by Jana Downs
Bradley was humming “Call Me Maybe” as he got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. The damn song was catchy even if he resented the fact that it looped in regular intervals on every radio station known to man. Despite the fact that the music wasn’t exactly to his tastes, he was in a fantastic mood.
Drying quickly, he threw his towel over the shower stall before shoving his legs in the new jeans Ryan had bought for him and pulling on his favorite rock and roll T-shirt that he’d fished out of a dollar bin at Goodwill. He loved thrift store shopping.
The smell of waffles beckoned him out of the bathroom and into the hallway. His mouth watered. Ryan really did make fantastic waffles. He sniffed again as he got closer. “Did you burn one?” he called.
He exited the hallway where it opened up into the living room and kitchen and frowned. Where was Ryan? The waffle maker was still on. Maybe he went downstairs to get Regan. That was it. He circled the island and nearly tripped over something on the floor. He looked down and screamed.
“Ryan!” His Master looked like he’d fallen to the ground, still shirtless in a pair of blue jeans. He knelt beside his lover, shaking his shoulder in an effort to wake him. Something white and foamy was coming out of the side of his mouth. Bradley couldn’t even think of what the hell it was. “Ryan, baby, please, open your eyes.” Tears flooded his vision as raw panic seized his chest. Regan. He needed to get Regan. He was a beta. He would know what to do.
He pushed himself to his feet and jerked open the door that led to the bottom of the split level. He flicked on the light to illuminate the steps. His eyes zeroed in on the body at the bottom of the stairs. Regan. “Fuck!” He shook, unable to process what he was seeing. He couldn’t dial 911. They were werewolves, shifters, whatever. Who could he call?
He turned from the stairs and ran back down the hall to the bedroom. He screamed in frustration as he had to sift through all the scattered clothes in the room only to remember that they’d stripped in the playroom last night. He abandoned his search in the bedroom and jerked open the door to the playroom. Thirty seconds later he had his cell in hand.
First he dialed Mustang, but his phone went to voice mail. He was near hysteria at that point. A low groan from the kitchen had him moving there while he searched his contacts for someone else to call. Grayson Gambler, the Alpha’s mate.
He threw himself on the floor beside his lover as Ryan made weird gurgling noise and his eyes started rolling. Bradley sobbed, at a loss of what to do. Someone picked up on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” The voice sounded sleepy.
“Gray?”
“Yeah. Who is this?”
Bradley whimpered. “It’s Bradley. Ryan’s Bradley.”
“Bradley, what’s wrong?”
“Ryan and Regan. They’re…I don’t know. I went to shower, and then I came out and everyone is passed out. I don’t know if Regan is dead. I didn’t check. Please, I don’t know what to do…”
“Stay right there. Are you at Ryan’s house?”
Bradley shook. “Yes.”
“We’ll be right there with a doctor. Do you see anyone around? Are there any intruders?”
Ryan made another noise of pain, and his body started seizing. “Ryan!” Bradley yelled, dropping the phone and grabbing hold of his lover for dear life. It was worse than a horror movie with his eyes rolling, foam coming out of his mouth, and whole body moving like someone stuck him with an electrical pulse. Ryan’s body stopped gyrating and locked up and more foam dripped from his mouth.
Bradley couldn’t process what he was seeing. His whole body flushed hot and cold in rapid succession, and his own muscles started tensing like he was about to fight or something. Am I poisoned, too? It was his last logical thought before the world flashed white and his body started to shake.
* * * *
Bradley wasn’t sure how long he’d been passed out, but when he came to it was to the realization that he wasn’t himself any longer. A new awareness lit his mind up like a Christmas tree as a million scents assaulted him. Burning waffles, poison, his mate. It all hit him at once. He could even smell the organic cleaning solution under the sink that Ryan used. A low growl wound its way out of his throat as another scent added to the mix. Enemy.
He lapped at his mate’s face before crouching in front of him, daring anyone to come near him. His mate was sick. His ears pricked forward, listening for signs of movement. It was then he realized he wasn’t human anymore, but it seemed like a distant concern. He had to take care of his mate, his Master.
Footsteps on the stairs made him tense, and the door swung inward as the man from the diner stepped onto the landing. “Hmm,” he said, frowning at Bradley as Bradley snarled at him. “Missed one.”
Bradley didn’t wait for him to say anything else. He launched himself at the man, throwing them both down the stairs to the lower level of the house. The guy must’ve moved Regan’s body because they landed on the landing with Bradley on top and no Regan in sight. He growled, snarling, tearing into any flesh that was available to him. No one was going to hurt his lover. No one. The Alpha would be here soon, and he would make Ryan better.
“Fuck!” the man cursed, hitting Bradley in the face with what looked like a cell phone. He latched onto that arm and started shaking his head, shredding the flesh. The man howled, shoving him violently. A blow to his stomach dislodged him, but he circled back around, going for the man’s legs. “Son of a bitch!” A flash of white blinded Bradley for a second before another wolf slammed into him.
He felt the Dominant energy coming off the man, and his natural urge was to back off from that aura, but stronger instincts won out. He had to protect Ryan. Ryan was helpless. He would be a terrible mate if he let the stranger near him. Teeth clamped onto the back of his neck and shook him. Bradley cried out at the intense pain that momentarily blinded him. He went flying as the grip was released.
He limped off, shaking his head to clear it. He looked up in time to see the wolf heading back up the stairs. No! He launched himself at the wolf again, and their fight began anew. Bradley knew logically that this wolf was bigger than him and that he was probably going to die, but he didn’t care. Ryan was all that mattered to him.
A shot rang out, deafening him. The body above him went completely limp, and he struggled to get out from under it. He had to get to Ryan, had to. The heavier wolf was pulled off of him, and a human hand reached toward him. Bradley snapped at it. Was this another enemy? Would they hurt his Ryan?
“Easy, little wolf. My name is Dean. I saw Alder go into the house. Are you Bradley?” The words didn’t make much sense to him. He growled. “I need to go check on Ryan, Bradley. He’s hurt like Regan is. Alder poisoned them with silver powder from the looks of it. Can you please move so I can go check on him?”
Bradley didn’t budge from the stairs. He couldn’t. Ryan was up there, and he was sick. People were trying to kill him, and he didn’t know who he could trust. The front door to Regan’s house opened, and Mustang walked in.
“Who is that?” Mustang rumbled, clearly agitated. Other people filed in the door, a guy with honey-colored hair and a young woman with pale-blond hair. Bradley snarled at them all. He would kill all of them if they tried to hurt Ryan. “Is he one of the ones, Dean?”
The dark-haired man with the sympathetic gray eyes spoke. “No, Alpha. I believe this is Bradley. The trauma of finding his mate must’ve forced the shift.”
Shift. What shift? He whined. What was going on? Everything was really fucking weird.
“I don’t think Ryan had time to tell him. He’s confused and going on all instincts,” Dean continued.
“Bradley,” a voice echoed through his mind, soothing the part of him that wanted to tear into them. “This is your Alpha. Stand down.” The command was effective, the fight went out of him, and he went to his belly. “Good boy. Dr. Carrigan and his sister are going to go upstairs and see to Ryan. If it’s silver poisoning, we only have a
few minutes to administer an antidote. You stay right there. Gray will come lay next to you while we take care of business. All right?”
Bradley nodded, too tired to fight anymore. Another huge wolf padded toward him. The scent told him the identity of the Alpha mate. It hit him. Holy shit. I’m a werewolf.
* * * *
Ryan woke up in Dr. Carrigan’s clinic. It was usually where injured wolves were brought when there was an emergency. It was easily recognizable with its cream-and-yellow wallpaper and motivational posters. His head pounded. Fuck. What the hell had happened? The last thing he remembered was Regan coming up and starting to make waffles.
Mustang’s gravel-filled voice drew his attention to the right. Moving his head hurt. “You awake, Ry?” He nodded, but his throat was so dry that he wasn’t sure he could speak. “Need some water?” He nodded again. Mustang got up and went over to the small sink against the wall and filled a cup. “I sent your mate to get some sleep with mine. He hasn’t left your side since you were brought in. Do you remember what happened?”
Ryan shook his head and made a noise of gratitude as Mustang brought the cup to his lips and let him drink. “Where…Bradley?” He really wanted his mate, to make sure he was okay.
“With Grayson,” Mustang said. “They’re sleeping in the on-call room. Alder was the one who poisoned you. If it wasn’t for your little mate, he would’ve poisoned me and Gray, too. He masked his scent, snuck into the house, and put silver in our milk. Your orange juice was the culprit in your house. It was lucky that Bradley called us before we sat down to breakfast or else there would’ve been no cavalry to come to the rescue.” Mustang sat back in the chair beside the hospital bed. “Alder has apparently been shadowing us all for months, finding out our schedules, grocery lists. The most common items in our cabinets. Dean has been interrogating him for the past two days now. He’s been working for the pack that kidnapped Cian’s Jeremiah a while back. The Circle’s enforcers are coming to collect him tomorrow. Alder apparently has been unhappy with how I’ve been running my pack and wanted the other Alpha in charge instead.”
“Why did he break into Bradley’s house?” Ryan asked, his head spinning with the possibilities. Did this mean that they would be having an open rivalry with the other pack? The underlying tension had been building for a while but he hadn’t thought it was that bad. Mustang was a damn good Alpha. There was no reason for that.
Mustang shrugged. “We don’t know all the details yet. Apparently my father’s pack and the other pack have been intertwined for some time. I think he was ordered to break into Bradley’s apartment and make it look like a jealous lover or a robbery in an effort to see exactly what he knew about his heritage since he was getting involved with the pack. I don’t know what they were hoping to find in his apartment that would clue them in on what he knew but that was the intention. They didn’t want anyone to know about his suppression because the Circle would bring Alpha Daines up on charges and fuck up their plan to kill me and my administration. They don’t have statutes of limitations on shit like that.
My father approved the suppression but Alpha Daines was apparently the one who almost destroyed Bradley’s wolf when he was a child to punish Alexander Gage for finding out about a slave-trade operation that my father and he were running across the U.S. We’re not even sure how big it has gotten at this point but the Circle is looking into that, too. This situation opened a can of worms, Ryan. The kidnapping and suppression wasn’t for Alexander’s faux pas with Bradley’s mother like we originally thought. I doubt Bradley remembers it either way. He was two years old according to the information I found.” Mustang swallowed and looked absolutely disgusted. “It makes me fucking sick. Bradley’s suppression was a warning to keep Alexander’s mouth shut.”
Ryan’s frown deepened. “How did they do it?”
Mustang shrugged. “I’m not sure. The Circle is conducting an official investigation. Apparently, it involves torture and some kind of mental rewiring that is rougher on wolves than a complete mind wipe on humans. It’s terrible.”
Ryan was chilled at the knowledge. Poor Bradley. “So why were we targeted if they were after Bradley?”
“They were going to kill off me, Gray, you, and Regan and have the other Alpha step in to take over the territory. It would give them enough wolves and land to muscle out the Circle’s enforcers and continue the operation. They were basically going to wage a silent war on the Circle and push them out. It’s un-fucking-believable. I can’t believe this happened so close to home and we didn’t even realize it. Thank God you had Dean investigate this.”
Ryan swallowed at how close he came to losing his lover. “I didn’t tell him about his past. Did you?”
Mustang hesitated. “Sort of. He shifted when you started flipping out from the poison. Alder came into the house to finish you both off. Dean was tailing him at the time but wasn’t sure what was up yet. Your mate saved your life.”
“Fuck.” That was the only adequate word to describe what he was feeling. Relief, fear, anger that he hadn’t given his lover fair warning about the wolf inside him that their meeting had woken up after a twenty-something-year slumber rushed through him all at once.
“He’s okay,” Mustang said. “He’s taking it much better than I expected him to, to be honest. You’ll have to teach him the finer points, but he has the instincts down pat. I think the reason is because, despite being dormant, his wolf was always a part of him. It’s probably why he recognized you as his mate before you did.”
“His ‘Force,’ the thing inside him who told him things,” Ryan said, making the connection. His persistent mate, his beautiful submissive. “I should have told him when you told me. He’s probably going to be mad at me for keeping it from him.”
“I’d be madder if it wasn’t the coolest thing ever,” his mate’s voice interrupted his mental ass kicking. “A heads-up would’ve been nice, but under the circumstances, I’ll let it slide this time.” He looked up and saw his mate lounging in the doorway, looking calm and collected as ever. The strain showed in the dark circles under his hazel eyes and in the stiff way he pushed off the doorway and walked gingerly into the room. At least his spirit hadn’t suffered under the attack. “How you feeling?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. Ryan really wanted him closer.
“Like I got hit by a truck. How about you?” Ryan asked.
“I’ll leave you two alone. I’ll finish debriefing you after you get your cuddle time in, man,” Mustang interrupted, pushing himself to his feet. “Make Bradley rest as well. His stitches need a break.”
“Hey,” Bradley protested. “I just got done resting them.”
Mustang smirked and let himself out of the room without another word. Ryan tugged on Bradley’s wrist to get his attention. “He’s right you know. You need to rest up the stitches.” He dreaded the answer to the question he had to know. “How bad was it?”
Bradley shrugged delicately. “Fourteen stitches on the back of my neck and back. It’s not insignificant, but it wasn’t too bad. I’m still a little stiff and sore, but that’s okay. Shifting back helped.”
“It will. Something with the transformation repairs cells. I’ll feel better when I’m well enough to shift back and forth. Silver is a bitch to get over though. I’m glad you’re all right, and thanks for saving me,” Ryan said, tugging his lover down so that he could kiss him properly. He pressed their lips together and made sure he didn’t break it until both of them were a little breathless.
“I was so scared I was going to lose you,” Bradley murmured, wrapping his arms around Ryan’s body so that they were as close as possible. “I mean, we came really close to an ending without good-bye. You know?”
Ryan’s throat tightened at the thought. “Yeah. I know, sweet. But you did well. You defended your Master when he couldn’t defend himself. You guarded our house and acted just as you should’ve. You saved us all, my beautiful strong sub boy.”
They stayed that way for a lo
ng time, holding one another and letting their wolves’ shadows merge and mingle. Ryan was almost asleep when Bradley next spoke. “I’ve been a wolf all this time huh?”
“It looks that way,” Ryan said, giving his lover a light squeeze. “Your mother told Alpha that she didn’t want anything to do with you anymore after the old Alpha ‘killed’ your wolf. She had no way to know that your wolf just went into hiding. Things like that are unheard of.”
“I’m glad,” Bradley whispered after a moment. “I’m glad I’m a wolf. I knew we were mates.”
Ryan chuckled. “Stubborn boy, yes. We are. Forever and ever and all that jazz.” Speaking of which…“Bradley?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“I love you.” He managed to get the words out without hyperventilating which was a good sign. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you. I think I’ve loved you from day one. I was just too stubborn to admit it.”
Bradley kissed his hospital gown-clad chest. “Yeah, well, I’m more stubborn than you are.” The minx. “I love you, too, Ryan. I always have.”
There would be a lot to do when Ryan recovered. He wanted a collaring ceremony, an official claiming, fuck, a wedding, too, just because he needed to express this feeling inside him. He didn’t want to leave any doubts in anyone’s mind that Bradley was his. No, they weren’t super traditional, and Bradley wasn’t exactly an average sub boy, but that was what made them perfect for one another. The awareness that for the first time in his life things were exactly as they needed to be settled into his skin, washing away his worries for the future. He would do whatever was needed to make this work for both of them. He kissed his lover’s forehead. And if he ever lost sight of his goal, he was sure his sub would be all too happy to tell him how to get back on track.
Epilogue
“Exquisite,” Christian Svengard said, motioning to the center piece of the collection, Bradley’s pride and joy, Surrender. He’d only finished it a few nights previously after a whipping session with his Master had led to hellishly good inspiration. “You have a promising future ahead of you, Bradley.”
