Heartsblood

  There was a little copse of hickory trees near here, as a matter of fact, where he’d come looking for Logan the day before at about this same time of day.

  He remembered that Logan had been working on a wood detail that day with a few other pets. It was still summertime, and they didn’t need the wood any time soon, but some trees had been cut down nearby earlier in the week so the area needed to be cleared. When Ian got there, he’d stood at the edge of the clearing and watched his pet admiringly for a few minutes, unable to help himself. The saw they were using snarled and rattled in the air around them.

  Logan had taken off his shirt and sweat glistened on those strong muscles in his shoulders and back as he stacked the last pieces of wood he’d chopped. Two other young men were helping, and they had their shirts off as well, but Ian had eyes that day only for Logan, his handsome mate.

  Logan had glanced up from stacking the wood on top of the growing pile and saw Ian standing at the edge of the clearing. He’d wiped his brow with the back of his hand and smiled at him. It was a smile that still had the power to cause a shiver of desire to run down Ian’s spine and lodge firmly in his balls.

  “Hi,” Logan said and squinted up at the sky. “Is it about that time?” He’d dusted his hands together and looked down at his jeans, covered in sawdust. The sawdust clung to his body too, sticking like glue everywhere he’d sweated. Ian would enjoy taking him to the shower in their rooms to help him get cleaned up. He’d run his hands down the long, lean muscles of his back and…Was it normal to still be so crazy about your mate after two years? Marco seemed to be just as wildly in love with Nicky and it had been even longer for them. Of course, they’d had a lot of trouble with their mating, and they were still facing a lot of challenges.

  Nicky had been so hurt when they lost their bloodmatch and Marco had seemed to reject him for a time. He still remembered how difficult it had been not only for them, but for Ian and his own mate during the breakup. Ian was fiercely loyal to his alpha, but he was also loyal to his mate and Logan had been furious with Marco. It had put Ian squarely in the middle. To be honest, he’d known that Marco was making a terrible mistake and told him so after Marco had insisted on signing papers dissolving his union with Nicky.

  Poor Nicky had been so lost when Marco dissolved their mating. Logan had given him money and helped him run away, even though it had broken his heart to lose him. Ian knew about it, of course, but he kept his secrets, his ultimate loyalty to his mate.

  Ian’s mind drifted back to a happier memory—back again to the previous day when Logan had walked toward him after his shift, a huge smile wreathing his face. “What are you thinking about over here? You seem a million miles away.”

  “Just wool gathering. Nothing to worry about. So are you all done here?”

  “Yes, thank God. It’s hot work.”

  Ian laughed softly. “I guess you’re ready for a shower then before we eat.”

  “Or…” Ian stepped up close to him and leaned up to offer his lips. Ian brushed them with his own and settled a hand on his hip, unable not to touch him when he was this close.

  “Or you could come skinny dipping with me in the stream.” Ian said, smiling seductively up at him. “The cold water would feel wonderful on a day like this. Come on, go with me.”

  Logan grabbed the hand off his hip and tugged him toward the woods. A small stream ran down the mountain close to the lodge. Streams proliferated the mountain really, and you never had to travel far to find one. The one Logan was talking about wasn’t deep enough to swim in, but you could sit down in it and let it wash over you. The water coming out of the mountain would be icy cold, but undoubtedly feel wonderful as hot as it was. Besides, it offered an opportunity to get Logan naked even sooner, so the idea was definitely appealing.

  “Let’s go,” he’d said and followed Logan into the woods. It didn’t take long to reach the stream, splashing down the rocks, twisting and flirting its way down the mountain. Logan started shucking his clothes as soon as it came in view, leaving pieces of it trailing along behind him, a sock draping over a fern here and his underpants thrown down beside a rhododendron there. By the time he reached the stream and sank down in the water he was gloriously naked and Ian sat down on a rock beside the stream to admire him.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Logan said, laughing up at him. “Come in here with me. It feels wonderful.”

  “It feels like ice water, and I don’t believe I’m that hot at the moment.”

  “Old man,” Logan teased.

  “I’m only a few years older than you,” Ian huffed. “Well, in human years, that is.”

  “Uh huh. Prove it.”

  Ian growled, but stood up and took off his clothes. He could feel Logan’s warm gaze on him as he stripped, taking in his huge erection with a little smile playing around his lips.

  The first step into the frigid stream was a shock, and made him rethink the whole thing, but as he turned to get out, Logan caught hold of his hand and pulled him down beside him. As the water splashed around his hips, it took his breath—and any ideas about erections—far away from him.

  “Damn it!” he shouted and instinctively tried to rise, but Logan threw himself into his lap, holding him down. Ian simply wrapped his arms around Logan’s waist and picked him up, Logan’s legs wrapping around him as he climbed out onto the bank and lowered Logan to the ground.

  “No fair,” Logan called out, laughing, as Ian settled down beside him and pulled him on top of him. Logan wiggled free and fell down on his back, still smiling. “No, I want to get cooled off,” he protested.

  “I wanted to get you hot,” Ian said, smiling at him and Logan gazed down along Ian’s body. Ian watched his face as he took in every detail, lingering over his cock, which was trying valiantly to rally itself after the shock of the cold water. With a big grin, Logan leaned over Ian’s groin.

  His lips set up a steady pressure, as his velvet tongue slid up and down the skin of Ian’s sensitive shaft, sometimes stopping at the head to nibble or slip down into his slit. Ian writhed beneath him, quickly becoming almost mindless as he gave in to the pleasure. Ian looked up into Logan’s eyes, letting him feel the connection. Logan touched Ian’s hair, threading his fingers through it. Ian squeezed his fists, praying to hold on, loath to lose this kind of pleasure. His balls tightened, and he felt a tingling at the base of his spine. Ian was breathing rapidly by now, trying to hang on, and he just might have made it if Logan hadn’t pulled off a little and licked slowly up his shaft, swirling his tongue over the head. He threw back his head and screamed. Logan pulled off with a little plop and put his other hand around the base of Ian’s cock, squeezing tightly and stopping his orgasm.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” he whispered. “You have to go swimming with me first. Then we play.”

  “And you and Nicky call us evil wolf bastards.”

  “Oh you are, baby,” Logan said, smiling down at him, still gripping his cock. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be evil too.”

  Ian was still smiling at the memory of that day, as he tried again to look up the path in the rapidly dwindling light. It would be twilight soon, and where in the world were Logan and Nicky? Where was Marco for that matter? Ian began to get a very bad feeling about all this and he got restlessly to his feet, praying for a glimpse of Logan coming back down the trail.

  He heard the shouting first, and froze for a second as his heart thumped loudly in his chest. He turned and ran as fast as he could toward the voices. He saw two of his patrol running flat out down the mountain toward him, and even from a distance, Ian could see their faces were blanched of color. As got closer, he could hear what they were yelling. “The Hunters are on the mountain! The alpha’s been shot!”

  * * * *

  Nothing registered at first when the bullet slammed into Marco. It made him jerk and stumble back, and when he looked over at Nicky, he saw his beautiful face freeze in terror. Tears filled up and then drowned his blue eyes, but even then Marco co
uldn’t quite figure out what had happened. He looked down and saw the spreading blood stain on his shirt and still felt very little pain.

  Shock, he thought dimly. He tried to open his mouth to say something comforting to Nicky, something to calm him down, but nothing came out of his throat but a low, guttural moan. Then he had the sensation of falling, but he never felt the impact when he hit the rock he’d been standing on. Marco was actually kind of numb, though he could smell his own blood and an acrid burning smell that made him feel ill. There was lots of blood, come to think of it. Who was it that said nothing in life was so exhilarating as to be shot at without result?

  But Marco was hit. Tate had gotten the result he was aiming for. Though he couldn’t get his eyes open anymore, Marco saw little flashes of lights going off behind his eyelids. He couldn’t hear much either, not even the sound of rushing water that had been so loud just seconds before. Wait, there it was—or was that a roaring in his ears?

  “Marco!” He heard that plainly enough over the rushing sound in his ears and recognized Nicky’s shout in his ear. He could hear the terror in his voice quite clearly, but it didn’t quite touch him. Nicky seemed far away.

  “Marco!” Loud enough, and again, right in his ear. He frowned a little to show Nicky he didn’t like it and tried to sit up. It hurt, and he instantly stopped moving, sucking in a deep breath. When he did, the world came rushing back all at once—the bright sun in his face, the water rushing past, the hard rock beneath his head—and Nicky, squeezing his hand so tightly he groaned again and opened one eye.

  “Ow,” he tried to say, but it came out as a low, guttural sound in his throat. Something wet was sliding off his lips and hitting his chin. He opened his mouth and a few coppery drops hit his tongue. Blood. Nicky’s wrist was pressed to his mouth and he was giving him blood. The hot liquid slid over his tongue and he managed to swallow a little.

  Then Tate was beside them, holding a gun to Logan’s head. “Stop, Nicky, or I’ll shoot your little friend here.”

  Nicky glanced up at Logan, frowning but still stubbornly holding his wrist to Marco’s mouth.

  “Fuck him, Nicky. Don’t stop,” Logan said and Tate jammed the barrel of the gun into his temple. Logan gave a little grunt of pain.

  “Stop giving him blood, Nicky,” Tate repeated and Nicky slowly pulled his wrist away and got to his feet.

  “Logan’s right. Fuck you, Tate. I’m not stopping—you’ll have to shoot me first. Get the hell away from all of us or I’ll kill you.”

  Tate looked him up and down and smirked. “You might at that, except your friend will die before I do. My men there on the bank behind you will finish you and Marco off.”

  Nicky glanced behind him and his jaw tightened. Marco could see and hear everything being said, but it seemed a long way away from him, and happening to someone else. He felt himself fading again while they discussed it. Silver bullet, he thought, and with that he felt a line of pain deep inside going from the entry point to some organ inside his body. It was the path the bullet must have taken. Silver bullets were the only effective weapons against a wolf.

  “Hurt either of them and you’ll die, Tate. I promise you that,” Nicky said. “Sooner or later, but it will happen. I’m not the same person you scared and intimidated all those times before, and I’m not the least bit afraid to die. Not so long as I take you with me.”

  Marco was aware of a little silence falling between them, and he began to fade away as well. Then Tate gave a sharp bark of a laugh and turned Logan loose, stepping back. “Go ahead then. It won’t hurt to keep him alive a while longer, I suppose. Until I can get him back to the labs.”

  Nicky knelt down beside him again and tipped up his head, cradling the back of it in his hand. He spoke soothingly to Marco, nonsense words maybe, or maybe they were just nonsense to Marco. The world had spiraled down to a small dark hole with a shaft of light at the end. Nicky was there and he was trying to get him to swallow his blood. Logan was beside him too, pushing hard at the wound in his side. Trying to stop the bleeding? It was too much to work out, so he let the encroaching darkness cover him as the liquid spilled down his throat and burned a molten path to his chest.

  Chapter Seven

  Nicky half-carried Marco with an arm around his waist, while Logan supported his weight from the other side. Nicky had refused to let Tate’s goons touch Marco, and when one of them got too close and actually poked Marco in the back with his rifle, Tate himself had to intervene to keep Nicky from ripping out the man’s throat.

  Tate had stopped the fight by putting the barrel of his gun against Marco’s head. “Don’t, Nicky. I will kill him.”

  Nicky let the Hunter go reluctantly and got back to his feet. For the first time he was realizing how strong he actually was now, and he wondered at how Marco, and all the wolves who were mated to humans, must have had to constantly monitor their own strength to prevent themselves from hurting their humans accidentally. It would be so simple to crush the guard’s head between his hands.

  Nicky stepped over to Tate and got right up in his face, so close he could feel Tate’s warm breath on the side of his neck. “Muzzle your guards, Jeremy. I won’t stop next time no matter how much you threaten. And then I’ll come for you.”

  Nicky could hear a little hiss of breath and turned his head to smile at him, almost brushing his lips against Tate’s. So Jeremy Tate still responded to his nearness. He stepped back over to sling his arm around Marco’s waist again, pulling him tight against his body. A germ of an idea was growing in his mind, a way he might save both Marco and Logan. It remained to be seen if he could make it work, but mostly it depended on Tate’s ego, which clearly had reached monstrous proportions.

  The small group consisting of the three of them, Tate, and four of his Hunters had almost made it to the outer edge of Marco’s northern property lines when they ran across two of Marco’s patrol. Both young men were well known to Nicky and Logan, of course. They were the twin sons of one of the lead gammas and were just under eighteen.

  When they yelped in surprise and started to growl and transform, Nicky stepped forward with his hands outstretched. “Stop! They have rifles and they’ll shoot.”

  Nicky was actually a little surprised to see that they both stopped for a moment and stared at him, shifting from one foot to the other. They were whining, nervous and anxious, but they recognized his tone of command and were trying to obey. It was still a volatile situation with the armed Hunters behind him and these untried, but eager, young wolves in front of him. Then he heard one of the men behind him make a little noise, and he caught a glimpse of him raising his rifle to his shoulder.

  Before Nicky could think it through, his wolf surged forward. He heard a shredding sound and realized it was his bathing trunks ripping to pieces as he transformed. His wolf fell down on all fours and pounced on top of the Hunter. Distantly, he registered shouting and shots being fired, but the shots must have gone up in the air or over his head, because the wolf didn’t feel any bullets ripping into his skin. His only thought was to protect his pack. After disposing of the human and his gun, the wolf sprang back off the body and fell down in front of his pack members to snarl his defiance at the outsiders. The roaring in his ears had lessened a bit and he could hear someone else calling to him.

  “Nicky, Nicky, stop! They’ll shoot you!”

  The wolf turned his head slightly and saw a human who was a part of his pack—his to protect. He knew that, but didn’t know the human’s name or how he came to belong to him. The human was calling to him again, over and over. “Stop, Nicky! Don’t do this. Marco needs you!”

  The wolf shook his head in confusion. Marco was his too—he knew that name and it made him yearn for something, for someone. He wasn’t sure what it all meant, but his adrenalin was draining away as quickly as it had come. Suddenly exhausted and needing to sleep again, he sank back down inside himself and let the human body come to the forefront.

  Nicky shook his head fr
om side to side and slowly got back up to his feet. He turned to the young wolves behind him. His voice was harsh and probably hard to understand. “Go back to the lodge. There’s nothing you can do here, and we don’t need any more casualties. I’m handling the situation.”

  When they hesitated, looking back and forth at each other, snarling and whining, Nicky heard Tate swear under his breath and a gun cocked behind him. “Go!” Nicky shouted at them, using every bit of steel he could muster to put into his tone. His incisors hadn’t retracted yet and they scraped his lip as he shouted at them. The two young wolves jumped and dove off into the bushes, scrambling for home. He could hear them yipping excitedly to each other as they ran through the trees, headed for the lodge.

  Nicky licked the blood from his lips and hoisted Marco closer. Without another word, he turned and continued down the trail. Behind him, he could hear the Hunters dealing with the dead body, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. All his focus had to be on keeping Marco and Logan alive.

  Once off Marco’s property, the trail narrowed considerably, but they were still able to follow it to the road, about a quarter of a mile farther on. By the time they reached the cars, Marco had passed out again, and he was losing way too much blood, despite the rough bandages he and Logan had wrapped around him to help stop the bleeding.

  Tate opened the back of a big SUV and Nicky laid Marco inside, crawling up beside him. He gave Marco more of his blood, but he knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer. He had to find a way to get Tate to stop the bleeding or Marco wouldn’t make it. The idea of Marco dying slammed into his chest and made it hard to breathe. Logan, who had climbed into the back seat and was bent over it putting pressure on Marco’s wound, must have noticed Nicky trembling a little as the thought struck home. He squeezed Nicky’s arm with a bloody hand and met his bleak gaze with one of his own. Logan, who used to be a Hunter himself, knew these men had little interest in keeping them alive.