Heart of a Cowboy (7 page)

“Stand down, gringo,” a voice behind Derek growled.

Derek looked behind him to the man who just spoke. Fuck, it was the eldest Collin brother. This was not the way he wanted to meet the man.

“I don’t need any help,” Derek grumbled, grabbing his side before rolling off the table. Bo might be beating the shit out of him, but he was going to share the pain before he went down in the fight.

“I didn’t ask if you needed help.” His voice was gruff, but Derek sensed a protective nature to his stance.

“Mister, no offense, but I have this under control.” Derek motioned him out of the way, but the man didn’t listen. He stepped directly between Bo and Derek. The man turned to glare at Derek and something in his eyes made him shrink back.

“Word of advice, kid,” Bo turned to speak to Derek. “It’s best not to give Lucas any lip and just let him do what he wants. Goes much easier that way. For everyone.” Another of the brothers pulled Derek aside and gave him a smile that would have melted his insides if he’d had time to think.

Bo growled, rushing Lucas before he could turn around, tackling the man to the floor. The bartender was hanging back, but after the last attack he must have decided who the troublemaker was and chose his victim. He lifted the baseball bat over his head and swung at Bo. The metal bat impacted Bo’s back with a loud thwack. Metal met bone in a painful explosion, and Bo’s body flew back into a nearby table. The table and two wooden chairs crashed to pieces on the floor.

“Break it up,” Johnny threatened to beat the brawlers again, waving his bat in the air.

Bo lifted his head, his bottom lip curled up in a menacing grimace. The exchange of fists between Lucas and Bo had taken only a second. The confrontation was over quickly and painfully. Lucas snapped his fist into the other man’s chest before turning another punch, snapping Bo’s head back. Bo’s limbs hung limp and his head flailed to one side. A line of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

“Stay down, Bodine!” Derek wasn’t sure which one of the Collin brothers had yelled, but it seemed like good advice to him. Bo, being more muscle than brains, struggled to get up before collapsing to the wooden floor. “Shit, stay down or the alpha will kill you!”

A deep, menacing growl emanated from Lucas’s chest, a sound so dangerously primal that the hairs stood up on the back of Derek’s neck. If he didn’t see a man in front of him, he would have sworn it was an animal making that noise.

Bo glared at the other man standing over him, but thank God he finally gave up and lay on the floor. Derek was afraid Bo might actually die if he took much more abuse. Derek hated him, but Bo didn’t deserve a savage beating, just a good ass kicking.

“You better get out of here. The cops are on the way,” the waitress whispered furtively to Derek and Lucas.

“Fine.” With Derek’s track record, he’d get arrested and it wouldn’t help to have a new arrest on his record when he went to court next month. He took a step toward the door, and searing pain raced up his leg. He pulled back his weight off the leg and leaned against the nearest chair. He hissed out a breath, knowing he wouldn’t be able to walk on it, and his chest hurt with each breath. He may have some broken ribs. “Oh fuck.”

“You’re hurt. Let me take a look at that.” Concern knit Lucas’ brow.

“No time. It’s fine, I’m fine. I can’t stay. I just gotta get out of here.”

“I’ll take you home.”

Back to the ranch? No fucking thank you. Derek had had enough of being some ass-wipe the local bad-ass cowboy could pick on.

“Where do you want to go?” Lucas slung an arm over his shoulder and hefted a good deal of Derek’s bodyweight with it. Derek leaned into him and limped his way to the door.

“Anywhere but here.”

Chapter Six

Lucas kept one eye on the road, and the other on his unusual human passenger. He normally didn’t bother with humans, but this man smelled…different. Derek was under the belief that Lucas was everything he appeared to be, a normal man just helping another guy out in a bar fight. Lucas had that familiar tingling in his belly that recognized another of his kind, but he didn’t smell human. A rich earth scent surrounded Derek, and Lucas’s senses whirled as if he had been running in the forest. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, demanding a physical outlet. Ordinarily on a night like tonight, he’d run wild and free for hours until all of his built-up energy was spent.

Some kind of magic called to his Lycan senses, and Lucas wasn’t sure he could put his finger on what it was. It was that same niggling feeling that made him choose to help the man earlier over one of his own kind. Bo made his choice when he chose not to listen to the alpha.

Looking at the man next to him was stirring something else—a strong sexual hunger unlike anything he had known before. His cock rose in his lap, demanding satisfaction.

Down, boy.

“So, you never told me where you lived.”

“I don’t really want to go home.” Derek rubbed his forehead, but his breath left in a hiss of pain when he touched his eye.

Lucas watched him with concern. “I could also take you to a hospital to get that eye and those ribs looked at.”

“Then when I get there, they will call the cops. No thank you.”

“That’s okay too.” The young man was scared and didn’t want to go home or feel safe reaching out for help, and Lucas could identify with that. “I’ve been there once or twice.” It had been many years since he felt so restless, but he could identify with that feeling. The years before he fought for the position of alpha with his pack, he spent running away. When he reached sexual maturity he couldn’t handle living by anyone else’s rules, so he lived alone. “We can just drive if you want.”

“Just let me know when you get tired or want to pull over or I could get a motel room if you need the rest.”

“I might take you up on that offer.” Derek laughed halfheartedly but it broke into a coughing fit. The fight might have done more damage to his body than Lucas originally thought. He was merely human after all. The Wendigo healed quickly and it took much more to take one of them out. “Why are you being so nice? Do you want something from me?”

Lucas paused to think about that before answering. “I’m asking myself that same question.” He shouldn’t be interested in the man at all, yet he could not deny this attraction. It wasn’t unusual for a Wendigo to take a male lover, but it was usually the lower-class males that did so and it was never a human. It was important for the alpha to take a mate to continue the bloodline from the strongest male. This made this strange attraction hard to wrap his mind around. “Don’t worry. I won’t rape you if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re too fucked up already.”

Lucas drove to the edge of town, away from the hustle and bustle of town. He pulled into a motel with half the light bulbs out, so the sign read “otel.” He got a room with a king-sized bed, and helped Derek to his room. “I won’t stay. I just want to be sure you are all right and take a look at your head. You got a nasty gash from that fight.”

“Okay. I don’t mind if you do stay. I like your company. Is it me or is the room spinning?” Derek leaned against the wall and held his head.

“It’s just you.” Lucas looked at him with concern knotting his brow. He wrapped his arm around Derek’s waist and helped him to the bed dominating the room. “Why don’t you let me help you lie down? I may be able to help you feel slightly better. A Saskatchewan medicine man taught me a few tricks that might work.”

Derek crawled onto the bed and collapsed, his breath hissing out in pain.

“I have to get you out of these clothes.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you… Unless you ask me to.” Lucas chuckled under his breath at the young man’s modesty. Derek’s fair skin was bruised and battered, but his cheeks grew red with embarrassment. He was actually blushing. How refreshingly sweet! “I need to take a look at how bad your injuries are.”

He also needed the skin-to-skin contact for the healing to actually work.

Lucas unbuttoned Derek’s shirt, carefully lifting the other man’s arms out of the sleeves to avoid any additional pain. Derek’s chest was already beginning to turn black and blue, and in the worst places the bruises were green. His irregular, ragged breaths concerned Lucas. He could have internal damage to his lungs or internal bleeding that Lucas couldn’t see. Without some kind of medical care he could drift off to sleep and never wake up. However, Lucas knew the chance for that was minimal. What concerned him most was the man’s leg. He should have stopped limping by now, yet he still favored it. The leg could be anything from bruised to broken and he wouldn’t know what it was until he took a look.

Lucas reached for the man’s pants, but Derek stopped him with his hand. “You got to let me do this if you want help,” Lucas said.

“I’ll be fine.”

“If you were fine you wouldn’t still be limping.”

“It must have had something to do with being thrown twenty feet across the room. How the fuck did he do that? I know I am not exactly a big guy, but he doesn’t look that strong either.”

“He might have been doped up on ice, or it could have been the endorphins.”

“Yeah, that must have been it. I’ve heard stories about mothers being able to do crazy-ass things like lift cars off their kids when they have adrenaline running through their blood.”

Lucas kept his mouth shut, but the things his people were capable of doing under the pretense of war were legendary. On the battlefield, pumped on adrenaline, they were once called Berserkers, compared to gods. Today they kept their physical abilities hidden so they would not stick out like sore thumbs from the humans they lived among, but if it came down to defending their mates or their families from a human, there would be no question as to the winner.

“You have to take your pants off. I won’t look. I promise.”

“I’ve had lots of men do more than look. Just don’t think it’s an open invitation.”

“Do you really think I would be that easy?” Lucas made a distasteful snort. “I won’t be jumping your bones just because your pants are down.” A streak of anger fueled by jealousy crossed Lucas’s spine. He wanted this man to belong to him, and the fact he turned away the possibilities spurned him. From the size of his erection, it was clear he felt this attraction too, so why would he say no? He undid the snap to the jeans, and worked at the zipper. Derek lifted his butt off the bed to help ease the pants over his hips. They came off quite easily, but the lack of clothing made his erection painfully evident.

“You should have warned me you were packing a gun,” Lucas joked.

Derek chuckled but lay still beneath him. “I thought you said you wouldn’t look.”

“I lied.” Lucas smiled. It was hard to ignore the rising flesh. It was harder to restrain his desires, not to reach out and cup Derek’s balls in his hands, suck the length of him into his mouth just to hear the other man’s groans of satisfaction. It had been a long time since he felt this much hunger for another person, let alone a human. He should be healing him, not playing with him. “Close your eyes.”

Derek’s eyes flew shut, a tight line at his mouth the only sign of emotion on his face.

At least he was obedient.

Lucas held his hands above Derek’s body, pushing down until he could feel the ebb and flow of his life force through his aura. A painful red marked the spots where the man was wounded and hurt the most. He pushed his mind’s eye deeper, reaching beneath flesh to see broken bone. One of the bones in his leg had a hairline fracture, and the tissue surrounding it was badly bruised. His ribs were broken in two places, causing him pain with each breath.

Lucas took the pain into himself, absorbing it, then reached deeper and used his mental strength and the electrical currents from the life energy he could feel in the room to heal the flesh and bone, mending the break and soothing the pain. He kept pushing his energy into the other man until his aura returned to a healthy shade of green and the man took even breaths showing how his body relaxed.

He took his time to examine the other man’s face. For such a young man, he had suffered. There were creases in his brow that should belong to an older, more mature man, and he knew from the little he had talked to him on the way here that he guarded his heart. He probed further wondering what shape his spirit was in.

He could heal his body, but the soul it protected had also been wounded. There were cuts that ran deep in the man’s spirit.

What had happened to him?

Derek’s lips parted and Lucas felt an irresistible urge to kiss him. He leaned over Derek’s body, brushing his lips over the other man’s mouth in the lightest of touches. Derek’s eyes fluttered open and his mouth opened and closed like a fish, as if he wanted to protest what had just happened. Desire. Confusion. Fear. It was all there in his expression for anyone to read.

God help him. He wanted to kiss him again.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” Lucas suddenly pulled away. He felt disturbed that he had broken the trust he was given. It wasn’t like him to break his word, and a wolf was only as good as his word. “Sorry I kissed you.”

Derek sat up suddenly and rubbed his ribs. “I don’t know what you did but thank you. I don’t feel any pain anymore.”

“But you didn’t like having me touch you.”

“It’s not that.” Derek shook his head, turning his gaze to the floor.

“Then, what? You don’t like my kisses?”

“There’s someone else.”

“If it doesn’t feel right, then you don’t have to do anything. I feel something when I am with you that I can’t explain, but if you don’t feel that same attraction then I am not going to force myself on you.”

The worry lines on Derek’s face intensified. “I didn’t say I didn’t like you. I feel that attraction too.” He placed his hand on Lucas’s chest, the corners of his mouth dragged down by the frown. “It’s just…without him here it feels like I am cheating on him.”

“You two have a commitment?”

“No, but…” Derek closed his eyes, seemingly unsure of what to say next.

“Fuck, it could be something special. I didn’t ask for a commitment, but I don’t want to do something stupid to lose him.”