Walk on the Striped Side

by Jessie Lane

  Clearing the steps in just a few mighty leaps, using his powerful legs, Gage launched himself at two wolves and tackled them to the ground. As the three of them landed on the ground, Gage had his hands wrapped around the neck of one of the wolves, squeezing to cut off his air supply. Claws ripped slowly and deeply down his back, yet he didn’t let go of his quarry. He couldn’t if he wanted to live. So he used the adrenaline from the pain to crush his victim’s windpipe and watched as the man flailed wildly, struggling for that breath that wouldn’t come, before the light dimmed from his eyes.

  Knowing he could only kill the shifter by beheading him or ripping out his heart, Gage tore out his throat with one swipe of his claws and then finished by using his claws to tear through the back side of the neck, ensuring that the spine had been severed.

  His victory was short lived because claws gripped his own neck and sunk in as the German wolf roared in rage over what Gage had done to his pack mate. Gage felt those claws sink in far enough until they scraped the outside of his own windpipe, and that’s when he started to worry. One wrong move and he could accidentally help the fucker decapitate him. The problem was, Gage was face down with the wolf on his back, which put him at a severe disadvantage when it came to reaching his enemy.

  Left with only one option, and not a great one at that, Gage reached up with his hands and grasped the wolf’s wrists. Using as much crushing strength as he could, he heard the sick sound of bones breaking as he attempted to pull the claws threatening his life out of his neck. Both the wolf and he were using every ounce of strength they had to force their muscles to go which way they wanted them to go. So thank God that Gage was the bigger bastard here because centimeter by centimeter he started pulling those inch and half long claws out of his flesh and away from his vulnerable throat.

  Looking to turn the tables around and surprise the wolf, he waited until only the tips of his attacker’s claws were grazing his skin and then Gage turned his head. This caused his neck to be shallowly ripped open, however it also gave him the opportunity to sink his fangs into his enemy’s arm, biting down all the way to the bone. The wolf screamed in agony and let go of Gage in shock, which gave him the chance to rear his head back and head-butt the man right in the face. The crunch that followed told him that he’d broken a nose, but that wasn’t enough to get the feral wolf off his back. Gage turned his upper body to swipe backwards at the man with his claws, yet he met thin air instead of a body. His brother had the man’s neck in his mouth, dragging him back off Gage as he bit down savagely.

  “Get your ass up off the floor, Ivanov, and let’s get the fuck out of here!” Davies barked.

  Gage got to his feet while holding one hand over the bleeding wounds of his neck. It helped stop the blood flow until his body started to heal itself, and he didn’t want Elena to see the injuries and freak out on him. His throat hurt like a motherfucker, but he’d take the pain any day over the possibility of not having his throat ripped out.

  He followed the others down the stairs with Alec racing ahead to stand by Elena and a terrified Zane. Davies had Marcus Corvus slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, while Jenna and Adam flanked him for protection. Minna was right behind them with Gage bringing up the rear. If they were lucky, they’d make it to the truck without pack reinforcements showing up.

  When they made it to the first floor of the house, Gage sighed in relief that he could see the remaining members of their group that had been tasked with securing the outside of the structure during the mission just outside the front door waiting for them. He saw his brother changing back to his naked, human form just off to the inside of the front door, and used his own body to block the view from his mate.

  Gage grabbed Elena’s free hand because her other one was being held in a crushing grip by Zane and pulled them outside so he could start a head count of their group. Everyone was there… except the vampire.

  “Where the hell is Baines?” he growled. If that bloodsucker had betrayed them, Gage was going to hunt his ass down and kill him very slowly by hanging him upside down and draining the blood out of his body with slit wrists.

  Tyson stepped forward, pulled his hand off his neck and slapped a folded up gauze against his wounds to help staunch the flow. “He went to get the truck after we cleared the perimeter so we could haul ass out of here a little faster. He should be here any minute. Jesus, you’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  Before Gage could rip his second’s head off for saying that in front of his visibly shaken mate, Alec popped in with that smart-ass mouth of his. “Funny, that’s what I said to your sister after I popped her cherry.”

  As Tyson snarled and lunged for Alec, Gage couldn’t help thinking that sometimes he really did love his brother.

  CHAPTER-TWENTY-TWO

  Elena

  The plane was in the air and it was heavy one kid, one vampire and one nearly dead Alpha. The vampire was sitting next to Jenna, chatting her up like he had a death wish. Adam glared at the man as though he was mentally peeling the skin off his body in two-inch strips. Jenna, on the other hand, was giving Rhett an amused look, almost like she thought he was brave, but she was also stroking her mate’s hand with her thumb in plain sight. A subtle hint that she was very much taken. Rhett was either dumb as a box of rocks or didn’t care because he just kept talking and flirting.

  The unconscious Alpha was lying on a portable stretcher in front of Minna, who was on her knees tending to his many wounds. The man looked like a walking skeleton; he was so thin and he had cuts, bruises and oozing sores everywhere that was visible. Elena knew that shifters were supposed to be these incredibly tough and resilient creatures; she still didn’t understand how someone could survive looking the way that man did.

  The boy, surprisingly enough, was sitting on one side of Elena, curled up just as close as he could get without actually sitting in her lap. His arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, his head was burrowed into her side, and he was scared shitless. Elena could feel his body trembling.

  She couldn’t imagine what the little guy had gone through. Watching his mother murdered right in front of him. Being beaten and mentally tortured by the man he’d just learned was his father. And then watching her roast members of his father’s pack to death with her flamethrower. Her heart nearly broke in half for the small boy’s situation, but she was also a wee bit worried.

  What if he became too attached to her?

  She got that he was latching on because Elena was the only person who’d had the time to be nice to the kid so far. When you’re little, scared and in an unknown place, you latch onto the person you think is going to keep you safe. All of that was fine and dandy, but she couldn’t keep the kid forever. In fact, she might be allergic to children in general because just the thought of them made her break out in hives. Anything remotely resembling motherhood was not in her cards right now. Nevertheless, Elena would do her best not to freak out and pry the kid off her side like she’d just found out that he was diseased with the black plague, however she was also going to have to help find him a home.

  Her mental light bulb went off. If the kid’s father had been an enforcer, then the dad was a wolf. If the dad was a wolf, the kid was probably a wolf. Looking over to Jenna and her mate, Adam, who looked like he wanted to choke the flirtatious vampire, she wondered if the couple could take him. They were wolves after all. Or, if they couldn’t take the boy themselves, perhaps they could find a good wolf home for him in Adam’s pack.

  Zane squeezed his arms around her waist, and she looked down at him. He was staring up at her with those big puppy-eyes, and she almost melted at their sad, pleading expression. Almost, but not quite.

  “What’s up, kid?”

  Zane’s stomach rumbled loud enough that everyone in the passenger area of the plane could hear it, and the poor kid blushed at the sound.

  “Let me guess, you’re hungry?”

  Zane shyly nodded.

  Looking over at the group, she fo
und both Alec and Gage staring at her intently, which was seriously unnerving. Refusing to let them see her discomfort with their probing stares, she asked, “You got any MREs in this place?”

  Alec started gagging at the word MRE. “You can’t feed the boy that!” More cat gagging, which was the worst sound in the known universe in Elena’s opinion. “MREs…” Gag. “…are like eating cardboard.” Gag again.

  Annoyed to be chastised for trying to help the kid out, Elena snapped, “Cough up the damn hairball already and stop that racket. It’s making my hand itchy for the baseball bat that I promised to beat you with.”

  “Here,” Tyson’s voice rang out. “Catch.”

  Elena held her hands up just in time to catch the MRE that came sailing her way. Looking at the package, she read the contents. “Beef ravioli. That doesn’t sound so bad, eh, kid?”

  His eyes got wide at the sight of the package and his stomach rumbled loudly again. She opened the package and took out the main course. Ripping off the top of the plastic packet with the ravioli in it, she handed it and a spoon to Zane, who immediately started shoveling food into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days. Of course, he probably hadn’t, yet Elena had never watched a kid eat before, and with this situation, he kind of reminded her of a vacuum. He was sucking that shit in so fast that he was barely chewing it at all.

  In fact, Elena was pretty sure he didn’t even taste it for the first several bites he was consuming it so fast, and her theory was promptly proven a couple of minutes later when Zane scrunched his face up, his lips twisted in distaste, and he might have even turned a little green. Then his internal vacuum of a stomach hit the reverse button and everything he’d eaten moments before projectiled out of his mouth in the most impressive display of regurgitation that Elena had ever seen. She couldn’t help sitting there in shock as she eyed the kid’s vomit sliding down the opposite wall of the plane.

  “And THAT is why I call those God awful things ‘Meals Ready to Eject’,” Alec crowed.

  A few members of Gage’s unit were gagging, some of their group were looking at the young wolf with pity and the others were trying to cover their laughs so they wouldn’t make the boy feel uncomfortable. Zane gave her a sheepish look and whispered sorry as he handed the ravioli back to her.

  “No worries, kid. I guess you didn’t like the ravioli. Can someone get me some towels and a bottle of water so we can get him and this mess cleaned up?”

  Tyson once again handed her supplies, and she started to wonder if the man had some magical bag he kept this shit stored in. He seemed to be prepared for just about anything.

  Elena wet one of the small hand towels and helped to clean off Zane’s face. Luckily, there was no puke on his clothes—no way to wash laundry at ten thousand feet. After unbuckling her seat belt, she cleaned up the nasty projectile vomit as best as she could and stored all the dirty towels in a trash bag that, once again, Tyson had produced for her. That lion was starting to freak her out. Once she washed her hands in the bathroom, she came back to her seat, picked the MRE up off it, and sat back down.

  Zane’s head was hanging in shame and she felt sorry for the kid. Bumping his shoulder with her arm, she tried to soothe him. “Don’t worry about it, man. It happens to all of us.”

  “It’s not that,” he whispered.

  Confused, Elena asked, “Well then, what is it?”

  The kid’s stomach rumbled again loudly and this time he rubbed his hand in circles over it. “I’m still hungry.”

  The boy had just finished puking like a drunk frat kid and he was still hungry? Good Lord, just what kind of iron stomachs did these shifters have?

  Gage grabbed the opened MRE package off her lap and pulled out two smaller unopened packets. Handing them to Zane, he said, “Here, cookies and a pop tart. Eat those to tide you over and we’ll get you a real meal once we get home.”

  Zane tore into the packets like a crazy little madman and started stuffing cookies in his mouth until Adam barked at him, “Eat slowly or you’ll make yourself sick again.”

  Elena watched in surprise as Zane stared at Adam, but then dipped his head so he was no longer making direct eye contact. Perhaps the kid realized that Adam was a dominant wolf and regarded him as one would an Alpha?

  Just as it seemed, Adam realized that Zane was a young wolf in the need of protection and guidance. If that was the case, maybe it wouldn’t be that hard to get Adam to take Zane into his pack. The thought gave Elena a small sense of relief. She might not want to be a mother right now, however that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried about what would happen to him.

  She watched as Zane slowly munched on his cookies before letting her head fall back against her seat and closing her eyes. Maybe they could get through the remaining eight hours of the flight home without anyone trying to kill each other in annoyance.

  Relaxing her body, she was willing herself to take a nap when she heard Logan say, “Somebody put Mission Impossible on the TV.”

  “You play that fucking movie one more time and I’m going to be an only child in this family!” Jenna shouted.

  Elena sighed. So much for not killing each other.

  CHAPTER-TWENTY-THREE

  Gage

  “You think he’ll be okay?” his mate asked him twenty minutes after they had driven away from the airfield they’d landed on in Wilmington.

  Gage had to admit he was quite surprised at Elena’s protectiveness over the young wolf pup. Watching her take care of him during their mission and the plane ride had given him an insight as to what she would be like as a mother. He had to admit that he liked this maternal side of her; not that she would want to hear that from him if her present mood was anything to go by.

  “He’ll be fine, woman. Davies and McPhee will take good care of him.”

  He heard a feminine sniffle, so he looked over from the driver’s seat of his truck at her. “Are you crying?” he asked her incredulously.

  “I am not crying!” She turned to punch him in the arm, which gave him a clear view of her face. No, she wasn’t crying, but her eyes did look suspiciously glassy, like perhaps she’d been about to cry. “And keep your eyes on the road, jackass!”

  He snorted at her command. Looking back to the road, he started to wonder, was Elena ready to have kids or something? He could easily imagine her with lush curves and a cute, swollen belly filled with a cub or two. His body responded to the idea of getting his mate pregnant and his cock started to swell in anticipation. If she wanted cubs, he’d be happy to give them to her. Shifter children could be hard to conceive, so it would give him an excuse to fuck her senseless all in the name of procreation.

  That sounded like a damn fine plan to him. He’d find a way to start working on it as soon as they got rid of the rest of the shit on their to-do list. For one, clearing Lulu’s name of the murder charge by the Ninth Circle Council. Then there was still that pesky, little matter of Elena figuring out why Gage had pushed her away two years before. Since he knew that conversation wasn’t going to go over very well, he refused to think about it. Both of them had just come off eighteen hours of round trip travel with nothing except an hour of a mission in between the two flights.

  Their fight with the Corvus pack had been brutal and bloody and it was far from over. They hadn’t annihilated the entire pack of wolves. In fact, their group had only killed those that they absolutely had to in order to complete the mission. It probably wasn’t their smartest move, however until they could get Marcus Corvus talking, they were hesitant to proceed. Although the man had been held captive now for who knew how long, it was still technically his pack. It was best not to kill them all off until Corvus gave the word on who lived and who died.

  Gage heaved a weary sigh. He was too fucking tired to think about killing anyone. All he wanted to do was go home, take a shower with his equally tired mate, and then go to bed. All of their issues would be waiting for them tomorrow.

  He pulled into his driveway and parked the truck. Sil
ently, both he and Elena climbed out and slowly made their way to the front door. After he fished his keys out and let them in, he watched as she walked past him, down the hall and towards his bedroom.

  It felt wrong for her not to be handcuffed and two inches from his side anymore. The funny thing was, his mate was so out of it—either mentally or physically or both—that she’d yet to realize she wasn’t being held hostage by him anymore.

  Locking the door behind him, he made his way to his bedroom to see what she was up to. He didn’t find her in there, though. She was across the hall in his bathroom where he could hear the shower already running from behind the closed door.

  Not caring much for having a door separating them, he opened it, stepped into the room, and eyed her silhouette behind the shower curtain. She wasn’t washing or even moving; she was just standing with her hands braced on the wall, her head bent, letting the hot water pour over her.

  Stripping his clothes off, he opened the curtain and stepped in behind her. Gage could tell that she was aware he was in there with her because Elena had turned her head a little to the side at the sound of him getting in. Besides that, she didn’t move. His poor, little warrior was so exhausted she didn’t even have the energy to fling insults or threaten him for invading her private space. That was okay. He wasn’t in there to fuck her. He was here for something so much more important than that. Comfort.

  Placing his hands on the wall outside of hers, he let his front cover her back as he placed his chin on the top of her bent head. He was probably blocking most of the water from reaching her now, yet he didn’t really give a shit. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, right then, she needed him to soothe her, and that was okay because he needed it, too.

  Minutes passed by, and they didn’t move. Eventually, the muscles in Elena’s body started to relax one by one, and she shifted her weight until her body was resting against him instead of holding herself up against the wall. Not wanting to run out of hot water while they were still in there, Gage moved backwards enough to grab the shampoo bottle. Pouring some on his hands, he rubbed them together and then ran them through her hair, making sure to massage her scalp with the pads of his fingers while he worked the shampoo through her hair thoroughly.