Jacks, Marcy - Taken by the Alpha Wolf [DeWitt's Pack 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (6 page)

“Rhyan,” Blasius said, rolling the
 
R
 
in his name like he usually  did.

“No! I’m leaving!” And he did. Ryan turned around and shot out

of there before the other man could so much as jump to his feet.

“Rhyan!” he heard screamed behind him.

Yeah right, like he was going to turn around. He didn’t care if

they hunted him down and killed him, didn’t care that he wasn’t being  rational. He needed to get away, back to where everything in the  world was normal again.

Even though he was running naked and barefoot, that didn’t  hinder his speed. It was like there were no rocks or twigs beneath him  as he ran. No pine needles stabbing him or pinecones crunching under  his feet.

They were there, he felt them, but they did not hurt him or pierce his skin, and Ryan pumped his arms and legs, going as fast as he

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could, faster than the wind, until the trees were a blur as he whipped

by them.

Even though he could still hear Blasius calling behind him,  meaning that he was hardly outrunning the other man, Ryan began  to―dare he say it?―enjoy himself. The run became less about escape  and more about the wind in his face.

He had to shake himself, and that cost him. He stumbled over the

root of a tree protruding out of the ground, quickly caught himself,  and then started running full force again.

“Rhyan! Come back!”

The pain he heard in the other man’s voice was nearly enough to  make him stop, and again, he had to fight against the urges within him  that practically commanded him to do just that.

What the hell was wrong with him? He wanted to get out of here.  He didn’t want to take a cleansing run, and he didn’t want to go back  to Blasius, no matter how much his legs fought him on that one.

He scented water and then began running toward it. There was a  river near here. It ran along the town of Brampton. If he found it and  followed it, eventually Blasius would be forced to stop and let him go,  or else be forced to follow him naked into town, and wouldn’t that

make a sight?

Actually, Blasius might very well do just that, if he was as  determined as Ryan thought he was to protect the secret of  his  werewolf friends.

Ryan came upon the water, but it was not from the flowing river.  The sound of running water caught his ears, and he skid to a stop when he entered the clearing.

It was a pond, a crystal-clear pond, as picturesque as though it had been painted there. The running water came from a small waterfall in the center that fed the pond from a stream.

It was so beautiful and peaceful here compared to what he’d seen and experienced in the last two weeks that he forgot he was running away from Blasius.

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He was harshly reminded when the other man burst through the shrubs and trees, tackling Ryan around the waist and sending them both crashing into the water.

Ryan gasped as he fell, and he inhaled the water without intending to. He thrashed and kicked  beneath the other man, fighting to come up for air, but even when they did, even when Blasius began pounding him on the back to help him cough up the water, he continued to choke.

His face became hot as he coughed out some of the water, but not enough to take in a full breath. He wanted to tell the man behind him to stop hitting him on the back and to give him the Heimlich or something, but clearly this man didn’t know what to do, and Ryan was going to choke to death because of it.

With a roar, Blasius threw his open palm down on Ryan’s back one more time, and finally he managed to cough up the water that had been killing him.

He hadn’t realized that Blasius had dragged him to the shallower area of the pond until he laid Ryan down on his back and the water

was still gently sloshing beneath him.

Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was Blasius’s worried  face staring down at him. He was saying something, shouting it,  actually, but Ryan couldn’t make out the words. The other man was in  a blind panic, Ryan had seen that look on his face once before, but he  couldn’t for the life of him recall where it had been.

He vaguely thought it might have been when Ryan had attacked him before he’d been put in that cage, and then everything went black around him.

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Chapter Five

Ryan had no idea where the hell he was. He kept waking up to find himself in strange places, and it was really starting to annoy him.

He was still naked, which didn’t bother him, but Blasius was

nowhere to be seen, which did.

Whether Ryan liked it or not, the man had been his protector since  Ryan had been shot in the gut. He’d been a constant, patient presence even when Ryan had to be locked up, and now that he was no longer around, something inside him twisted with worry.

He got to his feet and started looking around. Blasius wouldn’t abandon him in this strange place, would he? Ryan had tried to run, yes, but come on, couldn’t he be forgiven for that considering everything he’d just learned?

His hearing was back to normal. Ryan could no longer make out the distant sounds and smells of the things around him.

In fact, he couldn’t smell anything at all, and that was strange considering the damp fog that was covering the area he was in.

It was hardly the kind of thing that he couldn’t see through,  but the air and sky were gray, and the trees and plants were the dull colors of wet greens and browns. His toes squished in the earth beneath him.  Likely, it had just rained.

A growl and the ruffling of leaves and branches behind him alerted him to the fact that he was being watched.

His spine went stiff. That was something he did hear, and every muscle in his body bunched up.

Slowly, his heart thumping hard and heavy in his chest, Ryan turned his head.

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The sight of the huge wolf head, bent down, ears back, in the rough shape of a gray arrowhead, slowly emerged from the shrub. The end result was a wolf that was more than twice the size of any regular wolf. This had to be a werewolf.

Something was wrong here. Logically he knew he had nothing to fear, he was a werewolf now after all, one of them, kind of, but he

couldn’t help the feeling of fear that flooded him.

This was not right. Something was off.

Ryan backed away as the wolf approached. The hair on its back  stood up straight. Its lips were up, revealing sharp and powerful teeth.

Then he figured it out. The werewolves were mad at him because  he’d tried to run. Did they already get rid of Blasius? Was that why  the other man wasn’t around?

He lifted his hands, tried to speak, to say that he would never do it

again, but all that came out of his throat was a strange language he’d

never heard before and didn’t understand.

The wolf barked at him as he spoke, effectively shutting him up. It was as though the language itself were an insult to the wolf’s ears because  its golden eyes only seemed to become even meaner.

It crouched, getting ready to leap and attack.

Ryan turned around and bolted through the trees. The wolf howled and gave chase.

He wouldn’t get away. He didn’t know how he knew, but there was something inside of him that told him there was no hope for him.

The knowledge solidified when he turned his head and saw two other wolves flanking his right, and they looked back at him. Ryan turned to his left, and there was another giant black wolf.

They were hunting him, and they were going to kill him.

Ryan burst through the trees just as the black wolf lunged, grabbing hold of his arm and throwing him off his feet.

Ryan expected those jaws to take his whole arm away, quick and deadly like any bite from a great white.

The wolf continued to bite down on his arm and shake, as though

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he couldn’t get a good grip on it and was trying to do just that. Take

the arm clean off.

Ryan didn’t understand. He felt pain, but that barely registered in his mind when he looked down and saw why the wolf was having such a hard time ripping him to pieces.

Instead of the healthy pink color of his arm, gleaming green scales protected him, like armor. The scales were huge. Each of them had to be the size of a paperback. His whole arm was huge, actually, as though he were growing.

Or shifting into something that wasn’t a werewolf.

Despite that, the scales weren’t entirely impenetrable to those wolf teeth because the next thing he knew, the wolf crunched down harder, cracking the scales, and Ryan screamed.

The other wolves shot through the trees like missiles, coming down onto Ryan and each one putting their teeth around his legs, his free arm, and his torso.

Jesus, they were really going to rip him apart.

Someone yelled something in English. It was that same strange accent that Blasius had, only it wasn’t Blasius’s calming voice that he heard. “He’s tryin’ to make the shift! Stop him before he gets away!”

Jesus.

Then Blasius’s voice did penetrate the loud growls and angry commands, and Ryan’s relief was indescribable.

“Rhyan! No!”

Ryan managed to turn his head. He was in pain, and he figured he was dying because there was no way he could survive this kind of blood loss, and was that gray wolf chewing on a piece of him?

Somehow, all that didn’t matter. He looked toward Blasius. The

man had a short, clipped beard that was a little darker than the rest of  his hair, and he was dressed in some sort of animal skin as he rushed

with a mad panic through the trees, his feet stamping down on the

rocks as he ran to him.

Ryan felt himself relaxing, his eyes burning with happy tears as he

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watched his lover rush through the trees to his rescue. Why he was  crying and why he was thinking about Blasius in such sentimental  terms, he didn’t know.

Blasius never made  it to him. Several other men rushed forward

and grabbed him by the arms, practically lifting him off the ground in  their struggle to contain him.

Blasius roared, his hands becoming claws as he swiped at his  attackers. He actually managed to free himself for a moment, and he  desperately raked his claws across the face of one of the men.

The warrior screamed, clutching at his face and eyes as he fell  backward onto the bed of rocks. Another man charged at Blasius, and  Blasius’s fist came out so fast and strong that when it made contact  with the man’s face, his feet flew up and over his head. He actually  looped around in a circle before landing hard on his chest.

One of the wolves that had been chewing―
eating
―him, left  Ryan’s side and joined the fight with the men who were trying to keep  Blasius at bay.

Someone threw out a rope, catching Blasius around the neck. He  snapped it quickly, managing to get another ten feet closer to where  Ryan lay with the other wolves, but then another rope came out, and  then another. They caught him again around the neck and then also  around his left wrist.

This time, before he could snap them, more men came to him, and the two that Blasius had put down got up and grabbed at his legs.

“Tie him down! Get him down!” yelled one of the larger men.

They were werewolves, too, Ryan realized. Their leader wore an animal skin similar to Blasius’s, but he also had the fur of another

animal draped  around his back. Ryan couldn’t tell if it was wolf hair

or not.

It seemed kind of strange for a werewolf to be wearing the pelt of

a wolf.

Unless it had come from a defeated enemy, he realized.

Blasius went down, but he continued to kick and rage against the

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men holding him. His eyes found Ryan’s, and Ryan was comforted by  them, even though they held that same panic that Ryan had seen when  he was choking on the water from the pond.

Ryan felt no pain anymore, or panic. All he felt was calm,  knowing that his  end was going to be near and that, at the very least,  his mate, the man he loved, would be with him when it happened.

He wouldn’t be alone.

Blasius spoke to him. “I’m here, Rhyan. Stay with me. I will free you.”

“Look into his eyes, my lord. He is already  dying,” said the leader of this gang.

Blasius raged and snarled all the more, fighting with everything he had in him to get free of the hands and ropes that restrained him.