Should have Put a Leash On It

Micah can be an ass, he admits it. But most of the time when he says something stupid, it’s a backfired attempt at teasing. Micah never pictured himself settling down, there were too many men and women out there to keep him busy hoping from one bed to another. There’s only been one man who got under his skin. His brother’s best friend. However, a series of misunderstandings and arguments and years of resentment aren’t easy to overcome.

Rylan’s mother dumped him on the pack’s doorstep when he was a pup after finding out her husband wasn’t quite human. It left Rylan with a chip on his shoulder and a need to prove himself. Micah can’t help but bite back when Rylan pokes at him, but always assumed that most of the animosity between them was relatively harmless and shrugged it off as just not getting along.

Since being cornered by his little brother and warned to play nice, Micah decides that maybe the past is better left where it is. Only before he can come to terms with his own mistakes and apologize, Rylan is kidnapped and no one knows where to look.

Micah searches until he is ready to collapse from exhaustion. He even challenges his alpha. The pack and coven desperately search for Rylan, but when they finally find Rylan after six weeks, it may be too late to save him. Trevor’s devious mind and scheming nature isn’t going to be easily outwitted.

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Should Have Put A Leash On It

Copyright © 2015 SA Welsh

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0198-6

Cover art by Scott Carpenter

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Should Have Put A Leash On It

Blood Moon Pack Alliance 4

By

SA Welsh

Sometimes love is hard but that doesn’t mean it is not worth fighting for.

Micah walked out of the kitchen with an enormous thermos of coffee in one hand and a breakfast burrito big enough to feed a small city in the other. He hated surveillance duty, but it was all hands on deck after the incident at the warehouse a few weeks ago.

He shuddered as he remembered the look of grief on his brother’s face when Zeke told him what had happened. Micah couldn’t imagine seeing his best friend completely eroded by whatever hateful torture Trevor was experimenting with. From talking with other packs, they had found out that Trevor was selling the torture as a way for submissive shifters to overcome their instincts. In reality Remy said that Zeke’s friend had been totally erased and nothing more than a shell remained, a zombie obeying the puppet master.

Jake—the jackal shifter—was working on the blood and skin samples taken from Simon, but so far hadn’t turned up much except that whatever it was came from the same genus as the plant grown on Jacko’s mother’s estate. That was when Jake dropped the bomb on them. Someone had manipulated the plant to grow a super version of it that could be weaponized against vampires and shifters. Apparently, once the element of the plant’s micro structure that could affect shifters or vampires was isolated, the strain could be used as a base from which to create any other kind of poison or drug Trevor wanted.

He stepped through the archway and into the foyer where Remy kept the keys for the shared cars. Dropping his foil–wrapped, massive burrito onto the table, he reached up to open the key box secured to the wall to see what vehicles were left. Micah had more than learned his lesson with trying out any cars that didn’t have keys in here.

Remy had warned him about not going near the Aston Martin, but he just couldn’t help himself. He’d never seen one except on a magazine page.

If he’d have known the car was a mate thing, he never would have even breathed near it. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Remy and Skylar. His brother and his vampire mate were only just starting out with their mating and already the world was going to shit. Remy had so many responsibilities it scared Micah that his little bro would burn out.

Whatever significance that car had to Remy and Skylar was worth protecting. Micah knew he’d messed up when he saw how Skylar freaked out, but he hadn’t bargained on being punished in quite such a creative way.

Zeke and the rest of his siblings had pulled more of their fair share of pranks. However, being delivered a package of sex toys—scary ones at that—in front of his whole family, including his mother, was the evilest of all them. What’s worse was that his brothers had recorded it.

Having the screensaver on his laptop show his own face turn paler than Casper the Friendly Ghost in horror, then fire engine red with mortification, and having it played over and over? That was a step too far. And when he figured out who kept changing it, he was going to beat their ass.

His mother still wouldn’t look him in the eye. At least he wasn’t the only one embarrassed beyond belief. He grinned as he remembered Sage and Asher chasing after him when the post had come in this morning.

Micah had already got his own back on Asher and Sage by subscribing them to
Granny on Granny
magazine and
Oops I Sat On A...
magazine for the foreseeable future, to be delivered to Mom’s house under their names. He’d given Zeke a pass though. Because, let’s face it, if it hadn’t happened to him, Micah would have been laughing it up with the rest of them.

He grabbed the keys to the black Land Rover and shut the wall box.

“Hey, I had dibs on that one, you can take the Jeep instead.”

Micah tensed for a moment at Rylan’s annoyed voice. He’d missed the shifter’s entrance. But then Rylan had always been a sneaky little thing. Being half shifter and half human had left Rylan always trying to prove himself with one hell of a stick up his ass to match the chip on his shoulder. They’d always rubbed each other the wrong way.

He calmly put the thermos down on the table next to his burrito in case he needed to ward off an attack.

Since Micah had been back and become one of Remy’s betas the status quo had changed. Rylan outranked him now. The little brat took every opportunity he could to remind Micah of that fact.

The first time he’d been faced with that his wolf had stilled in shock. He was used to only having the alpha above him in the hierarchy.

Micah took a breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t want to fight, but Rylan just pressed all his buttons. “How come you get dibs? No one said anything to me about it.”

“Because people like me and they don’t like you?”

He blinked owlishly. Ouch. That was unexpectedly harsh.

Every time he spoke to Rylan, Remy’s reprimanding words came back to haunt him. He’d never been intentionally mean, but perhaps he
had
taken things too far. Micah had never really considered their relationship now that they were both adults. Somehow that last fact had managed to pass him by and he had no idea how to change it.

“Uhhhh, okay. Does it really matter what cars we take?” He didn’t see why it would. Although, the Land Rover had some cool gadgets like front and rear cameras and a television screen in the center console. It would definitely make his two-day stakeout pass a lot quicker.

“It does when we had a system going and you just barge in and change it,” Rylan answered, acting like a child.

Old habits were hard to break and even as Micah felt the defensive smug expression settle on his face, he couldn’t stop from responding. “When did I barge?”

It happened every time. He acted without thinking, then he was stuck on a road he didn’t want to be on in the first place. He rolled his eyes at himself. Metaphors were hardly going to help the situation.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Micah.” Rylan’s voice crept higher and Micah could feel the other shifter’s beast rolling to the surface.

Micah noted the slightly darker skin under Rylan’s eyes. He knew there had been talk in the pack about challenging Rylan for the position as second. That must have been weighing on Rylan’s mind. The wolf may not be the strongest in the pack, but he was a good second.

Micah sighed and tried to think of a way to apologize for being an ass. He wasn’t accustomed to saying sorry. He walked away and spun around, about to start pacing as he tried to find the right words. “I was—”

“Enough, Beta Micah. Do whatever the fuck you want.” Rylan’s eyes were ice cold instead of the usual warm sea green Micah found beautiful.

The shutdown didn’t so much hit a nerve as smack an autodestruct button. All thoughts of making amends evaporated. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

Snarling, Rylan looked him up and down.

In the past he’d been checked out by potential hookups in a club, eyed by wary opponents in a fight and given the mom death stare. However, not a single one came close to how insignificant he felt when Rylan wrinkled his nose as if Micah disgusted him and gave Micah his back. The other wolf only paused long enough to grab a set of keys out of the box before walking out the door.

“What the fuck is his problem?” He didn’t expect an answer...Rylan was long gone by now.

Micah walked back over to the table to pick up his stuff along with the keys to the Land Rover
.
Even the thought of all the neat gadgets didn’t improve his mood.

Just as he was leaving, his ears pricked at the sound of fabric rustling and his nose recognized the scent of Remy’s vampire mate. Micah hadn’t seen Skylar much since the car incident and he wasn’t in a rush to hang out with the vamp either. He hadn’t meant any harm, but the way Remy and Skylar reacted was as if he had kicked their puppy or something. The way Skylar had changed in a blink of an eye from non-threatening, elegant and model-like to red-eyed, clawed, hissing monster still made him shudder.

Micah was delighted that two of his brothers had found their mates, but the red eyes and fangs did nothing for him. There were no vampire bedmates in his future.

“Whose scarf is that?”

Looking down at the woolen scarf he’d forgotten about, Micah shrugged. It was unnerving how Skylar seemed to see everything despite the obvious impossibility. “How...Never mind. Some girl I picked up at the bar a few nights ago gave it to me. I keep meaning to go back and see if I can find her to return it, but get distracted. Besides, I don’t have another one and it’s cold today.” He didn’t know why he was having to explain this, it was just a scarf.

“You’re an ass,” Skylar said with a shake of his head.

Micah took offence, frowning at his brother’s mate. “What, why?” What had he done now?

“I can smell your hookup all over it and my nose is nowhere near as good as a shifter,” Skylar told him, speaking slowly as if the answer was obvious.

“What’s your point?” Micah was seriously lost here. So it smelled like a human, what was the big deal?

The vampire turned those brighter than normal blue eyes at him, cocking his head. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

He was getting sick of people calling him stupid. Sure, they dressed it up a little, but the sentiment was the same. Micah was too stupid to understand. He clutched at the thermos and burrito, not caring that the foil was tearing and he had tomato ketchup oozing over his fingers.

Micah gave a warning rumble. It wasn’t a challenge, but any wolf or shifter would know the conversation was going south and stop that line of questioning. As mate to an alpha wolf, the vampire should know, too.

Skylar didn’t give up though. “He likes you.”

“Oh, not this again. Didn’t you and Remy get enough of a laugh last time?” When were they going to get it through their heads that Micah and Rylan didn’t like each other? He’d hoped he and Rylan could put the past behind them and become friends, but that seemed less likely every time his temper got the better of him.

“No, not nearly enough,” Remy butted in, joining the conversation as he rounded the corner.

Micah resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. He should have known where Skylar was Remy wouldn’t be far behind. It was like the two of them were connected by a piece of elastic.