by Odessa Lynne
But Tanis’s next words wiped the smile right off his face.
“I’ll take him from his alpha to mate. She’ll have no choice but to fight and when I win, he’ll belong to me and his plans for you will come to nothing.”
“Mate him?” Gerald asked, his voice too tight. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Was he jealous? Oh my God. He was jealous. He couldn’t seem to push away the bright hot flare of it, and his heart thrummed like a trip wire pulled too tight.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
He steeled himself against the feeling. “If that’s what you’re doing, what does that have to do with me? What do I have to do?”
What would Tanis demand of him in exchange for saving Lamar? That was his real question.
“If he doesn’t submit, he’ll die anyway. But you can stop that. When the time comes for me to claim what’s mine, you can convince him to submit—”
“Oh fuck no I won’t.”
“—or you can fight to keep me for yourself.”
Gerald sucked in his breath. He didn’t have time to digest that disturbing news before Tanis reached out with his uninjured hand and yanked Gerald to him by the back of the neck.
“Now, I feel an overwhelming desire to mate you. My heat cycles might be nearly done, but your scent is still the most compelling, rich scent I’ve ever come across.” Tanis bent then and swiped his tongue up the side of Gerald’s throat. “Fascinating.”
A sharp pang of hot, dark desire went straight to Gerald’s cock.
Tanis’s warm breath puffed against Gerald’s ear. “We’ll discuss your need to fight for me later, after I remind you of the pleasure I can give you when we fuck.”
Gerald’s naked body pressed tight to Tanis as Tanis lowered his head and Gerald had a moment of complete confusion. How the fuck had he forgotten he was naked?
Oh, yeah. Gruesomely broken arm, threats of death, dire consequences, and the unfortunate news that he might lose his unwanted wolf mate to somebody younger and hotter.
* * *
Sweaty and exhausted and sprawled out in the bed he’d spent last night in, Gerald stared at the strange pattern on the far wall and waited for Tanis to bring him food. He hadn’t eaten anything since an early supper the day before, when he was still trapped in that house with Tanis in the wolves’ den.
Thoughts about what Tanis had revealed to him crowded his brain and made it hard to relax even after that last orgasm.
He had his hands in his hair clutched behind his head and he was stretching his tired arms and the stiff muscles over his ribs. He was going to be fit as hell for fucking after heat season finally ended. Every muscle he had was getting a daily workout.
He gave up on the stretching and dragged his hands down his face, groaning into his palms, and tried to count backwards to the day the wolves’ heat had started, but a sound in the doorway interrupted him. He lowered his hands and rolled off the pillows and onto his side, then propped himself up on his elbow and scratched at his chest.
“Did I hear somebody talking out there a few minutes ago?” he asked.
“Eris arrived.” Tanis entered with the tray he had balanced on one hand.
“Ah. Everything okay?”
Tanis didn’t answer, just continued into the room with the tray. On it was an assortment of cheeses and thinly sliced meat and what looked like boiled, skinned potatoes.
Despite how hungry Gerald was, his mouth didn’t water at the sight of any of it. The cheese was going to be disgusting, he already knew, and the meat looked dried and tough. The potatoes—well, they looked like boiled, bland potatoes. Who the hell wanted to eat plain boiled potatoes?
Wolves apparently. Not Gerald.
Still, he sat up as Tanis neared and reached for the glass of water on the tray. Tanis watched but didn’t try to stop him.
Gerald took a gulp and nearly dropped the glass. He sputtered, then started coughing outright, his throat burning and his belly on fire.
Tanis reached out and plucked the glass right out of Gerald’s clutching hand. “You should have waited.”
Gerald looked through his lashes at Tanis and wheezed a few more times before he could speak. “You better not have been trying to teach me some kind of fucking lesson.”
“Your fucking lesson is over. You’re an exceptionally astute apprentice.”
Gerald grabbed up one of the many pillows on the bed and threw it at Tanis. Tanis turned quickly, and the pillow bounced harmlessly off his shoulder. Then he turned back to Gerald and placed the tray on the bed.
“Just stick to broody and impatient,” Gerald said. “It suits you better.”
Tanis sat on the side of the bed. “I agree.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that wasn’t water?”
“Why the fuck do you use so many words that have no purpose?”
“Well that does it. I’m going to hell. I’ve taught you how to cuss. Mama’s going be so proud.”
“This God of yours has no hold over you now. You’ve already chosen your fate. You’ll spend eternity as one with me and the universe.”
“That’s not how it works, big guy. God’s got me so tight in his fist, nobody’s going to pry me loose. Or at least that’s how my nana tells it. She’d kick your ass for even trying.”
“So you have faith in this God?”
“The one God, although some people don’t think so. I don’t care. I just stick to nana’s view. She has a mean right hook—or she did back when she was boxing. It’s been a few years for her, but she forgets sometimes.”
“Boxing… I understand what that is. Human sport. Fighting.”
“She was a pro. Best damn boxer I ever saw on the veo. Stirred up the crowds like you wouldn’t believe.”
Tanis was staring at Gerald with a speculative look in his eyes. “Did she teach you what she knows?”
“Enough,” Gerald said. “But I’m out of practice.”
“Because you don’t fight. You watch.”
Gerald frowned, not sure what Tanis meant. “I haven’t been in a ring in years. It wasn’t for me. I don’t like being punched.”
“You don’t enjoy the fire of conflict.”
Gerald reached for a piece of the meat. “You could say that.”
Tanis pressed Gerald’s hand to the bed and reached for the food with his injured arm. He had more motion now, but Gerald could see he still struggled with the fine motor skills.
It sent misgiving rushing through Gerald and he sat up straighter. “When are you going to fight Lamar’s alpha?”
Tanis tore the dried meat into smaller pieces and raised one of them to Gerald’s lips. “Are you concerned for me?”
Gerald took the bite and chewed, watching Tanis watch him. Did Tanis want him to be concerned, or would concern show a lack of faith in Tanis’s power as an alpha? He still didn’t understand a lot of their customs.
He wasn’t sure what to say and finally settled on, “Maybe. If you don’t win, Leif will want to mate me and Raleigh’ll be pissed as hell about it.”
“They’re heat mates, nothing more.”
“And I’m just getting used to you.”
He pointed at the potatoes, figuring he’d get them out of the way before he washed them down with the dried meat, which wasn’t as tough as he’d imagined. It wasn’t venison, but he hadn’t figured out what it actually was.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more to offer.”
“Eh. This is fine. It’s food.”
“I’m not talking about the food, human.” But then Tanis stuffed half of one of the potatoes right through Gerald’s half-open mouth.
It wasn’t a potato.
Chapter 21
Flavor burst on Gerald’s tongue, sweet and hot, and his eyes flared wide. He’d never tasted anything like it. He chewed but the substance melted in the heat of his mouth, and he swallowed and immediately wanted another bite.
Tanis fed him half the potato lookalikes before he raise
d the drink Gerald had already choked on once.
Gerald tried to reach around Tanis for another piece of whatever it was he was eating, but Tanis pushed his hand away. Droplets of liquid from the drink spilled down Gerald’s bare chest.
“Too much too quickly will affect your senses,” Tanis said, raising the drink to Gerald’s lips again.
“Too late for that.” But Gerald swallowed a few sips of the alcohol-like drink this time, being careful not to take too much in one go. The burn made him wheeze. “What is this shit?”
“Fermented taiekiatiaga.”
“God, your words are just meaningless sound sometimes.”
“It’s similar to your alcohol. Will you fight for me?”
The sudden switch of topic caught Gerald off guard. “I haven’t decided,” he said, the words tripping off his tongue before he could stop them. “I really like you but I don’t know why and I really like Lamar but if you fuck him you might decide you like fucking him better than you like fucking me and just the thought of that pisses me off. I think I’m jealous.”
Shock at his own admission finally helped him stop. He stared at Tanis then looked suspiciously at the drink. “What did you do to me?”
“The taiekiatiaga is a delicious fruit from my world and makes a fine drink but humans don’t always tolerate it well.”
“It’s a drug. You’ve drugged me.”
“The fruit loosened your tongue, not the drink, but it won’t hurt you.”
“It’s a drug, I don’t care if it hurts me. You should’ve warned me.”
“Ah, but then I couldn’t ask you questions you wouldn’t answer truthfully otherwise.”
“You’re a prick. You’re a goddamn prick. I don’t know why I’m so fucking worried about you dying. I’m going to miss you when I go—”
He needed to shut his mouth. Instead, he started to slide sideways.
Tanis put his arm around Gerald’s shoulders and helped him stay upright.
“—I’m going to get out of here, you know. I am. James will—”
He blinked and realized he was still talking, even as the world around him faded into a haze of sparking thoughts and random feelings. Tanis was a prick. But he was Gerald’s prick. Not Lamar’s. Lamar shouldn’t get to just step in and take what didn’t belong to him. How was that fair?
He blinked again, and Tanis had pressed his finger to Gerald’s lips. “Hush. That’s enough. I understand.”
Gerald licked that finger. He couldn’t help himself.
Tanis’s eyes flared just a bit and his mouth quirked. “I’m looking forward to the feel your mouth on my cock, human.”
The haze at the edges of Gerald’s vision sharpened until everything looked crisp and clear. He breathed deeply, centering himself back into his body.
One, two, three…
He tried to punch Tanis.
Tanis caught Gerald’s fist before it made contact with his face. “The taiekiatiaga didn’t hurt you.”
“You fucking prick!”
“Enough, human. If I lose control over my instincts, I could hurt you.”
“Stop calling me human like I’m a goddamn piece of meat. My name’s Sunny!”
A furrow appeared between Tanis’s eyebrows. “Sunny?”
“Shit. I mean Gerald. Everybody except family calls me Gerald.”
“Then the pack will call you Sunny because we’re your family now. You owe your loyalty to us.”
“No the hell I don’t. And it’s Gerald. I don’t want you to call me Sunny. I don’t want any of you to. I’m loyal to my people, not yours.”
“Sunny.” Tanis said the name with a particularly strong accent and it sent a shiver down Gerald’s spine.
“God! I said don’t call me that. That name means something to me. Don’t fuck it up.”
“How would calling you by a familiar name fuck it up?”
Gerald exhaled through his nose and gritted his teeth. How could he explain that Sunny was who he was, who he was trying to get back to, but not who he wanted to be while being held with the wolves against his will?
“Gerald’s an asset. Somebody with a purpose, a reason to be here. Sunny’s just a man. If I’m Sunny, then the job’s over and I’m—”
Stuck.
Alone, without family.
A prisoner, falling for his guard.
The kid Royce had said would get in over his head and end up fucked, with a government who would hang him out to dry and a family who wouldn’t know how to find him and pull his ass out of the fire when something went wrong.
“God,” he breathed.
He would have to face it at some point. His family—he didn’t want them coming for him, he didn’t, because it would be too dangerous—but they weren’t coming for him, because they wouldn’t know how to find him. They wouldn’t even know how to find James, and James might decide not to tell them anything, at least until he knew more himself about what was going on. He wouldn’t want Gerald’s family making trouble with the wolves while the wolves’ agreement to honor the treaty depended on Gerald cooperating with his own imprisonment.
Gerald’s heart thudded too hard and he made fists with his hands. “Go back to calling me human then.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because it’s too late to save you from the fate I had hoped to save you from.”
“Oh, so now it’s fate at work. Fuck fate. I just want to know—”
“You’ll feel a great pain when I die. I didn’t want that for you. I tried to push you away, but you wouldn’t be pushed. Your heart defied my will.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
The furrow between Tanis’s dark eyebrows deepened, and his eyes seemed to glow unnaturally bright under the warm light from the ceiling. “Your heart will break when I die, Sunny. I see it in your eyes. I heard it in your words. I wish I didn’t see your fate, but it blinds me with its truth.”
Riddles. More riddles.
He said the only thing he could think to say, fists still clenched, heart thundering in his chest. “I’m not in love with you. Don’t you dare think I am. Because I’m not.”
“I’ve been worried about you from the moment I realized what I’d done. I shouldn’t have mated you. But fate wouldn’t be stopped.”
“You should’ve left me behind then.”
“You wouldn’t have been happy there.”
“You sure about that?”
“Your place is here.”
“It’s not. We’ve had this conversation before. You know where I belong. It isn’t here.”
Tanis raised a piece of meat and offered it to Gerald. “I would give you everything. But the thing you most want, I cannot give you. Maybe, someday, Leif will.”
Gerald pressed his lips tightly together.
Tanis waited, the patience he claimed not to have infinite.
Gerald finally took the bite.
* * *
Three days passed.
Gerald rubbed his hands over his face and stared across the room at the flowering plants growing up the walls and the soft light emanating from the ceiling above and then contemplated the warm bed again. The cold stones under his feet seemed to radiate that cold upward, into the muscles of his calves, and a shiver chased up his spine.
The bed was warm. His feet definitely weren’t. Still…
He left the side of the bed and crossed the room to the bank of drawers that looked like nothing more than an interlocking pattern in the wall. One touch and a drawer slid out, showing him a selection of identical plain brown t-shirts, all folded and stacked.
Three days, and he still didn’t know anything he hadn’t known when Raleigh hauled him through the woods and into the complex buried in the side of a mountain. He could be on the other side of the world, but there was no way for him to know and nothing he could do about it if he did.
He was in a prison, that was all there was to it.
Tan
is said it was home. Gerald didn’t believe him. He’d decided Tanis lied to him, a lot. Starting with that shit about fate he whispered into Gerald’s ear every time they fucked.
He knew who the Diviners were: the wolves’ version of priests or priestesses or something like that. If Tanis had been born of one, his weird pronouncements about fate might make sense. He claimed the diviner who had borne him had told him his fate many years ago and that he’d been waiting for the choice he had to make for too long.
What that choice was he wouldn’t say.
Gerald was pulling the shirt down over his head when he caught a glimpse of Eris staring at him with hot, glittering eyes. Eris sat at a table in the room on the other side of the doorway to the bedroom and his claws were digging into his thigh, his jaw tight, his head tilted.
Gerald pressed another drawer and yanked out a pair of dark underwear. He hurried into them, and although they covered everything, they also clung from hip to knee like a second skin. He’d never worn anything like them before finding himself trapped underground with Tanis and his wolves, but they were warm and that was good enough for him.
The cold could kiss his ass. He never had liked it.
Jeans followed, just an inch or so too long, and socks that came to mid-calf. He hopped on one foot while he put on the first, then gave up and leaned against the wall of drawers so he could pull up the second one.
Eris continued to stare, making the skin at the back of Gerald’s neck prickle.
“You guys don’t care much for privacy, do you?” Gerald asked, pushing the leg of his pants down to cover the cuff of his socks.
Eris’s eyes flickered away from Gerald for a brief moment, toward the pile of pillows Raleigh and Leif were sprawled over, and then back. “You humans care too much for it. Alpha would share his bed with us if you weren’t here.”
“Well…” Gerald’s voice cracked as he crossed into the outer room and he tried to clear the early morning phlegm from his throat. He rubbed his finger under his nose and sniffed.
Eris’s eyes narrowed on him. “Are you sick?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.” He pulled out a chair and sat, then put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. “Might have caught a cold somehow.”