Authors: Marcy Jacks
Tags: #none
Handcuffed to the Werewolf
33
Chapter Six
James DeWitt, alpha werewolf and leader of his pack, had to signal to Adam, one of the lower alphas, to stop Isaac before he could pull out one of his guns and shoot Deacon in the face.
Isaac was a human, and probably the only former hunter in existence to be made welcome within a werewolf pack.
That was only because he was mated to an omega within James’s ranks, the omega Deacon was lusting after and wanted James to hand over in exchange for Mick, James’s best friend’s, life.
Tristan.
It really was too early in the morning to be dealing with this.
“I’m going to make sure you die this time, you fucking piece of dog shit!” Isaac snarled. The guy had one of the worst mouths James had ever heard. Kind of appropriate at the moment.
“If you kill him, then we’ll never find Mick.” Or the human Deacon had taken just to be cruel.
James couldn’t take weeks with his war planning, because there was no way he was going to hand Tristan over this this asshole. Not like he’d done the last time.
A search-and-rescue party would have to be sent out, Christ, ten minutes ago if he hoped to find Mick any time soon.
He should never have let Mick go off hunting all alone. He should have gone with him, like he was supposed to.
“He’s too far away, James. You will never sniff him out,” Deacon said, as though reading his thoughts. “And Mickey will never be able to escape my prison without my say-so, not with how I’ve set it up.”
“Let me kill him, James,” Isaac said, his hands twitching to pick
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up the Glocks that were holstered at his hips. The twins, Eli and Eric, had to come forward and stand close to him, should Isaac decide to
fight against Adam.
Their normally cheerful faces were all alpha at the moment, ready to spring on Isaac, or Deacon, should James order it. Morgan was out there in the woods, keeping watch from a distance, like he preferred to do.
“Does it bother you that Tristan bears my bite?” Deacon said, sneering the words at Isaac. “That I have already marked him as mine? Do you look at that wound on his neck every time you fuck him? I am always with you, you know.”
Adam had to grab Isaac by the shoulders again before he could launch himself at Deacon in an attempt at another brawl, and Eli and Eric did have to step in and help. James pressed his lips together, suppressing a glare at his newest friend, despite what an idiot he was being.
Isaac had been shot just four weeks ago, and his human body was still healing from that ordeal. Not to mention that he walked with a small limp now and would never be able to take on a werewolf in a hand-to-hand fight like that.
Deacon laughed at Isaac’s rage. He’d come alone, but the leverage he carried was enough that he was more than protected, and James knew it.
“I love what you’ve done with the place, James,” Deacon said, looking over their shoulders at the piles of lumber they were using to fix up the old cottages, and even build some new ones. “Strapped for cash, the last I heard. Who’s funding your little project here?”
It was none of his business that Isaac was the one doing this for
them.
“Your terms aren’t going to change?” James asked. He felt Isaac’s
eyes burning into the side of his head, but he ignored it.
“I want what’s mine,” Deacon said, glaring.
James nodded. “Give us a couple of hours to think it over.”
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“You have one,” Deacon said, raising his finger, as though James didn’t know what one meant. “One hour. If I don’t have my prize by then, Mickey dies. If I so much as catch the faintest of scents of any of your wolves following me, he dies. Then I’ll send my new hunter friends over here to meet you just for shits and giggles.”
“Fine,” James said with a glare.
Deacon grinned and shifted, the process taking a good ten seconds, then ran through the trees with a speed James wouldn’t have thought he possessed, considering the time it took for him to get into his wolf form.
“There’s no way in hell we’re handing Tristan over,” Isaac said, immediately rounding on James.
That was the only annoying thing about having a human in your pack. They didn’t have the same respect for his status that the rest of the wolves did.
“Of course not. But we needed to buy some time.”
“Will he know if you send Adam to follow him?” Isaac asked.
James nodded and rubbed his hand over his scarred face. “Yes, the
wind is at his back. He might change direction at any time, but for now we have to wait until I send someone sniffing after him. Until then, however, I can send someone to track Mick’s scent from where
he disappeared. It wasn’t that long ago that his scent would vanish completely, and we might get an idea of where they took him. Which direction at least,” he added.
Isaac nodded, apparently satisfied with that plan. “Okay, I’m going to wake Tristan up.”
James nodded. “Yeah, he’ll need to know what’s happening.”
“Not just that,” Isaac said over his shoulder. “Apparently, I have one hour to teach him how to fire a gun with silver bullets in it.”
James shook his head. Fucking hunters.
* * * *
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By the time dawn cracked, Mick had long since grown tired, and he’d only been running for maybe two and a half to three hours.
Though Jason tried, it was difficult for him to hang on to Mick’s neck without letting the silver pair of handcuff’s touch Mick’s skin. More than once he’d had to adjust his position on Mick’s back, andmore than once Mick had been burned by the silver.
It felt like getting a sudden horsefly bite. Sharp and quick, and hurt like a bitch.
It wouldn’t be anything Mick couldn’t handle if it wasn’t so draining on his energy. He’d lost his momentum about twenty minutes ago, and soon was only proceeding at the speed of a brisk walk.
“I said stop! Let me down, you’re tiring yourself out,” Jason snapped into his ear for the second time, and Mick was in no mood to argue. He stopped.
More like fell over onto his stomach. Jason all but leaped off of him and was on his knees at Mick’s side in an instant. Mick could
sense the other man’s worry just from his body language and breathing, and he was glad he had someone around who cared whether or not he lived or died.
“What can I do to make it better? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you with the silver.”
“It’s all right,” Mick said in a half slur. He was so tired he could have passed out. “You did great. I expected to have to slow down a lot sooner than this. Just wanted to go farther,” he said.
Jason looked around, because of the trees, any dawn light that peeked through the eastern horizon was shaded, but everything still looked yellow and glowed with life.
It made Jason look beautiful. His cock and balls twitched for what
seemed like the millionth time that night. The desperate need to mate with his chosen, the instinct to take him, would not leave and wait for
a more appropriate time.
Maybe Mick would still live after all.
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“I don’t recognize where we are.”
Mick managed to lift his head and look around.
He didn’t have a clue either. They should be only a couple of hours outside of his pack territory, though. Might as well be on Mars for all it mattered. Mick couldn’t get them there.
He was going to pass out.
“Wait, I see something through the trees,” Jason said.
That was nice. Mick closed his eyes.
“Holy shit, it’s a camper!”
Mick’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
He tried to look up, to see what Jason was seeing, and he should have been able to do that, but everything in the distance was a blur.
“Right there, see it?” Jason waved his arms, hoping to get the attention of whoever owned the camper that Mick couldn’t see.
“Don’t call out for them,” Mick said, his survival instincts kicking in to the point where he could remember some of the basic things.
“If we’ve got people following us, we don’t want them hearing that we’re here.”
Jason stopped waving and lowered his arms. “Could that camper belong to hunters?”
His sight was leaving him, but his nose should still work. Mick inhaled deeply and scented nothing. No breakfast cooking, no laundry drying in the wind, not even any recent campfires.
No people.
“I don’t think anyone’s home.”
Jason grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to haul him up.
Tried to
being the key words. He could barely lift Mick’s shoulder. “Get up. If there’s no one there, then they won’t mind if we use their place to rest for a little bit, and after the ride you gave me, you need it more than I do.”
Oh, Mick’s brain thought naughty, dirty thoughts when Jason said those words. He couldn’t help but chuckle.
Jason grabbed him by the arm again and, using the strength of his
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one hand, the one that didn’t have that evil silver bracelet around the
wrist, managed to get Mick halfway up.
Mick pooled all of his strength down to his legs and got the rest of the way, still leaning heavily on Jason as they walked.
“What’s it look like?” Mick asked, seeing the brown blur coming closer as they walked, but he wanted the details.
“It looks like a newer model. Maybe its shower will be running, and there might be some spare clothes for you.”
A shower.
Please, baby Jesus in heaven, let there be a working shower in there.
“I’ve heard of some people who did this. Bought campers and basically parked them and used them as cottages.”
Mick’s first thought was that it was probably better that there were no more humans around to get hurt should the hunters be on their trail. But then the next thing he immediately experienced was the extreme letdown he felt that there were no people there to help Jason. People nowadays tended to stay connected, and had there been people, Mick could have borrowed a cell phone, something that would call for help.
Lacking that, he’d settle for finding a saw, if these people kept tools and separating them as soon as possible.
Of course, the door was locked. But, seeing as this was only a camper, despite Mick’s weakened state, he had no trouble taking hold of the door latch and pulling until he forced the door open.
Jason helped him inside, and they shut the door behind them as quietly as possible, as though they were afraid of disturbing the birds.
There was a padded bench immediately in front of the door, and Mick gratefully let himself fall onto it, luxuriating in how good the tough floral material, which was dusty as all hell, felt on his face.
Like sleeping on a cloud for all he cared.
His body only half shut down after that. His instincts refused to let him go completely under when they were being pursued by hunters and Jason was all by himself, but he still managed to doze a little. His
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ears remained open to all the sounds Jason made, even in Mick’s
dreams.
He was pulled awake, literally, by a tugging on his arm.
“Mick, you have to get up now. I think the bedroom’s in the back, and the bathroom should be in there.”
Mick pulled himself up, feeling a strange material sliding off his body. He looked down and noted the white cotton table cloth.
“It was the only thing I could find in here to give you for a blanket.”
Mick so wanted to grab him and fall asleep with Jason in his arms. Instead he grabbed the table cloth, wrapped it around his hips, and dozily followed his mate to the back of the camper.
“Did you find anything else?”
“No,” Jason answered, sounding about as pleased about that as Mick felt. “No cell phones, no radio, no food. These people haven’t been here in a while. But I still want to check the bathroom and
bedroom. Maybe there’s a first aid kit in there somewhere and some
clothes that will fit us.”
That gave Mick some hope, because, though he could live without clothes, they would still be nice to have. Jason, on the other hand, would need some shoes before they could proceed any farther.
Mick saw the surprisingly nice bed and wanted to lie in it, but Jason apologized to him and brought him into the tiny bathroom instead. It was made to be small, and with the two of them, it was