When No Doesn't Cut It

by Lisa Oliver

  Damien nodded thoughtfully as he took another mouthful of food.

  “We’ve got another problem. How the hell are we going to find out where these kids came from and get them back to their parents?” Damien said after a while.

  Scott thought about the resources that the Cloverleah pack had - with Shawn as Shifter Guardian, and Griff and Diablo’s contacts with the FBI. “Do you have anyone in the pack tied to law enforcement in some way?” He asked.

  Damien shook his head. “We’ve never needed it,” he said. “If there have been any problems within our pack then I have sorted it out personally, and we have never had a problem with another pack before. But this business with stolen children could turn into a right pack war if it is not handled carefully. Any of the packs these kids have come from have the right to demand retribution from this pack, and as Jacob isn’t here to account for his actions, then it will fall on me to deal with any fall out.”

  Scott thought about it. Seven kids, probably from seven different packs, given that none of the children seemed to share a common scent bond that Scott could tell. The fallout, as Damien called it, could have huge ramifications on Damien and his pack. But Scott was hesitant to suggest he bring in members from the Cloverleah pack, because underneath it all Damien was a really proud man, and he prided himself on coping with all problems by himself.

  “Damien,” he began cautiously.

  “You want to bring in Shawn and the others from the Cloverleah pack to help out, don’t you mate,” Damien finished for him.

  Scott had the grace to look embarrassed. Of course with their mind link that Scott kept forgetting about, Damien would know what he was thinking. It wasn’t as though he was shielding his thoughts from anyone at the moment.

  “It’s not that I don’t think you can’t handle it,” Scott said looking Damien straight in the eye. “I just think that Shawn as a Shifter Guardian could help broker any arrangements with any other packs. Griff, Diablo, and Troy could all help with tracking down the parents of these children, and Dean as an Omega would be great at talking to the children himself. Your pack doesn’t have these resources and I just thought they might help,” Scott trailed off.

  “And of course Kane would have to come wouldn’t he, because he wouldn’t let Shawn come here on his own.” Damien sounded peeved.

  Wondering what Damien’s problem with Kane was, Scott said, “of course he would come. One, he is Alpha of Cloverleah as well as Shawn’s mate. Two, he would come because I asked and three, he would be helpful as support for you. Why have you got a problem with him being here? Are you still holding a torch for Shawn or something?” Scott’s voice got a little terse as he said the last bit and Damien was quick to pick up on it. Damien might be dense about most things connected to a relationship, but he understood jealousy when he heard it.

  “No my mate,” Damien soothed, “I don’t have any lingering thoughts about Shawn in that way. You’re mine and I am perfectly happy with you. I definitely don’t want anyone else.”

  “So what’s your problem with Kane, or any of the Cloverleah pack members, for that matter?”

  Damien thumped his head on the headboard behind him. Then he grabbed hold of Scott and pushed him down on the bed, kissing him harshly. Scott rebelled for all of two seconds, and then fisting his hands into Damien’s long dark hair, he gave as good as he got. The clash of lips, teeth and tongues had both men panting in minutes, and when Damien finally pulled his mouth from Scott’s, the pain in his eyes shocked Scott with its intensity.

  “I don’t want them taking you away from me,” Damien said quietly, his voice rough.

  All of a sudden Scott understood. His mate, the almighty strong Alpha, feared throughout most of the States, was scared of losing him. Scott’s heart ached at the words even as he sought to pacify his lover.

  “They’re not going to take me away from you. I’m not ever leaving you,” he said, stroking Damien’s hair and tracing over the man’s face with his fingertips. The man still looked unsure.

  “You have no idea what I feel for you, do you mate?” Scott said quietly. A look of confusion flashed across Damien’s face and Scott shook his head. There was no way he was going to tell Damien that he loved him. It was too soon, the man was clearly not ready to hear it, and Scott still had to contend with the fact that Damien would probably never allow himself to love him back.

  So instead of saying the words that hovered on the end of his tongue, Scott said instead, “They can’t take me away from you. You will just have to trust me on that. But they can help us, and Damien, as much as I know what a really good Alpha you are, we need that help. This problem with the abducted children is just too big, and needs to be handled with specialized skills that we just don’t have.”

  Scott could tell that Damien was thinking hard as the big man ran his eyes over Scott’s face. Was he wondering if Scott and the Cloverleah pack could be trusted? Was he wondering just what Scott did feel about their mating? Scott had no way of knowing without probing their mind link, and with the intense way Damien was looking at him, Damien would feel the intrusion right away. But Damien seemed to come to a decision because he asked, “Can you phone them? Can you phone Shawn and explain what is going on, and see if they can get here today?”

  Leaning over to give Damien a chaste little kiss, Scott said, “Yes Alpha.”

  Taking a deep breath, Damien went to get out of bed. As he hunted around for his jeans he said, “Once you have let me know when they are arriving I will get everything else organized. I can arrange for the women and children to come here in family groups so you can talk to them. I can work with Shawn and the others to track down where these children might have come from, and Dean could spend time talking to the rescued kids to see if he can find out any details on how they were taken and anything we can learn about their home packs. In the meantime, I had better go and survey the damage from the fires and see if there have been any updates on tracking down Jacob.”

  Scott nodded, although he was saddened that their intimate times together all seemed too short. He honestly didn’t know how he was going to be able to cope with being mated to a man who had so much responsibility. While he was proud that Damien was such a strong leader, the man’s need to be hands on about everything would keep the two men apart for long periods of every day, and Scott’s heart ached at the thought of not being enough…at anything that could be helpful for Damien.

  Putting the negative thoughts behind him with a determined swat, Scott swung his legs off the bed and sat, looking for his clothes. Damien came up to him and lifted him to his feet, draping Scott’s naked body against his own fully clothed one. Scott looked up at Damien in surprise, especially when he saw the look of worry on the man’s face. But for the moment Damien didn’t seem to want to say anything, although his arms were tight around Scott’s back and he held the man close.

  “What is it Damien?”

  “When you’ve made your call, can you come and find me?” Damien asked.

  “Sure,” Scott said, “Did you need me to do something?”

  Taking a long deep breath, Damien buried his face in Scott’s neck, inhaling Scott’s scent. Scott held Damien loosely around the man’s neck, softly massaging his nape and letting Damien just get himself together. They stood quietly for a few minutes and then Damien straightened himself and looked Scott in the eyes.

  “I need you with me today,” he said in the deep soft voice that seemed reserved for Scott alone. “I have let the pack down, big time, and I need your strength. I know I should deal with all of this shit on my own, but I need you right now. Is that too much to ask of a mate?” Damien asked as if he genuinely didn’t know the answer.

  Troubled by how little Damien knew about mates and the way they were meant to support each other, Scott filed that under the long list of things the two men really needed to talk about. Giving him a small smile, Scott said, “I will be with you every minute of every day if that’s what you want. I’m your mat
e, hon, and Alpha Mate of this pack. Any problems you have, I swear, we will cope with them together. You’re not alone anymore, okay?”

  Damien didn’t say anything but the worry on his face lessened. Giving Scott a quick kiss, he let go of him and headed over to the door.

  “I’ll be outside when you’re finished with your call,” he said before closing the door behind him. Left alone in the room, Scott hurriedly found his jeans and a t-shirt. Pulling on his boots, he found his phone and scrolled through his contacts looking for Shawn’s number. The sooner he and Damien could get this mess with the stolen children sorted, the sooner the two of them could sit down and have a long talk about what it meant to be mates. Damien had to learn that he didn’t have to do everything by himself, and that Scott could be trusted to be with him in anything the man had to cope with - both personally, because Scott hadn’t forgotten that Damien was going to talk to him about his past, but also in his position as Alpha of the San Antonio pack.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Three hours later and the living room in Damien’s pack house looked like a war zone. The men from the Cloverleah pack had arrived an hour after Scott had called Shawn. To say that the San Antonio pack enforcers were surprised at the sight of six men just appearing in Damien’s pack house, complete with computers and overnight bags, was an understatement. Fortunately Scott arrived at the house before any blood was spilt.

  Now the investigations were underway and Damien was edgy. Scott and Shawn were ensconced in the office holding interviews with the women and children of the pack. Damien felt that the interviews would be best done in family groups with each woman allowed to have a support person handy. Some of the men of the pack had rebelled at the idea of their mates being interviewed by other males in private, without their presence. Even if the males concerned were the Alpha Mate and a Shifter Guardian. But Damien stood firm and two guards were posted at the office door to ensure that no-one interrupted what Scott and Shawn were doing.

  Scott had been adamant that the women in his pack deserved the right to speak to someone in authority without being censored by their husbands, partners or anyone else that might cause the women to keep quiet about any problems they were having. Already he had asked that two “mothers-in-law” be removed from the pack house when they were supposed to be supportive of two of the wives. When the wives had tried to speak, the older women had over-run the conversation and tried to belittle the person they were supposed to be supporting.

  Scott had told the supposedly supportive women to leave, but they had not been very cooperative and the enforcers had to come in to remove them. The fact that some of the wives in his pack may be domestic abuse victims did not sit well with Damien. But from the brief messages Scott had sent him via their mind link, it seemed that was a real possibility. Shawn had sent three women already to another room with Kane, to be held safe until Damien and Scott could talk to them together.

  Now Damien had antsy pack males wanting to know where their women folk were. Some women being separated in another room of Damien’s house, because of goodness knows what, but probably domestic violence. Seven children, stolen by a pack member, who all needed to be returned to their parents, and in the meantime had taken over Damien’s media room and were being looked out for by Dean and a couple of pack females. And it seemed that it wasn’t just the females and children in Damien’s pack that had been having trouble. Rumors of cage fighting and gambling on pack grounds had also been reported through Scott’s mind link, but Damien had to wait until he could actually talk to Scott in private before he could investigate that problem.

  In the meantime Diablo and Troy had set up their computers on the dining room table and were currently searching law enforcement databases to see if any of the children had been reported missing to the authorities. Dean had talked to all of the children as soon as he arrived. His quiet manner seemed to encourage the children to talk openly about how they were taken and details about their parents. Shawn had suggested that none of the parents involved should be contacted until Diablo and Troy had worked out just how much of an official issue the children’s disappearance had caused.

  As a rule, wolf shifters stayed away from involving local authorities in pack matters. But Dean’s talks with the children suggested that the children came from parents who were lone wolves. This might have been why it was so easy for Jacob to steal the children in the first place. Damien hadn’t been able to work out how any man, even a wolf shifter, could steal a child from pack grounds, but it seems the man had targeted children who had very little in the way of support. All of the children spoke of hard working parents with large families and no pack ties.

  The children had been abducted, in most cases in broad daylight, while walking home from school, or from a sporting event. Diablo was worried about this factor, pointing out that it indicated Jacob had spent time hunting down lone wolf families and then spent a lot of time stalking a particular child before taking them. This indicated that Jacob was a very intelligent psychopath and while Damien wasn’t pleased with what Diablo had to say, he did think the cat shifter was right.

  As Damien went to get himself some coffee, he thought about the different things he knew about Jacob. Like many of the men in Damien’s pack, Jacob had come to his pack as a young adult, thrown out of his original pack for being gay. At the time, Damien hadn’t thought anything about it because it was a really common scenario all over America. While gay rights were increasing nationwide among the humans, some wolf shifter packs were slower to adapt and many male wolves either had to hide their orientation or leave the pack they were born to.

  Jacob had fitted in well enough. He didn’t have the size or power in his wolf form to be an enforcer, which was the coveted position in Damien’s pack. However, his human form was too big, and his nature so non-submissive, that he wasn’t able to attract Damien from a sexual point of view either.

  As Damien stood drinking his coffee, he realized that Jacob had spent a lot of his time trying to get closer to his Alpha. When Jacob had realized he could neither seduce Damien, because frankly Damien wasn’t interested and had his roster of subs in place by then, nor work for Damien as an enforcer, Jacob came to work at the club and trained as a Dominant.

  Unfortunately Jacob was a harsh Master and many of the subs refused to play with him. After one nasty episode, where Damien had to get involved, Jacob confessed that the only reason he had become a Master was because he wanted to get closer to Damien. Damien remembered how the man had pleaded for some position, something where Jacob could be perceived as necessary to his Alpha.

  At the time, Damien had been having trouble with the local population. A couple of the pack’s teenagers were causing havoc among the locals with their wild ways, and worried that the boys would reveal their true natures to humans, Damien sent Jacob to handle it. The position of pack liaison officer grew from there and as Damien had preferred spending his time at the club than being on pack lands, he had allowed Jacob to take over the mundane daily pack hassles that every pack has. Jacob had held, what Damien now realized was a very powerful position, for more than ten years.

  Damien looked up as Griff came into the kitchen. Damien didn’t know Griff or Diablo very well. When he had been at Cloverleah the two men had only eyes for each other, and while Damien had been impressed with the men’s fighting skills, he hadn’t taken any time to talk to either man. Griff was almost as tall as Damien and a big man in his own right. His long wavy brown hair framed an easy-going face; Griff’s goatee turning the man’s face from good looking to drop dead handsome. Damien could see the family resemblance between Griff and Kane. Apparently the two men were cousins and had been friends virtually their whole life, according to Shawn.

  “Diablo said he’s got some news for you, when you’re ready,” Griff said.

  Sculling back the rest of his coffee, Damien said, “Thanks. I think the best idea would be to get everyone together so we can all share our news at the same time. Can y
ou get your pack together and let Malacai know? I’ll go and see if Scott and Shawn are free?”

  “No probs,” Griff said easily as he filled two cups with coffee and sauntered back out of the kitchen. Damien followed more quickly. He knew his edginess was getting out of control, and for some reason he felt that seeing Scott would help. Going down to his office, he listened at the door and then knocked quietly. Opening the door, he saw Shawn and Scott sitting together, talking quietly. No one else was in the room. Damien decided to ignore the look of embarrassment that flashed across Scott’s face when he looked up and saw Damien watching him.

  It would appear that Damien had been the topic of conversation and for a moment Damien worried about what Shawn might have shared with his mate. Shawn had lived with the San Antonio pack for almost a year before he ran off, with hunters behind him. In that time he had been important to Damien, both as a man and as a well respected Master in the club. If anyone had secrets to share about Damien then it would be Shawn.

  Determined not to let that thought overwhelm him, Damien simply said shortly, “we’re going to have an informal meeting, if you have some free time, so no-one has to repeat themselves with any information they have found.”

  Shawn stood up and patted Scott on the shoulder before leaving the room. He smiled at Damien as he passed the man, but didn’t say anything. Damien looked over at Scott. “Any problems mate,” he said quietly.

  Scott shook his head. “Nothing I can’t handle Damien.” He came over wrapping his arms around Damien’s waist and dropping his head to Damien’s chest. Damien’s body thrilled at the contact. Even fully clothed, his mate had the power to soothe and arouse him all at the same time. But as Damien held the man close he could sense the unease and anxiety in his mate’s frame.