by Odessa Lynne
Salvadore was surprised to notice that he wasn’t feeling as anxious as he had been, and Wolf’s continued presence so close to him wasn’t making his stomach churn in the same way it had before. Oh, he was still nervous, but that bone deep fear had faded—for the moment.
He doubted it would stay gone for long.
“Just don’t mention how you’re going to fuck me again,” he said. “At least not while I have my dick out.”
“You should accept—”
Salvadore wasn’t going to let Wolf finish and ruin the first bit of peace he’d had, so he interrupted loudly enough to drown out whatever Wolf intended to say with, “No! Just not now, okay?”
Wolf huffed against the side of Salvadore’s neck and tugged at Salvadore’s fly. “Are you ready?”
“I’ll never be ready,” Salvadore said, but he reached into the opening of his pants, took himself in hand, and aimed at the leaves a few feet away.
Wolf remained silent as Salvadore waged an internal war with his nerves and bladder. Funny how close he’d been several times over the last day and half to pissing himself and how, now that he needed to let go, he couldn’t seem to do it.
“Shit,” he said under his breath.
Reed’s voice carried from behind them again, “Watcher?”
Watcher’s head turned. After a moment in which Salvadore couldn’t figure out what the hell Wolf seemed to be doing, Wolf spoke over his shoulder. “You can go. We’ll catch up.”
“It’s safe?”
“Safe enough,” Wolf said.
“Understood.” Reed’s quiet reply came just before the sound of brush crackling.
“I can’t do this,” Salvadore said. “You sure you can’t go on ahead and let me catch up?”
“No.”
“Shit.” Then, “I need to pee, you son of a bitch, and I can’t relax with you standing here.”
Wolf released Salvadore’s arm. Surprised, Salvadore let go of Wolf’s hand that was still holding tight to Salvadore’s waistband above his fly.
“Will it help if I pee alongside you?”
Salvadore made a sound in his throat and turned to put his back to Wolf. “No… it really won’t.”
Wolf obviously chose to ignore Salvadore because Salvadore heard the sound of Wolf opening his pants.
His shoulders tensed, but the only sound to follow was the soft patter of urine hitting the leaves a few feet away. He closed his eyes and took a breath.
A moment later, his bladder finally released.
When he was done, he quickly refastened his pants and turned.
Unfortunately, he turned too fast and he caught a glimpse of flesh under moonlight as Wolf tucked his cock back inside his trousers. Salvadore sucked in his breath and spun back around.
He was sure he heard Wolf’s soft laugh again.
“Bastard,” he muttered.
“That word doesn’t really have any meaning to us,” Wolf said, crunching through the leaves toward Salvadore, “although I know you meant it as an insult.”
“Huh.” Salvadore winced when Wolf’s fingers wrapped around his arm again. Not because Wolf’s grip hurt him, but because it meant his freedom was already at an end.
Wolf began to lead him through the darkened forest again, where the shapes and shadows of the trees loomed in every direction. Salvadore had never been that comfortable in the woods. Chen could find his way without even a compass most days, but Salvadore had gotten turned around enough times that he didn’t like to get too deep into the woods without one. He reached down and patted his pocket, and sure enough, the compass he’d started out with yesterday was still there.
Wolf apparently needed no compass to guide him wherever he was going.
Salvadore shoved his hand into his pocket. If the wolves hadn’t cleaned out his pockets, he might still have—
Sure enough, his fingers brushed the key ring his father had given him. He had only one key on it, and that was an old style key for the ancient truck he’d retrofitted for his work for Mel.
He left the key ring where it was and started stumbling along beside Wolf.
Chapter 8
The air had turned cool enough to make Salvadore wish he had on something thicker than the threadbare t-shirt he wore. There was a hole just below the collar that had been there for a while and another where the seam under his arm had pulled apart sometime since yesterday, probably when he’d tried to jump out that window. Cool air seeped through the fabric and Salvadore shivered every time the breeze kicked up.
Wolf’s fingers generated enough heat that the area of his arm where Wolf held onto him felt heated through to the bone, a marked contrast to the rest of his gooseflesh covered arm. Salvadore couldn’t keep his thoughts from wandering back to Wolf as they hiked and that hold on his arm probably had a lot to do with that.
They’d caught up with Reed and Egan some time ago, and the clouds had thinned enough so that the moon gave Salvadore a better view of the path they traveled.
“I don’t know why you’re so sure I’m going to run,” he said. “This deep into the protectorate, I’ve got nowhere safe to go.”
“You’re not in control of your fear.”
Salvadore’s stomach growled. “I’m not that afraid right now,” he snapped. He’d started to realize it was hard to be afraid when he was so hungry. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m fucking starving. I don’t even remember the last time I ate.”
But that wasn’t true he realized almost immediately after saying it. He remembered snatches of conversation with Egan as Egan fed him some kind of disgusting soup. He remembered that more clearly than he wanted to remember it.
Not too young to fuck, he’d said. What the hell had he been thinking when he said that? It had to have been the drugs the wolves had given him.
Because yeah, he liked sex—a lot, to be honest, but he’d always been a bit hesitant about getting on with it when he liked someone. He’d had a change of heart when he met Paul—Matthew—because he’d started to realize just how hard it was to find people he actually wanted to fuck, but he sure didn’t want to turn his ass up for one of the wolves, not after what he’d seen and heard. The very idea made ice run through his veins.
Still, his head didn’t feel right, hadn’t felt right in hours. He put his hand on his hip and pushed, feeling the faint outline of the device buried under his skin. The device had been installed when he was too young to remember much about it, the year the wolves came, and it had worked flawlessly all this time. It wouldn’t last forever though, and he’d been told it would have to be replaced someday. He had no idea how he was going to manage that now that things had changed so drastically.
He hadn’t had it checked in years, not since his father had died—hadn’t been able to afford the trip into the nearest city with the proper facilities, wasn’t even sure anyone would be there and willing to do it for what he could pay.
To take his mind off what he couldn’t do anything about, he asked, “Where we going? Somewhere with food?”
He tripped over a root in the dark and only Wolf’s grip on his arm kept him from face-planting at Wolf’s feet.
“Shit. Would you stop dragging me along?”
“If you’re hungry, you shouldn’t gripe so much about our speed. There are others in these woods that I don’t want us to run into.”
“Watcher, stop,” Egan said from behind them.
Wolf halted, and Salvadore had no choice but to stop beside him and turn as Wolf turned toward Egan.
“Raeisikeille needs the last dose. I can smell his heat rising.”
At that moment, a low howl carried on the breeze. Salvadore tensed and Wolf’s fingers pinched tight around Salvadore’s arm.
“We can’t stop,” Wolf said to Egan. “He’ll have to wait.”
“Why—” Salvadore started.
Wolf had already turned, dragging Salvadore around with him and he interrupted Salvadore’s question before Salvadore could get out more than the on
e word. “If he takes the dose now, he’ll be weak. We need to go.”
The howl came again, too close.
“Shit,” Salvadore said, feeling the panic he’d set aside return in an electric rush.
Wolf turned his head abruptly in the opposite direction.
“Whose pack?” Egan said, his voice tight, the sluggishness of earlier gone.
Wolf raised his head and the night was now bright enough for Salvadore to see that Wolf had closed his eyes. Salvadore waited breathlessly for some response, more sure than he could explain that he needed to keep his mouth shut.
Wolf said something Salvadore didn’t understand, likely an answer to Egan’s question, because Egan growled low, and even Reed made a sound that couldn’t have been mistaken for anything but anger or disgust.
Another howl came from the other direction, and Salvadore tried to jerk around. Wolf pulled him up short.
Salvadore forced himself to breathe.
“We’ll fight,” Egan said. “Take him and go.”
“You can’t fight them alone and I don’t want to lead them on a chase with him. His scent will fire their blood. Even I won’t be able to fight off that many before they get to him.”
Sweat beaded on Salvadore’s skin and the breeze chilled him. He couldn’t seem to swallow as memories beat at the edges of his thoughts. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Get me out of here.”
Wolf shook him. “Stop it. You reek of fear. You’re only going to make this situation even more dangerous for yourself if you can’t control it.”
“I can’t,” Salvadore said, voice thick. He jerked his head around as another howl seemed to be moving in even closer than the last. “Too many goddamn memories.”
Wolf stared at him for a short moment, before turning to Egan. “Hold them off long enough for me to hide him. I’ll be back.”
With that, Wolf bent and before Salvadore could react, a shoulder hit him in the ribs and the world upended. “Shit!” He grabbed at the back of Wolf’s shirt, just as Wolf’s arm curved around the backside of Salvadore’s legs. Wolf surged forward, his stride making Salvadore’s every breath a jarring pain behind his ribs.
The trip didn’t take long. Wolf covered a decent amount of ground at top speed even with Salvadore’s weight over his shoulder. When he stopped, he dropped Salvadore on his feet.
Salvadore stumbled and he quickly put his hand out on the thick oak tree beside him for balance. A storm had turned it, putting a sharp bend in the trunk at head height, but the tree had kept growing, bark spiraling upward, reaching for the sky until it towered over the rest of the nearby trees in the forest.
Wolf bent down. Salvadore couldn’t see what he was doing in the dark but then Wolf rose and handed Salvadore something heavy—his boots, tied together by the laces.
“We’re going up,” Wolf said.
Salvadore couldn’t have heard correctly. “What?”
“Now,” Wolf said over his shoulder, his order almost a bark of sound. “We don’t have time to waste.” Wolf jumped for the lowest sturdy limb on the huge tree and pulled himself up, the claws on his feet digging into the thick bark with a loud scrape that raised the hair at the back of Salvadore’s neck.
He’d had no idea the wolves could climb like that.
Wolf’s hand thrust toward him. “Take it.”
“Okay, okay.” Salvadore grasped Wolf’s wrist tightly and Wolf’s fingers wrapped around Salvadore’s own wrist.
Wolf pulled, and Salvadore scrambled at the base of the tree with his boots, slowly climbing until he was high enough to wrap his arm around the limb. Wolf pulled harder and Salvadore flopped over the thick limb.
“How’s this going to—”
But he looked up just then to see Wolf leaping for the next thick limb above them.
“Goddamn,” Salvadore breathed.
No human could have made that jump. Wolf’s body stretched long and lean and powerful and skin flashed in the moonlight as his shirt pulled up. Salvadore’s mouth went dry. Then Wolf pulled himself up and over, wrapped his legs around the limb and again he thrust his hand down toward Salvadore.
It was a tough climb and Salvadore scraped his arms and cheek on the bark of the tree more times than he could keep up with. He slipped once and a knot in the bark dragged his shirt halfway up his chest. He gritted his teeth against the painful scrape along his stomach, sure he’d drawn blood. But the stinging faded quickly and he concentrated on not falling to the ground far below and breaking his neck.
“Stay quiet, and don’t try to come down,” Wolf ordered, and took off as fast as he’d dragged Salvadore up the huge tree. Salvadore dragged Wolf’s abandoned boots across the limb, and then he sat up and pushed his back against the tree’s thick trunk and tried to get comfortable.
He looked down only once as the tree shook with Wolf’s movements. After that, he kept his gaze fixed on the trees around him and his thighs tight around the limb between his legs.
It was a long way down. Most of the trees grew too straight and tall for anyone to climb unless they could go straight up a trunk. After seeing Wolf’s demonstration, Salvadore was half convinced the wolves could do it.
He didn’t doze. No matter how tired he was, he couldn’t relax knowing wolves roamed the woods somewhere below him. He sat high in the tree but with most of the leaves on their way to the ground, if any of them had reason to look up, they’d see him and he knew it.
A roar came from somewhere in the distance, followed by another and another. A yell. Growling that raised the hair on the back of Salvadore’s neck.
The wolves were fighting.
His heart thudded harder and louder every time he heard one of their howls. Too loud and too close, but he couldn’t tell which direction the sounds came from, so he kept still, forced himself to breathe as quietly as he could, and listened.
Some of the howls might be from the direction he and the wolves had been traveling. Some came from much farther away.
Then a scratching came from above him and he jerked his head back only to see the faint silhouette of a squirrel circling the trunk. His heart slowed and he tucked his hands under his arms for the heat and waited impatiently for Wolf—or Egan or Reed—to come for him.
Wolf and the others would be okay. Of course they would.
And they would come for him soon.
But as the hour dragged on, Salvadore’s stomach started to churn. He reached up and rubbed the spot where he knew the tracker had been buried in his scalp. Someone somewhere knew where he was. He didn’t know who those people were, but he wasn’t as alone as he felt and he had to remember that.
He tucked his hand under his arm again, and then startled badly when something shook the tree. He grabbed for the limb, his gasp loud even to his own ears.
“Human!” The yell came in the wolves’ language and Salvadore thrust himself forward, hugging tight to the limb as the tree continued to shake with someone’s rapid climb.
“Shit.”
“I thought I’d caught the scent of a human,” the wolf continued. “Why are you here?”
Salvadore didn’t answer; he started scooting forward on the limb, trying to see where the wolf was climbing up from below him. He had to lean to the side to see around another bunch of limbs, and he started to slide sideways. He gripped the limb tighter and shifted, stretching his legs out behind him, balancing precariously on the limb.
“You can’t hide from me,” the wolf said. “I won’t hurt you. Come with me and I’ll help you leave the protectorate. You’ll be safe with me.”
“The fuck I will.” Salvadore took a quick breath, then let go of the tree long enough to dig into his pocket for his key ring.
The tree shook again as the wolf leapt for a limb much closer to Salvadore.
Salvadore flicked his thumb over the small cylinder about half the length of his finger and aimed it toward the shadow of the wolf. One shot was all he’d get
so he forced himself to take his time. As soon as the red dot hit the wolf’s body, he flicked his finger again. The tiny dart inside followed the trajectory he’d pointed out and hit the wolf in the chest.
The wolf growled and leapt for Salvadore’s limb, his claws nicking Salvadore’s forearm. Salvadore hissed through his teeth, clenching his fingers around the key ring and holding tight to the limb. The wolf used his grip on Salvadore’s limb to pull himself up with only the one arm.
Salvadore ignored the stinging in his arm and flicked his finger one last time.
An electric shock sizzled through the air, going straight for the dart.
The wolf roared and fell backward through the branches.
Salvadore grabbed for a better hold on his limb as the wolf plummeted to the ground. The final thwap of shaking limbs seemed to echo too long on the air, but when it finally stopped, the quiet seemed unnaturally deep.
Salvadore sucked in a shallow breath.
His father had never quite perfected his design for the thing, but it worked well enough that Salvadore kept it with him everywhere he went. Since it was his father’s own unique design, no one ever recognized it for what it was—a device capable of firing an electric shock strong enough to knock out almost anyone. The dart drew the current—or that’s what it was supposed to do. Sometimes it didn’t work.
But it had worked this time, and obviously it was powerful enough to take out a wolf.
Salvadore tucked the key ring back into his pocket. It’d be no use to him now, not until he either recovered the dart or picked up another one from his stash.
He wanted out of here. But if he climbed down the tree—assuming he didn’t kill himself in the process—he wouldn’t be getting back up here.
Where the hell was Wolf? He’d sworn he would protect Salvadore but Salvadore had just proved that the only person he could depend on was himself.
He gritted his teeth and scooted back into position on the limb. He wasn’t going down. Too many wolves, and at least he knew Wolf and Egan and Reed. He didn’t exactly trust them—they were wolves after all and it was heat season, but he’d rather be stuck with them than at the mercy of some other wolf.