by Odessa Lynne
A tremor cracked his voice, but he was realizing how close he’d come to pushing Kem too far. He hopped on one foot, trying to get the damn pants off as fast as he could get his leg out. He grabbed the hem of the leg and yanked and thudded back against the wall again.
He would never forget the way his heart pounded as Kem stalked across the room toward him, jumped up on the bed and walked over it, then jumped down again right in front of Devon, his feet hitting the floor with a hard thump that Devon could feel to his bones.
“Why did you leave this room? You know how dangerous it is for you here right now.” Kem’s voice had gone deep and dark and his gaze kept roaming over Devon’s naked body. Devon kicked the pants off his other foot and stood there.
Kem sniffed Devon’s throat and Devon raised his chin. Teeth scratched his skin. He flattened his hands on the wall beside him. “I was hungry.”
Kem’s hands landed on his ribs. “You’re lying.”
Devon swallowed. “I am hungry. That’s not a lie.”
“You were spying on me. On us.”
Might as well be blunt. He licked his bottom lip. “I want to go home. Thought I might hear something that would give me a way out.”
“We’ve mated,” Kem said. “I have a witness.”
“Shotgun weddings never work out,” Devon said.
Kem’s brow furrowed.
“It’s—never mind.”
“You can’t leave.”
The window was right beside him. He turned his head and looked through the curtains to the woods beyond. Ian was here.
Devon blinked, closing his eyes longer than necessary, then shook his head. “No. Not leaving.”
“You’ll be my life. As I’ll be yours. That’s what true mates do.”
Devon cleared his throat. “Got it.”
Kem trailed his breath across Devon’s chest and Devon fought a pleasant shiver that seemed determined to make his dick harden.
“You didn’t take a shower.” As if Devon had not done so deliberately to please Kem.
“I would’ve but I was in a hurry.”
“Ah.”
“Hey. You don’t seem to like it when I lie. Just trying to prove I’ve submitted.”
Kem pulled away and stared down at Devon, green eyes bright, but not quite focused. His lashes fluttered as he seemed to take in another deep breath. “You say ridiculous things, but you smell like submission. I’ve had you on your knees and we’ve mated. You’re covered in my scent and you left it on you so no one would think they could have you without a fight.”
“That’s really not what I was thinking.”
Kem’s frown deepened. “That’s what it means.”
“It means I was afraid I’d miss my chance to go through your stuff.”
Kem’s lip pulled back from his teeth, but he wasn’t grinning. Devon wasn’t sure what the hell kind of expression Kem was giving him but he showed a lot of teeth, and those eyeteeth were a stark reminder of Kem’s alien nature.
Anger? Disappointment? Devon couldn’t be sure of anything.
“I heard—” Devon pressed the pads of his fingertips harder to the wall. “I heard you talking about my friend. Ian. I heard you. I need to see him. Make sure he’s alright.”
Kem’s gaze flickered across Devon’s face. “You can’t see him.”
“I just want to know everything’s okay with him. He shouldn’t be here. He’s—”
“He belongs to Alpha.”
“He doesn’t deserve—”
“Alpha claimed him as a heat mate. Your friend submitted. I was there.”
Devon felt his temper stirring. “What do you mean? Ian’s not like me. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with g—uh, that’s—”
Kem had pressed his warm hand to Devon’s dick.
Kem brought his mouth down onto Devon’s shoulder, hot moist air causing a flush of goose bumps across Devon’s skin. “My heat cycle’s coming on again.”
Devon gripped Kem’s wrist, and he felt the flex of muscle under his fingers. “I want to know that Ian’s okay.”
Kem raised his head and looked at Devon. “Why?” Then Kem’s head tilted and his nostrils flared on a softly indrawn breath. “You’re worried.”
“Of course I am. He’s my friend. I’ve known him for years and he—”
“He belongs to Alpha now,” Kem interrupted. “You can’t see him.”
Devon mashed his lips together in a scowl. He looked at the window beside him. “He could be in trouble.”
“He is fine.” Kem crowded closer to Devon, moving his hands to Devon’s shoulders. “He has other concerns right now.”
“Who? Ian or your alpha?” Devon shook his head. “I don’t care. I want to see Ian.”
“Submit,” Kem said, almost growling the words. The sharp points of Kem’s claws poked at Devon’s skin.
Devon hissed and shrugged hard. “Let go.”
“Submit.”
“That has nothing to do with—”
“He’s dangerous.”
“Ian?” Devon scoffed. “Ian’s about as dangerous as—”
“No. Alpha. He’ll kill you. You’re a threat. He’ll shred you if you get anywhere near your friend right now.”
“That’s—” Scary. Insane. It didn’t matter. “I want to see him. I want to talk to him.”
“No,” Kem said, giving no quarter.
Devon reached over to the window and flipped the lock.
Kem wrapped his fingers around Devon’s wrist and lowered his arm. Devon stared down at that hand, mouth tight. Kem let him twist his arm free.
Devon turned abruptly and shoved the window up.
Kem’s hand slammed flat onto the glass, the clink of claws a warning.
“Move your hand,” Devon gritted out.
“Was he your mate? Did he fuck you? Is that why you smelled like him, why his scent confused me?”
“None of your goddamn business what he is to me!”
“Submit!”
“The hell I will!”
He knew he’d made a mistake, knew it to his bones, the moment the defiant words came out of his mouth.
Kem spun him around, hand tight on Devon’s arm, and Kem’s other hand grabbed the back of Devon’s neck. He roared, “Submit!” in a tone that raised every hair on Devon’s body.
But it was too late. His temper had been riled and he would back down over his dead body.
“I don’t belong to you!” Devon yelled. “Goddammit, I don’t know who you think you are that you get to claim me. That man upstairs is important to me, but I don’t belong to anyone!” He wrestled with Kem’s iron hold on him.
Devon was so mad he couldn’t think straight. Ian was up there, right now. Who knew what that fucking Alpha had done to him, and it was all Devon’s fault. One hundred gold-dollars, and he might as well have turned his only real friend into a whore for that fucker.
“You are mine. He’ll fight for you or he’ll die. Then you’ll submit to me.” As if the knowledge of someone else’s claim had taken the focus off Kem’s need to make Devon submit and put it on defeating his rival.
Devon felt his stomach clench. He grabbed for Kem’s hands. “No! I—”
The door slammed open, and Devon jerked. I submit, he had intended to say. I submit. Anything to forestall Kem going after Ian, but their yelling had caught someone’s attention this time—maybe the alpha himself.
He felt claws dig into the back of his neck painfully. Kem turned and roared, and whether intentional or not, those claws raked across Devon’s skin with a fiery slash. He could feel the blood welling even as Kem rounded on the intruders and shoved Devon hard against the half-open window behind him, putting himself between the others and Devon. The sill jabbed into Devon’s back and he could feel the itch of warm blood trickling down his neck and over his collarbone. He looked down and realized the blood was flowing too fast down his chest, and he wiped his hand through it.
Too much blood. Shit.
/> He stumbled, his knees weakening in a moment of visceral panic, but then he realized Kem was still roaring, and the wolves had rushed into the room, going straight for Kem.
He could feel the warm breeze coming in through the window at his back drying the sweat that had collected on his skin during the stress of the argument, and he slipped down to his knees.
One of the wolves caught his eyes and there was anger there, but fear too, and the wolf yelled something in the wolves’ language, all while rushing toward Devon.
Devon passed out.
Chapter 10
Devon jerked awake with a heart-pounding gasp to find himself flat on his back. He groaned and tried to move but his hands were tied over his stomach. He came awake quickly after that, jerking at the ropes binding him.
“Stop. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Devon turned his head to see the guy who had been so quiet in the basement standing over him. That was when he realized he was on the basement floor again, on a blanket and that his neck burned like fire when he moved. “What’s—”
His throat was so dry he started coughing. He curled over on his side with a groan.
“They gave you something. Medicine I think. You’ve been out for hours.”
“What happened?” As soon as he asked he remembered. He grimaced. “Never mind.”
“It was that one that took you, wasn’t it? He did this.”
“Yeah.” Devon said. He raised his hands up. “What’s this about?”
“They said you kept trying to pull off the bandage while you were unconscious so they tied your hands.”
“So untie them then.”
The man’s gaze lingered at Devon’s wrists.
Devon realized someone had put pants back on him along with a thin black t-shirt.
He gestured with his tied hands. “Come on.”
The guy leaned in too close. Devon reared back. The guy smiled and shook his head. The scars on the side of his tanned neck wrinkled. “Are you going to give me any trouble when it’s time to get out of here?”
“What?”
The guy stared at him again, this time with eyebrows raised. He glanced over his shoulder at the stairs leading up into the house. “You heard me.”
Devon pushed with his foot and used the leverage to help himself sit up. He ended up with his face too close to the guy’s thigh and had to scoot back a few feet. That put his back to a block wall.
“I’m good,” Devon said. “I could use some fresh air.”
A hollow feeling settled into his stomach. He couldn’t shake the confusion gripping him. What had happened to Kem? He raised his hands to his neck and felt the edge of a thick bandage.
“I looked,” the guy said. “You should probably be dead. One of them did something for your injury before they brought you down. You’ve been taped up good. Doesn’t look like the stuff they use in the hospitals around here.”
Devon looked around the basement and realized Lennie was sitting on the far side of the room with Lamar and Sebastian at the table.
“I’m supposed to give you this every few hours so you don’t die from those germs they carry in their claws.”
Devon nodded, looking at the bottle of yellow liquid the man was dangling in front of him. The wolves had helped humans develop many medicines and vaccines in those first few years, some of them specifically to target bacteria the wolves had brought to Earth with them. Deep scratches could become infected with a few virulent strands of bacteria that seemed to spread only through their claws. That particular bacteria couldn’t be treated with anything other the medicines the wolves had created for them.
The chance that he’d be okay without that medicine was probably slim to none, although he didn’t know that for sure.
He stuck his hands out again. “Untie me.”
The man hunkered down and set the bottle on the concrete floor beside Devon’s thigh. He reached for the rope. Too quiet for anyone else to hear, the guy said, “If you give me any trouble I’ll kill you and tell your friend you died at the hands of the wolves.”
Devon narrowed his eyes on the man and said tightly, “What friend?”
“You’re not stupid, Fletcher.”
“You’re one of Brendan’s new guys.”
The man let out a huff of breath that was a cross between a laugh and a snort. “If that’s what you want to think.”
The rope fell away from his wrists and Devon rubbed his skin. He had a few burns across the back of one wrist but the rope hadn’t been tight enough to cut off his circulation. He started to move again, but when he leaned to the side everything abruptly shifted and he had to catch himself until the wave of dizziness passed.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
The guy sat back on his heels and turned to watch Lennie approach them.
“What the hell are you whispering about over here?” Lennie spoke loud enough for everyone in the basement to hear him.
“None of your fucking business,” the guy said, looking back at Devon with a look that said keep your mouth shut while getting to his feet.
Devon grabbed the bottle of medicine and pushed himself firmly back against the wall, pulling his knee up toward his chest, bare foot flat on the quilt covering the cold concrete floor. “He’s with the renegades or some shit and has some kind of plan to either get out of here—or more likely, get us all killed.”
The man glared at Devon. “You fucking asshole. I told that shithead you were nothing but trouble.” He drew back his leg like he was about to kick Devon but Devon was ready. He slammed his heel into the guy’s thigh right over his knee and the man’s leg buckled. The guy yelped and landed hard on his other knee. Devon threw himself forward and grabbed the guy’s t-shirt at the collar and twisted it hard around his fist, pulling it tight around the guy’s neck.
“I don’t care how sick I am, or how hurt, you better never threaten me again if you can’t follow through before I kill you first. You got it, asshole?”
The man shoved at Devon’s unrelenting grip. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
“Then get the fuck away from me,” Devon said. “And stay away.”
The guy gave him a look of disgust and stood up. He shouldered past Lennie who watched the guy’s back the entire trip across the room.
Lennie turned his gaze on Devon.
Devon smiled at him and it wasn’t a friendly smile. “Got a problem?”
Lennie glanced quickly over his shoulder and then back at Devon, his scowl darkening but his curiosity stronger than his aggravation. “What’s going on with him? What kind of plan?”
Lennie was probably one of the only people here that Devon had believed when he’d explained why he’d been in the wolves’ territory, so although Devon didn’t like him, he felt a compulsion to warn him about the trouble that was probably on the way.
The trackers he’d configured for Brendan were a new batch, using new protocols that might, possibly, make them harder to detect and find, and if that were the case, someone here could right now be giving away the location of this den to the renegades Brendan had rallied together over the last couple of years. Considering how long Devon had been stuck here with the rest of these people, he didn’t think any of them would have been the carrier. Since he hadn’t seen the first sign of Ian, Devon would guess Ian or someone else caught more recently had to be the one.
He’d tried not to let himself hate Brendan, but he couldn’t deny it anymore. The guy he’d met the year after the wolves came no longer existed. Brendan was a total bastard these days and Devon wasn’t going to let him get away with this shit any longer.
Devon squeezed his fingers around the bottle of medicine and used his other hand to brush away a sheen of sweat off his brow. He noticed his hand shaking.
Lennie frowned at him. “Your face is getting red as a tomato.”
“I’m gonna be—”
D
evon lurched to his feet, moving as fast as he could. He held onto the bottle of medicine and staggered to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He fell to his knees already emptying his stomach. He fumbled the bottle and barely caught it before it hit the concrete.
He felt weirdly detached from his body, the room wavering around him, tremors cascading through him, a cold chill skittering across his skin so fast it made him catch his breath.
His knees slid out from under him and he sat back on his ass on the cold hard floor. He’d been warned that taking any of the wolves’ medicines would do this to him after the treatments he’d had to cure him. He’d been told that he was lucky the treatment worked, but that he’d developed an intolerance during the process and that he was never to take any of the wolves’ medicines without their supervision because he would get sick and that some of the medicines might not work for him.
Brendan had gotten too involved in the renegade’s movement, already gone too far, and Devon hadn’t tried hard enough to stop it because he’d been caught up in his own dramas, too pissed when he’d realized Brendan was in love with Ian instead of him, and too worried about Geoff and the others, as if their bad choices were his goddamn responsibility, as if it were his job to protect everyone he could from Gran.
The wolves had cured him seven years ago and he couldn’t let Brendan come in here and wipe out another of their dens.
He didn’t know how he would stop it, but—
He had to.
Kem was up there somewhere and Devon didn’t want him to die.
Chapter 11
“Son of a bitch!” Devon leaned his sweat slicked forehead against the door and yelled again. “Open the fucking door!”
He’d startled Lennie when he barreled out of the bathroom two minutes ago. He’d been wiping his mouth on the back of his arm after a quick rinse, but he didn’t have time for anything else. He had tucked the bottle of medicine into his pants’ pocket because at some point he would have to decide between puking his guts out or possibly stopping a life-threatening infection. Not now though. Right now he couldn’t afford to be sick like that and he was just going to have to deal with the pain every time he moved his neck because shit, whatever Kem had done hurt like a son of a bitch.