best if he pretended to be invisible, then maybe the guy standing there wouldn’t remember him, and he couldn’t decide to kill him now.
Assuming the man was psychotic or something, but then again, he had killed someone, so who was to say that he wasn’t just as crazy as these men had been?
Craig squeaked like a damn mouse when Edward turned around and looked at him, and then his body started to shake, and he couldn’t stop it.
It only got worse when Edward approached him, and the man even put his hand on Craig’s cheek, very briefly, before he removed his palm and began working on the long handcuffs that were keeping Craig’s hands above his head.
It was the weirdest damn thing in the world, but Craig actually managed to calm down when Edward touched him like that. Really, his heart wasn’t beating loud in his ears anymore, and his lungs weren’t working overtime to get in some air.
The links connecting the cuffs snapped, and just like that, Craig was free for the first time in a long time. The first thing he did was get the gag out of his mouth. The shackles of the handcuffs themselves were still on his wrists, but he didn’t care about that.
He grabbed for his socks and shoes. His feet were still incredibly swollen, but he was going to need those things if he wanted to get out of here. There was no way he could run barefoot.
“You’re hurt,” Craig said.
Edward looked down at the arrow that was still jutting out of the muscle on his chest. He looked like he hardly cared at all that he could have been killed. “You are safe. That is what matters,” he replied, and he even smiled a small, drunken smile right before he swayed on his feet.
Craig finally got his last shoe tied when he noticed that, and he quickly stood up and put his hands on the man’s huge shoulders. He had to ignore the shock that ran through his body when he touched him. Too weird.
“Seriously, you’re hurt,” Craig said. “We have to get out of here. Can you still turn into that big wolf?”
“You’re alive,” Edward said, and he reached for Craig’s face again, tried to touch him and step forward, but then his knees must’ve given out because he very nearly fell on his face.
“Whoa, whoa, easy there. Stay up, stay on your feet. We have to run,” Craig said.
“Leave me behind.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” Craig said.
“If your mate lives, go and find him.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Craig said, and sense was something that he really wanted right about now.
“I hope he’s not the coward I believed him to be. Perhaps he has a reason for being unable to get you himself. Perhaps he is on his way. Go to him and leave me here. That is all I care about. He will protect you.”
Edward’s words sounded nothing like the sure and confident words the man had spoken when he first shifted into his human shape. In fact, Craig was willing to bet every penny in his bank account that there was something about the arrow in his chest that was making him loopy.
He’d heard these men for the last several weeks already, plotting and planning. He knew that they thought he was a wolf of some kind, and he knew that they were hoping that the mate he supposedly had, who supposedly knocked him up, would come and save him. Their plan was to poison the wolf, get it to where it was too drugged up and weak to fight back, and then skin it for its pelt.
They would have done it while the alpha was unconscious, though, so were these men not merciful?
Craig glared down at the dead man on the ground, wishing he could kill him again. The shot with the arrow was made in a place that wouldn’t kill Edward, but Craig didn’t want the wound to get infected.
He leaned the much bigger man up against the tree. “Please don’t kill me for this,” he said, and he grabbed on to the wooden arrow, kept his fingers tight, and then yanked it out.
His hand was over Edward’s mouth, and he was intending to keep any scream that Edward made from being too loud, but he didn’t scream at all. He just kept staring with those green eyes down at Craig. There was something in his eyes that Craig couldn’t quiet place, but now was not the time for that.
He pulled his hand away. “We need to get out of here,” he said.
Even though the arrow had poison on it, he decided to keep it. He even left Edward leaning against the tree for a few brief seconds as he went and collected the crossbow that the old hunter had. Craig didn’t want to think about how angry those other men would be once they came back and realized that their leader was dead. Maybe without him they would give up and go back home. That was what he was hoping for, at least.
With arrows and weapons in hand, the others still being too tangled up in the weeds to take with him, Craig returned to Edward. He grabbed on to one of the man’s muscled arms and hurled it over his shoulder. “All right, come on. We have to get out of here.”
“I told you to leave me,” Edward said.
“All right, I’ll break it down for you so you understand,” Craig said, annoyance and impatience running through him. “I’m not leaving here without you. So you can either come with me, or we can both stay here and wait for the others to come back, and I know that they’re not that far away.”
Edward stared down at him for a few incredibly long seconds. He was still swaying on his feet, and the hole in his chest was still gruesome and bleeding freely, but then he finally nodded. “Very well,” he said. “But your mate had best not be jealous of me when I try to claim you after this.”
Craig was just going to consider that some more drunken talk, and he didn’t care about that. He just put the man’s arm back over his shoulder, helping him along as they stumbled away from the camp.
Chapter Four
“Well, brother, this is certainly a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time, isn’t it?”
Edward rolled his eyes and tried to look at anything but Alistair, his elder brother, the red wolf. He wasn’t with Rowan or Brishen, but that didn’t mean that anything that was said right now wouldn’t make its way back to the other two. The four of them always did things together and had always been with each other for the vast majority of their lives.
“Am I truly dreaming? Or are you really here to give me a lecture?” Edward asked. “I need to return to him.”
Alistair got a guilty look on his face. “I am here. We were worried when you did not return. This new world is dangerous, and it seems you’ve gotten yourself into a spot of trouble.”
“Do not patronize me, brother,” Edward said, and he narrowed his eyes at the other man. “It’s him. I do not know how it happened, but it’s him.”
“I looked into your memories. The resemblance is uncanny.”
“I’m telling you that it’s him. I can feel it,” Edward said. “He is my mate.”
“But he is carrying another man’s pup,” Alistair said, though there was no unkindness in his voice. That guilty expression never left his face.
His words felt like an unexpected punch to Edward’s jaw. “Yes, he is,” he said. “The alpha did not arrive to rescue him, so I did.”
“I don’t blame you for that, brother,” Alistair said. “Just, please do not let this destroy you.”
“Like the last time it did?” Ed
ward said, and his anger was building so rapidly that he had no place to put it. “Like when your fucking curse killed him?”
Alistair flinched. “That was not my intent.”
“Always with your excuses,” Edward sneered. “You did not intend for it to happen. You did not know that I mated with one of their kind, or that I was to have a child with him. You did not intend for your men to carry out your orders when they found an omega luna wolf, did you not?”
Alistair did not say anything to that. This was the first argument they’d had on the subject since waking up in this new world. It was almost as if they had both come to an unspoken agreement on the issue.
Now that agreement was broken by Craig’s reappearance.
To be perfectly fair, however, Edward knew he was being unkind. Alistair gave no direct orders, and Craig's killers hadn't been his brother's men, though they had been influenced by the curse that Alistair had unthinkingly cast, supposedly, during his own grief.
When Edward raged at his brother, it was easy to forget that Alistair had also felt the pain of having a mate cruelly taken from him.
“Brother,” Alistair said, and he approached. Edward did not move as his brother, who looked so much like he did with the exception of his flame-red hair and bright brown eyes that were also nearly red, approached. Alistair put his hand on the back of Edward’s neck, a touch he hadn’t experienced in such a long time. “If he belongs to another, do not drive yourself mad for the loss of him again.”
“I was never mad,” Edward said, lying, and he pushed his brother’s hand off of him, but he still felt his touch lingering there. “If you wish to help then find us. I was poisoned and will be unable to aid him the way he needs until his mate returns.”
“And when he does return, you will leave him be?” Alistair asked.
Edward bit his lips together. He wanted to say yes, that he would leave his mate to be happy with whomever it was that he’d chosen, but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. They refused to.
Alistair took note of this. “Brother, please, do not do this to yourself. Promise that once he is safe, you will come back to us.”
