by Kat Bostick
Saliva dripped from his mouth as his tongue lashed out to lick his exposed teeth. Mari extended a hand and brushed her fingers along his cheek, barely daring to touch him. Slowly, his lips lowered over his fangs and he rested his head in her palm. She was so relieved that she wanted to cry. That insecure part of her saw the hatred on his snarling face earlier tonight and became convinced that Jasper would recoil at the sight of her.
The peace was broken when Cash shouted “I found them!” from somewhere behind them. Jasper bristled, hackles rising and teeth bared once more.
Cash and Teal came running around the parked SUV. Two car doors thudded and Charlie and Deak followed at their heels. The four of them halted when they caught sight of Mari just inches from a snarling wolf. Charlie motioned for stillness. The others froze.
“Stay back!” Mari warned as she stood. “He’s confused. Give him some space.”
“Mari, you need to come here.” Charlie said calmly. Jasper’s growling grew louder.
“No, you need to stay there. You’re threatening him.” She could feel the aura of tension building around Jasper. He was choking on his rage and confusion. Scenting Mari’s lingering fear was only heightening his need for action.
“He’s not himself right now. Please come here.” Charlie inched forward. “His brothers will help us get him home. Then we can test his state of mind.”
Jasper feinted towards the alpha. Cash immediately reacted, jumping forward to shield Charlie from a potential attack.
“Deak, get the gun!” Charlie boomed. Gun? Charlie intended to shoot Jasper?
Deak disappeared behind the passenger door. Teal leapt into action beside Cash, ready to stop the wolf by whatever means necessary. He sprang at Jasper in an attempt to catch him off guard. Jasper reacted but not to Teal. A dart whizzed past, narrowly avoiding his shoulder as he twisted out of the way.
“What are you doing? Get away from him!” Mari cried as the wolves began circling. Jasper recognized them only as a threat. He bounded for Cash with deadly intent. “Jasper, don’t!”
Mari jumped between them, her back to Jasper. Charlie shouted a warning, convinced that Jasper was out of his mind. She knew the alpha was wrong, she could feel Jasper returning to himself. Why wouldn’t they listen to her? Cash let out a half-human growl when Jasper lunged at Mari but the red wolf did no damage except to her poor abused tailbone when his teeth snagged the fabric of her shirt and yanked her to the ground, dragging her out of his brother’s reach.
Cash advanced on Jasper and she saw no good outcome. As a man he might be a giant but his human form was no match for the jaws of a wolf. She pushed up from the ground as hard as she could and raced to cut Jasper off, jumping just in time for her forearm to catch a bite aimed for Cash. For one excruciating second Jasper bit into her flesh. The pressure from his jaw was so hard she feared he might break bone. But the moment blood poured from beneath her skin he opened his teeth and stumbled back.
A second dart flew by, hitting it’s target square in the ribs.
Mari positioned herself so that Deak couldn’t take the third shot he was readying. It didn’t matter that it was only tranquilizer darts. She couldn’t think clearly enough to rationalize what they were doing. Her emotions were tangled up with Jasper’s and she wavered between confusion, rage, and heart-stopping fear. They were making everything worse. “Deak, stop! Please, Charlie, make him stop!”
“Let us handle this, Mari.” Charlie ordered firmly.
She ignored him and flung her arms out to shield Jasper. Unfortunately Jasper was far larger than her and Deak easily hit him in the flank. Mari rushed to remove the darts from Jasper’s skin. His body was taut and it was obvious he was resisting the sedatives. By the cloudy look in his eyes, the drug was beginning to set in anyway. When his legs finally buckled under the weight of the sedative, Mari caught him and lowered him to her lap. Cash and Teal circled closer.
When Mari saw what they carried between them, she shook her head and vehemently shouted “No! No way, Charlie. You can’t do this.”
“I’m his alpha and I will do this.” Charlie came up behind her and tried to gentle pry her away from Jasper. Jasper’s answering growl was more of a gurgle, his head too heavy to rise from the ground.
Teal took Mari’s uninjured arm and helped Charlie lift her onto her feet. She started to struggle against the hold but steadied when she realized Jasper was frantically fighting to get to her, flopping like a fish out of water in his drugged state.
“Everything is okay, Red.” She cooed, trying for a reassuring smile. Jasper could make fun of her for cooing later.
With expert speed Cash gripped Jasper’s thrashing head and wrapped a cloth tightly around his mouth. Deak lowered the large cage to the ground and opened the door.
“It’s only to get him home. We have better accommodations there that will keep him and us safe.” Charlie said.
“Don’t you dare put him in that cage!” Mari shrieked, remembering why she’d been struggling in the first place. Finally her fury mingled with her power and a zing of magic left her mouth with those words.
Cash stilled, his back snapping unnaturally straight and his teeth gritting in pain. The skin on his forearms rippled as thick layers of black hair sprouted.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Cash.” She took two slow, calming breaths, willing her magic to release Cash before the change took hold of him. It barely helped. “Don’t put him in a cage, Charlie. Don’t do it.”
“Mari, you need to calm down. We don’t know what he’s going to be like when he wakes. This is the best option.” Charlie helped Deak and Cash heave Jasper into the cage and quickly lift it into the trunk of the second SUV. “Go now. I’ll bring her home.” He urged the two wolves on.
They rushed to the front of the vehicle and climbed in, Cash moving awkwardly as his body fought off the remnants of Mari’s half-cocked magic. She hadn’t realized that she could make them change from man to wolf. Then again, if Lyse could do it, why couldn’t she?
“I won’t let you keep him in there.” Mari ordered as the taillights of the SUV brightened before swiftly disappearing down the gravel road. Maybe she could zing Charlie into a change. He wouldn’t be able to argue with her if he couldn’t talk.
She knew that the “accommodations” Charlie spoke of were scarcely better than a dog cage. In a secluded room at the back of the barn was a series of thick steel cages designed for out of control wolves. Jasper had only briefly showed her the room and after hearing his confession about Nikolai, she understood why. He could barely stomach the sight. Now his alpha wanted to put him in one? Not if Mari had any say in the matter.
“It’s the only option we have right now, little witch.” Charlie cautiously put a hand on her shoulder.
Mari remembered the visceral fear that suffocated Jasper when he had nightmares of being trapped. It wasn’t only being trapped as the wolf that filled him with such dread and anger. It was being caged. Trapped! He’d repeated over and over in his head as he threw his weight into the steel bars of a cage. The red wolf flung himself at the imprisoning structure until his ribs cracked and it hurt to breathe.
“Nikolai kept him in a cage, Charlie. Don’t make him relive that.” Mari pleaded. It was wrong to divulge Jasper’s secrets but she had to keep him out of there. Charlie didn’t understand! Jasper was fine. Lyse kept her word. The curse was gone.
“Nikolai put him in a cage so that he could safely bring him to the gathering. I don’t agree with his method but Jasper wouldn’t change.”
“You’re wrong. The cage was a punishment. He brought him to the pack gathering in it to humiliate him. Whenever Jasper refused to shift, he was locked in a cage barely bigger than a dog crate. They kept him in there until he was too anxious and hungry to hold out. Or until he broke too many of his bones trying to escape. Nikolai didn’t even attempt to call on his change, he just shoved a scared young wolf into a steel box and left him to rot. He vowed to die fighting before letting anyone
lock him away again.”
Charlie’s sharp blue eyes were dewy with the same emotion that Mari was pouring out in streams of tears. “He never told me. I should have killed that sad excuse for an alpha.” He curled his lip in disgust.
“You’ll have to fight me for the chance to.” Mari spat. “Do you understand now? Do you understand what you’re doing to him when you put him in there? Take me to him and I’ll calm him down.”
“I can’t risk that, Mari.”
“At least take me home!” She didn’t wait for another response before running over to Cash’s SUV and tugging on the door handle. It was locked of course so she stood there like an impatient child, yanking and yanking until Charlie finally clicked the key fob. How the heck did he get those keys out of her pocket without her noticing? He really was a skilled thief.
The drive home was painfully long and tense. Emotions poured off of Charlie in tangible waves that crashed into her and sent her already frantic mind spiraling into panic. Too much had happened for her to even process. Mari didn’t know where to begin. She couldn’t calm down to work through the events of the night until she knew that Jasper was alright. She could hardly breathe until she could get her hands on him and feel that he was going to be okay.
The alpha turned to her as they pulled up beside the barn. “He asked me to do whatever was necessary to protect you if I ever thought he was going to hurt you. You should know that.” Oh, was that his justification for tranquilizing Jasper and shoving him in a crate? He’d have to try harder. “It will destroy him to see what he’s done to you. And if he’d done worse, it might have broken him.”
Why did he always have to make such good points? Mari tipped her head up defiantly and said “he would never hurt me.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows and she followed his gaze to the still bleeding bite on her arm. Now that she was paying attention to it, the wound pulsed painfully, making her entire forearm ache. She shoved the arm behind her back and stomped to the barn, ignoring whatever else the alpha had to say.
Chapter 43
Jasper
Jasper noticed three things when he woke. The first was that he wore the skin of the wolf. That wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. It was common to hunt with the pack and fall asleep in this form, waking without having changed. What was unsettling and immediately had panic souring his stomach was the other two things that he detected. His snout was covered in blood and he could taste it on his tongue. Worse, it belonged to Mari. He jolted at the realization and tried to lift up on his feet. His legs twitched but refused to obey the command to move.
There was a familiar heaviness in his body joined by a fog in his brain. Jasper inhaled deeply in an attempt to catch Mari’s scent and find where she was but all he got was another lungful of her blood. Why would he have her blood in his mouth? It could have been because he was cleaning her wound. That would mean she was wounded but not necessarily that he harmed her. Then why was her blood matted to the fur all around his nose like he’d been gnawing on her?
He shifted his head back and forth as best as he could but the dull yellow light and his blurry vision prevented him from seeing much of his surroundings. Mari was out of sight, out of scenting distance, and, apparently, bleeding. Jasper squeezed his eyes shut and searched his memory for any clue as to what happened prior to him waking up paralyzed and alone. He recalled a flash of those bony, white hands that belonged to the witch who cursed him and the bitter smell of her magic. Distantly he recalled hearing her voice but not any of the words that she spoke.
And there was hatred, so much hatred and rage that he wanted to snap bones with his teeth. His vision was a red haze and the part that was man, only a faint whisper of life, had known the wolf was out of control. Man was trapped once again as magic crashed down around him like the bars of a cage. Not unlike the real bars that surrounded him now. He was in a literal cage. A fresh wave of fury coursed through him.
Never again. Never again would he allow himself to be caged. Not without a fight. He’d die before he submitted to being caged.
A tingling sensation prickled his legs, followed by heated anger that burned like wildfire in his veins. The wolf flexed his paws, claws scraping against a cement floor. His legs trembled but with some effort, he moved them enough to right himself. Sharp pain stabbed at his skull as he lifted his head.
He wanted to sniff around to figure out where he was but the overpowering scent of Mari’s blood drowned out all other smells. It was driving him madder with every breath. The anxiety of not knowing why she was bleeding and if she was okay was quickly winning out over the outrage at being caged. Another brief memory came to him in his desperate mental search for her and it made his heart stutter.
Mari was shouting. “Stay back!” Her voice was firm but he could hear her uncertainty and smell her fear. Then she was shrieking a protest. “What are you doing? Get away from him!” And finally, he heard her teary plea. “Jasper, don’t!”
He had no recollection of her face or where they were. There was danger, a threat to her, to him, and to the whole pack but he was helpless to stop it. Was he the threat? Did the witch still have her claws in him?
Pain ripped at his chest when he remembered his teeth closing around Mari’s flesh, her blood pouring into his mouth as the jagged edges ripped at her skin. Her pained cry was quickly drowned out by shouting voices; his alpha and his pack brothers. Jasper didn’t know what they were saying. He remembered nothing more but the jaws of a wolf—his jaws—tearing into his mate like she was prey.
Frantically he searched his heart, his head, and anywhere else he could for the connection that tied them together, the magic threads that bound them and made it possible for him to sense her even when she wasn’t within his reach. There was nothing. He couldn’t feel it under the sickening terror that seized his whole being. It was a terror so thick and wild, so absolute and all-consuming, that it scorched his soul. Jasper had never known fear like this, hadn’t known it was possible to feel such agonizing horror.
Mari was gone.
Mari was gone and he had her blood on his fangs. Of course he was in a cage. What else could Charlie do with a beast so vicious and abhorrent that he attacked his own mate? Why hadn’t they just killed him? He’d rather be dead than live with the knowledge that he destroyed the other half of his soul. The red wolf threw back his head and let out a keening howl. He was so lost in his cry of grief that he didn’t immediately hear the door to the room that housed his cage swing open.
“Let me go! I don’t care if my emotions are going to upset him. Listen to that! He’s obviously already distressed and leaving him alone—in a cage—is not helping.” Mari’s tiny human growl snapped him from his state of misery so quickly his head spun.
He howled again, this time a desperate call to bring her to him. The relief he felt upon hearing the sound of her voice was as tangible as cool hands on feverish skin. His little witch appeared around the corner, a lethal glower on her face. The anger didn’t hide her damp cheeks or the puffiness of her eyes from the tears she had evidently been shedding. As she pivoted, Jasper noticed the mangled skin on her arm and the dried blood that stained her jeans. His heart sank at the sight.
“Mari, you’re as out of control as him. You need to calm down.” Charlie put his hands up in a calming gesture while Cash stealthily slipped behind her, walling her in so she couldn’t come further into the room. He spoke soothingly like he was trying to placate a snarling wolf.
Mari was pretty close to a snarling wolf right then. “Like hell I need to calm down. Open this door and let him out!”
“I can’t do that until I know he can change and that he’s not going to attack you on the orders of a witch.”
“Open this damn door Charlie or I swear to werewolf Jesus I will squeeze through these bars, even if I have to break my bones to do it.” She was absolutely serious.
“She’s going do it, boss.” Cash chuckled.
“She’s on thin ice. You c
annot give me orders, witch. I’m the alpha here.”
“I don’t care if you’re the mother freaking president! You have no right to keep him in a cage.” She bared her teeth.
“Careful, Mari.” Charlie snarled back with a dangerous glint in his icy blue eyes. It was very rare that the alpha lost his temper but it didn’t surprise Jasper that Mari was the one to finally push him to that point. The little witch could be exasperatingly stubborn.
In a flash Mari darted further into the room, heading straight for the cage where Jasper was imprisoned. Cash grabbed for her but she was too swift for the big man. Charlie and Cash both protested as she knelt beside the cage and shoved her arms inside, burrowing her fingers in red fur and purring Jasper’s name.
“Are you okay?” She asked softly. Charlie and Cash hovered behind her with alarmed expressions.
Jasper dragged his weak body as close to the bars as he could get and pressed himself against them, desperate to feel as much of her as possible. He needed her touch like he needed to breathe. Those few moments where he thought he could never have this again were unbearable. They nearly destroyed him. He shoved his nose in a crevice between the bars and lapped at her skin.
“Please, Charlie. Don’t leave him in here.” Mari’s voice quavered and fresh tears wet her flushed cheeks.
Jasper growled at her in warning. As much as he didn’t want to be caged, he also didn’t want Charlie to open the door. He was terrified that he would do exactly what Charlie suggested. Lose his mind again and hurt her.
“No, Jasper. You won’t hurt me. You didn’t hurt me.” She lifted her wounded arm to show him. “I did this. I caught your bite on my arm to distract you so that you wouldn’t attack your pack mates. I know you wouldn’t want to hurt them. You were confused and I was scared so your first instinct was to protect me, even from them. This is not your fault. No one made you do this.” Just to make herself perfectly clear, Mari stooped and nipped the tip of his nose. He jerked back in surprise.