Luke hadn’t thought it possible, but the ride into town frayed his nerves more than last evening’s trip to the pack house. Nate didn’t smile. His mouth formed a hard line, his attention on the road transitioning from compressed earth to asphalt with a mighty bump as they made the turn toward town. Tinny country music rang out from a decrepit radio, but Luke wasn’t a fan so couldn’t identify the song or musician. On the steering wheel, Nate’s knuckles shone white.
“I never intended to cause problems,” Luke said, tracing the seam of the khakis he’d worn to the lycan compound last night.
Nate’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. “Not your fault,” he eventually responded.
“He’ll be sick of me by this time tomorrow,” Luke said, but he didn’t believe it.
Nate replied with a noncommittal grunt. He didn’t seem to require conversation, which was lucky because as they made the short trip into the city and to Luke’s apartment, Luke wasn’t sure he could rationally discuss what had happened. Not yet. Maybe never. Sore and damp, his ass still twinged from Dean’s hard ride—no way would Dean permit Luke to bathe before heading to town. Wash off Dean’s scent? When Luke ventured into territory Dean had identified through brutal experience as perilous to him and his kind? Uh-uh. Nope. Not a chance. The human instincts in Luke might prod him to fidget guiltily at the stench of sex wafting thick in his nostrils and squirm in irritation at semen flaking off his thighs, hips, and ass. All the same, in the end, Luke wasn’t human. Not wholly. He hadn’t asked for a shower. He hadn’t asked for anything. Dean wouldn’t be in the mood to be reasonable for days, if not weeks to come. After Luke moved to the pack house, they both would settle down, but not a moment before. Until he’d built a den for him and Dean, Luke wouldn’t be remotely reasonable, either.
What a godforsaken disaster.
Raised among lycans, Luke still wasn’t sure what it all meant. Something about Luke had set off Dean. The possessive stamp Dean had seemingly branded into Luke’s flesh could not be denied. Not just the tiny dents Dean’s claws had left on Luke’s hips. Those were already disappearing. Not the copious semen Dean had sprayed into Luke’s guts and rubbed into Luke’s skin before allowing him to climb into the truck with Nate, either. No bites marred Luke’s nape, no bruises colored his skin. Dean’s claws hadn’t pierced his flesh, but no one could mistake Dean’s claim. Or his interest.
Dean had culled Luke from all others—human and lycan alike.
Base instinct had overwhelmed them both. Dean could no more fight the compulsion right now than Luke, who shared the self-same draw if only as a hazy too-human echo. As the miles sped by, Luke’s nerves strung tighter, not because of the catastrophe Luke currently found himself in, but because the distance separating him from his lover throbbed like a fresh wound. He missed Dean. He yearned for Dean’s stare, the husky timbre of his voice, his touch... and Luke’s human side was dominant. He didn’t want to consider how much more fiercely the ache tormented Dean.
“You’ll be steadier once we’ve moved your possessions into your mating den,” Nate said, diverting his attention from city traffic to flash Luke a grim smile. “He’ll steady too.”
Mating.
Dean was mating him.
Luke shook his head to try to clear it. “But for how long?”
“As long as it takes.” Nate frowned. “You were raised by and among lycans. You should know this.”
Luke exhaled a weary sigh. “I do.”
He hadn’t witnessed matings often. His birth pack had been stable in his young adulthood with all save one brother in Luke’s litter fostering among other packs to search for mates. Uncle Ty’s son and daughters had stayed in Portland, but Ty and his father had been born of different litters. Ty’s children were older and settled with their partners before Luke reached his teens. The other two breeding pairs in the family had produced children far younger, too young to mate.
Luke had nonetheless watched the brother who had stayed in Portland mate painfully, awkwardly, with a human woman allied with the pack. First had been this, the flare of hormones and lust dragging the two together. None could resist the urgency to mate, and now that Luke had personally experienced it, he finally grasped why humans created elaborate fantasies about lycan mating. The legends contained a kernel of truth. Luke couldn’t stop thinking about Dean. Being away from him hurt. His skin flushed with warmth as extra blood rushed to the surface to make Luke more sensitive to touch and receptive to sex. His heart pumped faster, his blood hot and thick inside him. His erection hadn’t flagged since Dean had fucked him.
Humans generated absurd stories based on this first stage of the mating cycle. Luke had read and enjoyed some of the romance novels written about fated mates. He had to agree the drive to mate struck hard, like a lightning bolt. Lust overwhelmed everything, but lust wasn’t love, was it?
Luke’s shoulders slumped as Nate navigated the city streets.
In a couple of weeks, three at most, the hormonal anarchy ruling Luke’s body and Dean’s would glide back into balance as lust gave way to coherent thinking. Lycans mated for life. Humans were correct about that much, but lycans, not their gonads, chose who would be their partners. Powerful and alluring, the first rush of desire conquered them. Few rejected the pull easily or quickly. Bitter enemies had remained united once their heat had finished. But not often. Blind instinct and physiology identified potential mates, but each temporarily mating pair must develop attraction into a bonded relationship.
Or not.
Every lycan—and human—must choose. Lust began mating, but lust alone would not complete it.
He didn’t have comforting human fairy tales about his One True Mate. The destined mate myth was nonsense. If this mating didn’t finish in a pair bonding, Dean would find another. Luke could. Dean’s wolf had stirred, recognizing Luke as a suitable candidate for a partner, but Luke wasn’t the only compatible person on the planet. Lycans frequently enjoyed several mating heats before committing to the lovers with whom they selected to build a life.
Nate negotiated the truck left, into the rabbit’s warren of narrow roads that comprised Luke’s apartment complex.
The human in Luke wished for love, but unreliable emotions weren’t necessary to a lycan. Many mated for love these days. Packs encouraged romantic affairs now and often abjured to the preferences of each partner rather than pushing a loveless pair bond. Uncle Ty and Aunt Miriam’s bonding was a love match, as was Luke’s parents’. Those unions forged no new pack alliances nor shored up the family’s weaknesses. The foundation of a successful bonding didn’t rely on love, though. Lycans pair bonded with love or without it because commitment rather than messy emotions ruled their relationships.
As Nate backed the truck into a parking space in front of Luke’s apartment door, Luke tried not to think about Dean resenting his attraction to a human once their heat ended. Half-lycan? Not the important half, not to a lycan whose birth family had been murdered by humans. Love was out of the question. Dean could never love a human after what humans had done to him, and commitment? To a human? Such slender hopes also grasped at straws.
“He’ll drive me from the pack. From the city too,” Luke said, throat tight, loss already eating at his guts. “When his heat is over, I’ll never see him, you, or this place again. He won’t want a lingering reminder—”
“Calm down.” Nate squeezing his thigh silenced Luke. “Apart, you and Dean both are more temperamental right now. Being away from him upsets you. That’s all this is.”
“No.” Luke shook his head. “It’s not.” He climbed from the truck anyway, stiffening when Jeremy, his neighbor, jerked open the apartment door next to Luke’s and walked toward the truck, stare focused on Luke. Anxiety skittered inside Luke. Fear blossomed.
He shouldn’t be afraid. Luke considered Jeremy a friend, Luke’s only real friend since... forever. Before New York. They didn’t just share the miniscule deck in back and a conjoining wall. They had dinner together once each week. Indulged similar tastes in movies and music. Jeremy had encouraged Luke to join a basketball league at the Y with him when Luke had mentioned his chagrin at his weight, and when Jeremy had explained losing everything he owned in an ugly divorce, Luke had helped choose furniture and paintings for Jeremy’s place alongside shopping to outfit his own.
Jeremy was the only human friend Luke had ever made.
Except Jeremy wasn’t human. Luke and his dull human senses hadn’t recognized his neighbor as lycan before. No one could miss the yellow flecks in Jeremy’s green eyes now. The new, though temporarily hypervigilant, instincts sex with Dean had incited in Luke screamed in shrill warning. Lycan! Not Dean’s! Run. Escape! Luke retreated two steps, and then a stumbling third before Nate inserted his reassuring bulk between Luke and Jeremy.
Who halted cautious yards away and lifted his arm. As Luke peered around the barrel of Nate’s chest, Jeremy displayed identification from his wallet. “He knows me as Jeremy Prentice, but my Washington driver’s license shows my real name, Jeremy Cartwright. I’m from the Cartwright pack near Spokane,” his neighbor said to Nate, now studiously ignoring Luke. “My great-uncle assigned me to find, follow, and protect Luke Warren as a favor to Ty Warren several years ago.”
Betrayal sliced through Luke sharper than any knife, more destructive than bullets, and deadlier than the purest silver. The air left his lungs in a whoosh, as though he’d been sucker punched in the stomach. Nate backed up, the solid hulk of his larger body crowding against Luke. Nate glanced over his shoulder, his eyes glittering with silent consolation. Luke didn’t realize the distraught whine at this fresh hurt had left his lips until, standing woodenly in place at Nate’s front, Jeremy’s brows furrowed.
“I’ll wait while you secure Luke and make whatever calls you feel necessary to confirm who I am and that I am no threat to him or your family.”
“Your identification,” Nate said, arm lifting to block off Luke while Nate cautiously shuffled both he and Luke in a circle around Jeremy to reach Luke’s apartment door.
Jeremy tossed his wallet to Nate, who let it fall on the concrete. “Don’t move. Not a single muscle,” he told Jeremy. “Give me your keys,” Nate said to Luke, and when Luke complied, he said, “Get his ID.”
In the cage of Nate’s arms, Luke crouched to retrieve the leather billfold.
“Inside. Now.”
Luke didn’t argue. As soon as Nate unlocked his apartment, he scurried indoors and away from Jeremy’s assessing stare. Despite the comfortable warmth of his apartment and the nigh impregnable steel door, Luke shuddered.
“He has a spare key,” he told Nate, who nodded. Nate dragged the armoire Luke had found free on Craigslist and refinished last year to the front entrance as a blockade.
“Any other doors?”
“Kitchen,” Luke said.
Nate stalked farther into the apartment, glaring foul menace at the sliding glass door that led to a small deck off Luke’s eat-in kitchen. “I wedge a metal bar on the tracks for extra security,” Luke said from the door to the living room.
Nate grunted.
They flipped over Luke’s postage-stamp sized dining room table and moved an extra storage cupboard to block the deck. Judging by Nate’s grimace, the addition of Luke’s two kitchen chairs and end tables from the other room didn’t lend confidence to the effectiveness of the barrier. Scrutinizing the hasty barricade, Luke had to agree. The tangled mess of furniture might slow down a human, but not a lycan.
Shoulders squared and taut, Nate bent over his cell phone, mumbling into it. Luke didn’t need a lycan’s preternatural hearing to understand who Nate must have reached out to first. Dean. Luke had watched both Nate and Vince at jobsites for months, gotten to know them by inviting work crews into the air-conditioned admin trailer during lunch every Friday, when Luke went on-location to deliver payroll. Loyal and kind, Nate was an excellent packmate and best friend to Dean, and Luke didn’t form his opinion lightly. Luke had witnessed and experienced the friendly charm Nate showered on his work colleagues. He’d seen the lycan’s conscientious concern for others through his binoculars from a distance too. Nate had shown identical compassion to his fellow pack members and human coworkers. He didn’t hate or distrust humans like Dean did. Luke would be willing to bet Nate, rather than Dean, arranged his and Vince’s employment with the construction crew in town and convinced Dean of the wisdom of additional funds streaming into pack coffers after the fact. With close observation and months of research, as near as Luke could tell, until Dean had adopted Nate into his extended family, Dean had continued the strict isolation from humans practiced by his birth family prior to their deaths.
His opposing position on human interaction didn’t mean Nate didn’t have Dean’s back, though. Any risk to the lover Dean shared his heat with would be reported and the course of action decided by Dean. Not Jeremy, not Nate or Luke. Dean and no one else.
“Come with me.” Assuming Luke’s compliance, Nate strode into the living room and to the narrow front window. He lifted a finger to nudge Luke’s curtains aside. “Still there,” Nate said into the phone. Curiosity and dread driving him more than the desire to obey Nate, Luke walked to the window to squint into the brilliant sunshine too. Jeremy indeed had capitulated with Nate’s order to stay put. He hadn’t moved an inch. “Okay,” Nate said, ending the call. Gaze unwavering from Jeremy, Nate passed the phone to Luke. “Dial your uncle’s number.”
Nate retrieved his cell phone as soon as Luke did and vetted Jeremy with Luke’s uncle. Luke heard only Nate’s side of the conversation, but his shoulders sank nonetheless.
Uncle Ty had sent a bodyguard to watch over him.
In Luke’s defense, no one would’ve suspected Jeremy of lycan blood, least of all a human mutt like Luke. Not in a million years. Jeremy stood only a few inches taller than Luke, for one. Luke was short, but so was Jeremy, who didn’t struggle with his weight as Luke did. Jeremy remained lithe, rather than heavily muscled. By lycan standards, Jeremy would be judged a runt, startling since runts rarely survived into adulthood.
He also had blond hair. Luke hadn’t known lycans could be blond. Lycan genes usually dominated physical traits and lycans had brown or black hair in their human form. Brown hair topped the heads of red wolves in the southernmost states, though scant ruddy streaks hinted at their wolf forms. Luke had seen them himself. Lycans all had brown or black hair, including humans of mixed blood like Luke.
Not Jeremy. His was a dark blond, strands of honey mixed with platinum and yellow deepening to brown at the roots, but definitely blond.
His lycan ancestry must be distant. Very.
Cartwrights were respected out West. Well-known. The family was bigger than Luke’s and included alliances of breakaway packs scattered throughout Washington and across the border into British Columbia. Like his own family, Cartwrights allied and mated with humans and had been for generations before the Warrens had attained the pack resources to spend on non-lycans. Uncle Ty had arranged the fostering of two of Luke’s brothers with the Cartwrights, who hadn’t cared the litter had produced Luke too. Cartwrights were diverse, open, accepting, but remained the strongest and most healthy pack on the other side of the country.
Cartwrights were lycan royalty.
Why had one of them wandered thousands of miles away, to the wrong coast, with Luke? A runt, no less. As Nate talked on his cell, Nate shifted away from the window, his guard lowering as Luke’s nerves strung tighter. Why would Uncle Ty do this to him? Sending a Cartwright, of all lycans. A traitorous Cartwright, at that. Outrage steeped inside Luke as he glared at his betrayer rocking back on his heels outside, both hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans.
Luke had looked up to the Cartwrights as a boy, revered the family. The acceptance and tolerance for anyone different the Cartwright packs had regularly displayed had become a role model for other lycans in the West, including Luke’s family. The Warrens might never have permitted Luke’s father to bond with his human mother if Cartwrights hadn’t demonstrated packs thrived with the addition of humans more than packs who disavowed interaction with human society. Luke owed his very existence to Cartwrights.
He hadn’t realized any were capable of such trickery and deceit.
Nate ended his call. “Your uncle sent a photo and added Jeremy’s former pack leader on the line. He checks out.”
“He’s a liar,” Luke said, his fury dumping adrenaline into his bloodstream.
“He’s a liar who wouldn’t muss a hair on your head. Between the two of us, you couldn’t be safer.” Nate shrugged and reached for the armoire. “Good enough for me. For Dean too.” With a heaving shoulder, Nate muscled the furniture away from the door.
“Jeremy’s former pack leader, you said.” Outside, Jeremy’s spine stiffened at the clatter Nate made as he cleared the furniture from the door. Jeremy’s thin shoulders straightened. He ripped his hands from his pockets to dangle them loosely at his sides. Luke wrinkled his nose in disgust. “He’s a rogue then. On top of everything else, he’s a rogue wolf.” Luke curled a sneering lip at Nate. “You trust him?”
“I was a rogue once too. We all were, you included for all that you’re human. Dean doesn’t drive off rejects and loners. He saves them.” Nate winked at Luke as he pulled Luke’s front door open. “Don’t touch him,” he said to Jeremy. “You can help pack his stuff.”
Jeremy’s green eyes—damned if he didn’t have human eye color too—narrowed. “Dean’s accepted him?”
“Dean’s mating him.”
Jeremy’s jaw dropped. “Really?”
Nate nodded. “Really.”
“Holy shit, kid, you hit the lycan lotto,” Jeremy said, strolling to the door. He beamed at Luke, still frowning through the front window. “Got room for one more?” he asked Nate, turning his body to slide past him and into the apartment. “I’m not as human as he is, but obviously, I’m a genetic throwback.”
“He’s a fraud.” Luke crossed his arms and glowered. “I don’t want him here.”
“I suspected he would make his move soon and packed anything useful from my place in my car.” Jeremy handed Nate a key ring. “I have plenty of boxes, Bubble Wrap, and packing tape left in my place next door. Help yourself.”
Nate’s hold on the keychain shifted to capture Jeremy’s hand. “While your helpfulness is noted, whether you leave or stay in the pack isn’t up to me,” he said, voice stern.
“I know.” Jeremy’s glance lowered. “However, you are his best friend.”
“Handsome and smart.” Nate’s mouth formed a wolfish grin. He released his grip on Jeremy. “Fortunate for you, my good opinion can be bribed with free labor. Stop sniffing Luke, he’s fine.”
Luke gaped at Jeremy, who formed his lips into a coquettish moue. “Yes, sir,” the traitorous lycan said.
“Nate,” he corrected, as Dean had with Luke. “With a pack composed of fosterlings and adoptees, Dean isn’t fond of formalities.” He arched an eyebrow. “I expect you already knew.”
Jeremy stared at Nate’s mouth. Licked his lips. “I do.”
Laughing, Nate tossed Jeremy the keychain. “Stop flirting. Go get the boxes at your place.”
“You’re gay?” Luke gasped, stare fixing with amazement on Jeremy. In the two years Luke had known him, Jeremy had dated women exclusively. “On top of everything else, you’re gay?”
Nate nudged Luke’s shoulder with his own. “He’s probably bi, like practically every other lycan on the planet.” He tipped his head in a dismissive nod to Jeremy, who strutted from Luke’s apartment, hips loose, ass wriggling, presumably to the apartment next door. “He had orders to find and follow you. Not fuck you. Of course, he squelched the chance of sexual interest from you. Emotional entanglements would’ve made keeping you safe more difficult.” Nate’s gaze flew to the door Jeremy had exited. His eyes narrowed, a pensive frown thinning his lips. “Cunning, that one.”
Luke scowled. Only a lycan would admire deceit. “He’s a dick.”
“He’s a brilliant dick and an extremely valuable weapon to whoever wins his loyalty.” Nate angled his jaw to grin at Luke. “He’s in search of a pack, same as you. His commitment to you removes him as a threat for now. I’ll keep a close eye on him just the same.”
Luke didn’t need preternatural senses to detect Nate’s burgeoning interest, nor the arousal in his gaze as he stared after Jeremy “You can’t be serious.”
“I didn’t fuck you,” Nate said, dead-pan, attention swiveling to Luke. “I looked forward to fucking you. A lot.”
Warmth flooded Luke’s cheeks at Nate’s sudden but no less frank appraisal. The tips of Luke’s ears burned. With Dean’s claim on Luke, temporary or otherwise, Nate wouldn’t lay a finger on him, except casually. Brotherly. Nate would never challenge Dean, but mating heats in a family usually stirred the lusts of other unmated lycans as well. No wonder Nate’s eyes ate up Jeremy like fresh prey. The man was horny. Due to the close proximity of Dean’s mating heat, both Nate and Jeremy had succumbed to a heat of their own. That would continue until Dean and Luke’s lust leveled.
“I’ll start emptying my kitchen cabinets,” he said because returning to Dean as quickly as possible was the only answer. Being with Dean made everything better. Gulping, Luke pivoted and marched into the kitchen.
“What?” Nate chuckled. “I’ve never had sex with a human. Your friend may be lycan but he looks human enough.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Nate’s brows rose as he followed Luke. “Until your heat clears and your fate in the pack resolved, Jeremy Cartwright is the only friend you have. His first loyalty is to you and to you alone.”
“Great,” Luke muttered, yanking open a cabinet. “Jeremy lied to me for years about everything probably, and he’s my best shot at overcoming Dean’s rejection once his heat ends.” From the shelves, he grabbed heavy ceramic plates he’d carefully selected and the pack was sure to destroy. “Lycans,” he said, voice ripe with disgust.
“Humans,” Nate replied with matching fervor.
Luke concentrated on packing. He couldn’t argue. Hadn’t this lesson been ingrained in him since birth? Humans were not lycans. No matter how attracted they were to each other, humans didn’t think like lycans, didn’t feel what lycans felt or act as they did. Humans and lycans weren’t motivated by the same urges. The problem wasn’t human ignorance alone. Lycans were as clueless about humans. Within his birth pack, where humans and lycans mixed freely, Luke couldn’t say the two species interacted smoothly or understood one another. They tried. They worked at achieving harmony every stinking day. They messed up a lot, but successes outweighing their failures made the struggle worthwhile. If Luke didn’t believe it, he wouldn’t pack his delicates to move in with a pack that would undoubtedly destroy the breakable things he loved.
If Nate didn’t believe, Nate wouldn’t pack Luke’s doomed breakables too.
They both wouldn’t pretend they wouldn’t scream at each other later, whenever careless or shifting lycans dropped every single one of these plates.
“Shit,” Luke finally said.
Nate reached for a cabinet and jerked it wide as the click of the opening front door signaled Jeremy’s return. “I concur,” Nate said. “Shit.”