by Lynn Hagen
The two men weren’t running side by side. One was being dragged by the other. Not a good sign. Rave shifted into his werewolf form and leapt, landing on the pair. He fought to get the guy that had been dragged away from the house by the man in a black suit.
“Go back inside the house,” the man in the black suit said calmly.
Ripples washed over Rave, making him release the guy in jeans and a sweater. He took a step back, his muzzle to the ground. Rave had an all-consuming need to obey the soft command.
“No!” the one in the jeans yelled, and Rave felt like a jolt of electricity had been shot through his body. He growled, his muzzle pulled back to show his canines. The human being that had been taken shouted to Rave, “Don’t leave me.”
Rave barked out a warning like a common dog, but it seemed to do the trick. The man in the black suit scrambled backward, his eyes wild as he stared from Rave in his wolf form to the human lying on the ground. His eyes narrowed into slits as anger filled the dark orbs.
“Go back into the house,” he shouted this time.
Rave took another step back, his body trying to obey the command. He was getting pissed. He could feel something pushing at his mind, demanding he do as he was told. Rave didn’t like anyone ordering him around.
“Don’t leave me,” the man in the jeans said helplessly, his blue eyes pleading for Rave to save him. Rave lunged, taking a large bite out of the man’s black suit pants and his leg underneath. The man howled, and then he pulled his leg free, scooting further back into the darkened backyard.
The would-be kidnapper whirled around and pushed to his feet, jumping the small chain-link fence, and took off down the street.
Rave wanted to give chase, but he shifted instead, helping the man in the jeans to his feet.
Rave swallowed hard, his heart beating erratically as the scent of his second mate filled his lungs. He stared openly at the slightly built man rubbing his hands up and down his arms, as if chilled to the bone.
“Logan?”
The guy’s blue eyes went wide as he nodded. “How did you know my name?”
Oh hell. Rave stood there in the backyard, naked as the day he was born, stunned. His mate was a styre mente, and he had been sent to stop him from turning evil.
Rave stood on the edge of the lawn, staring at the dark-brown hair falling over Logan’s eyes, shielding Rave from seeing his mate’s eyes in the shadows of where he was standing. “I was sent to protect you.”
It was mostly the truth. Now that he knew that Logan was his mate, Rave would do whatever it took to keep the man on the right path and protect him from the world.
“No offense, but that’s exactly what Aba just told me. I’m cool on the protection shit.”
“Aba?”
“The man who just tried to force me to leave with him. He said that he only wanted to protect me. If that’s protection, I’m going to wholeheartedly decline the offer.”
Rave grinned as he listened to Logan. The man had a sense of humor, a weird one, but he had one. Rave liked that.
“And could you put some clothes on?” Logan asked. Even in the dimly lit backyard, Rave could see a blush span over his mate’s cheeks. It was a lovely pink that made Logan bashful, a quality that was making Rave hot. This wasn’t the time for Rave to be getting turned on, but he couldn’t help it.
“Aren’t you freaked out that I shifted into a wolf?” Rave asked.
“And I don’t have any spare clothes with me.” Jaxxon had some in his Jeep, but Rave liked standing naked in front of his mate.
Logan’s eyes stayed glued to the grass as he headed toward the back door. “Cal is a shifter. That doesn’t wig me out. But a naked man in my backyard does.”
“And having your truck blown up, finding out something is wrong with your blood, and a madman trying to pry you from your own home must be child’s play next to a naked man in your backyard, hmm?” Rave knew he was being a little too harsh, but Logan needed to face the facts of what happened and deal with them. He could smell denial all over Logan.
Logan spun around, a low growl ripping from his chest. Rave was impressed. “I know what happened. I don’t need you reciting the events back to me. I don’t know who sent you to protect me, but you can get lost.”
Rave was halfway into saying good-bye, but knew he wasn’t going to leave his mate open to another attack. The man had a sharp tongue and a heavy dose of denial in his blood, but Rave wasn’t that cruel. “You honestly don’t know, do you?”
Logan opened the back door, ignoring Rave as he stepped into the house. He glanced around and then looked at the man sitting on the couch, his face pale. “Cal, pack your bags, we’re going to my mom’s.”
Rave felt the pulse in his temple beat harder as he tried his best not to just grab Logan and toss the man over his shoulder. It wasn’t easy. “No, you’re coming back to Pride Pack Valley where you will be safe.”
“No, I’m going to my mom’s.”
Rave could feel the mental push, the ripple wash over him to let Logan leave with Cal. He shook his head, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands to stop the impulse to let Logan walk out of the front door. “Stop that.”
Logan looked genuinely puzzled, but still ready to argue. “Stop what?”
“Stop trying to get me to do what you want.”
Logan’s combative expression melted away, replaced by total confusion. “How can I make you do what I want?”
“You’re a styre mente,” Jaxxon stated and then shrugged when Rave turned and glared at him. “We’re getting nowhere being tactful.”
Rave gave a low growl toward the wolf.
“A what?” Logan asked.
“I’ll explain on the way back to Pride Pack Valley,” Rave said as he walked toward the front door, realizing that he was still naked.
“Ian, can you get me a pair of jogging pants from the Jeep?”
Ian nodded and walked out. There was no sense in scaring the neighbors if they were watching the house. Rave wanted to smile when he noticed Logan trying his damnedest not to stare at Rave’s exposed cock.
“I told you already. I’m going to my mom’s.”
There was no push this time. No ripple or force behind Logan’s words. It was just an ordinary statement. Rave wanted to tell Logan that he was getting better at his ability, but decided to leave it alone.
Once Ian gave Rave the pants, he slid them on and walked outside. He was bare-chested and shoeless, but he’d live.
He opened the door to the Nissan and reached in, grabbing the knob, and pulled, hearing the hood pop. He closed the door and walked around front, feeling underneath for the latch. Once he had it opened, he yanked the spark plug wires completely free.
“What are you doing?” Cal said as he raced outside.
“Ensuring that Logan comes with me.” Rave could see the honey yellow of Cal’s eyes and knew he was some sort of cat shifter. He just wasn’t sure what kind. A black panther would be harder to fight. They had a lot of muscle under their sleek coats.
But so did Rave.
“I’ll go,” Logan said as he walked out toward the car. “Just give Cal back his car parts.”
“Get in the Jeep, and Cal can have them back.” It was childish, but Rave was determined to make sure Logan got into the Jeep. Not only was he following his alpha’s orders, Logan was his mate. He would do whatever it took to protect the man.
Rave opened the back door of the Jeep and motioned for Logan to get in with a theatrical wave of his arm. Logan didn’t look impressed.
His mate walked to the Jeep, but kept his eyes locked on Rave, as if he were going to leap onto the man at any second.
Glancing over at Cal, Rave wasn’t so sure leaving the man behind was a good idea, cat shifter or not. “Do you know who the man was that tried to take you?” he asked Logan as his mate rounded the back door of the Jeep.
Logan shrugged. “A psychotic asshole.”
Rave had a feeling Logan was lumpin
g him into that category.
Maybe it was the way Logan had darted his blue eyes at Rave when he said it. Why did Rave have a guilty conscience? He shook his head, wondering if Logan was doing that damn mental thing again.
“Lucky for you I showed up, huh?”
“Yeah, lucky me,” Logan said flatly.
Rave ignored Logan’s cheerful tone. “Is Cal going to be safe here?”
Once again, Logan’s shoulders lifted and then fell. “Beats me.”
The soft glow of the interior light reminded Rave that they had to get moving. He glanced over his shoulder to see Cal staring down at the wires in his hand and then at his car, as if he didn’t have a clue what to do with them.
Damn.
“Get in while I talk with Cal.”
“Are you going to pay him off to keep quiet?”
His mate was a real comedian. “No, I’m going to ask him if he wants protection as well.”
“At least he gets a choice,” Logan grumbled as he climbed into the backseat. Rave closed the door, stopping his eyes from rolling skyward. He could see now Logan was a hell-raiser. He just hoped that when the man’s powers kicked in fully, he stayed on the right side.
And that side would be Rave’s.
Chapter Three
Logan stood against a dark-paneled wall, staring at the men standing around him. He wasn’t what one would consider brave by any stretch of the imagination, but damn if he didn’t feel trapped by every last man in the room.
All eyes were on him, making him feel as if he should run for his life. They were staring at him as if he were the boogeyman and an enemy of their town. Or maybe it was just having Cal with him. A few of the men in the room had sniffed his friend, a few times.
Logan hadn’t known Cal that long, but he never noticed an odor.
Why were the men sniffing him? Okay, that was not the important thing right now. He needed to prioritize. He’d worry about Cal’s BO problem later.
“Why am I here?” Logan asked as he watched Zeus stand from behind his desk. He noticed how huge the man was. His body mass looked large enough to be considered a planet. Logan took a step back, pressing his back firmly into the wall. He didn’t know these people. They could have had malicious intents for all he knew. What did he really know about any of these men? Not a damn thing.
He glanced over at Rave, the man who had ridden in the backseat with him the whole way here.
Rave gave him a slight nod, his eyes confident and the angles of his face strong, but his lips were soft and sensual, lightening some of his sharper features. Logan felt a little out of depth here. He had no clue why he needed protection, but having Rave standing so close did make him feel a little better.
But not by much.
He was in a room full of wolf shifters, after all. Cal may have been a shifter, but Logan was one hundred percent human.
If a fight broke out, he was in deep shit.
“You are here because of your blood work.”
Logan watched as the doctor from the hospital walked into the outsized office. He was studying a file in his hand, his attention on what he was reading, but the man managed to thread his way into the room without bumping into anything or anyone. His head rose from whatever he was reading as his thick, black brows furrowed. “Why are you over here by the wall?”
Because going any further into a room full of wolves didn’t seem like a good idea to Logan. He noticed Cal sit up a little straighter, his eyes locking onto the doctor as he squirmed around uncomfortably.
Cal never squirmed. What the hell was up with that?
“I’m fine,” Logan said. “Why am I here?” He knew the doctor had wanted to conduct more tests on him. Was this the man’s way of getting him to cooperate? Had he sent muscle to get Logan to return?
What in the hell was in his blood to make the doctor go through all of this? Nah, there was no way the good-looking doctor set all this up just to get more blood.
No one was that desperate.
He hoped.
“Shall we begin?” the alpha asked.
Logan glanced at Zeus. His presence was commanding, his tone almost regal as he stood there. Logan felt as though the man should be wearing a crown or something to show he was the leader of this pack of wolves. His dominance seemed to take up every extra inch in the office.
Logan nodded, but stayed against the wall. He was not giving his back to anyone in the room. His eyes slid back to Rave. The man was staring at him, heat in his liquid brown eyes. Logan knew that look. It was nothing short of pure fucking. The man wanted Logan. The weight of his want was not only in his eyes, but Logan could feel it like a physical caress along his skin.
He averted his eyes back to the alpha.
“Have you ever heard of styre mente?” Zeus asked as he took a seat behind his desk.
“Can’t say that I have,” Logan said as he shifted to the other foot.
The doctor gave him a soft smile. It was one of those smiles that said, oh, well then, you’re in for a doozy.
Logan didn’t like doozies.
He stood there, listening to the doctor explain to him what a styre mente was, and began to feel sick to his stomach. This had to be a joke. It had to be some sort of sick and twisted joke that the doctor pulled on his patients just to get them to cooperate. If he wanted more blood, all he had to do was ask. Not that Logan would have said yes, but it was better than listening to this bullshit.
Logan was becoming uneasy. It was a feeling he didn’t like. The doctor was talking about something completely impossible. The man had to be certifiable.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Logan?” the doctor asked.
“Not one single damn word. Now, can I go to my mom’s?” He didn’t mean to say it so aggressively, but Logan was tired of hearing this crap. A blond man stepped up next to the doctor, his blue eyes raking over Logan as if he weren’t even worthy enough to talk to the doctor, or maybe he just didn’t like Logan. He really didn’t care.
“I’m fine, Eagle,” the doctor said to the blond man. “He’s just scared.”
Mr. Blondie didn’t look like he cared what the reason was for Logan’s tone. If he had been in a room full of humans, Logan would have probably flipped them all off and walked away, but he wasn’t.
Eagle’s eyes were glacial blue, the tip of one canine showing under his upper lip.
He was in a room full of wolves.
Would he make it out of here alive? That was one hell of a warning look being shot at him. Logan got the message loud and clear. No yelling at the doctor. But Logan wasn’t backing down, not in front of these men. For all he knew, they would smell weakness and converge on him, leaving nothing behind but his bones for toothpicks.
“If we allow you to leave, Logan, the man that was after you just might find and kill you,” Rave said as he inched closer. Logan took a step away. He didn’t want any of these men in arm’s reach.
“I don’t believe any of this.”
“So then why was Aba after you?” Rave asked.
Hell if Logan knew. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted out of this room. He was becoming angry that he couldn’t just go to his mom’s. No one should be able to find him there. The only reason anyone knew where he lived was because they either followed him home or got the information from his hospital charts. “I want to leave.”
He felt a surge of power stretch out from his mind, expanding across the room like small ripples in a pond after someone had tossed a rock in. It was like tiny tentacles reaching out, feelers grabbing at the closest person. Logan had actually felt them. He stood there stunned as Zeus smiled at him.
“You can go to your mom’s. We won’t hold you up any longer.”
If he hadn’t felt the exerted power leave him, Logan wouldn’t have believed it. It had been like nothing he had ever felt before. He concentrated on the thought of leaving, pushing it toward the pack of wolves, straining for them to let him go.
“Stop it!”
Logan glanced at Rave. His hands were balled up into fists, tiny spatters of blood on his hands. It looked like Rave had dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands, fighting against whatever the hell Logan had been trying to do.
“You can’t use that against anyone not trying to harm you.”
The men around him blinked as if coming out of a dream and then began to growl low in their throats. Did that qualify as harming him?
They sure as shit looked like they wanted to.
“Don’t do that again,” Zeus said, his voice holding a pissed-off tone.
“Or?” Logan challenged with a clip to his tone.
“Do you really want to find out?” Zeus gritted through his teeth.
He leaned over his desk, palms flat as his dark eyes ate Logan alive. If he had not been giddy over this newfound power, Logan would probably be wetting himself right about now. But unfortunately it had gone to his head, making him feel invincible.
Rave slid in front of Logan, blocking his view of the alpha.
“Now do you believe me, Logan?” the doctor asked from beside Eagle.
Logan felt tired, a slight headache thumping in the back of his skull. He wasn’t feeling empowered any longer, but drained. “Yes.”
“Seriously?” Cal asked as he jumped up from the leather sofa he had been sitting on. “You’re some kind of mind controller?”
Why did the man make it sound like it was the coolest thing ever invented? Logan wasn’t sure he wanted this. Quite frankly, it scared the shit out of him. His body was losing the little high it had been riding, and now all he wanted to do was crash somewhere. He glanced around at the men in the room, trying to focus.
“He’s drained and confused,” the doctor said as he approached Logan.
Logan pressed his back into the wall, throwing his hands up to ward the man off. He tried to send out the message not to touch him, but the harder Logan tried to push the message into the doctor, the worse his head hurt.
He was helpless.
“All I want to do is examine you, Logan. I promise I’m not going to hurt you or try to perform any experiments.”
Logan lowered his arms slowly, his eyes snapping over to Rave for help. There was no logic behind reaching out to Rave, but he seemed like the only one in the room who would oblige. Logan didn’t trust the doctor, and Cal was too busy looking starstruck at Logan.
