Claimed Mate

by Jessica Aspen

  “Okay, I’ve caught my breath.” She stood up. “Time to get back and finish packing.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Vince drew close, so close his cologne made her wrinkle her nose.

  She went to move away, but the rock was too close behind her, so she stood there, feeling uncomfortable. “Really, Vince, I have a lot to do before my plane takes off.”

  He stroked his hand down her arm. She resisted the urge to wipe off the spot where he’d touched.

  His breathing quickened, and he pressed even nearer to her. “Serena, I can’t let you leave without telling you how much you’ve come to mean to me.”

  They were outside with lots of space, but with the lack of air in her lungs and the way he crowded her, she grew claustrophobic.

  Serena dragged in more air and backed away, the rough sides of the rock scraping her bare legs. “Vince, you’re a nice guy and I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. But I’m leaving tonight.” She nearly fell over the rock in her need to get away.

  “Can’t you give me five minutes?” Vince frowned. “I’ve been trying to talk to you all week and you’ve done nothing but spend time with one Wulfric brother or another.”

  “What do you mean?” A frisson of alarm skittered along her skin. Something was wrong with him. She’d been too preoccupied with her life falling apart to notice it earlier, but he was taking her leaving much harder than a bare acquaintance should. “I’ve had lunch with you several times.”

  “Lunch with everyone at the office, you mean. And the one time I’ve had you all to myself, you were so absent I had to carry the entire conversation.”

  “I’m sorry, Vince. I’ve had a lot on my mind. Gabe—”

  Something hot and angry flashed in his eyes. “Shut up about that fucking shifter. He’s no good for you.” The corners of his mouth twisted down. He ran a hand through his hair, destroying its normally neat layers and leaving it a wild mess with the ends sticking out. “That shifter,” he growled. “He’s so stuck on himself. He can’t see what you need. I can see what you need. I’m a dreamwalker. We can run together in the dreamscape.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you keep shutting me out.”

  “You’ve been in my dreams?” The tightness in her chest veered into pain. She backed away from him, her eyes searching for the trail they’d left a few feet away. “Vince, you know you’re not supposed to walk in other people’s dreams uninvited. I know you’re not a therapist, but you’ve had the basic dream training.”

  “Fuck that. You’ve been repressed by your family your entire life. Repressed by the rules and regulations the shifters impose on us to keep us subservient.” He pulled back his lips in a sharp, predatory grin. “We need to throw off the chains the shifters have imposed on us.” He seemed to focus on somewhere beyond where they were, on a landscape that she just couldn’t see. “Don’t you want to run wild in the dreams? Show those shifters that we’re just as powerful as they are, maybe more. Who else can go in and screw with their minds, if not us?” He refocused on her, a sly look in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of it.”

  “Vince, you didn’t.” Their earlier conversations loomed in her head. Small things that had made her uneasy at the time, which she’d blown off. A terrible thought occurred to her. She kept her voice smooth and even, just as she would with an upset client. “Vince, why aren’t you a dream therapist?”

  “I failed the stupid morals test. That’s why they’ve stuck me at a desk. I’m not allowed to dreamwalk in anyone’s dreams but my own.” His eyes gleamed. “But I fooled them. I got around the blocking spell and I can enter people’s dreams. That Wulfric prick, all fever-high from meeting you just the one time at your interview. He was easy to tweak, to push down the path of no return.”

  Horror closed her throat.

  She took a couple stumbling steps toward the trail. Had he messed with Gabe or Sam? It couldn’t have been Gabe. He loved her, she knew he did. His fever had started the rise of her wolf inside of her. It had to be Sam whose fever was artificial. It was totally wrong of her, but she hoped it was Sam. Otherwise, everything she thought she’d had with Gabe had been a lie.

  “Which one, Vince? Which twin did you push into the Fever by walking in his dreams?”

  “Sam, the asshole.” He laughed. “It wasn’t hard, you know. He was falling for you anyway. All I did was give him a little push.”

  She had to know. “And Gabe? Did you give Gabe a push too?”

  She didn’t know if she could take that. She’d thought Gabe loved her, but what if all this had been Vince’s playing in his head?

  “No. That fucker is drowning in fever all on his own. I don’t know what the hell you’ve done to him, but he’s obsessed with you.” Vince rapidly closed the space she’d so carefully put between them. “Forget about him. He’s where he can’t find you now, anyway. I’m here. Talk to me.”

  He reached out for her, and she ducked his hand, easing one more step closer to the trail. She’d nearly reached it, but the trail was just the beginning. How far had they come? It had been all uphill, but now it would be down. Thank God. She wouldn’t have so much trouble breathing going downhill.

  “Hey, Vince, let’s head back to the car.” Maybe she could get him to take her back to the ranch. Sometimes one needed to distract a client with something else, keep them off-balance. “I’m a little tired. Remember, I’m not used to this high altitude.” She added, hoping he’d latch on to the need to take care of her. She moved around him and took the first step onto the trail.

  “No!” His fingers dug deeply into her arm, and he spun her around. “You run from me in your dreams, you avoid me when we’re at lunch. It’s just you and me out here. You have to listen to me now. I love you, Serena. And there’s no way I’m letting you get on that plane tonight.”

  His breathing was rapid with stress, his fingers digging deep into her arm. For a few seconds she understood how the rabbit felt when confronted with the snake. She stared up into his face, the fanaticism lighting up his eyes striking fear deep into her heart.

  And then her wolf reminded her: they weren’t prey. They’d never been prey. Her social worker tactics weren’t working, but maybe pack behavior would. Females kept the males in line. Alpha females. She straightened her shoulders and jerked away from his clutching grip. “I don’t love you, Vince. I’m going back to the car.” She stepped all the way onto the trail and started walking, darting a last look over her shoulder.

  Vince’s face contorted, turning bright red. Then something happened. The uncontrollable rage smoothed over in a way that chilled her blood.

  He caught up and walked behind her on the narrow trail, never letting her move more than a few feet ahead of him.

  “I’m what you need, Serena, not some blown-up, muscle-bound shifter. I understand what you go through when you have a tough night of therapy work in someone else’s dreams—feeling what they feel, knowing what they know. You need support. Do you think one of those shifters will give it to you? No. Look at them, so focused on what they want that they don’t give a fuck what anyone else needs.”

  Serena kept walking, trying to figure out around which bend they’d left the car. Wasn’t Vince saying exactly what she’d been thinking about Gabe? That he didn’t understand her, didn’t think her wolf was real? But that didn’t mean he didn’t care. He might not understand what not having a physical shifter meant, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn. Right?

  And Vince. She shivered in the hot sunlight, rubbing her hands up and down her upper arm where he’d bruised her skin. She’d been so wrapped up this week in what was going on with her job and with Gabe and Sam that she hadn’t even seen the real Vince. Her, a trained therapist. She should have figured it out sooner. But now she could see he was sick, very sick.

  And she was scared.

  They finally got to the car. She went to her side and tried to open the door. “Hey, Vince, ca
n you unlock the car?” She didn’t want to get into the vehicle with him, but she had to get back to the ranch, and they were miles from town.

  He pressed the button, and she got in. His movements were jerky as he got in the other side and started the car. He backed it up, the tires spitting gravel. Instead of driving back down to the main road, he drove farther up the narrow access road, the bumps and ruts rattling the sedan’s frame. Under her light jacket, she began to perspire.

  “Um, Vince, isn’t the ranch the other way?” She laced her fingers together, trying not to show how worried she really was.

  Vince shook his head, determination turning his face into a stranger’s. “I can’t take you back. I need more time to convince you. I’m taking you somewhere else. Somewhere you’ll have to listen to me.” He reached out and pressed a button. The locks of the car snicked shut.

  Her chest was closing up, and she struggled for air.

  He wasn’t taking her back. They were on some unmarked road in the middle of the woods, and she had no idea where they were. Or where he was going.

  She tightened her fingers around each other, trying to hold on to some kind of sanity and trying to figure out just when she should try to jump. But the car didn’t slow down enough and the miles sped by. Finally, Vince slowed down to make a turn off the main road. Serena unbuckled her seatbelt.

  “What are you doing?” The car swiveled to a stop, the wheels spinning in the dirt on the side of the road.

  She stabbed the lock button and reached for the handle at the same time, but his arm lashed out, grabbing hers.

  “What the hell?”

  She yanked hard and threw her weight out the door, but he was stronger than he looked, and her arm was jerked back, almost out of its socket. Pain rushed through her, and she struggled to get out of the car.

  Vince’s fist crashed down, hitting her in the jaw. “Fucking bitch.”

  She saw stars, and he yanked her back in the car, reaching over her to shut the door. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Before she had a chance to regroup he’d started the car up again and driven it up the side road. “Don’t try anything like that again, Serena, or I’ll have to hit you so hard, you won’t be able to walk.” His voice shook. “I don’t like hitting women, but until you see sense, I’ll do what I have to do.”

  Serena curled up in her corner of the car and watched the main road disappear in the side-view mirror.

  She’d dealt with a few clients who’d been out of control on the dreamscape, but having him here, in person, was different. She smelled the desperation on his sweat. Saw the pulse throbbing in his neck. She couldn’t just wake up and be safe in her own bed, not this time. She was locked in a car and heading deeper into the woods with a man who didn’t want to let her go.

  This time the dream was real, very real, but instead of being her own dream structure, where she was in control, this one was built of the stuff of nightmares.

  Chapter Thirty

  Gabe rattled the bars on his cell. “Hey, Butch. Come on, man. Let me out.” Inside, his wolf was pacing, but outside he’d plastered a calm expression on his face, trying to fake out the old enforcer.

  Butch came around the corner from the intake desk, stuffing the last half of a jelly donut into his mouth. Most shifters were lean, but not Butch. He spent too much time behind the desk because of his bum knee, but his shifter metabolism hadn’t gotten the message and kept demanding food. It was a station joke, and not one that Butch appreciated. He licked powdered sugar off his fingers and gave Gabe a bland look. “Chief’s orders, Wulfric. Both of you stay here until she gives the word.”

  “I get one phone call.” He should be resting, letting his injuries heal up, but the Fever pulsed inside him and lying down right now was an impossibility.

  Butch’s eyebrows went up. “That’s rich.” He snorted. “Who you gonna call? Your mama?” Gabe growled at him and Butch shook his head. “That’s exactly the crap that got you put in here. Don’t pull that shit on me if you want me to put in a good word.” He strolled back in the direction of his station. “You’re in rut. I can smell you from here. You’re stuck until the chief says so and with all the things going on today, I doubt she’ll be spending any time on you two assholes.”

  “What the hell is happening? What’s got the chief so busy?” Now that he knew Butch wasn’t going to cave, Gabe gave in to his need to move, pacing the ten feet of the cell from wall to wall. Even that small amount of movement helped ease the ache inside his bones.

  At least a little.

  “Another civie got attacked. The news is calling it a wolf attack now, not dogs. And get this, someone in the media has hit on werewolves as the cause.” He snorted. “Werewolves. Even if it was a shifter, we look nothing like a horror movie.”

  Ice chilled the heat racing through Gabe’s veins. He stopped his pacing, all his attention on Butch. “Is it one of ours?”

  “Nah, it can’t be.” Butch shook his head. “We make sure to keep all our shifters in line. Even wild wolves like you.” He gave his parting shot with a mocking grin and disappeared around the corner.

  Watching Butch, his last chance to get out of here, walk around the corner was too much for Gabe’s wolf. A long, mournful howl ripped out of his mouth.

  Butch’s laughter echoed down the hall. “Yeah, Wulfric, you’re in control.”

  “Damn it!” Gabe whirled around and resumed his pacing.

  “Can’t you just shut up?” Sam’s voice was a near growl, so low Gabe almost didn’t recognize it.

  “Are you finally awake?”

  “Like anyone could sleep with you in the next cell.”

  “How are you feeling.”

  Sam let out a bitter laugh. “They have me so doped up I’m having trouble staying awake. I’ll be asleep here in a minute or two, and then I might forget that what I really want to do is break out of here and kill you for daring to touch my woman.”

  The utter belief in Sam’s statement caught Gabe like a steel trap. “Mine. Not yours. Mine.”

  “Now, that’s where you’re wrong. She met me first, remember.”

  “I’m trying to forget that.”

  “Hell, she’s not even here. She hasn’t visited either one of us, so she can’t be in as bad of shape as we are.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t. Her wolf is on the astral plane. I know she feels it, but it’s not the same.”

  “You just keep telling yourself that. And when her wolf is going for me, I’ll be howling with success.” Sam’s words were soft but laced with steel.

  The Fever flared at Sam’s challenge. Gabe’s wolf clawed inside, wanting to get out, needing to take his rival down. He choked back the adrenaline surge and fought to clear the red haze clouding his vision.

  Sam’s mocking laughter came to him from the next cell. “Ah, bro. You see now, don’t you? We’re both just animals here. Once Serena shows up, it’s all going to be over. No matter what any of us wants, our wolves will see to that. Now shut up so I can sleep.”

  Despite Sam’s words, Gabe’s wolf refused to back down. Their rival was inches away. Smell him. Taste him. Kill him. And claim our mate.

  Despite the heat rushing off his skin, he shook with cold. This was his brother. His twin.

  Gabe backed away, pressing his body into the far wall of the cell and letting the hard support of the cement remind him of reality.

  Could he really be thinking of taking out Sam? No matter how much he needed Serena, killing Sam wasn’t an option—was it?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Serena had never wished more that she’d been born with a physical wolf than she did at this moment.

  “We’re here.” Vince stopped the car at the top of a steep dirt drive. They’d driven over such crazy dirt roads, twisting in so many directions, that she had no idea where they were. She just knew that it was so far off the main drag that she’d never be able to find help, even if she could get enough breath to outrun him. Her mind spun from desper
ate idea to desperate idea, trying to figure out what she could do and how she could escape.

  The tiny house, tucked under the shadows of two massive pine trees, was so dilapidated that it made her dark, depressing guesthouse look like a cabin from Candy Land. The roof was sagging and covered with pine needles, the porch had a massive hole right in front of its short flight of stairs, and two windows stared at her like hollow eyes.

  Everything about it said, come inside, little girl. We’re hungry.

  She shivered in the late afternoon sunlight, rubbing her bare arms for warmth and wishing she could stay in the car she’d wanted out of just moments before.

  “It’s not much, but it’s private. No one will find us here.” Vince gave her a proud grin and got out of the car.

  For a brief moment Serena thought of locking it tight against him, but he had the keys. She’d have to wait. Her moment would come. It had to.

  “Come on, Serena, I have some food inside. We can get some dinner.”

  It was even worse inside. The old wood paneling smelled of dust, disuse, and rancid cooking oil. Dirty, limp curtains with a sad, faded yellow-and-green vegetable pattern hung in the windows. An old, sunken love seat took up most of the room, a few broken chairs and a small Formica table the rest. To the right were the bare bones of a kitchen—sink, drainer board, and a freestanding two-burner stove, overlooked by two crooked wall cabinets of knotty yellow pine. A short, white refrigerator with wide, rounded shoulders huddled in the corner.

  “How did you find this place, Vince?” There was a narrow hallway with two doors that split the wall opposite the door in two. One of those doors had better be a bathroom. She’d used outhouses before, but if the condition of the house was any indication, the outhouse would be horrendous.