A Forbidden Taking (2 page)

Kyle
could feel the anger surge though him again at the thought of that man, any man,
looking at his mate’s ass. That was his and his alone. He turned away before
she could see his reaction again. Maddie hated it when he got all possessive
like he did.

“He
was just there. I don’t know why he refused to come back and finish the job.
All I did was startle the man.”

“Yes,
I’m sure you did. You’d startle me too with your fangs to your chin and
standing there beating on your chest like some sort of he-man routine. Get real,
fang boy, you deliberately scared that man and we both know it. Sit down!”

He
sat. Not because she had ordered him to, but because he was getting tired.
Yeah
,
he told himself,
you believe that and the one about the Easter Bunny and
Santa Claus.
He snorted at her then smiled. “Come here, Maddie. I want to
nibble on your skin. I want you again. Please?”

She
snorted this time. He was sure he’d picked up the habit from her after thinking
about it for a second. He started to stand and bring her to him when there was
a knock at the door. After bidding the person to enter Kyle rushed the man
standing there. Beau.

The
two men embraced tightly. It had been a very long time and neither man had
changed much over the years. But their level of friendship had. They had gone
from being friends to becoming as close, if not closer, than brothers.

“Do
the two of you need a room or should I just leave? It’s getting very…manly in
here.”

Both
men turned to Maddie. Kyle was fighting the tears to keep them from falling. He
hadn’t realized just how much he had missed his friend. He pulled Maddie to him
and held her close.

“Beau,
this smart ass is my mate. Madison, this is
Beau
Desjardin. He and I have been good friends since the
French Revolution. He and Aaron are friends as well.”

“
Bonsoir,
Maîtresse.
Vous êtes beaucoup plus
beau que
Kyle
avait dit.
Je suis très
heureux
de faire votre connaissance.”
Beau kissed her
hand and bowed before her.

Kyle
wasn’t sure if he was impressed that he’d been able to render Maddie speechless
or if he was angry that he had. He bumped the man from his mate and pulled her
back into his arms.

“How
lovely,” she finally said. “What did you just say to me?” Kyle pulled her
tighter.

“I wished you good evening and I
said that you are far more beautiful than Kyle had said. I am also very happy
to make your acquaintance. You are a very beautiful
femme
, mistress.”

“Oh
well…thanks. I have to go. I know you two have a great deal to catch up on and
I have some people who need their asses kicked. I’ll see you both later?”

“We
should be back around sunrise. You and the baby make sure that you lock all the
doors before you go to bed.”

Kyle
and Maddie had had a little girl about two years ago. She was the spitting
image of her mom and Kyle couldn’t be happier with them both. He worried about
them constantly and wondered once again if he and Kyle should just go back to
the house and talk or go to the Blood Moon as planned.

“Will
you take him out of here, Beau? If he doesn’t give Angel and me some breathing
room we may stake him ourselves. Angel’s first words were ‘go away, Daddy.’”

“They
were not. She did say daddy, but not…will you behave? I swear. Let’s go, Beau,
before I have to beat my mate.”

They
were out the door with Maddie’s laughter still ringing in their ears. Beau, of
course, was having a bit of fun at him too. Kyle decided that he’d make her pay
and thought about the hundreds of ways to do that. Top on the list was tying
her to the bed and having his way with her until she was screaming for release.
Oh yeah
, he thought, he was so going to make her pay.

~~~

Megan was making her way back to
her car after her job at the clinic when she saw the young child being loaded
into the back of the van. His limp body made her think he was dead a first, but
the way the men were handling him made her rethink that. She was sure he had
been drugged. She made her way toward them. “Hey there. Whatcha doing? That’s a
pretty little boy you got yourself there.”

The men stopped suddenly and
looked at her. She didn’t move a step closer, but she could smell the drugs
they’d used on the tiny child. Megan wondered where his mother was, but didn’t
say anything. She also wondered if the men knew what they had.

She realized that they did. And
not only did they know, but had purposely drugged the child because of what he
was. A wolf, a young pup of a wolf that she knew they were going to bring
untold harm to.

“You be on your way, kid. This is
no concern of yours. This here…this is something you don’t want to get that
cute ass of your’n involved in. Biting off more’n you can chew could get you
killed.”

“That’s real nice of you.” She
stepped closer to the child. “I don’t think you guys are the child’s family and
if you don’t mind, I’ll see that he gets there. Now.”

The men shifted and so did she.
She knew there was one more man coming up behind her and the two in front of
her. She didn’t want to hurt them, but if they pushed her or tried to take off
with this pup she was going to stop them.

“Like I said, don’t be biting off
more than you can chew. This isn’t any of your concern and I suggest, nicely
like, for you to move on and forget you ever seen anything.” When he pulled out
his gun and pointed it at her she decided that she was going to have to get
rough with them anyway.

Megan turned and started to the
right of the two men. When she was just a few feet from the man who was coming
up behind her she lunged at him and hit him in the throat with her fist. She
knew she was stronger than she’d ever been thanks, she supposed, to the change,
but she didn’t realize how much. The man’s neck snapped and he dropped to the
ground. She hated to kill and for that one fleeting second was sorry, then
promptly forgot him.

Turning back to the two men now
behind her, she lifted her fists and stepped toward them. In actuality she was
terrified. Megan didn’t kill, it wasn’t in her nature. And though she wasn’t
one now, her years of trying to become a doctor had ingrained something into
her that made her hate killing on a higher level than she’d thought possible. She
hoped these two would just walk away, but knew that in reality they’d fight
her.

“I don’t want to have to kill you,
but I will. Why don’t we just call it a night and I take the young pup with me
and we all live to fight another day?”

The first man laughed. She could
smell his fear. She was sure that a healthy part of it was her own so she
couldn’t really blame the man. The second man seemed to be considering his options.
She was sure he was going to get him and his partner killed when he grinned at
her.

“If we win, which we will, we’re
going to rape you over and over until there ain’t nothing left of that sweet-smelling
pussy of yours. Whatcha think of that?”

She made them think she was
considering it when she suddenly grinned at them, showing as much of her fangs
as she could without opening her mouth like a horse on display. “Okay. Fair
enough. But if I win.” She moved toward them with dizzying speed and was suddenly
in his face. “If I win, I get to drain you both for my dinner.”

She could almost see their minds
working this out. Sharp teeth, check. Dark outside, check. Snapped the dead guy’s
neck like a chicken bone, double check. Vampire. When they continued to stand
there she leaned closer and licked her lips. “Go,” she told them in a low voice
and they took off in a flash. She might have laughed if she hadn’t felt the sun
starting to beat on her. She knew she only had about thirty more minutes before
it would be too late to get anywhere safe.

Picking up the tiny little pup she
cradled him in her arms and moved to her car. It was the only thing she could
do. He was drugged and she didn’t want to burst into flames. Crawling into the
back of the car and closing the seats up over the trunk then setting the locks,
Megan put the wolf in the blanket next to her and settled down. She hoped the
little guy wouldn’t wake while she was out. She didn’t want him to be scared
when he did. Her last thought before sleep claimed her was she should have found
him some food.

~Chapter 3~

“We’ll find him. Don’t worry,
Jacob. He couldn’t have gotten far. We have everyone looking for your son.”

Bradley hoped he was right. He and
his pack had been looking since late last night for the three-year-old son of
his best man and pack member. Jacob and his mate Sandra had been out on a run
with their son on his first night training and someone had hit them with a tranquillizer
gun and drugged them both. When they woke a few hours later JC was gone and
they had one hell of a headache.

“It’s been so long, alpha. He’s
only a child. What if he was taken? What if…what if they harm him?” Sandra
asked on a sob.

Bradley didn’t answer. He wasn’t
even sure he could. He knew that if anything happened to his own children…he
didn’t want to think about what he would do, what lengths he’d go to in order
to get them back. He looked up at the waning sun and shuddered. Night fall
again. He nearly pulled out his cell phone to call his brother when it rang in
his hand. Putting his hand over his heart to slow it some he answered the call
from David.

“We have a problem. I think we…we
have a dead man here and JC’s scent all over him. Also…also a car. Bradley, you
need to come here. I think we have a vampire situation on our hands.”

“I’ll be right there. Do we need
to call Aaron?” He didn’t ask his brother what the problem was knowing that if
David was nervous then he was afraid of what his answer might be.

“No. Not yet at any rate. Come
here first.” He gave him the address in one of the worst sections of the city.
“Don’t bring Jacob or Sandra. I don’t think it will go any better if they’re
here and upset.”

Bradley got into his vehicle and
gave his driver the address. He knew the street and agreed with David. Winston
Street was not known for anything but drugs, prostitution, and drugs—not
necessarily in that order. Then he thought of Aaron.

Aaron MacManus; friend, savior,
and master vampire. The man had been around for nearly fifteen hundred years
and had the largest realm of vampires in the United States, maybe even in the
world. He was fair-minded and very well respected, not only by his peers, but
by most of the other paranormals around Ohio. Bradley thought with a sardonic
grin that it probably helped that he was by and far one of the most powerful
beings in this world and was mated to the cousin of the Queen of all Magick.

Bradley knew that he’d be up. Aaron
could withstand sun longer and longer as the years went by and Sara, his mate,
helped that with her own magic. Bradley also knew that even if the sun would
boil him alive, if Bradley needed him, he’d be there. He just hoped that he
wouldn’t need him in this particular issue. Pulling up near David’s car Bradley
walked up beside him.

There were several of his pack
members milling around. The dead man David had mentioned was still on the cold
ground, but covered with a tarp. Bradley didn’t concern himself with him. He
knew that his brother hadn’t brought him there for him. As Bradley got closer
to his brother he could see that a couple of his men were injured. And that the
car in question had been damaged.

“We believe JC is in that trunk.” David
indicated the small sports car with a wave of his hand. Bradley noticed that
his brother had blood on his arm and a small cut.

“You
believe
that he’s in
there? If you believe that, then why haven’t you made certain? Or do you need
me to do this for you?”

David huffed at him. Bradley
merely smiled. His brother had only been his enforcer for a short time, not
long enough to get rid of his policeman ways and think like an enforcer for the
pack. He grinned when David huffed again.

“Okay, smart ass, you do it. Walk
over to that car and try to see for yourself.” Bradley looked back at the car. “Oh,
and while you’re over there you might want to tell your mate that you love her
‘cause I’m thinking you’ll not be around long enough to tell her yourself when
you get there. The thing in that trunk will tear you to pieces.”

Bradley looked at the car, really
looked. That was when he noticed that most of the damage done to the car was on
the trunk and that one of the back windows had been shattered. Looking at his
men he noticed that while the wounds were many, they had already begun to heal.
He looked back at David.

“Tell me. Tell me what you’re thinking
and stop beating around the bush. If JC is in that trunk I want him out now.”

David nodded. “So do I. I can
smell him in there. I don’t think the vampire in there wants to—”

“Vampire? I thought you said that
I didn’t need Aaron. Damn it, David, he has to be involved if there are vamps
in that trunk.”

“I said vampire. And I don’t think
she is going to hurt him, but she is terrified. Damn it, Bradley, don’t you
think I want him back as much as you? He is the same age as mine. But she is
terrified.”

She. David had said she was
terrified. Looking at the car, he tried to smell what his brother had. Vampire,
yes, and JC. Bradley could also smell her fear, terror, he supposed too. And
something more, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Blood. And lots of it.