by Odessa Lynne
“If I had turned you over to your government for a trial, you would have been found guilty of treason and put to death as quickly as possible.”
The pace had Brendan short of breath so it took him a few extra seconds to respond. “Treason? I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it. You betrayed your government. You’re a traitor to them.”
Brendan reached forward and grabbed Trey’s shoulder. They were about the same height, the same breadth, but beneath his fingers he could feel the strength of thick muscle and prominent bone.
Trey halted and looked down at Brendan’s hand on his shoulder.
Brendan jerked his hand back, his gut telling him he didn’t want to be doing any touching Trey hadn’t initiated.
When Trey raised his eyes to meet Brendan’s gaze, Brendan’s heartbeat began a hard thud in his chest.
Trey stared Brendan down with eyes that glittered hot with anger…or—or something.
Brendan rolled his shoulders and raised his chin. “What’s your problem? It was just a touch.”
“You don’t remember the last few weeks, but I do,” Trey said, his voice going low and dark and his accent heavy. “I remember how I lusted for you from the moment I first caught your scent, how I wanted to make you submit, how I would have taken something from you that you wouldn’t give if the Diviners hadn’t stepped in and saved your life. Don’t touch me again unless you want to find yourself on the ground, spreading your legs for my cock. My blood still runs hot for you, even though my heat’s been over for days.”
A shiver chased down Brendan’s spine and Trey’s glowing gaze seemed to burn right through him. Brendan took a single step backward, hands fisting, wondering if there was any point in running. He would never outpace Trey.
A twig cracked under his weight.
A bird took flight, rustling through the canopy of leaves overhead, cawing loudly. Brendan’s entire body twitched at the unexpected sound.
He exhaled roughly. He needed answers. “Who are these Diviners? What am I doing out here with you?”
“I stand between you and the people who want you dead and I’ll protect you with my life. That’s all you need to know right now.”
Brendan’s mouth went dry. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“I’ll explain after we find shelter. You need to stop talking so much until we do. Put your energy into moving as fast as you can and staying on your feet. Your life depends on it.”
“I—” Brendan licked his dry lips and tasted the salt of his sweat on the tip of his tongue. “I don’t guess I have much of a choice, do I?”
“No, you don’t.”
So they walked—or hiked, more like it—for another good long while. Brendan spent a lot of his time breathing heavy and watching for debris in the undergrowth so his braced foot wouldn’t catch on anything and trip him. Trey kept up a vigorous pace, bordering on too fast, too hard for Brendan to keep up with.
Over downed limbs and around thick trees, down a hill and up the other side, and all Brendan could think about were the things Trey had said, starting with the fact that Brendan was a criminal. What kind of criminal? What exactly had he done? Treason … treason sounded so ugly. So incomprehensible. He didn’t feel like a criminal.
He could imagine himself being a deeply loyal person. Someone who wouldn’t—couldn’t—turn his back on the things that were important to him. Someone who would take on the world for the people he cared about. But he had no idea where that thought came from, if it was just an illusion his mind was trying to create to fill the void where his memories should be.
He kept watch on Trey’s broad back, noting the way he moved through the brush and around the trees, as if he were completely comfortable cutting through the woods going who knew where. He was a leader, he’d said. The leader of wolves. He definitely had the air of someone used to being in charge, that was for damn sure. He led Brendan through a dense pocket of brush and then stopped and stared off into the distance.
A rumble of thunder rolled down from the sky.
Brendan wiped his slick forehead with an unsteady hand. “I need a break.”
Trey turned to Brendan. “No time,” Trey said. “Since you can’t keep up, I’ll have to carry you.”
Trey’s earlier words about Brendan spreading his legs flashed through his mind. Trey had already started stalking toward him. “Never mind. I can walk faster.”
“You can’t,” Trey said. “And time’s running out.”
Brendan put his hand up in a halting motion but Trey brushed his arm aside. “I’m too—” Brendan’s breath whooshed out of him as Trey bent and hauled him up over his shoulder.
Brendan grabbed for Trey’s neck, fighting the feeling he was about to slide forward and land on his head.
“Relax,” Trey said. “I won’t drop you.”
“I can’t relax. I can’t—breathe either.” The words came out with a puff of air that jolted from his lungs when Trey started walking, much faster than they’d been traveling before.
Every step jarred through him but it didn’t take long for him to notice Trey’s arm had wrapped around the back of his thighs and that he had firm grip on Brendan’s ass. The warm touch spread heat through his body, and after a few minutes, Brendan couldn’t think of anything else. Just that heavy hand on his ass, rubbing against his jeans, and every so often, when Trey took a particularly long stride, he would squeeze Brendan’s butt cheek.
Son of a bitch. The attention affected Brendan in a way he didn’t expect, and his cock started to fill with an uncomfortable amount of blood, along with his head, and the throbbing in his temple worsened.
Fucking embarrassing was what it was.
Trey’s voice cut the silence abruptly, “You’re getting an erection.”
“No shit,” Brendan muttered.
“Why?”
“How the fuck should I know?” His belligerent tone did nothing to hide his embarrassment. “Just put me down and let me walk.”
“No. We’ve already covered as much distance as we covered in an hour before. A storm’s coming. We need shelter.”
Brendan couldn’t breathe deep enough to spend much time talking, so he dug his fingers into the muscle of Trey’s back and concentrated on the shallow breaths he could take. After a few more minutes, he said, “Shouldn’t we stop—make a shelter now—instead of—”
“I know of a cave system in the area. It will do.”
A sense of impending doom rushed through him and Brendan had a flash of an image behind his eyes, of darkness, absolute, and could almost smell damp earth, packed tight on the ground. The image chilled Brendan to the bone.
Adrenaline flooded his veins.
“No,” he said, and he wasn’t even sure why. But—
“No. No, no, no, no, no. I’m not going in a fucking cave. Let me go.” He struggled against Trey’s hold.
Trey tightened his grip and the unmistakable pressure of Trey’s wicked claws poked at Brendan’s ass.
“It’s our only option. We need a defensible position to rest until the storm passes. My packs will come for us, but we have to stay ahead of the others.”
“I can’t,” Brendan said. “No cave.”
“Submit!” Trey growled, his tone so dark Brendan felt a stirring of real fear, bone deep, for the first time since waking up with Trey standing over him.
“I can’t,” Brendan said anyway, a plea for understanding. “I can’t.”
“You will or I’ll bind you in whatever I can find and drag you the rest of the way there.”
Brendan clutched at Trey’s t-shirt, fingers tight in the fabric and fought to get himself under control. What the hell was his problem anyway? He couldn’t remember a damn thing and yet the very idea of entering a cave had his pulse racing and sweat beading across the back of his neck and down the length of his spine.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong—I can’t remember anything.” His voice started to rise. “I don’t rem
ember a fucking thing and I don’t know you and you killed someone and I don’t know why, but how the fuck can I trust you if I don’t know anything?”
Trey stopped and in one abrupt shift of his shoulder, he dropped Brendan to the ground.
Brendan landed flat on his back with a grunt as the air whooshed out of his body. He gave a pained groan and blinked up at Trey, who was staring down at him with those narrow eyes, a strange glow of color standing out in the gloom of the thick forest.
“Stop yelling,” Trey said, lips pulling back to show a glint of his teeth. “Do you really want to make it easier for the others to find us so they can kill you sooner?”
Brendan’s palm burned where a stick had jabbed him as he fell. He pushed himself to a sitting position and rubbed his hand.
“They’re after you too,” Brendan said, looking up Trey’s lean body to meet his gaze. His eyes caught on a small tear high up on the side of Trey’s t-shirt, where Brendan could see a flash of skin mostly hidden by the fall of Trey’s arm. “And the one you killed, he wanted to know why you’re protecting me. I do too. Why? Why are you doing this? You said yourself, I’m a criminal. You claim you’re the leader of your people. Why the hell are you bothering with someone like me?”
Trey flexed his fingers and the motion drew Brendan’s gaze. Those claws peeked from under the dark nails, the tips a shadowed extrusion that were hard to see clearly under the darkening sky.
Lightning flashed, a pale spark in the distance.
Brendan glanced up at the churning clouds. So did Trey.
Thunder rumbled.
A raindrop plopped onto Brendan’s forehead just above his eyebrow.
Trey growled and the sound rumbled up from his chest, and Brendan’s skin prickled tight in response. “I’m doing this because you could be my fate, and if you are—” He growled again, louder this time, as if he had to force the words out. “I can’t let you die without knowing that if I do, I could destroy my own future.”
“Fate is bullshit,” Brendan said. “There’s no such thing. We’re responsible for—”
“Fate is not an immutable thing,” Trey interrupted. “We can destroy our fate, if we choose poorly or don’t recognize the universe’s gift until it’s too late. We ignore fate at our peril. The universe doesn’t thank those who turn their backs on its gifts.”
“I still don’t see how this has anything to do with me. I’m not one of you. And I don’t believe in fate.”
“The Diviners give us a chance to recognize the path the universe wants us to take. They show us our fate. I won’t ignore them. They warned us of the impending destruction of our world. If not for them, our entire species would be extinct. They gave us hope with the prophecy, when we had none.”
O—kay. Brendan stared up at Trey. For the first time, he really noticed Trey’s accent. It had always been there, even though Brendan hadn’t paid attention to it. He understood Trey most of the time. But noticing it now made Brendan very aware of the fact that Trey wasn’t human. Whatever Trey believed—it was forcing him to protect Brendan, and from the sound of things, protection was what Brendan needed right now. To continue this argument wouldn’t get him anywhere. The way he saw it, he needed Trey more than Trey needed him, so his smartest move right now would be to shut his mouth and go along with whatever Trey wanted.
But—
“I can’t stay in a cave. There’s no way. I can’t do it.”
He leveraged his way up off the ground awkwardly, the brace on his foot making it difficult to get to his feet. As he stood and started dusting off his pants, he caught Trey staring at him, those glowing eyes raking over him in a way that made Brendan’s blood rush.
Brendan cleared his throat. “I want to walk.”
Trey’s eyes flickered over Brendan again. “Stay here.”
Brendan watched Trey walk away.
Trey disappeared behind a tree and Brendan frowned. He couldn’t tell what Trey was doing but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like—
Trey came back into view. He carried a handful of thick vines that dragged roughly over the ground behind him.
“Oh, fuck no,” Brendan called out. He jerked around and started walking in the direction they’d been traveling as fast as his brace would let him.
He didn’t get far.
Chapter 3
“Son of a bitch,” Brendan growled out, his entire body trussed up in a collection of vines that scratched and chaffed every time he struggled against them. “This is fucking ridiculous.”
“I warned you. You should have submitted.”
“Submitted? Fucking asshole is what you are. I told you I was scared so what do you do? You tie me up like a fucking turkey!”
“Stop yelling,” Trey said, and by God, Brendan was sure he heard a trace of humor in that voice.
“I’ll fucking stop yelling when I get—”
Trey slapped his ass, and not some gentle little swat either.
“Ow!” His ass burned where Trey’s hand had connected.
“Do you want me to stuff one of your own sweaty socks in your mouth to shut you up?”
Brendan sucked in a breath, nostrils flaring wide. “No,” he muttered, grinding his teeth together. He didn’t want to continue this journey slung over Trey’s back, but he especially didn’t want to continue with a fucking sock in his mouth.
Trey massaged Brendan’s ass, his fingers pressing into the tense muscle in a nerve-tingling way.
“I could enjoy making you submit,” Trey said, his voice low and dangerous. “Taking pleasure with you could bring us both some relief after such a long day.”
Brendan scoffed. “Forget it. I’ll submit to a spanking from you over my dead—”
Another hard slap burned its way up Brendan’s spine. Brendan hissed through his teeth.
“Yes, I could,” Trey said, and he sounded almost as if he were talking to himself. “What an interesting concept. Pleasure from your pain. I don’t think you humans would appreciate what we might unleash if we abandoned our way of life and started embracing yours, considering the strength of our instincts and the changes in our brain activity when our heat sets in.”
This wasn’t the first time Trey had mentioned a “heat” but Brendan had no context. He figured Trey meant some kind of sexual reproductive cycle, like a rut or estrous, but he wasn’t sure. Eventually he was going to ask about it, but right now he had other problems.
Brendan struggled to raise his chest but Trey had an iron grip on the back of his thighs and without the use of his arms, he had no leverage. Trey had to be significantly stronger than a human or Brendan’s struggles would have knocked them both to the ground well before now. He hadn’t stopped wrenching himself this way and that until the first hard smack from Trey’s hand.
“Your erection’s coming back,” Trey said. “That’s also very interesting. I think you like this.” And he slapped Brendan’s jean clad ass a third time.
Brendan tried to breathe through the fiery burn. He might very well have bruises there later, but Trey was right about one thing. His cock had started to fill with blood and his face, already flushed, felt so hot his skin should be searing off.
“We’re almost there,” Trey said. “Maybe I can distract you enough that you won’t even notice the cave in the background.”
“I’ll notice,” Brendan choked out.
“I would enjoy fucking this,” Trey said, and Brendan felt a pressure at the crack of his ass, like Trey was using his finger to trace the area from top to bottom, stopping at the point where Brendan’s thighs met and he could feel it all the way into his balls.
His cock went from thick to hard and he groaned.
“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Trey said. “We’ll fuck when we reach the caves and I’ll wring submission out of you yet.”
“Go to hell.”
“I would rather fuck you.” Trey’s hand rubbed Brendan’s buttock again, firm pressure over the sorest spot.
Brendan
clenched his teeth. “If this is supposed to be a distraction—”
“It was.” With that short snap of words, Trey pulled Brendan off his shoulder and dropped him to the ground.
Brendan lost every bit of breath in his body at the impact with the hard earth. Overhead a lip of rock jutted out, creating an overhang that blocked out the view of the cloud-covered sky. His lungs constricted and his skin crawled. He squeezed his eyes shut but that just made it worse. He couldn’t breathe—he could barely move. He jerked to the side and rolled up against Trey’s legs.
Trey squatted beside him and started tugging at the vines.
Brendan realized he was panicking. His breath was a harsh rasp in the dark. His vision grayed at the edges as a cold sweat covered him from head to toe.
He continued to struggle against the bonds until Trey pulled on one particular vine and Brendan’s arm came loose. He started jerking at the rest and then scrambled backward on his hands and ass.
Trey watched him, eyes the only part of him Brendan could see clearly.
“How’s your head?” Trey asked.
Brendan reached up to feel, but Trey grabbed Brendan’s forearm.
Brendan jerked free. “I forgot. I won’t touch it.”
“Are you hungry?”
Brendan stared at Trey’s shadowed outline and tried to focus on what he’d said. “Yeah. I’m hungry. I have no idea when it was the last time I ate.”
“Before we left in the ship,” Trey said. Trey moved, the shadow of his arm reaching around behind him—maybe his back pocket. It was so dark Brendan was having a hard time seeing anything.
Brendan scooted back another few inches and his back came up against a rock wall. He didn’t take his eyes off Trey’s shadow as Trey rose to his feet.
“I’m going for water,” Trey said. “When I get back, we’ll eat.”
“And not fuck,” Brendan said, just to get that out there. “I’m not letting you do anything like that to me. I don’t even know who the fuck you are.”
“I’m First Alpha,” Trey said. “If I say we’re going to fuck, then we’re going to fuck. However—” He gestured to Brendan’s head and then his braced foot. “You’re injured and fucking can wait until you’ve rested.”