Hagen, Lynn - Tater's Bear [Brac Pack 22] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (2 page)
Read Hagen, Lynn - Tater's Bear [Brac Pack 22] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Online
Authors: Lynn Hagen
“As long as you keep your teeth to yourself, you’re welcome to walk with me.”
D looked at him suspiciously but nodded. “Deal. But I do have to feed. I’m really hungry.”
Tater eyed the guy, wondering why he was still going with the pretense of being a vampire. “Go suck a cow then.” He chucked his thumb over his shoulder.
“
Eww
. No way.” D shuddered as he glared at Tater. “You go suck one.”
“I’m not the one claiming to need blood.” Tater gave up when D just stood there staring at him. He began to walk down the road…again.
“Wait up,” D called out as he raced to catch up to Tater. “Seriously, though. I need to feed.”
“Fine then. Go suck on that wolf over there.” Tater waved his hand toward the woods.
D stumbled and then grabbed Tater’s shoulder, his head snapping around. “What wolf?”
“Right over there,” Tater said as he pointed to an extremely large wolf slowly following them. Was it his imagination, or was the wolf really watching them?
“Oh
hell
. That’s not a wolf. Well, he is, but he’s a shifter,” D said as he grabbed Tater’s arm. “We have to run.”
Tater pulled his arm free as he continued to keep his eye on the large wolf. “If we run, he’ll chase us. Just keep walking.”
“But you don’t understand—”
“I understand that my night is getting impossibly stranger by the moment. So maybe if we keep walking to Grandma’s house, the wolf will run ahead of us.”
D grabbed Tater’s arm again, pulling on it to get Tater to stop. “This isn’t a laughing matter. He’s a
shifter
.” D drew out the last word dramatically, as if that could make Tater understand what the hell D was talking about.
Tater cocked his head to the side, stretched his jaw out, and bit his bottom lip, wondering what in the fuck D was talking about. “And what’s a shifter?”
D gaped at him. “A man that can change into a wolf. Or the other way around, I’m not really sure, and I don’t want to stick around to find out.”
Tater pulled his hand down his face. His bed looked like a pretty good option right about now. He knew bears could wander the woods. The Lakelands seemed friendly with one in particular. But wolves? And now D was telling him they could change into men?
It was the same garbage everyone else was trying to shove down his throat. Was he the only sane one around here? It had to be in the water or something. Everyone kept spewing off things about men that could change into animals and other weird shit.
Tater was getting real tired of it.
Maybe he was still lying on the ground from when Maverick tackled him. That would explain all of this. He was lying on the ground under the large man, with a concussion. It sounded plausible and a lot saner than what D was saying.
“Okay,” Tater shouted over to the wolf. “If you’re a shifter, shift.”
“Are you fucking nuts?” D gasped as he pulled at Tater’s arm. “Why in the hell are you taunting him?”
“Because I have nothing better to do with my time.” Tater growled. It was true. Where the hell was he heading anyway?
Nowhere.
What did he have to do?
Nothing.
Tater stumbled back when a man appeared before his eyes. And he was fucking naked. Tater blinked, and then he saw a wolf again. “Oh hell,” Tater shouted as he grabbed D’s wrist and started to run. There was no way in hell he had just witnessed a wolf changing into a man right before his eyes.
No fucking way!
He was just as crazy as everyone else now.
“I told you,” D panted as he ran beside Tater.
If D was telling the truth about that, if everyone had been telling the truth, then Tater had a goddamn vampire running next to him.
He quickly let go of the guy’s wrist. That list of weird and fucked-up things that were happening to him was getting longer by the second.
Tater noticed the wolf running alongside of them in the woods, but he made no move to cross the road and come after them. Tater slowed down, trying his best to catch his breath. He wasn’t used to all this damn exercise.
“Why in the hell are you slowing down?” D asked as he backtracked, jogging in place. “Are you nuts? What part of
shifter
didn’t you understand?”
Tater found himself bent over once again, his hands on his knees. Only this time he was trying to slow his heart rate. “Fuck it. We can’t outrun him. So if he’s gonna eat us, I’m tossing you to him first.”
D slapped his hands on his hips, glaring at Tater. “Gee, thanks. But I think you’re the one that’s gonna be in trouble.”
“How so?” Tater asked as he finally stood, taking in a deep breath as the sweat rolled down from his scalp. What he wouldn’t give for a nice cool breeze right about now.
“Because, I don’t have to outrun the wolf. I just have to outrun
you
.” D chuckled as he backed away. He took a few steps backward, waving his fingers at Tater.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Tater said in a warning tone as he looked over his shoulder to see the huge wolf watching them from the woods.
“Why not? You were about to feed me to him.”
Tater winced at the hurt tone in D’s voice. He had been joking around. He hadn’t meant to hurt the poor guy’s, er, vampire’s feelings. Fuck if things weren’t strange as hell tonight. It felt like he walked into a parallel universe or something. There was no way any of this could be real.
“I wasn’t serious,” Tater confessed as he looked back over at the woods. He waved his hand at the wolf, indicating that he wanted the wolf to come to them.
“Why don’t you change back and tell us what the fuck you’re up to?” Tater shouted.
D threw his hands in the air and walked around in a circle, looking as though he was about to have a nervous breakdown. “You have lost your damn mind. Vampires and shifters are enemies!”
Tater snorted as he waved a finger between the two of them. “Then it’s two against one.”
D looked at him in shock. “You’d really help me? After I tried to feed from you?”
“Dude, you did not feed from me. Remember that.”
“You’re taking this pretty well. Do you deal with the paranormal a lot?”
“Nope, so don’t remind me before I really wig out here.”
“Duly noted.”
Tater had to think of a way out of this. He was standing next to a vampire and staring across the road at a wolf that could change into a man. He was pretty sure there wasn’t a handbook for this sort of situation.
“Why isn’t he changing?” Tater asked D.
“Yeah, because I hang with shifters
all
the time.” D snorted. “How in the hell am I supposed to know?”
“You don’t have to be a smart-ass about it. Think. What are we supposed to do?” Tater chewed on the side of his lip as he looked from D to the wolf. There had to be a logical explanation here. Why wouldn’t the wolf change back to a man?
Not that Tater was thrilled to see that kind of weird shit happen again. He had to admit, it was kinda cool and scary as hell at the same time. Tater wasn’t sure if he wanted to see it again or pass out from the impossibility.
“If I knew what we were supposed to do, we wouldn’t still be standing here debating the subject.”
Tater was going to have to figure out how to shake the wolf off their tail. The creature really wasn’t doing anything wrong. But it was creepy as hell to be followed.
Tater’s head whipped around when headlights showed brightly, bathing him and D in the beams as it ambled down the road and then began to slow down.
Tater groaned. If one more thing went wrong tonight, he was going to kick someone’s ass just to relieve the mounting stress.
“Uh, should we run again?” D asked.
“I’m not sure, but it seems our friend over there has just crossed the road.” Tater nodded toward the advancing wolf.
Why hadn’t he just gone to bed?
Chapter Two
Olsen Lakeland slammed on the brakes when he saw his mate standing next to a stranger and a fucking wolf advancing toward them.
What in the hell was going on here?
Nothing seemed right about this situation, and Olsen didn’t like the fact that Tater was a part of it.
Tater was supposed to be safe at home. Well, as safe as he could be at home, considering everything that had gone on tonight. But Olsen did
not
expect to find his mate on the side of the road with a stranger and a wolf shifter.
“What the hell is going on?” Olsen asked as he climbed out of the cab and slammed his truck door closed. His canines were already showing, and his bear claws were emerging as Olsen walked around the front of his truck.
“Just what I didn’t need. I swear that damn list is growing longer by the minute.” Tater huffed as he and the stranger backed away…together? Olsen didn’t like this, not one bit.
“What list? And who the hell is that?” Olsen pointed at the man beside
his
mate. He could see the shocked look on his mate’s face but was too enraged to sheath his claws and canines right now. Did Tater realize what kind of a situation he was in? Who he was keeping company with? There was no way his mate could know he was standing that close to a shifter.
“Who are you?” the stranger asked, and that was when Olsen saw the fangs.
Oh, hell no.
“Get over here, Tater.” Olsen pointed to the spot in front of him.
Tater shook his head back and forth as he took another step back. “I’d rather take my chances with the vampire. What in the hell are you, Olsen?”
So his mate did know. Somehow that knowledge made Olsen see red.
“You two know each other?” the vampire asked, snapping his head between Tater and Olsen.
It pissed Olsen off that his mate and the vampire seemed to be chummy. Did that mean Tater had allowed the vampire to drink from him? Olsen tilted his head, looking for wounds on his mate’s neck. From this distance, he saw none. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
Olsen kept an eye on the wolf just a few feet away from him. He wasn’t sure how the shifter played into all of this, but he wasn’t letting his guard down. If the wolf was one of Maverick’s wolves, then Olsen had nothing to worry about. But since he really didn’t know Maverick’s pack that well, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Olsen started forward with the intention of grabbing Tater until he heard a low, menacing growl come from the wolf. He stopped instantly. As big as he was, even he wasn’t stupid enough to take on a wolf shifter while Olsen was in his human form—especially one that seemed to be guarding his territory.
That mere thought sent Olsen’s protective instincts through the roof. He bared his teeth and growled back at the wolf as he jabbed a finger toward Tater. “Mine!”
The wolf lost its feral look and cocked his head to one side.
“Look, why don’t you shift so we can talk?”
The wolf looked at Tater, and the vampire then trotted to the other side of the truck and shifted. A moment later, a tall blond man stood there—naked. Olsen frowned, not liking the fact that there was a naked man within a mile of his mate. He hurried to the truck and grabbed a spare set of jogging pants he always kept in the cab then tossed them toward the back of the truck at the naked man.
