by Skye Jones
He held a large knife up to the light and gave a wicked grin as he added it to his arsenal. “Hawk leads a team down in South America. The number of fugitives who run for the border is high. He’ll bring his whole pack and should be here soon. Dylan used to run a team too. They covered the Middle East, but a job went badly wrong. He lost his partner and two other members. He walked away from the job afterward, and he’s spent the time trying to find the people who killed his mate.”
Kayley’s heart clenched in sympathy for the shifter she’d never met. She wasn’t mated, yet, but Sean’s absence caused a constant dull ache in her chest. “When did this happen?”
“A year ago. He got leave but eventually the Council wanted him back at work. Dylan refused, and he’s been searching for leads ever since. He’s coming alone. I told him not to, but he said…he said no one else would lose their mate if he could help it.”
Luke swallowed hard, visibly pulling himself together before speaking again. “Julie, get finished up. I want to be out of here in ten minutes. We need to get tracking Sean. Hopefully we’ll have his location by the time the others arrive.” With those final words, he stalked out of the room.
Without thinking twice, Kayley followed Luke down the hall and into the master bedroom they’d all shared the night before.
“What can I do?” Her heart pitter-pattered high up in her throat. The worry Luke wouldn’t want her now her cousin had behaved so badly niggled away at the back of her mind. She could laugh at the irony of it all. Until a day or so ago she’d been the one resisting what surged between them, and now she’d finally accepted it, finally let her guard down, it looked like she could lose it all.
“Stay here and stay safe.” Luke didn’t look at her as he began to pull various items out of a drawer.
“I want to do more!”
“No.” His voice remained calm but cold, steely determination lay behind the one word. He turned to face her, and his face softened. “I need to get him back. I can’t focus on that if I’m worried about you. Do you understand?” He reached his hand out and trailed the back of his knuckles over her cheek.
“You wanted me to come before, to the bar.” She did want to get Sean back, more than anything, but couldn’t bear to be left behind, worrying.
“Yes, when I thought we were going to fetch him back from a local watering hole. This is very different and it’s too dangerous. I need to concentrate. Tracking is hard. We might have to change to pick up his scent and follow it, and you couldn’t keep up. I can’t split my focus. I need you here and safe.”
“Okay. I’ll stay. I’d hate to jeopardize your search. I just feel so useless. Luke? Can I ask you something?” She gathered her courage at his nod. “When you told Will he’d said something terrible, what did you mean? I know before wasn’t the right time to talk about it, but I’d like to know.”
He inhaled sharply, studied her for a moment. Tension rose, a thick wall between them. As the seconds dragged, Kayley didn’t realize she was holding her breath until he spoke.
“Most people think Sean left his old pack because of the abuse of his alpha but it’s more complicated. He’d stayed for fifty years and taken a lot of shit before something happened to make him leave.”
“I still can’t believe he stayed for such a long time. He tried to explain to me in Sarasota, but it’s hard to imagine how he could bear it for fifty years.”
“You have to be part of shifter society to really understand why he stayed for so long. His pack gave him to another alpha as a peace offering. There’d been many, many deaths between the two groups when they were at war. If Sean left McFarlane, the war would begin again, and he knew that maybe his parents, siblings, friends—they could all die.”
The death of Sean’s heartless parents didn’t seem like such a bad thing to Kayley, but she understood Sean protecting them. Even if they’d treated him badly they were still his parents, and he’d have loved them.
“So he stayed.” Luke shrugged. “No matter what the fucker put him through, he stayed. One thing that made his life a little easier was a friend he made during his early years in the pack. A little female wolf called Mari. Mari got the same outcast treatment as Sean.
“As the alpha’s mate, Sean should have been afforded respect, but the pack knew James only wanted Sean as his whipping boy and basically ignored him. Mari had been found alone, begging, by a few of the pack enforcers after her family moved to Scotland and were killed. Some females took her in and turned her, only for the rest of the pack to treat her as nothing more than a serf.”
“They sound completely vile.” Kayley shuddered at the idea of Sean spending fifty long years amongst such people.
“Trust me, most of them are.” Luke shook his head. “Some of the things Sean told me…” He trailed off for a moment, a lost look in his eyes. “James hated how Sean developed such a close relationship with Mari but never did anything about it. Sean’s theory is James realized hurting her would be the final straw, so held off. But James is a sociopath, and one day his rage outweighed his control. Another alpha flirted with Sean in front of James. Jealousy can be an issue for us.” He smiled briefly.
“I’m starting to understand the alpha nature a little, I think.” She smiled back at him.
“Sean didn’t flirt back. An alpha shouldn’t be angry with their mate in that situation, no matter what our primal instincts might be. But James McFarlane, for all his dominance issues, is weak. He blamed Sean, because it came easier than standing up to another alpha.”
“So James took it all out on Sean?”
“Yes. Only this time he really lost it. Sean said he raged and raged, and when none of the usual punishments calmed his temper, he ordered two of his henchmen to bring Mari in.” Luke stopped speaking and looked away.
“Go on.” She urged, despite the dread in her stomach.
“I don’t know, after what you’ve been through?”
“Please.” Yes, part of her feared what would come, but she needed to know. She wanted to share everything with these two men. No secrets between them. And hadn’t she bared her soul? Her scars? It must go both ways if this strange, wonderful thing between them were to work.
Luke started to speak again, his voice monotone. “Two enforcers came into the room and shackled Sean to the wall. The two henchmen proceeded to beat Mari. When they eventually grew bored, they beheaded her. In front of a chained, and helpless, Sean.”
For a long moment, Kayley couldn’t react. The pain and terror the poor woman must have suffered through sank in. And Sean? Having to watch it all unable to move. Sympathy and an overwhelming sense of tenderness toward Sean rose within her, forming a lump in her throat she could barely swallow around.
“Oh God.” Tears started to pour down her face. “I’m going to kill Will. How could he have said those things?”
“I’m not best pleased with Will myself,” Luke muttered. “But he didn’t know. Yes, he said a hurtful thing, but he couldn’t know how badly it would devastate Sean. You and I are the only people in this pack who know the real reason Sean left McFarlane—and it stays that way.”
“Of course.” She dashed at her eyes.
“Honey?” He tilted her chin up ‘til her eyes met his. “I’ve got to go. I’m going to find him and bring him back. You need to stay here, help keep Will under control and yourself safe. Do exactly what Taylor tells you, okay?”
Still crying, she nodded up at him. “I promise. You don’t have to worry about me. Go bring him back.”
“I will. And I’m going to kill James McFarlane.”
From the resolute look on his face, Kayley held no doubt Luke would do as promised and end the other alpha’s life, and found she didn’t give a damn. In fact, she wanted the animal dead. Perhaps a little bit of the wolf lived in her already?
* * * *
“You look very well, Seany.” James McFarlane’s face swam in and out of his vision, like something from his frequent nightmares. The use of the nick
name made his skin crawl. The way James stood over him, staring down, turned his stomach.
“How the hell did you track me down?” Sean slurred, his tongue thick and unwieldy in his mouth.
It hurt to move his head, but Sean looked around as far as he could, trying to get his bearings. Underground. The smells in the dark, dank space told him that much.
“Oh, that’s the beauty of it. I had no idea where you were, until one of my lieutenants came here to work on a business deal for the pack; we’ve become rather wealthy and have a lot of property holdings. It’s pure, blissful serendipity he visited Bal Harbour and picked up your scent.” James leaned further forward, his soft laugh ruffling Sean’s hair. “It’s got to be fate, lad. Such a coincidence can only mean you’re to be mine once more. Of course, I needed to figure out how the heck to get into the condo you’re staying at and neutralize your friends. Rather, I did, until you took your little walk.”
Sean cursed himself for his emotional meltdown. Will hadn’t meant his harsh words. The young shifter suffered from the turning, and couldn’t control the emotions it evoked. Sean hated how he’d put himself in this position because he still felt guilt over Mari’s death. Hated even more the rest of the pack being put in possible danger when they came after him, which they surely would.
“I found out the house you were staying in was a rental and hacked into the company’s database to see how long you’d be in town for. I’d planned to make my move very soon. I couldn’t believe my luck when I got the call telling me you’d left your vulgar base, and all alone.” James held out a cell phone and waved it in front of Sean’s face. “Amazing things these mobile phone contraptions. This one works as well here in the States as it does back home in the UK. The wonders of technology.”
“Nice to see you’ve finally joined the modern age.” He sneered up at his old alpha.
From out of nowhere pain seared through his face. One of the enforcers had backhanded him. Sean spat out blood and tugged on the restraints, but couldn’t move them. Silver? If they were, he’d never get free.
“I’ve got you to thank for joining the modern age, Seany. After you left I re-evaluated things and decided the pack needed to move with the times.” He hunkered down in front of Sean. “There I was, using all these old fashioned implements, when there’s a wealth of wonderful new devices designed for bringing the ultimate in pleasure and pain. When we get home, I’ll let you try some.” He laughed.
Sean reeled as sour breath hit him.
“Fuck you!” Sean spat the words out.
“Oh no, my friend. Fuck you. And I will. But not yet.”
“You can’t.” Sean stared straight into those cold, silver eyes. “I’m mated to another alpha now. Off limits. I know how stuck on the rules and regulations you are, James.”
“Yes.” James cocked his head to one side, observing Sean as if he were a specimen on a slide. “I used to live by the rules. But you left and, well, let’s say I’m a changed man.”
He rocked back on his haunches and gave a truly deranged smile. “I don’t give a fuck who you’re mated to, or what the rules say. You’re mine. No one else had the right to mate you. I’ve seen your little pack. I’m not particularly scared.”
Dying to stand up to the man, Sean bit his lip and kept his counsel. Better to let McFarlane believe the pack weak. It would give Luke the element of surprise when he came. And Sean had to believe he’d come. He couldn’t lose hope.
“I knew at the time how attached to the useless wench you were.” McFarlane suddenly changed the subject, as he walked back to the wall and leaned casually against it. “I didn’t think she’d be the last straw, though. All those things you suffered through so wonderfully, and you let some useless girl’s demise break you.”
“It didn’t break me. It made me strong enough to leave.” He pushed the memory of Mari dying out of his mind, detesting McFarlane more than ever. “And leaving led me to Luke, the man I love.”
“As may be.” James sounded almost jocular. “The thing is, though, you’re not going to be missed by your old alpha. Not now, he’s got a new plaything. I’ve heard all about the female human he’s been frolicking with around the pool. It’s best you forget everything about this little life you think you’ve carved out for yourself and come back with me. After all.” He put his hands together as if in prayer and painted a pious look on his face. “I never fucked around with anyone else, and I never expected you to suffer the indignities of sharing me. In a few weeks, your handsome young wolf will barely remember your name. He’ll be too busy giving it day and night to that little whore he’s got hanging on his every word.”
“Whatever,” Sean said. He kept his tone casual, but a rush of anger roared through him at James trash talking Kayley. The rage told him she mattered to him, perhaps as much as to Luke. They really were coming together as a unit of three. James didn’t get it, though. He thought Luke was turning away from Sean. Taking something from him. Instead, they’d found something incredible between the three of them.
“Deny it to me but don’t lie to yourself. You know he’ll tire of you. He wouldn’t want another if he loved you enough.”
“Plenty of alphas take more than one mate.” As soon as he spoke, Sean cursed himself for rising to the bait.
“They don’t take human girlies though, do they? He must be very bored of you if he’s stooping to those depths. She’s insipid and weak, like all humans, and yet he prefers her to you. Face it, Seany—he doesn’t love you. Not like I do.”
“You wouldn’t know love if it smacked you over the head.”
“I should smack you over the head for talking to me that way. Or, I could fuck you. Shall I? Think your alpha will want you then, pretty boy? Do you think he’ll want used goods? Do you think he’ll want you when you smell of me?”
Not daring to look up and let James see the fear in his eyes, Sean kept his gaze focused on the floor. He could bear almost anything—any beating or punishment they threw his way, but not to be touched in such a way by James. He couldn’t bear that.
“Or, perhaps, I’ll let all of these nice enforcers here take a turn with you? Then he’ll definitely not want your tainted hide. You’ll reek of others, and Luke won’t be able to deal with it. Even if he did love you, his alpha instincts won’t let him stay mated to a man so soiled by another pack.”
Deep down, in a place he dare not examine, Sean feared if James did as he said, maybe Luke wouldn’t be able to move past it. Like all alpha’s, Luke could be possessive as hell and didn’t like strangers even touching Sean. Would Luke take him back if McFarlane’s men raped him?
Unable to stop them, tears trickled down his face, stinging his skin. “What did you put in my drink?” He kept his gaze down not wanting the tears witnessed.
“A lovely dose of Rabidia, with a few little herbs mixed in for good measure. I thought I did you a favor. My boys here tell me you were desperate to drown your sorrows. You know we wolves can’t get drunk easily. A tiny pill of rabies essence though and we’re flying.”
“I wasn’t trying to get drunk.” Sean glanced up through his lashes.
“Now, now. Don’t lie to me. You know I can see through it.” McFarlane turned to his men. “How many whiskeys did he drink?”
“At least four, sir. Big ones, too,” Dalton said.
“I’m a little surprised you still like the nectar of our land, lad.” James put one leg up on the table and rested his arms on his knee. He looked relaxed and happy, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Makes me hope a part of you has missed us all along.”
“No, I’ve not missed you. I never drank Scotch when I lived with you. Remember? I wasn’t allowed. I couldn’t eat the good food or drink the wine either. For someone who professes to love me, you really enjoyed treating me like a dog.”
A rough hand grabbed hold of his hair, pulling up so sharply it took his breath away. James had moved so fast, Sean hadn’t even seen. “You were my dog. You’re my pet
and you’re coming home with your master, where you belong. Just because you’re my dog doesn’t mean I don’t love you. However, you do need some more training because you certainly don’t know your place. I think we’ll start now.”
He walked to the door and gestured for the other men in the room to follow. “I’ll be back in a moment, my beloved, and we’ll begin afresh.”
When the door slammed shut, Sean took the opportunity to properly scope out the room. His heart beat so wildly in his chest he could hardly focus. The small space he kneeled in appeared bare, the walls fitted with hooks and other oddities. A soiled mattress took up one corner, and there were two bowls on the floor, one filled with water, the other raw meat.
Think. He shook his head, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. A glance at the window showed darkness outside. That must mean he’d been down here and out of it for quite some time. How much time he’d no idea, but it had been late morning when he’d stormed out. Now it was dark, so at least seven in the evening.
Seven hours! Why hadn’t Luke come? If they kept him in Miami, and the faint smells and sounds from outside led Sean to believe they hadn’t taken him out of the area, then why the hell hadn’t the team found him yet?
A sharp scraping sound alerted him. Head snapping up, he bit back a whimper of fear as James returned to the room. Two of his henchmen followed, dragging in a large trunk that Sean recognized only too well.
It seemed his training was about to begin.
Chapter 14
“This is the group of buildings, and this is the one where they have Sean,” Julie said.
The redhead stood with the other shifters around a large table covered in maps. She pointed one long, elegant finger to a spot on the paper in front of her. Kayley sat back and observed, not wanting to get in the way.
“It took us a while to track him,” Luke added. “McFarlane’s men covered their scent well. I wouldn’t have found him without Julie. They’re good.”
