by Marcy Jacks
“Shouldn’t I leave then?” Chris asked. “If I’m going to be causing these kinds of problems, then―”
“No!” Eli snapped. “You can’t leave. You need protection as much as anyone now that they’ve seen you.”
Seen your eyes, he wanted to say. If Chris really was some kind of walking good-luck charm to whomever claimed him, then any were who saw him would want him. They would kidnap him, try to force him to become part of their packs. They would change him against his will. Some would rape him.
Just the thought of that other wolf on top of Chris, trying to take his clothes off while Eli had been lying there, almost too weak to even do anything to save him …
It made him see red. It made him want to run off and hunt down
that son of a bitch right now and finish what he’d started.
Relax. Stay calm. Eli took in a deep breath. You’re just having a strong reaction because your mate is right there. He’s safe for now. Nothing is hurting him.
Corey and Tristan looked at each other and then at Chris.
“Maybe we should leave you two alone,” Corey said, walking around Eli and heading back to the cottages.
“Yeah,” Tristan agreed, following behind him.
With the way he’d acted, Eli half expected Chris to put up some sort of protest at being left alone with him. He said nothing.
“You and I need to talk,” Eli started, hooking his thumbs into the
pockets of his jeans.
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Did you go around telling everyone in this
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camp that I’m yours?”
That made Eli pause. How could he have―?
Right. Corey or Tristan must have said something. “I did. You’re my mate, so I wanted to make that clear to everyone before someone decided to be cute and try seducing you.”
“I’m not your mate,” Chris insisted, a frown pulling down on his face.
Now Eli was the one to frown. “Yes, you are. I would know.” And so should you, he wanted to say.
“Look, I get that my eyes mean something to your people, but I’m
not some…I’m not going to just sit here and let you claim dibs on me like I'm a frickin’ toy for you to grab.”
Eli wanted to grab him, all right. He wanted to grab him and shake him. “You don’t understand. When I say you’re my mate, I’m not saying it because I looked at your eyes and decided it. I’m saying it because it was decided for me. For us. We’re each other’s perfect fit.”
Supposed to be at any rate. This conversation felt anything but perfect at the moment.
Chris was giving him a calculated look. “Like, soul mates or something?”
“If that’s how it’ll make it easier for you to see it, then yes.”
“I’m not gay,” Chris said.
Eli didn’t believe that for a second. He heard the way Chris’s heart had sped up when they were back in his motel room and Eli was walking around naked. His blood had heated, his heart had pounded, and his breathing had ever so slightly picked up. That wasn’t the reaction that came from simply being embarrassed at having a naked man in your presence. Not even the most prudish of men could say that.
“How would you know?” Eli said.
“How would I―? How would I know if I’m gay? Because I
would know!”
“Uh-huh, have you ever kissed a man? Fucked one?”
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 47
Chris’s face bloomed a bright red before the most ferocious snarl marred his perfect face. “That’s not your business.”
That’s right. Get angry with me. Get your blood pumping again. “I’ll take it that means yes. So what’s your story? Religious? Daddy doesn’t approve of homosexuality, so you had to hide it?”
“Shut up!”
“Maybe you’re just afraid of being labelled. That’s okay. Nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve known a lot of guys who―”
Chris rushed forward and shoved him. “I said shut up!” Chris had probably put as much of his strength as he was able to into that push, but Eli barely fell back a step. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know you’re either lying about being gay because you’re ashamed of it, or you’re bisexual and just like to pretend that those drunken nights in college didn’t mean anything.”
Chris looked ready to punch him. He raised his fist to do it, which was trembling in anger.
He lifted his fist up above his head like a girl. Had no one ever taught him how to fight?
“You know, if you want to punch me and make it count, you should lower your arm.”
Chris blinked at him, some of his anger being replaced by confusion, but only some. “What?”
“Your fist,” Eli pointed at it. “Lower it, lock your wrist, and put your knuckles out. Throw all your weight into the swing and you’ll get a stronger impact.”
Chris lowered his fist, apparently deciding that Eli was making fun of him. “Fuck you.”
He tried to turn around and storm off, but Eli grabbed him, swung him around and planted a kiss on him.
Chris fought him, but it was weak at best. Eli held them tightly together, keeping his hand behind Chris’s head, holding their mouths together.
He’d hoped that Chris would eventually…he didn’t know, melt
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into it, or something. But Chris kept right on fighting him.
He put his hands into Eli’s hair and yanked. Eli moaned. The pain
seemed to heighten the delicious sense of having his tongue in Chris’s
mouth, of having their bodies pressed so closely together.
Chris got hard, and Eli felt his erection pushing against his own groin.
Finally! Yes! There it was. He’d hoped that kissing him would bring out Chris’s inner instincts to mate. Eli pushed him down into the soft moss, and as much as he enjoyed Chris’s hands in his hair, it was beginning to hurt.
He pried the fingers out of his hair before pulling Chris’s hands above his head, holding them down, exposing the smaller man to him. He dove down and kissed him again, enjoying the way that Chris squirmed in pleasure beneath him, and Eli rocked their hips together.
He groaned, luxuriating in the keening noises Chris made, and he did it again, pulling back briefly to get a look at his mate beneath him. There was lust in Chris’ s eyes as he looked up at him, and Eli smiled
and kissed him again.
That felt so fucking good. His mate, he was finally claiming his
mate.
Eli put his hand under Chris’s shirt, feeling his chest, his beautiful chest. He needed to get this annoying thing off of him.
He pulled his mouth away and released Chris’s hands so that he could work on the buttons of the shirt. Clothing here was easily ruined and sometimes difficult to come by, considering how often a werewolf destroyed their clothes. Eli wanted to make sure Chris would have something to wear after this.
But Chris’s hands came back down, and they pushed at Eli’s stumbling fingers as he attempted to gently get the shirt off.
“Wait. Stop it. Stop!” he yelled.
It was then that he’d finally gotten Eli’s attention, and Eli froze up at the fear he saw in Chris’s eyes.
Chris shook his head. “Don’t do this. Please…”
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 49
Begging. Chris was actually begging Eli to stop, as though he were afraid that he had no choice in this matter, that Eli would take
that away from him.
It occurred to Eli, in the worst sort of earth-shattering clarity, that
Chris really didn’t want him. Eli had thought…he’d been so
sure…but he was wrong, and now he ’d scared the hell out of his mate,
and destroyed any chance he ever had of being with him.
“I
–I’m sorry, I―”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how he could have been so mist
aken. He lifted himself off of Chris and was crushed by the way the other man scrambled out from under him.
“Chris, I―”
Chris punched him. Cracked him right in the nose, and though Chris yanked his hand back and cried out from the pain of what he’d done, Eli’s head was still thrown back, and he heard a nauseating crunch inside of his nose.
Maybe it had been a mistake to teach Chris how to properly throw a punch.
On the other hand, he did deserve it.
When Chris continued to shake his hand out, Eli reached for him.
“Let me―”
“Stay away from me!” Chris snapped. He jumped to his feet and ran away, and Eli sank back into his bubble of misery.
If he could have ended his own existence with a thought, he would have done it. Jesus Christ, someone had tried to force themself on
Chris less than a day ago, and Eli had to be that rough with him. Chris had never been responding because of lust. That had been fear and adrenaline to make his heart thump like that and give him his erection.
God, he was so stupid.
Maybe he could go to the other man, apologize, and explain how it was just his instincts that made him act the way he did, that he didn’t mean to scare him like that.
But then he’d be lying, because it hadn’t been just that. He’d
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wanted the other man, so much so that he got stupid and pushed when Chris wasn’t ready.
Eli released a deafening roar, his clothes stretching and ripping as he shifted into his wolf, breaking free from his human skin. He howled into the air, a long, mournful sound filled with all the selfloathing he could put into it.
There was only one way Eli knew of that was good for helping him to forget his shitty life when he screwed up like this, and unless the trees magically produced his favorite drink, he was going to have to use the second best method.
Eli went for a run. He hadn’t been watching which direction Chris ran off in, but his nose was telling him that it wasn’t back to the houses.
Eli had to find him and bring him back before he got into any
trouble.
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 51
Chapter Six
Fuck it. He would take his chances with the wild werewolves of
Brampton before he went back to that place, where he knew Eli would be waiting for him. That psycho motherfucker and all his talk of being mated and belonging to each other.
Chris was so mad he wanted to punch something else, but he didn’t want to injure his hand any more than he already had. The knuckles throbbed and the skin had split open from where he’d hit the other man.
That guy had a face that was as hard as rock. He wouldn’t have thought so, considering it hadn’t felt that way at all when they’d kissed.
Chris settled for just running and seething. The next time a man transformed into a wolf and was injured in a territorial fight, Chris was going to go about his day like he never saw a thing.
Unfortunately, Chris had never been a gym class kind of kid, and the same was true as an adult. He had to stop and catch himself on one of the heavy trees. He was sweating so much it was dripping off his face. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened to him. He’d kill for water.
He sat there for a good one minute, catching his breath and still growing all the more thirsty.
The problem with sitting and thinking like that was that he was able to remember that all of his things had been taken from the motel and were back at that camp filled with werewolves, who all thought he was some kind of good luck charm.
And Eli was there.
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Three times in his life, Chris had to feel the power of a larger man holding him down, trying to get his clothes off. The last time was with Eli, and thankfully he’d had the self-control to stop the second Chris had asked him to. The time before with that other no-name werewolf,
whom Eli had fought off and who was injured for it―he was not
going to feel guilty about that. The time before that―
He didn’t want to think about it.
The worst part was when Chris had gotten hard for Eli. As the other man pressed him down and kissed him, his body reacted to it.
He liked to think he was smart enough to know when his body was working under the influences of fear or adrenaline, but it had been neither of those things.
He’d liked it when Eli had kissed him. It had felt kind of nice, he
supposed. Maybe he could admit to that much, but how was it he could even like something like that? After everything that had happened to him, was it possible that Eli was right and he really did have an attraction to other men?
Well, only Eli, he supposed. He ’d certainly never thought of anyone else like he did that man.
He had to stop that thought and take in a deep breath, thinking back. Eli wasn’t being violent with him when they were kissing. He was being a little eager, definitely, but Chris had enough experience to know the difference passion and violence.
He couldn ’t lie to himself about this. It had been the reaction of
his body to scare him, not what Eli had been doing.
He had to go back. Chris looked up and around and realized how far away from the pack he was. He had been warned about being by himself. Werewolves were officially real, and part of their belief system said that a person with multicolored eyes was a good-luck charm that they had to have.
That one wolf had tried all right, and Chris wasn’t able to fight him off on his own. Eli had to save him that time. If he came across
another one of those werewolves while he was by himself out here…
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 53
Chris pushed himself away from the tree. He would go back, and he and Eli were going to talk.
“Well, hello, hello.”
Chris jumped. He’d rested well enough, but the unfamiliar voice was enough to have his heart thumping around again as though he’d just finished running around the block ten times.
Three men, all of whom were huge like the last two had been and wearing frayed denim and dirty cotton T-shirts. The one in the middle, by far the cleanest, with a soldier-like buzz cut for hair, was the one to speak, and he looked into Chris’s eyes with an unnerving interest, and he knew that all three of these men were werewolves.
“What have we here? Little Stewie was right. You are something to
see.”
Shit. Chris turned tail and immediately ran. A hyena-like laugh followed behind him before he ran smack into the hard chest of one of
his pursuers. He fell backward, landing hard on his back, and the wind
was knocked clear out of him.
They were fast. He hadn’t even seen that one get in front of him.
He didn’t even have the chance to suck in a breath before one of
them was sitting on his chest, and now he really couldn’t breathe. He tried to push the man off of him, but his arms were grabbed and pushed down into the dead leaves and dirt by one of the other men.
“Let’s see those pretty little eyes of yours,” said the man on top of him, and Chris got an up close look at the filthy, blunt fingertips as they came down on him and pried his eyelids apart. For a hair of a second, Chris was able to forget about the fact that he couldn’t breathe, as he was too focused on being grossed out by the man’s brown fingernails.
“He doesn’t look so good,” one of them said. “He looks like he’s turning blue.”
“He’s fine,” said the man squishing down on Chris’s chest. “Look at those eyes. That’s a pretty shade of blue right there if you want to see some real blue.”
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“No, really, look at him. I don’t think he can breathe.”
“He’s right,” said the first man, the one with the buzz cut and
authoritative voice. “Get off of him.”
Thankfully, the command was obeyed, and Chris was able to roll
onto his side and cough a couple of times. It took a minute for his lungs to start expanding and contracting again, but when they did, he screamed as loud as he could.
It wasn’t that loud at all, unfortunately. “Help!”
“Christ, someone shut him up. We’re not that far away from the other pack,” Buzz Cut said, and that dirty hand was suddenly pressing down on his mouth, squeezing his jaw.
Chris bucked and kicked, trying to get the other man off of him.
The guy only moaned a little. “Keep doing that, precious. Feels nice.”
Chris abruptly stopped.
“So he’s good luck, eh?”
“Supposed to be for whoever takes him.”
“I’ve got him first, so I get to fuck him first.”
“Correction,” said Buzz Cut, “I do. You will wash your filthy body before you even think about putting your cock into any of his orifices.”
Chris fought against the urge to cry like some helpless girl. What the hell was wrong with him? He and Dean were never that close to begin with, so why did he have to go looking for him? Why did Chris have to come to the one town in the whole world where everyone wanted to gang-rape him?
The blade of a knife was suddenly pressed under his right eye, and Chris went blind with panic.
“Get that away from his eyes!” Buzz Cut snapped.
“But the eyes are what’s lucky,” said the other man, the one not holding his filthy hands over Chris’s mouth. “I know how we can pickle them. We can keep them with us all the time.”
The man on top of him made a disgusted sound. “I don’t think
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 55
he’ll look as pretty with no eyes.”
“Indeed,” said Buzz Cut. “Leave them where they are. You might
destroy any luck they have if you remove them from the host.”
Thank God the blade of the knife was pulled away from Chris’s
eyes.
Not so great was when the man on top of him started fumbling
with Chris’s belt.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Not again…