Full Moon Mating [Wolf Creek Pack 1] (19 page)

“Roger’s been spotted in town.”

“What? Already?” Joe asked, his eyes swinging back to Ben in alarm. “Where?” He felt Nate grab his hand.

“He was spotted walking right down Main Street, pretty as you please. But, by the time I got there, he was gone.”

“Did he have anybody else with him?” he asked, squeezing Nate’s hand.

“Yeah, four other guys. How’d you know?” Ben asked, looking confused.

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“Lucky guess. Jim?” Joe yelled out.

Nate turned as Jim and Donovan walked into the kitchen, looking at them in puzzlement. They knew that Roger was coming. “Jim? I’m going to take Nate to the circle. I want you to go get Dad while Ben informs the rest of the pack. I want everyone to meet us at the circle.

It’s time for this pack to step up and protect one of their own.”

“Okay, Joe, but are you sure you want us to leave? Don’t you need us here to protect Nate too?”

“I do, but I think it would be a little better use of your time getting the rest of the pack together. You can all meet us down at the circle.

Besides, Donovan will be here to help me keep Nate safe. I just don’t want to have him here at the house. This is sure to be the first place that Roger brings the Teacher.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Okay, Ben, you’re with me,” Jim replied as he walked out of the kitchen.

Joe turned to Donovan as he wrapped a reassuring arm around Nate. “You heard?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then let’s get to the circle. I think having the entire pack there to protect Nate is our best choice at this point. Is there any way for you to get a message to Chase letting him know where we’ll be?”

Donovan nodded his head. “I’ll see to it while you two go get ready. I’ll meet you outside next to your truck.”

Joe nodded, ushering Nate out of the kitchen towards the stairs.

“Go get your shoes, baby. I’ll wait right here for you.”

* * * *

Joe watched as Nate ran up the stairs to get his shoes. He knew that Nate was terrified. He desperately wanted to reassure him that everything would be okay, and he had every hope that it would. But, there were always things that could go wrong.

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That’s why he wanted to get Nate to the circle, where the pack could protect him. If he knew Nate was protected and safe with the pack, he could concentrate on rounding up Roger, the Teacher, and their goons. If he was worrying about Nate, he was liable to make a mistake.

Joe looked up as Nate came running back down the stairs, his shoes on his feet, two jackets in his arms. He handed one to Joe as he walked past him, heading for the truck.

“I thought we might need these,” Nate said.

“Good thinking, baby,” Joe said as he followed Nate out to the truck. He saw Donovan leaning against the hood, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for them. “Ready?”

“Yeah. I left a message on Chase’s voice mail. He’s probably going into the warehouse right now, so he wouldn’t be answering his phone. He’ll call me back as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

Joe nodded as he walked around to the driver’s seat and climbed in. He started the truck and waited for Nate to climb in the back, Donovan sitting in the passenger seat, before driving down the driveway.

Within moments, they were on the main road and headed for the circle, which was just a couple of miles away. He glanced into the backseat in the rearview mirror when he heard Nate cry out. Nate’s eyes were glazed over, and he seemed to be staring off into space.

“Nate? Baby? What’s wrong?” he asked anxiously. He almost started to pull over when Nate suddenly shook his head, turning to look at him in the rearview mirror. His eyes looked concerned, frightened.

“Taylor just told me that him, Roger, the Teacher, and two armed guards are waiting for us at the circle. He’s told them that’s where we would be because he’s trying to keep the Teacher busy while Chase and the other guys go in for Justin.”

“Why does he need to keep the Teacher busy?” Donovan asked, turning to look back at Nate.

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“I guess Justin is in touch with him, telling him that Chase is already at the warehouse. One of the guards called the Teacher and told them that they were being attacked. He was ready to turn back when Taylor told him where we’d be. He says he’s sorry, but it was the only thing he could think of to keep the Teacher busy.”

“No, no, it was a good plan. At least if we know they’re waiting for us, we won’t be surprised or ambushed.”

“You still want to go?” Nate asked.

“We have to, baby. Like Taylor said, we need to give Chase time to get the others out. Besides, the pack should be here any minute,”

Joe said as he pulled the truck to a stop and turned it off.

Nate didn’t look so sure, but he nodded to Joe anyway. “Okay, if you say so. I think you’ve lost your ever-loving mind, but…”

Joe chuckled as he climbed from the truck, pulling the seat forward so that Nate could climb out of the backseat. They both walked to the front of the truck, joining Donovan. Joe reached for Nate and pulled him in for a quick hug. He leaned in and gave him a long kiss before lifting his head to look down at him. “Don’t forget that I love you, Nathan.”

“I love you too, Joe. You know that.”

“I do know that, Nate, and I will be thankful for that every day for the rest of our lives, which will be a very long time. I don’t want you to worry about that. We both have something to look forward to, something precious to fight for. We are not going to lose this fight.”

“Promise?”

Joe ran a gentle hand down Nate’s face. “I promise, baby.”

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Nate was so apprehensive as they walked towards the ceremonial circle that he could have thrown up right there and then. No matter what Joe said, he knew they were walking into trouble. Joe didn’t know the Teacher like he did. The man was pure evil.

He had spent the better part of the last eighteen years living under that man’s thumb. He knew exactly what he was capable of. The Teacher would do whatever he had to do to get what he wanted, and he wanted Nate.

As they walked onto the edge of the circle, Nate realized that Joe and Donovan had placed him between them, protecting him. He knew they were better prepared to protect themselves, and even him, but it still rankled a bit.

Nate was so deep in his thoughts he bumped into Joe when he stopped. Looking up, he could see five men standing across the circle from them. Roger and the Teacher were standing in the front, two armed men slightly off to one side. Taylor was standing behind them all, slowly backing away.

That didn’t surprise Nate. Taylor wasn’t a fighter, just like him.

Lowering his eyes just a bit so that the Teacher wouldn’t see him, he tried to shut everything out so that he could contact Taylor, warn him to stay out of the fight.

“Taylor, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, man, loud and clear,”
Taylor replied.

“No matter what you see, stay out of this. Joe and Donovan know
what they’re doing, and they’re more capable of fighting the Teacher
than either of us are.”

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“What about Roger?”

“Stay away from him. He’s very dangerous.”

“Gotcha.”

Nate raised his head back up just in time to see the Teacher and Roger walk forward until they were just a few feet away. Just seeing the Teacher was enough to make him wish he was anywhere else but where he was.

“Hello, Nathan, I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

The mere sound of the Teacher’s raspy voice sent shivers down Nate’s spine. It reminded him of all the times the Teacher had forced him to use his abilities for his own gain. It just gave him the willies.

“Why don’t you come over here where you belong, and we’ll just go? I wouldn’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”

“No, you don’t own me, and you can’t tell me what to do,” Nate replied sternly, his confidence rising with each word out of his mouth.

“Nathan, I don’t like repeating myself. Get your ass over here before someone gets hurt,” the Teacher said, his voice rising in anger as he pointed to a spot on the ground right next to him.

“No,” Nate repeated.

“Just remember that you brought this on yourself, Nathan. If you had just done what I had told you to do, none of this would have happened.”

Nate was confused by the Teacher’s words until he saw him raise his arm, a gun in his hand. The Teacher took aim and pulled the trigger. Nate watched in horror as Donovan suddenly clutched his chest, his shirt turning red with blood as he fell to the ground.

Before he could react, Joe started forward to grab the Teacher’s gun, but before he could get there, the two guards jumped in, and the fight began. Nate was paralyzed with fear as he watched Joe fight the two huge guards. He knew Joe was strong, but was he strong enough to fight off two men?

He started to join in, not sure exactly what he was going to do, but knowing he had to do something when he felt someone grab him from
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behind. He cried out as the emotions from the Teacher and Roger flowed through to him.

There was so much anger and hate that he didn’t know how he could stand it. It felt like little shards of glass stabbing into his head.

His hands came up to clutch the sides of his head as he cried out in pain, closing his eyes as his legs started to give out.

He could barely make out the sudden gasp coming from the Teacher, who was standing beside him. Opening his eyes, he looked up, turning his head to see where the Teacher was staring in shock.

Well, yeah, he could understand his surprise. Joe had shifted into a wolf and was quickly dispatching the two guards, who had no chance against a werewolf in a full rage. Joe didn’t even wait for the bodies to fall before he shifted back to human form and began stalking the Teacher.

“Now, stop where you are,” the Teacher began, holding his gun up towards Nate. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to Nathan, now would we?”

Joe immediately stopped where he was. He was fast but not fast enough to stop a bullet. He wouldn’t do anything that might endanger Nate. “Let him go,” he growled.

“Not so fast, my man, I think we need to talk,” the Teacher replied in a smooth voice. That was the Teacher’s ability. He could smooth talk anyone, sell a drowning man a glass of water.

“We have nothing to talk about. Now, let Nathan go.”

“I beg to differ. We have a lot to discuss. I think that you and I could do a lot of business together. I know people, powerful people that would do almost anything to have someone with your special talents working for them. Together, there isn’t anything we couldn’t do.”

The Teacher shook Nate by the arm as he replied. “I’ll even let you keep your little pet. I have many myself.”

“No, Joe, don’t do it,” Nate said, crying out when the Teacher backhanded him across the face.

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“Ah, ah, ah, wolf man, stay right where you are. One more step and I’ll have to hurt your little pet,” the Teacher warned Joe as he took a step towards them. “Now, we need to discuss our new business relationship.”

“We don’t have a business relationship, and we never will,” Joe growled.

“I beg to differ. Just think of it, with my contacts throughout the world, my little pets, and your abilities, we could write our own ticket. We’d make millions. We’d have more power than the president of the United States.”

Nate wanted to roll his eyes. The Teacher actually believed the crap he was shoveling. And he thought that Joe was buying it too.

Nate could feel the Teacher’s elation, his egotistical power-hungry obsession bleeding through. It made Nate sick.

He jumped when Roger started yelling. “What the hell are you talking about? If anyone should be your business partner here, it should be me. He’s the town sheriff. Do you honestly think he would use his talents to better himself or his life?”

“Now, Roger—” the Teacher began.

“No, he’s taken everything I’ve ever worked for, everything. He took my job, my position in the pack. He even took my mate. Nathan belongs to me, not him. If anyone should get him, it should be me.”

“Roger, you need to stop before you say something you’ll regret,”

Joe said.

“I don’t think so, Sheriff. I’m the one in charge this time, and you get to do what I say. Your little pet belongs to me, and I will have him. Then I am going to use what I was born with to get what I deserve out of this life. No more waiting for things to happen. Now, I’m going to make sure that they happen.”

“Would you shut the hell up?” the Teacher said as he turned his gun towards Roger and pulled the trigger.

Nate let out a frightened cry, jumping back as Roger fell to the ground. It was obvious from the bloody hole in his forehead that he
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was dead before he hit the ground. Well, that was one more bad guy down. Now Nate and Joe just had to deal with the Teacher, the biggest evil.

The Teacher chuckled as he looked back at Joe. “He was such a bore. Now, let’s get down to the particulars of this relationship of ours. I believe, at the moment, I hold all of the cards,” he said, gesturing to Nate.

“I think the first thing that we should do is find exactly what all of your talents are. I need to know what you can do so I know who to sell your service to. After that, we can discuss payments and everything. I think a sixty-forty split would be good. They are my contacts, after all. Then…”

“No. I will not work for you, with you, or in any way have anything to do with your crazy scheme,” Joe said as he took another step closer to Nate and the Teacher.

“I think it would be in your best interest, and Nathan’s, to listen to what I have to say, wolf man. I don’t think you understand the unique opportunity I’m offering you here. I—”

Nate turned to look at the Teacher in confusion when he suddenly stopped talking in mid-sentence. He had a strange look on his face, one that Nate had never seen. He almost looked like he was in pain?