by Lynn Hagen
That was not happening.
The mating heat shot through him like a solar flare and was crawling up his groin and setting his damn balls on fire. His cock was hard as hell, and Jaycee looked so damn good standing there that it took every ounce of self-restraint to stop him from grabbing his mate and tossing him on the bed. Jaycee had no clue how close Wolf was to doing just that.
Goddamn this heat.
“Why would you want to leave?” Wolf asked as he spread his arms wide, ignoring the raging war going on inside his body. “This place has everything you could ever want in a home.” Including him.
“Because it’s not my home,” Jaycee pointed out as his left foot slid back, taking him closer to the door. “Dude, I don’t even know you from Jack.”
“Who the hell is Jack?” Wolf asked with a slight growl as he took a step forward, feeling his beast wanting to unleash itself on this so-called Jack person. Jaycee was his zaterio and no one was taking the human away from him. “Is he someone I need to—” Wolf took a step back, taking in a deep breath of air. That’s it. It was official. Either the mating heat was going to do him in, or Jaycee was. Both were driving him batty as fuck!
“It’s a phrase,” Jaycee said as he cocked his head to the side, wisps of black hair fringing his face as he stared at Wolf cautiously. Wolf did not want to see the look of fear and hesitation on his mate’s face. He wasn’t trying to frighten the man, but gods if the man wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t safe out there in the first place for humans, but now that the hounds new about Jaycee, the man didn’t stand a chance. What part of that didn’t he get? “There is no Jack, Wolf.”
Wolf nodded. He was out of his depth here. He didn’t know what to do or say that would make his zaterio stay. After centuries of isolation, he needed charm and seduction. Too bad he was clueless. He was never into head games. Wolf just wanted his mate. He didn’t want to rely on charm and seduction. He just wanted Jaycee to want him.
Was that so hard?
“Look, this has been fun,” Jaycee said as he slid his feet across the marble floor, bringing him even closer to the doorway. “But I have to go to work in the morning. So if you don’t mind, I’m just going to hit the road.”
Wolf felt helpless. It was something he didn’t care to feel. He was a damn winged beast. Helpless was not something he was accustomed to feeling. But he knew he couldn’t force Jaycee to stay. Any kind of force would void the claiming. If he made Jaycee afraid of him, and his mate said no when Wolf tried to claim him, the bond wouldn’t form.
He was so screwed.
He also had two days to claim Jaycee before he went mad. This was not shaping up to be one of his better days.
Okay. From what Jaycee was grasping here, Wolf wasn’t one of the bad guys. Maybe. The jury was still out on that one. But that didn’t mean he was staying. He wasn’t born yesterday. This may be a perfect place to call home, but as he stated to Wolf, this wasn’t his home. What the hell did he look like shacking up with some guy he just met?
His mom would kick his ass if Jaycee did something as stupid as that.
“So you’re saying I can’t leave this place…ever?”
Wolf shrugged. “If I’m with you, then you can go wherever you want. But you are not going back home. It isn’t safe.”
Jaycee rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, wondering what he was going to do. Wolf was way too big to try to wrestle with, and being injured, Jaycee wasn’t going to be that fast.
Shit and double shit.
For a moment Jaycee wondered if he was still unconscious, dreaming all of this. But even he didn’t have the imagination it took to conjure something like this up. It had to be real. And that thought freaked him the hell out. “What are you?”
The man blinked at Jaycee, and then smiled, showing those damn fangs that were scaring the shit out of Jaycee. “I am a winged beast,” Wolf answered as if proud of the fact.
Right. That didn’t clear a damn thing up. “I’m going to take a wild stab here and say that means you aren’t human.”
Wolf shook his head.
Jaycee’s thoughts began to tumble, splintering into a million pieces as he staggered slightly, walking back toward the bed. He wasn’t sure if he just had this conversation a moment ago, but Jaycee wanted to be very clear on the subject before he flipped out.
There was nothing worse than flipping out on a misunderstanding, and Jaycee was very good at freaking the hell out and then thinking things through later. Yeah, he had always had an overactive imagination, but this was beyond anything he could have ever thought of.
A winged beast?
Crap.
“What exactly is a winged beast?”
“I am a vampire with wings…and a little something else thrown in for good measure,” Wolf stated with a chuckle. Jaycee didn’t get the joke.
He glanced around the room as if in a dream, and then his anger thundered through the room. His body was vibrating with anger and confusion. It confused him that Wolf was standing there telling him all of this like it was normal. It confused him that he had stumbled into some unknown world with hounds and winged vampires when all he had been trying to do was go home from work. And it really confused him the way Wolf kept looking at Jaycee like he was the jam to the man’s jelly. He grabbed some small glass figurine from the side table and hurled it at Wolf. “Stay the fuck away from me!”
Overreaction kicking in big-time.
“Calm down, Jaycee.” Wolf held his hands up in front of him in a nonthreatening manner. Jaycee wasn’t falling for it. The man had just claimed to be some weird freaking vampire and even had fangs!
“Don’t use my damn name. You could be trying to put a damn hex on me or something,” he replied furiously.
Wolf twisted his lips to the side, giving him a look as if Jaycee was daft. “I’m a winged beast, not a voodoo priest.”
“Same difference,” Jaycee snarled as he backed away, looking for something else to toss at the man. He jumped up onto the bed, scooting quickly across it as he kept his eyes on Wolf. He hated arguing, fighting even more, but he was scared. He didn’t know where he was or what was going on around him. Wolf wasn’t human, and Jaycee was terrified the man was going to try something evil. He didn’t know what a winged beast was, and Wolf could be blowing smoke up his ass when he said he wasn’t going to hurt Jaycee. How did he know Wolf was telling the truth? He didn’t. “If you try and eat me, I’ll kick your ass.”
Wolf crossed his arms over his chest, giving Jaycee a look that said yeah right. That look pissed Jaycee off even further. He may be human, and unable to fight Wolf, but fuck if he was lying down and taking whatever Wolf had in mind. He had only one arm to hurl the objects, but Jaycee was going to try his best to clobber the man in the head. That was the only way he was going to make it out of this room.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Fuck you,” Jaycee said angrily as he got to his feet on the opposite side of the bed. “Put yourself in my shoes.”
“I am not going to hurt you.”
Jaycee froze, blinking his eyes a few times and staring directly at Wolf’s mouth. He knew for damn sure that Wolf’s lips hadn’t moved. “Did–Did you just talk to me in my head?” He swallowed hard, wondering if he hadn’t stepped into a real nightmare. If he had, at least the nightmare held a very hot guy.
Shit, he needed to stop thinking like that. The guy wasn’t human and all Jaycee could do was check the man’s package out. He needed his head examined. Wolf may be the first man to show Jaycee some attention, but it was attention he was pretty sure he didn’t want. Jaycee just couldn’t understand why the first guy to notice him in a heated way hadn’t been human. His luck hadn’t been all that great, but Jaycee didn’t think it was that bad.
“I’m going to ignore the whole talking in my head thing,” Jaycee said as he glanced around, spotting a book lying on a small table. He grabbed it, hefting it toward Wolf, who dodged it easily. “I’m going to ignore
it because I’m going insane. You did not just talk to me in my head. I just imagined that.”
“If it makes you sleep better at night,” Wolf said as he stood there, his big beefy arms crossed over a very broad chest.
“What would make me sleep better at night is going home and being in my own bed. Will you let me go?” Jaycee asked, although he already knew that answer.
“No,” Wolf replied as he shook his head. “The hound that came after you may be dead, but rest assured, the others know about you now.”
“Others?” There were more of those things? Just facing one had made Jaycee want to piss himself, and there were more? Maybe Wolf’s offer wasn’t so bad. Jaycee paused in his search for missiles as he thought about another one of those things coming after him. “What about my roommates? Are they safe?”
“It was you who was marked, not them,” Wolf said as he sat on the side of the bed, resting his arms on his thick thighs. Damn if the man didn’t look good against the white spread. Jaycee wanted to see what Wolf—No, he didn’t. He had to stop lusting after this lunatic. He forced himself to concentrate on the conversation, ignoring his horny cock.
“Marked? Please stop feeding me tidbits of what is going on and give it to me all at once.”
Wolf’s emerald-green eyes looked wary. It might be the whole throwing things at the man, or it could be that fact that Jaycee was freaking the hell out. But Jaycee didn’t care. He wanted answers. He knew he overreacted first and then thought things through later, but anyone would lose their minds if they went from their ordinary lives to this in a span of just a few hours. No one could blame him for overreacting.
Wolf rubbed his hand over his chin, eyeing Jaycee warily. “I’m not sure you can handle what I have to say. You seem perfectly happy throwing things at me instead of calmly sitting down and listening.”
Jaycee felt the heat rush to his face, but wasn’t going to apologize for his behavior. It was the only thing perfectly normal around here. “I would say sorry, but you have to admit, the things you are telling me aren’t something a human hears every day.
Great, now he was using the word human. Jaycee watched as a smile spread across Wolf’s face. The smile filled his face, giving it personality and charm. He knew Wolf was a good-looking man, but his smile seemed to amplify his green eyes and fantastic mouth. A mouth that would look good wrapped around his—Stop it!
The man was smiling as if he knew Jaycee was lusting after him. There was no way the man could know, but hell if Wolf’s eyes weren’t glimmering with the knowledge. He cleared his throat and the heat left his eyes, replaced by a touch of anger. “When a hound goes after someone on purpose, that person is marked. There is nothing anyone can do to stop a hound but kill him.”
“But you just said the one that came after me is dead,” Jaycee pointed out. “So it should be safe for me now, right?”
Wolf slowly shook his head. Jaycee had a bad feeling about what the guy was about to say. “There are other hounds. They will take up the hell dweller’s task. Theo was marked, but the hell dwellers after him are still alive. We fight to keep Theo alive. Now we will fight to keep you alive.”
Gee, just like that. No big deal. Wolf said it as if it was an everyday occurrence.
Jaycee wanted to ask who the hell Theo was. It bothered him that he felt a pang of jealously at the mention of another man’s name coming from Wolf. He didn’t know Wolf. Why should Jaycee care who Theo was?
“So until all the hell dwellers are dead, I’m screwed?”
The next smile Wolf gave him was sad. It softened his features, but didn’t make Jaycee feel at ease. “I’m afraid that killing all of the dwellers is an impossible task, zaterio. There are as many dwellers as there are humans, if not more.”
Shit.
“How? If there were that many, wouldn’t we know about them?”
“Hell is a very large place. It is filled with dwellers. They have always dwelled in hell, until recently. Many have been freed by a madman named Boromyr. We cannot put the hounds back once they are free, so we must kill them.”
Jaycee took a seat on the side of the bed. He forgot about his fit and took in everything Wolf was telling him. It was too much. It was impossible, but hell if Jaycee didn’t believe every word. He had seen things that were impossible in the past few hours. He didn’t want to believe that the things going on could be true, but he wasn’t going to stick his head in the sand and pretend they weren’t. “So, in other words, I’m stuck here because they will keep coming after me until I’m dead?”
“Exactly.”
“But,” Jaycee began, shaking his head, trying to understand it all, “why me?”
“That I do not know. I’m guessing that they knew you were my zaterio. Although I haven’t a clue how they would know.”
Jaycee furrowed his brows at the word Wolf kept using. He knew it was some sort of endearment from the way the guy was using it, but he didn’t know what it meant. “What is a zaterio?”
Wolf’s eyes gleamed with something Jaycee couldn’t decipher. The green seemed to lighten as he smiled at Jaycee. For a second in time, Jaycee became lost in that smile. It was as if the moon and the stars themselves had come down and were sparkling right in front of him. Jaycee shook his head, chasing away those ridiculous thoughts. Granted, it was a stunning look, but Jaycee shouldn’t be comforted by it.
He should be trying to get the hell out of here.
Wolf tilted his head, giving Jaycee a boyish look with a touch of that smile lingering. “It means that you are my mate. You are to spend the rest of eternity at my side, Jaycee.”
“Says who?” Jaycee squeaked as he jumped up from the bed, his head spinning at what Wolf had just told him. “You may be hot, but you’re still a damn stranger, a nonhuman stranger.”
“That can be remedied,” Wolf said as he stood, walking around the bed, quickly closing the gap between them.
“Back off!” Jaycee warned as his back hit the wall. He ground his back teeth when pain shot down his injured arm. Damn, that hurt. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Don’t think about what, Jaycee?” Wolf asked, but his eyes told Jaycee that the man knew exactly what Jaycee was referring to. It was a heated look that told Jaycee that Wolf wanted many hours of pleasure from him.
Jaycee stared at Wolf, feeling tightness in his groin. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t even know Wolf. His body argued that that wasn’t important, but Jaycee knew that it was. He wanted to have some sort of emotional attachment to a guy before jumping into bed. Jaycee had always felt that way, even if no one had given him the time of day yet. He knew he couldn’t just drop his pants and have at it. That wasn’t him.
Jaycee just did not do casual sex.
His roommates had called him a prude, but he wasn’t going to change who he was, not for them, and not for Wolf. No matter how sexy the man…er…thing…er…beast…was.
“About remedying a damn thing, Wolf,” Jaycee finally answered. “Just back the hell off.”
“I would not touch you against your will, Jaycee.” The anger slipped back into Wolf’s eyes. Jaycee could deal with anger better than lust. Anger was something he was familiar with. Lust was something that was baffling him. It was scaring him more than the things after him. Jaycee wasn’t sure how to handle the emotions rushing through him right now. They felt wonderful and terrifying at the same time. His cock was rock hard, and his heart was beating out of control. But the predominant feeling was fear.
Wolf was a very big man.
Wolf tilted his head back and gave one good sniff to the air, his eyes darting to Jaycee, and Jaycee watched as the heat left Wolf’s eyes as he took a step back. “Are you hungry?” Wolf asked, throwing Jaycee way off with the quick change in subject. He hadn’t been expecting that question.
“A little,” he replied nervously. “But you just admitted that you were a vampire. Doesn’t that mean you drink blood and hang upside down in
a cave when you sleep?”
“Where in the hell did you hear that one?” Wolf asked.
“What, the drinking blood?”
“No, the hanging upside down part.”
“So you do drink blood?”
Wolf gave him a hesitant glance and then sighed. “I am a vampire, Jaycee. I drink blood to sustain my life, but I also eat food. We have a very well-stocked kitchen. Come on, let’s go eat.”
“Okay, but if we end up in some sort of feeding room, I’m staking you through the heart, buddy.” Jaycee walked around the side of the bed, hurrying toward the door.
“The only feeding room you are going to is the kitchen. Although, some of the men eat as if they are in front of a trough.” Wolf chuckled as he followed behind Jaycee.
Jaycee had a feeling Wolf was staring at his ass as he walked out of the bedroom.
Chapter Three
Wolf was so damn pumped that his mate made it through the attack that he wanted to do a little happy dance. His zaterio was safe, awake, and ornery as hell.
Gods, he was in love.
He understood that his mate was scared. But what confused him was the scent of fear on Jaycee when Wolf had gotten closer. All he had wanted was a kiss. The negative emotion coming off of his zaterio had confused Wolf. Why would Jaycee fear a kiss?
“Hey, Wolf, who do we have here?” Nikoli, one of the winged beasts, asked as he walked down the hallway, taking a drink from a glass filled with what looked to be ice tea. Wolf’s eyes snapped to his mate, watching Jaycee run his hands over one of the bedroom doors. The wood was ornately carved with symbols, spells their leader, Nazaryth, had placed on the mountain to keep anyone from finding them and to keep them safe.