The Wolf's Mate Book 5: Bo & Reika (14 page)

Her eyes widened and the glitter of tears shone before she closed them and settled her head back on his bicep.  If he couldn’t feel that she was meant to be his mate, he might have felt her rejection as a crushing blow.  But he knew she wanted to get away from the threat of the lynxes and that she wanted to keep him safe as well.  In her mind, leaving was the only way to do both of those things, and she didn’t want him to lose all that he had.  The only way he’d lose everything was if he lost her.

They soaked in the tub in silence, washing each other eventually with soap and making love on the bed.  This time he was not only completely naked with her, but he lay with her on the bed, not forced to stand because his leg ached.  His leg now had two sets of claw marks on it, but they were fading to a color just slightly lighter than his natural tan.  The long twisted scars of his injury and surgeries were gone, and he would wear these marks with pride because they came from his woman.

He’d been happy to see that the marks on his shoulder from her teeth were still there, a curve of dots from where each tooth broke through the skin on either side of his shoulder.  She had passed out quickly after they made love, and he waited until she was sound asleep before he put his plan into action.

He dressed quickly and packed a bag for them, running out to the truck and turning it on so the heater would have time to warm up the cab before he put his sweetheart inside.

With two boxes of groceries and a battery charger for his cell, he went back into the bedroom and gathered Reika in the blankets and strode out into the cold night air.  Settling her still sleeping body in the passenger seat, he closed the door silently and went around to the driver’s side where he climbed in and closed the door.  The last thing he did before he put the truck into gear was handcuff her right wrist to the door handle.  No matter what, she wasn’t leaving his side until she promised that she wasn’t going anywhere.

Bo had spent a lifetime seeing things he could never have because of his injured leg.  He wasn’t about to let his mate run off on her own on some kind of misguided mission to lure the lynxes away from town, away from him, and try to disappear on her own.  He was proud as hell of her for being so noble, but he wasn’t about to wimp out and let her take the fall for him.

Everything that mattered in the world to him was sitting in the seat next to him, and he’d be damned if he let three entitled, asshole lynxes get in the way of their future.  Come hell or high water, Reika was his.  Period.

Chapter 10

Reika yawned and stretched, and her eyes popped open as a chain rattled and her right arm wouldn’t lift over her head.  She was in a truck.  Bo’s truck.  With Bo.  Handcuffed?

“Morning sunshine,” he winked, looking far too sexy in a scruffy, unshaven sort of way.

“What the hell, Bo?”  She jerked on the handcuff and glared at him.  All her fuzzy feelings over the healing and the fantastic, bone-melting sex they’d had afterwards disappeared in a rush.

“Don’t worry, honey.  We’re nearly there, and then I’ll let you go.”

“Nearly where?”  Panic rose inside her like a tidal wave.  Was he taking her back to the lynxes?  He’d gotten his healing and a few good tumbles and he was done with her? 
No!
  Her wolf growled in her mind, and she knew that was the furthest thing from the truth.  Bo loved her.  Not only had he told her that amazing truth last night in the tub, but she could feel it.  His wolf wanted to commune with hers, and her wolf was clamoring in her skull to do the same.  He was her truemate, the only one who would be strong enough to break the promise that her alpha made all those years ago.

She suddenly knew where they were going.

“This won’t work,” she said as she tried to fold her arms and then groused at the cuff once more.

“What won’t work?”

“Hiding out.  They’ve been waiting for me since I was seven.  They won’t give up just because you took me somewhere, and we disappeared for a while.  And besides, you have a job, don’t you?  Just take me back, and we’ll work something out.”

She tried her best to sound reassuring, but she had a feeling he knew the moment he looked away she was going to hit the road.  She had to keep him safe.  He was too important to her now to let him fight for her.  He could die.  She couldn’t risk it.

“Right.”  He cast a side-glance at her.  “So you can fuck me into a coma and slip out the back door?  I don’t think so, sweetheart.  I know your plan, and I’m not going to let you do it.”

He pulled behind a large farmhouse and drove down a barely visible dirt lane to a large, red barn.  The doors were open, and the interior was filled with tractors covered in a layer of dirt and dust.  “Excuse me, you’re the one who fucked me into a coma.  I can’t believe I slept through you putting me in the truck and handcuffing me to the door!”

He winked and put the truck into park, turning off the engine.  “Stay put, baby, and I’ll be right back.”

He got out, and she turned and watched him close the big doors.  Then he moved to the back of the barn and lifted a hatch that appeared to have been hidden under a rug.  After a few moments, as the air in the truck chilled and she started shivering, he returned to the truck and opened her door carefully, unlocking her cuff.  Pulling her into his arms, he carried her quickly to the back of the barn and walked down a flight of wooden steps into a concrete room that was about twenty by twenty feet.  One door led to what she assumed was a bathroom — or rather, what she hoped was a bathroom — and the rest of the room was furnished as a combo bedroom/kitchen/living area.  It reminded her of an efficiency apartment.

He plopped her down on a large bed, and without a word, he swiftly handcuffed her to the iron headboard.  “Oh really, Bo, that’s hardly necessary,” she huffed in indignation.  “And you said you’d let me go!”

“I will, eventually.  I just meant I’d let you go from the truck, not let you go forever.  I’ll be right back.  Stay put.”

“Oh, ha ha,” she fumed.

He disappeared up the stairs and left her to grumble at her situation. 
How the hell had he known her plans?

He returned with a box and a duffel over his shoulder, and he deposited them on the small table in the kitchen area and walked back up the stairs.  Pride flickered through her as she saw how easily he moved now.  Her healing had worked.

After another box was set on the table, he pulled a handle on the door and shut it, clicking a combination lock closed, and twirling the dial. 
Oh for hell’s sake.

“Fine, I get it.  I’m locked in down here.  So let me go.”  She rattled the cuff at him as he began unpacking the boxes.

Glancing over his shoulder at her, he said quietly, “Are you ready to admit that I’m your truemate?  Will you swear that we’re in this together and promise you’re not going to try to take off on your own?”

Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again.  Dropping her eyes, because she couldn’t stand to look at him, she said, “No.”

It was a lie, but only a partial one.  She knew they were truemates, but she couldn’t stay — not when she knew that the lynxes would never let her go and that the three males would most likely kill Bo right in front of her.  It would destroy her.  Even though it burned, she’d rather him live happily ever after with someone else than be killed fighting for her.

He said nothing and resumed his unpacking.  She stewed in silence, cursing the well-crafted bed she was shackled to and the thick handcuff.  But she didn’t curse Bo.  She knew he was going to do this exact thing — well, maybe not kidnap her — but she knew if he found out she was going to run away and hide to keep him and his pack safe, that he’d stop her.  He was noble and loyal.  He deserved a mate who came free of nasty attachments like three lynxes who wanted to breed her like a mare.

He brewed a pot of coffee and then joined her on the bed, sitting next to her hip.  He set a steaming cup of coffee on the small side table and held a small bowl of cut fruit in his other hand.  He lifted a section of peeled apple and held it to her lips.  “Come on, sweetheart.  Be mad all you like, but don’t starve yourself.”

She reached for the apple and he moved away slightly, “I’ll feed you, Reika.”

“I’m not entirely helpless.”  She snorted.

One brow rose slightly.  “I never said you were.  But we’re mates, and mates take care of each other in all ways.”

He waited patiently, moving the apple close to her mouth again.  The smell of the apple made her stomach growl.  She opened her mouth, feeling like a petulant child, and he slipped half of it inside.  The fruit crunched between her teeth, firm and sweet, and she chewed slowly and swallowed.  He fed her in silence for several minutes — red seedless grapes, sliced apples, and sliced bananas — and gave her sips of coffee.

When the fruit was gone and the mug empty, he put the dishes on the table and cleared his throat.  “Here’s the deal, sweetheart.  I know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.  You think by taking off that you’re going to spare me or my pack from whatever those assholes will do to get you back.  Well, I can promise you several things.  First, there’s no way in hell that would have ever worked.”  He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the headboard and dropping his head to the crux of her neck.  With a slow, deep inhale that made her nerve endings go haywire, he growled, “I would find you wherever you went.  There isn’t a place on this earth where you can hide from me, so toss that thought out of your mind for good.

“Second, I will fight for you and break whatever promise your alpha made to those assholes.  You were a child.  It was cruel and unfair, not to mention sick.  As your truemate, I demand the right to fight to break your promise.  And lastly, baby, listen very carefully.  You’re mine and that makes you part of my pack.  My alpha, his mate, and my brothers and sisters in the pack are all supporting us.  Jason won’t sell you down the river to make peace, and I will do anything — any-fucking-thing — to keep you safe.  I would go to the grave for you in a heartbeat.  But don’t worry. I don’t plan to lose because I’ve got a lifetime of making sweet love to you to look forward to.”

“I don’t want you to die,” she croaked, her voice cracking as tears clouded her vision.

“I won’t.  I might get beat all to hell, but I’m not going to leave you.  Not now, not ever.”

He nipped at her neck, licked the light mark he made, and then sat back.  “We’re only an hour and a half from your home pack.  This place belongs to a rogue wolf, a friend of my mother’s.  They used to use it back in the day when wolves owned cattle farms and didn’t want to risk killing their stock on the full moons.  They would shift down here and take out their aggression on a side of beef instead.  So the walls are soundproof, and no one can find us here.”

She stared at him in disbelief.  “But they’ll tear your town apart looking for me, especially if they think I’ve left.”

“I’ve got that all handled, baby.  Jason called your alpha, and he contacted the lynx king who agreed to pull his grandsons back home.  We’re going to show up in neutral territory on Saturday.  Your pack, my pack, and the lynx clan.  I’ll fight for you, win, and then you can thank me with your body, later.”  He grinned.  It all seemed so casual for him.  As if he weren’t going to face off with three psycho males who had spent the better part of sixteen years waiting for her.

“You’ve just got it all figured out, don’t you?”  She was really feeling petulant now.

“Yes, I do, baby.  Now, are you ready to admit what you’re feeling for me or do I need to convince you of how perfect we are together?”

“Let me go.”

He hummed in his throat and reached for the blanket wrapped around her.  “Wrong answer.”

She pushed at his hands with her free hand, but he simply pinned her wrist to the bed and used his other hand to open the blanket and bare her body to him.  He leaned forward to kiss her and before she could protest or turn away, his mouth had claimed hers and all rational thought flew out of her mind.  She loved his mouth.  The way his stubble grazed her skin, the slick heat of his mouth, and his talented tongue that danced against hers.  She knew he was trying to seduce her into promising to stay, and she knew that she should protest what he was doing, but her betraying body wanted her to do nothing of the sort.

Heat flashed through her, and she relaxed under him, making a small noise in her throat as he sat back on his heels next to her.  He didn’t ask her if she was ready to give in yet, and she didn’t say she was.  She didn’t say anything at all as he pulled his shirt off and tossed it away before moving to stand on the floor and remove his jeans.  He held her gaze without fear this time, as he kicked off his boots and shoved his jeans down his legs.  He touched the healing marks on his leg almost reverently and said with a rough voice, “Before you healed me, I had already decided I wasn’t going to ever let you go.  Bum leg and all, I would have fought to break your vow.  But you gave me back my life and my wolf, Reika.  I want to give you back your life, too.  We’re truemates, and if it takes every second of these five days we have together to prove to you that you can trust me to keep you safe and set you free, then I’m going to do it.”