Well, now he was my True Mate.
Mine.
A possessive fire roared to life in my chest, and I knew within another minute or two in his presence, there’d be no going back.
The wolf was my mate.
Too bad he needed some convincing. I was sure it was a shock to his system to realize he was going to be tied to a Were all his life. An Alpha Were.
He somehow made it to his feet, stumbling away from me with a hand out. “Stop.”
I kept walking. The pack was watching, and it was important for me to show I could control my mate, and that he could be controlled. He was a werewolf, naturally submissive and inferior, so he needed a firm hand.
“Please,” he cried.
I only stopped because in another two steps, he was going to crash into the back wall. And with a thud, he did, then collapsed onto the ground once more before curling into a ball. Behind me, I heard anguished cries, probably from the novus, but I knew G would handle him.
My wolf was crying now, and I gritted my teeth at the sound, wondering what this odd ache in my chest was about, why I wanted to cradle him to my chest and protect him.
I shook away the sentimental instinct and gave him a moment before crouching down and fisting my hand in his black hair. I pulled his head back, and he pierced me with a glare, his face covered in dried blood and snot and tears.
He still smelled fucking delicious.
I held his gaze until resignation began to set in his features. If he knew anything about Weres, he’d know that once we found our mates, we’d never let them go. Already my blood was pumping, my instincts screaming at me to hold him down, make him mine, imprint my scent on him and in him. He needed to shift and heal fast.
He jerked his head to rip his hair from my grasp, but I held firm, surprised he’d even tried. My pack was watching this, and they had to see I could control him. Once he stopped squirming, I released him. He shied away, pressing his back against the wall. Finally, he spoke. “What’re you gonna do to me?”
His voice was low and smooth, melting over my skin like butter.
“Mate you.”
“Then what?” The demand in his tone had my cock hardening. I thought passive always did it for me, but this wolf with his demands was challenging that.
I didn’t understand the question, so I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”
“After we mate, what’re you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to take care of you.”
His jaw clacked shut, and his brows drew in, as if that wasn’t at all what he thought I’d say. I glanced down at the silver around his ankle and ripped apart the metal band with a tug of my hands. I couldn’t tell if the red around his ankle was from the silver or from whatever had been used to beat him bloody. “Stand. You need to shift.”
“Can’t,” he croaked. He swallowed, and his throat clicked.
I turned my head. “Water!” I barked at whoever was closest. There was a scuffling and then a glass of water was shoved in my hand. I held it to his mouth. He hesitated.
“Drink like this or drink nothing,” I said.
He parted his lips and began to drink, although his eyes told me it was under duress. He drank the entire glass, and I ordered Rua—one of my guards—to get me another. She returned quickly, and I told her to get one for the novus too, who’d calmed down somewhat in G’s arms.
At the sound of my command, my mate scrambled to his feet and ran in a halting, painful gait to the novus. When he reached G’s side, he tore his brother from my guard’s arms. Shoving the novus’s smaller body behind his, he glanced around as they took a few steps backward. I was again unsure where he thought he’d go, but his instinct to protect was strong.
I admired that.
“What’s going to happen to my brother?” he demanded, his uninjured eye flashing at me.
I didn’t fucking care what happened to the brother, but since my wolf did, I’d have to compromise. I glanced at G, who stood stone-faced, his attention on the novus. “He’ll stay with G.”
My wolf’s eye went wide. “What?” I ground my teeth, because did I have to fucking repeat myself? But my wolf wasn’t done. “No fucking way. Jude stays with me, where I can watch him. I’m not just abandoning him because you have a hard-on for me—”
That was enough. I grabbed him around the throat and squeezed. Not enough to hurt, but enough to warn, and to the pack it would look worse than it was. His nostrils flared, and he halfheartedly clawed at my forearm.
I spoke through bared teeth. “You might be my mate, but you do not make the decisions in this pack.” I shook him a little until he bobbed his head in a faint nod. I released him, and, although he stayed put and remained silent, his blue eyes flashed daggers at me. If looks could kill…
“G is the best guard in this pack,” I explained. “If I tell him to watch over Jude and protect him with his life, he’ll do it.”
He sucked in air before whispering, “Can I ask one favor, please?”
His eyes told me he resented having to ask me for something. “Yes.”
He reached back, brushing his knuckles along Jude’s. “Please don’t let anyone touch him against his will.”
One of my guards, Vaughn, heard that. He joked in low tones that he was disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to sample the fresh meat.
I turned to G. “Jude will stay with you in your room, and you’ll guard him. No one is to harm him or touch him in any way, and that includes you. Got it?”
G nodded. “Done.”
“Great. Get gone then. Kid looks like he’s going to pass out.”
Jude hugged his brother and said through tears, “I’ll be okay, Reese. I promise.” He glanced at me before focusing back on his brother. “Will you be okay?”
So, my mate’s name was Reese. He murmured, “I’ll be fine,” as the brothers parted. Reese wobbled on his feet, and as the murmurs of my pack grew louder, I knew it was time to get him alone.
“Come on.” I wrapped an arm around his waist. “Take a deep breath.”
“Wha—?”
I leaped five stories. When we landed on the uppermost balcony, I checked on my mate, who had paled. Oh shit. I gripped his face, taking care to stay away from the worst of the swelling. “You all right?”
He shook himself and growled softly. “You coulda warned a guy. Damn.”
“I said take a deep breath.”
That glare was back. “That’s a seriously inadequate warning for what you just did.”
Even beat to shit he had an attitude. “Can we debate my warning system when you’re not dead on your feet?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line.
I gripped his forearm and hauled him up the stairs in front of us. “This building houses the entire Silver Tip pack. We’re about three hundred strong.” Reese stumbled on the stairs, but seemed determined to climb them himself. “What we were just in is the main meeting room, and then the balconies on every floor lead to apartments where pack members live. As alpha, I have the entire sixth floor.” At the top of the stairs, I spun the lock to the correct combination and the door opened. “That’s the only way to get to the sixth floor.”
“So…you jump to the fifth, then take the stairs to the sixth like a civilized person.”
I wasn’t sure if he was testing his boundaries to see how hard he could push me, or if he had a death wish. Of course, if he knew anything about Were mates, he’d know I’d never kill him. “You have a smart mouth with everyone, or am I special?”
He shrugged as he glanced around.
Eury—the land that was home to the Silver Tip, the Bluefoot, and a couple of other werewolf packs—had pitiful resources, but my pack was willing to venture into Nowere territory, so we built furniture from the trees we chopped down. We’d had a couple of casualties from Noweres over the years, but it was worth it to be able to sustain ourselves. I knew we were the only pack with our own greenhouse to grow produce and a large farm area wh
ere we tended crops and raised livestock. If other packs found out, we’d have a war on our hands. Good thing we weren’t big on socializing.
Reese limped a couple of steps, taking in his surroundings, but his color didn’t look good, and he clutched his side.
I scanned his body. “What do you mean, you can’t shift?”
His back was to me as his head dropped forward. He mumbled, “Too weak.”
I frowned. I’d been around very few wolves. As for Weres, it could take a couple of shift changes to fully heal, but we could always shift. “That seems like a genetic fuckup. Shifting is how we heal.”
He turned around with a look. “Well, that’s the way it is for us. I need some water and some sleep, and then I can shift and heal my most-likely-cracked ribs and various other broken bones, okay?”
When Jude had requested help, he’d told us that his brother had been beaten by his own Bluefoot pack and left for the Noweres. I wanted to know more, but now wasn’t the time to grill him. He was barely conscious, swaying slightly like he could barely keep upright.
I scooped him up despite his grumble of protest and carried him to the far side of the room. I set him down on my mattress. It wasn’t thick or luxurious—it was basically fabric stuffed with pine needles—but it was comfortable.
I kept a pitcher of water and cups on a table along the wall. I poured him some and brought it to him. “Here.” He drank the entire thing in a couple of gulps and then collapsed onto his back.
His one working eyelid immediately began to droop. He flung it back open one last time. “I’ll be safe here?”
I sat down in a chair and rested my elbows on my knees. “You’ll be safe here.”
He smiled faintly, then closed his eyes. Within thirty seconds, he was asleep.
I relaxed, breathing in the delicious scent of my mate, content that he was now safe.
Chapter Two
Reese
* * *
This time when I woke, the pain still hit me after a few seconds. But I also registered that I was laying on something much softer than a concrete floor. Oh, and something smelled fucking delicious.
Both my eyes opened now, although one only halfway. And when I blinked to focus, I met the steady gaze of a green-eyed Were. The Silver Tip pack—as the only Were pack in Eury—had a truce with all the wolf packs, including Xan’s. We left each other alone. No interfering with each other’s compounds or packs. That was how it’d been for decades. The Weres were dominant and would likely obliterate a wolf pack. But not without suffering casualties of their own. And if all the wolf packs combined forces? The Were pack could be defeated. The truce benefited all sides. There was no overriding authority in Eury, or anywhere that I knew of. Communication between packs was rare and based on the reliability of a messenger’s memory.
I’d heard of Dare, Alpha of the Silver Tip pack—bits and pieces of whatever information Xan let trickle down through the ranks of the pack. So even though I knew never to believe what I heard, I had a hard time reconciling this Were with the ruthless, violent, bloodthirsty beast he was rumored to be.
And now, he was my mate. Why the fuck did my True Mate have to be a goddamn Were? An alpha at that? True Mates were legit as hell. My parents had been True Mates, so I knew how strong the bond was. I just never expected to have that for myself. Most wolves mated for love and pleasure or procreation, not because they were compelled to do so by instinct. It was unheard of to ignore the True Mating call, no matter how inconvenient it might be.
We stared at each other silently, and I inhaled his scent. The minty, sweet fragrance was fogging my brain with arousal. Dare’s eyes flashed, and I knew he felt the pull too. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d run my mouth a little when we’d first met, and I’d gotten a hand wrapped around my throat, so I figured it was best to play it cool until I knew what my place was here.
Someone knocked on the door. I started, and he raised a hand to calm me. And fuck if it didn’t actually work. This mate shit was weird, and we hadn’t even formally mated.
I wasn’t going to think about that yet.
As Dare opened the door, I closed my eyes. The moment my lids closed, I saw Selene back in the Bluefoot compound, still under Xan’s thumb. The image made my lip curl.
Rescuing Selene was a real, live pull inside of me. It was the main reason I was fighting so hard to stay alive. But now there was another pull inside of me. And it was tugging me towards a seven-foot, fierce-as-hell Alpha Were. I wanted to know more, to feel out this mating and the hold that Dare had over me. Was instinct the only reason I felt drawn to him? Maybe I could use this mating to my advantage. Just maybe, Dare could help me rescue Selene. He seemed to have listened when I’d asked him to protect Jude.
As Dare murmured some words to whoever was at the door, I got a better look at his room. It was large, probably fifty square feet, with a sitting area in the far corner near a bookcase, the toilet surrounded by a curtain on the other side. A large wardrobe along the wall was half open, revealing Dare’s clothes inside.
A memory crept into my mind, a rumor about how Dare kept a Nowere as a pet in his room and fed it wolves who wandered up to his gates.
There was clearly not a Nowere here.
My mate finished talking with whoever was at the door. He shut it and strode toward me with a plate. The fucker was sexy, there was no doubt about that. Even with my body aching like it was, the sight of him in his leather pants and nothing else was enough to make me hard. It was those eyes, the vivid green irises, that pinned me in place. I wondered what they’d look like when he came.
Fuck, get it together, Reese.
Dare helped me sit up with a lumpy pillow at my back, then set the plate on my lap. It was steak and vegetables.
Steak. And. Vegetables.
He pointed at the plate. “Eat.”
Right, he didn’t have to tell me twice. I picked up a carrot, twisting it in my fingers, squeezing it, then licking it to test if it was actually real. I took a nibble. “Holy shit, this is an actual carrot. I haven’t seen one in…years.”
Dare seemed proud. Thank fuck I hadn’t managed to insult him yet. “We have our own greenhouse.”
I stared at him. If Xan knew… “Wow.”
“Eat,” he said. “Then you might have the strength to heal.”
I made love to my plate with my eyes. “I think I’ll be able to do just about anything after I eat this.” Xan’s rations had been so stingy lately, I’d been living off watery potato and cabbage soup.
Dare grunted, and I dug in. There were no utensils, but I was able to tear the steak with my teeth. I crunched into the raw veggies with relish, savoring the flavor. Already my body was feeling renewed.
Dare sat down on a chair beside the bed. “Tell me about the Bluefoot pack.”
I was glad I’d already eaten most of my food, because the reminder of my sister sucked away my appetite. She was still under Xan’s rule, eating shitty rations. The food I’d just devoured was now a ball of guilt in my stomach. I had to focus on Dare right now, though, until I knew what my role here was. “Uh, okay, what do you want to know?
Dare’s brows were drawn in, probably because the tension was swelling around me. “Were you born there?”
I shook my head. “My parents were from down south in Astria. Do you know about Astria?”
“Home of four packs. Overtaken by the largest Nowere pack ever documented.”
“Right.” I’d been ten at the time of the Nowere takeover, and the alarms from the breach, the screams, the sounds of ripping flesh, haunted me every night. “I was a member of the Whitethroat pack. My parents got us out while the Noweres ravaged everyone within the walls. My folks risked all our lives to travel to Eury. We walked for miles and miles, starved and half-dead by the time we arrived at Xan’s gates. We thought he’d be our salvation.” I shook my head. “Xan killed my parents on sight. Enslaved us because we weren’t Bluefoot—we were outsiders, and he’s not so accepting of outs
iders. That was ten years ago. I’ve worked ten-hour days repairing Xan’s walls, digging holes, whatever labor he could think of.”
Now the tension was coming from Dare. His fists were clasped in his lap, knuckles white. “Were you a prisoner?”
“At first, we were kept under guard and locked away when we weren’t working. As time wore on, we were given more freedom, but any outsiders who ventured to his front gates were his labor force. We didn’t benefit from that labor other than being protected from Noweres. I didn’t feel like I could do anything to get us out of that hell hole until I went through my first shift.”
Omitting the information that I had a sister—okay so it was lying—felt so fucking wrong, but I couldn’t tell him. His lack of knowledge about her existence was all I had going for me in my attempt to get her back. If he knew I wanted to escape, who knew how I’d be treated? Maybe thrown back in that cell, and only brought out when he wanted to fuck me? Hell no.
“Xan is a dictator,” I continued. “The Bluefoot pack is going to waste away because it can’t sustain itself.”
Dare listened to me intently as I talked. He wasn’t treating me like some dumb inferior werewolf. It was probably unwise to hope that I could be somewhat of an equal partner, but his questions and attentiveness to my answers were promising.
“What did you eat?” he asked.
“He has some crops, but he’s done a shit job taking care of the land, so they grow poorly.”
“So you escaped with your brother.”
I nodded. “They didn’t see Jude. They saw me.”
“And their punishment was to beat you and leave you to the Noweres?”
“Guess so. Xan never liked me much.”
Dare studied me for another minute. “Where’d you plan to escape to?”
Daring Fate: Silver Tip Pack series Page 2