by Maggie Walsh
Noah opened his mouth to answer him but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Noah,” Noah answered.
“Noah? What a beautiful name for such a beautiful creature,” the raven beauty said with a smile.
Noah liked his smile. It made him even more beautiful. Noah smiled back shyly and looked down at the floor. “No.”
“No what, beautiful?” his raven-haired mate asked.
“Creature,” Noah answered and looked back at his mate.
“I’m sorry, beautiful. I didn’t mean to insult you. I only meant that you are a beautiful man,” his mate answered.
“How?” Noah asked in confusion.
“How what, Noah?” his mate asked, and Noah decided he liked when his mate said his name.
“Here,” Noah said, motioning with his hands at the room around him.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how you got here, or when, or why. And I definitely don’t know how my hand went through those bars. But, I do know I don’t like you in there. Let’s get you out of there okay?” his mate asked and put his hand through the bars and held it out for Noah to take.
Noah reached his hand out to grab his mate’s hand, but when they touched, his hand only went through his mate’s hand. They both looked at their hands in confusion. Noah looked up at his mate, then he reached out and touched the bars of the cage. His hand didn’t go through the bars, it made contact and he wrapped his fingers around the bar. Noah’s heart sank. He thought he was free, but he wasn’t. His mate could go through the bars and through him, but he couldn’t go through either. He heard of astral projection before, back home. He knew some fae could do it, but he never could. Until now it seemed.
“What is going on here, Noah?” his mate asked.
“Projection,” Noah answered.
“Projection? As in astral projection?” his mate asked in shock.
“Yes,” Noah answered.
“Beauty? Who are you talking to?” a deep voice came from the bed.
Noah and his raven-haired mate both looked at the voice. The hunk of man on the bed rolled over and looked at them, then his eyes went wide. His white-haired mate jumped from the bed and knelt down next to his raven-haired mate. They were opposites, almost. His second mate had long white hair, and deep violet eyes. They looked to be about the same height. Both had great muscled bodies, and very impressive cocks. But his raven-haired mate was more muscled than his snow-haired mate. His body was leaner. Noah liked both of their bodies. He wanted to touch them. He wanted them to touch him. He craved their touch. Noah got sad at the thought of not being able to touch them.
“Who are you little one?” his snow-haired mate asked. Noah rolled his eyes. He’d been through this already with his raven-haired mate. He didn’t know how long this astral projection thing would last. He needed to warn them.
“Don’t,” Noah said. His snow-haired mate tilted his head in confusion.
“This is Noah, Storm,” his raven-haired mate answered.
“And who are you Noah? How did you get here?” Storm asked.
“Mate,” Noah said with a smile, as he held his head high.
“Mate?” both his mates said at once.
“Yes.” Noah smiled.
“You are our mate, Noah?” Storm asked.
“Yes,” Noah answered. Storm and his other mate looked at each other.
“Danger,” Noah said. Both his mate’s looked back at him.
“What danger, Noah?” his raven-haired mate asked.
Noah looked at him. “Name?” Noah asked with a questioning look on his face.
“My name?” his mate asked. Noah nodded his head. “Sebastian, but everyone calls me Bass, except for Storm. He calls me Beauty,” Sebastian said as he blushed. He was so cute. This big man blushing was adorable. Noah liked it. He could see why Storm called him Beauty.
“Like,” Noah said with a smile. Then looked at Storm. “Like, too.”
“Why do you talk like that, little one?” Storm asked gently. Noah took in a quick breath, then looked down, hanging his head.
“Oh no, Noah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Storm said quickly as he reached a hand forward and it went right through the bars. He pulled his hand back in surprise and looked at Noah in question.
“Astral projection,” Sebastian answered.
“Astral projection?” Storm repeated in confusion.
“Yes,” Noah said.
“That means our incredibly sexy mate is fae. As far as I know, only fae can do it,” Sebastian explained. He smiled at Noah with such tenderness, that it made Noah want to melt into his arms.
“Fae? Well I’ll be. So if you are our mate and you have astral projected yourself to us, where are you?” Storm asked.
Noah’s eyes got very sad and he looked down and wiped a tear from his eye. He shrugged his shoulders. “Captured.”
“What!” both his mates yelled, which caused Noah to jump and look up at them.
“You’re captured? By who? Where are you? We’ll come for you right now.” Storm jumped to his feet.
Noah’s eyes went wide and he grabbed onto the bars tight and started to shake his head frantically. “Danger.”
“We’re in danger?” Sebastian asked calmly, gently.
Noah nodded his head. “Don’t,” he said with pleading eyes.
“Don’t come for you?” Sebastian asked.
Noah nodded again. “Danger,” Noah whispered softly.
“You came here to warn us that we were in danger, didn’t you?” Sebastian asked.
Noah nodded again. “Safe.”
“You want us to stay safe, because if we come after you, to rescue you, we’ll be in danger,” Sebastian said as a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” Noah said softly as he reached out a hand to touch Sebastian’s face, but his hand went through him. He dropped his hand and his eyes got sad again.
“You’re our mate, Noah, of course we have to come find you. We have to rescue you. Even if you weren’t our mate, we couldn’t just ignore that you were in need of help,” Sebastian said.
“Of course not,” Storm said as he knelt back down beside Sebastian. “We can’t just leave you there. Do you have any idea where you are?”
“Dungeon,” Noah answered.
“Dungeon? You’re being kept in a dungeon?” Storm asked.
Noah nodded. “Others.”
“There are other’s held captive, too? How many? Who is holding you?” Sebastian was starting to get upset. He voice began to rise as he spoke.
Noah looked at him tenderly. “Six.”
“There are six of you or six others?” Storm asked.
“Others,” Noah answered.
Storm looked at Sebastian. Then looked back to Noah. “So there are six others. Who is holding you?”
“Vampires,” Noah said and shook at the thought.
“Vampires?” Storm asked.
“Wrong,” Noah said.
“Not vampires?” Storm asked in confusion. Noah sighed in frustration. He hated that he couldn’t talk right in their language. He spoke perfectly in his own language, but he had a lot of trouble with this earthly speech. He spent the first four years of his captivity trying to understand his Master and the guards. He slowly started to understand and learn their speech, but there were still a lot of words he didn’t know.
“I think he means the vampires are wrong. Is there something wrong with the vamps?” Sebastian asked. Noah nodded his head. “Are they rogues?” Again, Noah nodded his head. “Do you know anything else about your location?” Sebastian asked.
“Grapes,” Noah said proudly. He liked grapes. They were so sweet and perfectly packaged in their little skins.
“Grapes?” Storm said in confusion. “Are you near a vineyard?”
Noah tilted his head and looked at his snow-haired mate in confusion.
“You don’t know what that word means, right?” Sebastian asked gently. Noah shook his head.
“It’s a farm where lots of grapes are grown. Are you around a lot of grapes?”
“Yes,” Noah said and then jumped, looking over his shoulder, as his face turned pale. He looked back at them with terror in his eyes. “Back,” Noah said scared.
“The rogue vamps are back?” Storm asked in a panic, as he reached out to grab Noah, but his hands went through him.
Noah’s eyes got even wider and the fear in his eyes worse. “Master,” he whispered and then disappeared.
* * * *
He couldn’t stop thinking about Noah. Their mate was out there somewhere and he was hurt. He knew it. He could feel it. It had been three weeks since Noah had astral projected himself to them, and they were no closer to finding him. Both he and Storm spent the past three weeks looking for him. Searching every vineyard in Napa Valley, but they found nothing. They held onto each other at night as they spoke of their beautiful little mate. They dreamed of finding him and bringing him home to them, where he belonged. They dreamed of holding him, of kissing him, of making him theirs forever. Sebastian paced the floor as he thought about where Noah may be and what might be happening to him. He just couldn’t sleep knowing Noah was out there somewhere, being held captive by rogue vampires.
Sebastian called Dante daily to see if he had any information on where a group of rogue vampires may be hold up near a vineyard, other than Napa. There were vineyards all around the world. Noah could be at any one of them, but Sebastian didn’t think so. He thought it was too much of a coincidence that they were here in the heart of wine country and Noah was being held in some vineyard. He had to be close by. Sebastian didn’t know how, but he just felt like Noah wasn’t far.
Dante was trying everything he could think of. He was calling everyone he knew, including his father, the King of the Vampires. Dante may be a prince and next in line to be king, but he would always be like a brother to Sebastian. They had known each other for over two hundred years. When Micah, his Alpha, or former Alpha, now that he left the Angel pack in Pennsylvania, to move to Napa Valley to be with his mate. When Micah and his band of merry gay wolves and vamps stumbled across Bass in Chicago, he was being held as a slave for a wealthy vampire. His birth pack found out that he was gay and sold him to Master Vlad. He was a sadistic son of a bitch. Vlad loved for Bass to do everything for him. Clean his home, his clothes, his horses, his stables, run his errands, bathe him, dress him, brush his hair, his teeth, and to service him in the bedroom. If Bass was not ready for Vlad when Vlad wanted him, Bass was then put in chains on the bed and whipped. Vlad would purposely make Bass do a chore that took a long time, like scrub the floors, so that he could grab Bass to fuck him, and if Bass was sweaty, Vlad would yell at him and beat him because Bass wasn’t ready for him. Then he would chain him to the bed and torture him for days.
Bass was only eighteen when his pack sold him to Master Vlad and he was twenty seven when Gabriel found him. He was walking the fifteen miles into town to go make purchases for his Master when out of the bushes jumped two thugs. They grabbed Sebastian and started pushing him around and taunting him. They called him a girlie fella, and wanted to know how many times he sucked his Master, or let his Master take him. They started to tear at Bass’s clothes as they grabbed his ass and cock, while they laughed.
A large brown wolf came running at them through the woods and ran right into one of the thugs, knocking him away from Bass. The other thug was so startled by the wolf that he backed away, pushing Bass into the wolf, so he could get away. The big brown wolf ripped out the throat of the thug he knocked to the ground and then took off after the second one. The wolf returned a few minutes later and sat down in front of Bass and tilted his head, studying Bass. He wasn’t afraid of course, because he, too, was a wolf and this wolf showed no aggression toward him. He thanked the wolf for his help and the wolf shifted to his human form.
He was one gorgeous man. He stood a few inches taller than Bass, and he was a lot broader and more muscular that Bass. Bass was never fed well by his Master, so he was very thin. That was how he met his best friend Gabriel. Gabriel took him back to his room in town above the Inn and he met Micah, Raith, and Castiel. Later that evening when the sun had gone down, he met the vampire’s. Prince Dante Calebrese, Viktor, and Nicco. They all worked together as a guard service for rich human travelers, or paranormals who needed guards. The wolves would guard their clients in the daylight hours and the vampires would guard them at night.
They all met a few years before that when they all came across a stagecoach being held up by highwaymen. Micah, Raith, Gabriel, and Cass were in the middle of battle with the highwaymen when Dante, Viktor, and Nicco stumbled across them and helped out. The traveler was grateful and hired them to escort him safely to his destination. That’s how they all met and started the bodyguard business they still owned and operated today, ParaSafe. Micah and Dante owned equal shares, but Dante was in charge. It was hard for Micah to run a pack, a town, and their multi-million-dollar security company. So Dante ran ParaSafe. They only hired vampires and shifters, but their client list was huge. It consisted of politicians, wealthy businessmen, and the world’s most famous celebrities. None of these humans knew who they really were.
So that was how Bass was rescued from his Master and met the men who became his family. They were his brothers, all of them, and right now he needed their help. His mate was in danger and he needed to find him.
Storm rolled over and reached out for his mate, but the sheets were cold, again. Most nights since Noah’s visit, Storm would wake up to find Bass gone. He was either sitting on the floor where Noah’s cage appeared the last time, or he was standing at the window, looking out at the darkness, lost in thought. Storm sat up and looked toward the window and sure enough, Bass was there, lost in thought. Storm climbed out of the bed and walked over to his mate. He wrapped his arms around Bass’s waist, pulling his mate to him. Bass leaned his head back to rest on Storm’s shoulder and Storm kissed his temple.
“You need to sleep, Beauty,” Storm whispered.
“I can’t sleep knowing he’s out there suffering, probably hurt,” Bass said.
“I know, my love, but you’re no good to him like this. You haven’t slept right in weeks. You’re losing weight, your brain is tired, and your eyes are sunken. You need to sleep,” Storm said gently.
“I know I need to sleep, Storm.” Bass snapped at him and moved out of Storm’s arms. “I know I’m tired, but I can’t. Not with him out there somewhere, with Gods only knows what’s happening to him. I don’t know how you can sleep, or eat, or do anything else except look for our mate,” Bass yelled.
“Don’t do that, Bass. Don’t look at me as if I don’t care about Noah as much as you do. Because I do. But I am leader of this pride, and I have more experience than you when it comes to functioning under stressful situations. I have been dealing with these damn rogues for almost a year now, losing members of my pride, trying to keep them safe, along with the humans. Trying to hunt down and kill the bastards, along with finding one of my mates and learning about him. It takes time, but you learn how to sleep when you can, so that you can think straight and do what needs to be done,” Storm explained in his best Alpha voice.
Bass sighed and all the anger left him. He moved back to Storm and wrapped his arms around his waist. “I’m sorry, Storm, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Of course you’re worried about Noah. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have implied that you weren’t. It’s just killing me knowing that he’s out there and he needs our help. I know how these Masters can be. I know the sick, twisted shit they do to their slaves. I’m scared, Storm. I’m scared we’ll be too late.”
Storm pulled Bass close and held him tight. “I know, my love. I’m scared, too, but I will do everything I can to bring our little mate home to us. I promise. But I have two mates to worry about. One of them we’re working on, the other is right here in my arms and he needs attention, too.” Storm kissed his cheek, then pulled back so he could look Bass in the
eyes. “You sound like you have personal knowledge of what it’s like to be held captive under a Master’s thumb.”
Bass’s eyes got a haunted look. “I do.” Storm pulled him close again and held him tight. Bass held onto his mate and told him his story of when he was sold to his Master. When he was done, Storm just held onto him, comforting Bass. “Thank you, love,” Bass said and pulled back. He looked at his mate and saw tears in the tiger’s eyes. “It’s okay, Storm. I’m okay. It was a very long time ago. I’m safe. I’m not the same person I was then. I’m not a weakling who can’t fight for himself anymore. I’m a worrier now, an enforcer. I know how to protect myself now,” Bass said softly as he cupped Storm’s cheek.
“I know, love. I know you are more than capable of protecting yourself and anyone else. It just kills me to know you had to go through that. That you were held against your will for nine years, while that bastard hurt you. But I am grateful for Gabriel and for the rest of your friends for saving you.” Storm leaned in and kissed Bass tenderly. Bass’s hand went around Storm’s head and cupped the back, pressing their lips together. Bass opened his mouth for his mate. Storm slid his tongue into Bass’s mouth as his arm’s tightened around Bass’s waist. The kiss started to get needy, frantic. They held onto each other tight as their wet tongues slid together. Bass moaned at the feeling of both their cocks hardening and rubbing together. There were no clothes between them to stop the slide of their skin, and Bass could feel the first drops of wetness coming from both of them. Storm groaned at the contact. His hand slid down Bass’s back to cup his muscled globe. Storm softly slid a finger between Bass’s cheeks and ran his finger up and down the crease. He pressed his finger against Bass’s hole, circling the tight entrance.
Bass moaned into Storm’s mouth again as he felt the tip of his mate’s finger enter him. Bass slowly slid his hand down Storm’s side, caressing the smooth skin. He moved his hand around Storm’s hip to his groin and wrapped his fingers around his rock hard shaft. He slowly started to pump his hand up and down his mate’s length. Storm pulled his lips from Bass’s and kissed along his jaw to his throat. Storm licked and nibbled his way down Bass’s throat and around to his ear. He nipped Bass’s lobe and then licked the sting away and continued licking around the shell of Bass’s ear. “I want you. I need you, my mate,” Storm whispered into Bass’s ear.