Fangs with a Heart

by Tempeste O'Riley

  “What?” he managed to yell—well, more of a whispered yell, but he was ignoring that point right then.

  “Your alpha can explain it, as Sasha isn’t in a position to right now. He, his mate, and the doctor are all waiting to see you. Now let me show you to your nourishment, and I’ll let them know you’re up and about.”

  “But….”

  “Hmm…?”

  “Why is Sasha just lying there through all this?”

  Jalin frowned as he glanced at Sasha again. “He will be very cross with me if I answer any such questions, sir.”

  “I don’t want you in trouble, but….” Trace bit his lip. Would Sasha hurt Jalin? He was a servant, not a friend, maybe. Or maybe he was both. Trace had no clue how that worked.

  “Please allow your alpha to explain things to you, as I believe he would be best able to do so. At least until Prince Sasha can.” He could have sworn he heard Jalin add “if he will” at the end, but wasn’t quite sure.

  Trace nodded, not sure what else to do. He wanted to leave but didn’t at the same time. There was something odd about Sasha not waking, but he didn’t know what. The threats the monsters who attacked him had made kept running through his mind. Does Sasha know his uncle wanted to hurt him? Did someone hurt him? Is that why he’s sleeping like that? No, that didn’t make sense. If Sasha were hurt, his assistant wouldn’t be so calm.

  It didn’t take long for Jalin to show him where the minifridge and cabinet of nonperishable foods that Sasha had set aside for him were. Trace couldn’t figure out why Sasha had rearranged his bedroom to accommodate him like that since the vampire knew full well Trace wasn’t about to stay. They were not mates, no matter what Fate thought! Of course, nothing made sense from the point when Jason had asked Trace to escort the humans out to the club. From there forward he hoped was all part of the same nightmare.

  As he sat on the lounger eating an energy bar and drinking tons of water, another knock came, this one stronger. The scent with it was all alpha and cat, with a touch of human. Keith and Jason entered a moment later. Jason stopped just inside the room, but Keith strode right up to Trace.

  Every muscle tensed, and he bolted before he realized what he’d done, his half-eaten food and open bottle left where he’d been—the water spilling on the expensive rug beneath his feet. Again Trace found himself with his back against the wall, crouched in the corner of the room. It didn’t make sense logically; he knew that. His alpha wouldn’t hurt him, but for whatever reason, something in him wasn’t listening. He didn’t want any male near him.

  Keith stopped and stared down at the mess Trace had left on the floor. “Um, Trace? What’s going on?”

  “Please,” he croaked out. “Please don’t come closer.” Yeah, that didn’t make him seem nuts at all….

  Chapter Seven

  “JASON, PLEASE go get the doctor.” Keith’s gaze didn’t leave Trace’s, but he didn’t speak again until Jason left the room. “If I sit over here, will that be all right?”

  Trace tried to will himself to calm, really he did, but it wasn’t working. His skin crawled if any male approached him—at the least—and he wanted people near Sasha when he was sleeping or unconscious or whatever he was even less. “Can you, um, not be so close to Sasha? Please, Alpha?”

  “You know I would never hurt Sasha. Jason would never allow it, even if I wanted to.”

  “My head knows that, but the rest of me seems to not be listening so well. So please?”

  “Okay. We need you checked over and we need to talk to you. Can you come out of the corner?” Keith slid down into a squat against the far wall, right inside the room, and slumped his shoulders in what Trace assumed was supposed to be a nonthreatening pose. If he knew why he felt threatened, that might have helped more. “You’re in Sasha’s personal suite. We could do all of this out in his sitting room instead of his sleeping area.”

  Trace thought that over, and while it sounded logical, he didn’t relish the thought of being out there with others. Letting the doctor touch him. The very male doctor. But them being in Sasha’s room while he wasn’t able to defend himself made Trace’s skin crawl even worse. No, that wasn’t acceptable.

  “The sitting room.”

  “We’ll meet you there when you’re ready, then.” Keith slowly stood and exited the room, leaving the door open behind him.

  It took Trace a good fifteen minutes or so to join them. Keith, Jason, and Dr. Niko were there, but thankfully, no one else. He could smell other vampires close by, but not inside the suite. “Hi,” he whispered as he stood just inside the doorway.

  “Welcome, Trace.” Keith motioned to a chair a little way from the others. “I set one close, but I hoped not too close for you. Do you know what’s happened or why you’re here?”

  Trace shook his head. “No.” He edged toward his seat, watching the others carefully. “Well, I remember being attacked at the club. Um, I failed to protect the humans I was there for. Were they hurt too?” Was that why he was there? Was Sasha trying to protect him, even though he’d spurned their mating bond?

  “They’re fine,” Jason said, his voice soft, his brows pulled together tight. “They had n-no idea what happened until one of the other vampires under D-Dimka and Summer went inside to g-gather them and return them to the t-tribe after Sasha had left with y-you.”

  “I don’t understand what happened. How am I not dead, and why am I in the vampires’ big house instead of our tribe lands? Am I banished for failing you?” Trace bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as he looked at Keith; he could taste the strong tang of copper and knew that hadn’t been the smartest thing to do when the doctor’s nostrils flared and he snapped his head up. Thankfully the doctor didn’t move or speak.

  “Of course not!” Keith leaned forward—it took all of Trace’s willpower not to skitter away when he did that. “Sasha brought you here when he found you. You’d been badly hurt. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you, so Jalin called us to come and help.”

  “I….” He shook his head, trying to make sense of Keith’s words. He vaguely remembered Keith and Jason being with him and Sasha, but it was all fuzzy and wrong somehow. Not like how his lynx thought, but something else altogether. Something… clouded. Why couldn’t he remember? “I can’t remember.” He tugged on his short hair. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “If I could examine you, it might help to find a few of those answers you seek, Trace. The blood loss, I’m sure, isn’t helping.” Dr. Niko patted a black bag beside him. “I do know more than a little about lynx shifters, so it’s not like I’m working in the dark here, if you’re worried. Besides, I would never do anything to you that might anger Prince Sasha. I’m opinionated and have an attitude at times, but I’m not so stupid as to deliberately get on his bad side.”

  That statement didn’t make any more sense than how everyone was acting. Why was everyone so worried about how Sasha would react? Trace didn’t need some vampire to fight his battles!

  “I’m sure that if Alpha Keith says you’re okay, then you know what you’re doing, just, um—” Baast, but he didn’t want anyone touching him!

  “You don’t want anyone to touch you?”

  Trace nodded. “Yeah.”

  “That’s not surprising, really.”

  “Why? I mean, I never like strangers touching me, but they aren’t strangers.” He motioned to Keith and Jason. “And I’ve met you before and know you aren’t a danger to me. Not in this situation, at least.”

  “You were attacked and bled by a vampire, actually two, I believe, and with what I saw on your back, it is little wonder you’re having issues. If you were human, you would still be bedridden, so the facts of the trauma would still be easy to see and remember for all here. But as a shifter, you heal outwardly, so it seems as though you should be fine. You’re not, not really.”

  “My back is off-limits.” No way was he discussing that with some vampire doctor in earshot of Sasha. “And I am all healed up, so I
am fine.”

  “No, you are not. Your body might be better, though I can’t determine that without an examination,” Dr. Niko added pointedly. “But the fact you nearly bolt when anyone moves tells me quite a bit about how not okay you are.”

  “Shouldn’t you be more worried about why Sasha isn’t up or even moving around a little? I’m just a shifter. He’s your prince.”

  “Prince Sasha will be fine once he regains his strength from what he did to help heal you.” Dr. Niko shrugged, which was a strange sight. The male seemed old and grumpy—even if vampires never looked old physically, no matter their actual age—yet that motion seemed almost flippant. “Had you had sex with him when he did it, he’d be up and about by now. But since you didn’t, he isn’t. Now would you please let me examine you so I can figure out if you need anything else?”

  Trace was too stunned to do anything when the vampire approached. Had the vampire doctor really just chastised him for not putting out for the vampire prince? How the hell did that make sense? Once he managed to get his brain to engage again, he raised his head as he did his best to ignore the doctor’s light, impersonal touches, to look at Keith and Jason.

  “Can you make what he just said make sense? Or maybe hurry him up before my skin crawls off my body to get away from him?” Trace held on to the edge of his chair as he forced himself not to bolt back into Sasha’s room and throw the lock—and he refused to examine why that seemed like such a safe place right then.

  Keith sighed but then nodded. “When you awoke the first time, it wasn’t you they found, but your lynx in your human shape. This became more of a problem when you flattened Sasha and proceeded to guard him from the others. That’s when I was called.” The look his alpha gave him stirred something inside, as did the words, but he still couldn’t grasp the memory. “You don’t remember any of this, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Did that happen the last time your lynx took over for you?”

  “Why would that have happened before?” Jason asked. “And why now?”

  “Jason, love, don’t interrupt. This is hard enough on Trace as it is.”

  “S-sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have expected to keep this from the alpha couple of my new tribe. I just didn’t want the pity or to be seen as something broken.”

  “You’re not broken or to be pitied,” Keith growled. “You overcame something no one should have to ever endure. Jason has no idea what we’re talking about, and I don’t believe Sasha does either unless that bite thing he did to help you showed him.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about bites for, but that’s good, I guess. I…. Yes, it happened then too. I know what they did to save me then because they told me, not because I remember the final rescue. I had blacked out from the last bit of the final whipping and blood loss. Even with our healing being as strong and fast as it is, we can get infections if we remain at a certain level of loss, and, well… I was.” The room started to spin and his vision tunneled slightly, but he forced himself to keep talking, knowing if he didn’t get it out now, he likely never would.

  “It was over a month before they managed to coax my lynx side into giving up control and me into returning. You would have to ask them how they did it. I never asked. Didn’t want to know, honestly. I don’t remember most of that time. Even when I’m in my lynx form, I only have blurry memories of that time—nothing that makes sense. I figure it’s some kind of self-preservation due to what happened.”

  Dr. Niko made a strange noise in the back of his throat, making Trace jump. “And whoever hurt you like that is dead now?”

  “That’s what Keith asked when he saw my back.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “He is.”

  “Good. The world is a better place for it.”

  Trace looked over his shoulder at the doctor, confused why the male would care about a shifter so much. “But what difference does it make now?”

  “It tells me that you may not be ready to return to the lynx tribe lands yet, Trace. If what we saw was the result of extreme emotional and physical trauma. Even though this time it wasn’t long-term, you may need to stay close to Sasha for a while.”

  “But how is Sasha supposed to help?” They didn’t know about… did they?

  Dr. Niko looked at Keith and nodded to the door. “Make sure no one but Jalin is within hearing range.”

  Keith did as asked, and moments later, it was the four of them again, though Trace had caught a brief glimpse of Jalin outside the door before Keith closed it and returned.

  “He has Dimka and Summer posted farther out to make sure no one can get too close to the suite, and he said the rooms are vampire-level soundproofed.”

  “They are, for the most part, but if anyone is within the rooms, things could be overheard. Now to answer you, Trace, he is your, um… I believe you use the term ‘true mate’ or ‘destined mate,’ though you’ve never claimed him.”

  “What?” he screeched.

  The doctor ignored him and kept talking. “That bond the other way will allow Prince Sasha to help soothe you when fear or worry starts getting too much for you. At least until you can work past what happened last night. Also I believe Summer and Dimka need to know if those who attacked you said anything to you. They’re trying to find out who is trying to hurt our prince and why.”

  “But… but we aren’t mated! And of course they talked. Idiots and puffed-up lackeys always want to run off at the mouth. His uncle sent them to destroy the alliance between the coven and the tribe. They were to kill me first, then make sure the alliance was destroyed. That way Sasha would bond or marry or whatever some Tatiana chick, make little vamp babies, and be a good little vamp boy under his uncle’s thumb.”

  “Trace, you need to calm down.” Dr. Niko put his hand on Trace’s shoulder, but that was one touch too many, and it sent him flying across the room and against the wall.

  “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!”

  “Mal’chik” came Sasha’s soft voice from nearby. Trace slowly turned to where he knew Sasha to be and took in his disheveled appearance—something he couldn’t remember seeing before. “You need to calm down before you hurt yourself.”

  “Please don’t let him keep touching me.” Trace hated the pleading clear in his voice, but he was certain he would go crazy if another person touched him right then.

  “Shh…. Trace. Dr. Niko won’t touch you without me with you.”

  Sasha swayed slightly. Trace darted over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Should you be up? What’s wrong with you, anyway?”

  A shudder went through Sasha as he leaned into Trace a little more. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

  Dr. Niko looked hard at Sasha and shook his head. “You need to feed.”

  “I will later. For now did you figure out what you needed to about Trace? Is he better?”

  “Eh, physically he seems to be fine. I’d like to examine his back to compare it to how it was when you first brought him in, but otherwise, he’s in top shifter health. It’s his mental health that concerns me.”

  Trace cringed and Sasha turned to look up at him. “What do you mean? Trace, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Shouldn’t we be more worried about your uncle and your bride-to-be?” He knew he sounded waspish, but the idea of Sasha married to some female, vampire or otherwise, made him ill and angry all at the same time. Just because they weren’t going to be mates didn’t mean Sasha could go have sex and bond with some… some vampire slut!

  “I’m not marrying Tatiana, Trace. But do you think we could have this discussion while sitting? I’m still a little tired.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry, Sasha.” Trace pulled Sasha over to the chair he’d abandoned only a short time before and practically shoved him down into it. “You sure you don’t need something to eat or drink?”

  “Normal food and drink won’t help him right now, Trace,” Dr. Niko said from behind Trac
e. “He needs to feed.”

  “Which I will do when there aren’t any shifters around, thanks. As for my uncle, I’ve sent for him. Dimka and Summer believe whoever is behind this is setting him up. I have to agree. While I don’t overly care for some of his ideas and attitudes, he would never attack the lynx, not of this particular tribe, at least.”

  “Um, why?” Keith asked.

  Trace didn’t know where to sit. All the other chairs were farther away from the one Sasha was now using. And oddly he really didn’t want to be away from Sasha.

  “Trace, mal’chik, sit on the floor beside me. You can participate in the meeting and I can help keep you calm that way.”

  He immediately knelt beside Sasha’s chair, then relaxed against the side of it and Sasha’s leg when Sasha trailed his fingers through Trace’s hair.

  “My uncle is my mother’s brother, and he well remembers what happened to the band of renegades who attacked and killed my sister and her fated heart, the last Chosen of Baast your tribe had. I told you this story before—my father and his people destroyed them. I helped, but I was young, so it was more him and his warriors. I’m not that young boy now, and I am not known for my patience or tolerance when it comes to those I care for or protect being hurt.”

  “So wh-whoever is doing this is c-counting on you retaliating b-based on what Trace would t-tell you?” Jason asked, the color draining from his face.

  “And what was found in their rooms. Yes. If we believed what we found, my uncle would already be in custody awaiting trial and execution. If I didn’t kill him outright.”

  “Are you r-really that r-ruthless, Sasha?” Jason’s eyes were huge as he stared at his friend. Trace felt sorry for the human. It had to be hard to reconcile the vampire and the best friend in one.

  Sasha sighed and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Hon, don’t get me wrong. He would have time to defend himself, to show that he wasn’t guilty if he wasn’t. But this isn’t the human world. You don’t really live in that world anymore—you haven’t for a long time. Think about it—if Keith hadn’t killed the previous alpha when he did, you would be dead, and all those who had joined him would have been killed or at least tortured and brought back in line. The ones with human mates and children would have lost them to the old alpha’s abuse and evil nature by now. Do you hold it against Keith that he has to be hard and at times violent?”