His Imperfect Mate 26 (3 page)

That was two months ago.

A frown touched the corners of Sloane’s eyes as he stared at his mate’s gaunt, grey, and unhealthy profile. Where lean muscle should have been, there was nothing more than sunken skin. D was already pale by nature, but the dark circles under his mate’s eyes only lent themselves to the ashen appearance. His beautiful smoky-black hair was dry and limp as dead leaves in the fall.

It killed Sloane to see him that way. His feelings were conflicting on what he should do. Should he take a chance? His pride was telling him that it was impossible to ever trust the vampire again.

But his heart was telling him to give his mate a try, to give D the benefit of the doubt and give him another chance. Sloane was nervous about letting his mate in, of giving the man his heart completely.

He had already screwed Sloane over once before.

“I know you don’t believe me when I tell you that what I had done wasn’t intentional.” D reached down and plucked a blade of grass, twirling it around between his fingers as he glanced over at Sloane. “I was just so scared that I didn’t know where to turn, what to do. But I never meant for my brothers to go after you with the intention of harming you. I know it sounds all screwed up, but you have to believe me, Sloane, please.”

Sloane lifted his head when Pa Lakeland came out onto the porch with a shotgun in his hand and a bear at his side. “Everything okay, D?”

“Is it?” D asked as his eyes flashed over to Sloane, an almost hopeful glint in his dark, sunken eyes.

Sloane shifted, standing as he gave a nod to the man on the porch.

“He’s fine.”

The elder bear stared at them for a moment longer, as if trying to give Sloane a silent warning before he walked back into the house, the bear close at his side. Sloane dropped his eyes to his mate to see D blushing profusely as he stared up at Sloane’s naked body. The pink coloring on his cheeks looked waxy with the grey tone to his skin.

But it didn’t go unnoticed, and his cock was starting to fill at the desirable glint in D’s eyes. “One more chance, D. Betray me again, and there’s nothing on earth that will stop me from…” Sloane didn’t have it in his heart to finish the threat. He never wanted D hurt or even unhappy. It was a shifter’s honor to take care of his mate, to protect and nurture him. The threat felt like hot ash on his tongue.

“I promise.” D stood, wringing his hands in front of him. His mate looked like he wanted to reach out and touch Sloane, but failed at his courage. Instead, he just stood there awkwardly as he gazed down at the blade of grass in his hand.

Knowing he couldn’t resist, Sloane reached out and, with his thumb and index finger, lifted D’s chin. “I’ll come back tomorrow night so we can talk, Dudley.” Because Sloane would need that much time to think of what to say. He hadn’t expected to run into D tonight, but now that he had, he was at a loss for words.

And that was a first for him.

D nodded with a jerky little bob of his head. “I’ll take anything you want to give me right now.”

Sloane released his chin as he studied his mate. The vampire was chewing on his bottom lip as his eyes flickered to Sloane’s groin and then glanced away, as if he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to outright gawk.

He held back the low rumble in his chest, demanding that his cock not rise to the sensual look of his mate. Sloane knew D wasn’t purposefully trying to be seductive, and that made it all the more inviting.

“Tomorrow.”

D nodded quickly once again.

“Now go into the house, and stop taking late-night walks into the woods alone.” His tone was displeased, letting the vampire know how much he disapproved of what D had done.

“I won’t, I promise.” D stood there, unmoving.

“Go, Dudley,” Sloane said a little more gently.

D spun around, but Sloane could tell it was the last thing the man wanted to do as he crossed the yard and climbed the porch steps. He paused at the door, giving Sloane one more longing glance before he headed inside.

Sloane sighed. D looked as though he was about to cry. The vampire had to be wondering if he’d ever see Sloane again. It wasn’t a ruse. Sloane fully intended to come back. He just wasn’t sure what he would say to the guy once he arrived.

Shifting back into his timber wolf form, Sloane took off toward home.

* * * *

D watched his mate run away through the fall of the curtains. It hurt like hell to see Sloane leave. He had to trust the wolf on his word that he would be back, but with the way things were strained between them, he wasn’t so sure.

“How’d it go?” Pa asked from the kitchen doorway.

How did it go?
Confusion surrounded him at the question. His mate said he would be back. “We’re supposed to talk tomorrow night.” That made D’s heart race and his head spin. He wasn’t sure what Sloane would say. The wolf had said he would give D another chance, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that everything would be sunshine and lollipops tomorrow.

It would take time for Sloane to trust him again, assuming that miraculous feat would ever happen.

“It’s a start.” Pa walked into the living room, his large presence stopping next to D at the window. “Just don’t push him. Let it happen naturally, D.”

That sounded like the perfect advice. “But I have a knack for screwing things up, Pa. You saw what a disaster I’ve made of things already. What if I do it again?” D could feel the anxiety building inside of him as he gazed at the empty yard—a yard that once held his splendidly naked mate.

That was the first time D had seen his mate naked, and the sight was burned into his memory. Sloane wasn’t highly defined like the men in the Lakeland home. He wasn’t bulky or hairy like the bears.

What Sloane was, was a magnificent specimen. His abdomen was lean, cut just right, his pecs muscled just like a man’s should be. The memory of Sloane’s little hairy happy trail was keeping D hard as a rock as he imagined using his tongue to follow the path to see where it led.

But he had seen where it led, and his cock became impossibly harder. Sloane was thick in girth and long in length, and the man wasn’t even hard! His body shuddered at the thought of the wolf taking him.

“Just be yourself,” Pa said as he laid a large hand on D’s shoulder. “Show Sloane who the real D is, and I know he’ll love you even more than we do.”

Was the guy nuts? If D showed Sloane the real him, the man would toss D out on his ass the first few days. He was a walking disaster. D never thought before he spoke and never thought about what he was doing until someone was yelling at him that he had done it wrong. There was no way he was allowing Sloane to see that side of him.

He had to be everything
opposite
of what he was.

“I will.” The lie tasted bitter on his tongue, but D knew that Pa would stand there all night and argue with him if he told him the truth.

That he was a complete bumbling idiot most of the time.

Hell, he had thrown everything away in the pantry, twice, when he watched a program that had talked about diabetes and high cholesterol. D had feared all the bears were going to either fall over into a sugar coma or have a heart attack from what was in there.

It never dawned on him that the occupants of the house were shifters so the rules were different. It never occurred to him that shifters lived an unusually long time and that nature had built them differently from humans.

And that was his problem. D never thought before he acted.

“I’m heading back to bed. I don’t want you outside by yourself, D.”

What was with everyone and thinking D couldn’t take care of himself? He had taken care of himself for one hundred and twenty years before the bears or Sloane came along. He may suck at it sometimes, but he had managed not to get himself killed…thus far.

He began to head upstairs when the phone rang. It was five in the morning. Who would be calling this late…or early? Curious, D picked up the phone, pressing it to his ear. There was a moment of silence where no one said anything.

“Sloane?”

“I hear you called your brothers to take care of a problem.”

D’s heart took a dive, barely beating as every muscle in him locked into place. “Father?”

“You never could take care of your own problems, so I’ll handle this one for you. Rest assured, Dudley, the wolf will bother you no more.”

“No!” But it was too late. His father had already hung up. D cradled the phone to his chest as he gripped the counter’s edge with his other hand. His knees felt weak, and his body shook as he thought about his father going anywhere near Sloane.

Magnum Constantinople was highly respected in the vampire community. And he was a force to be reckoned with. The community had no idea just how coldhearted Magnum truly was. His father had very little time for D as he was growing up, and the few times he did pay D any attention it was to belittle him and tell him what he was doing wrong.

Never once had D had any positive reinforcement from that man.

His brothers were so busy trying to please Magnum that they had forgotten about D. He knew they cared, in their own way. But growing up in a household where the four men that D should have admired, should have looked up to, had taken any self-worth D had and flushed it down the damn toilet.

Hanging the phone up quickly, D ran for the door. He had to warn Sloane! Alex had told him where the wolf had moved to. It was a bit far, but D would do anything, go anywhere to protect his wolf.

God, he was living on the other side of the coin now. Instead of running from Sloane, D was running to him. He was so glad Pa had talked some sense into him. His teeth gnashed over the prejudice his father had instilled in him. If it wasn’t for that bastard, D would be happily mated now.

He considered disseminating, but he didn’t want to end up in Siberia. D didn’t have time for that. So his only choice was to run fast as hell and hope he beat his father to Sloane’s. His lungs were on fire by the time the farmhouse came into view.

Fear filled him that Sloane would think that D had put his father up to this. His track record wasn’t exactly squeaky-clean. Running into the front yard, D had to take that chance. If Sloane told him to leave and never return, at least the wolf would be warned.

His knuckles lingered on the front door as sweat covered his entire body. What if Sloane did tell him to fuck off? The wolf had given him another chance, a last chance.

What if telling Sloane was the wrong thing to do? He didn’t want to blow his last chance with the wolf. D was torn apart by indecision as the front door swung open, Sloane’s jaw tight with disapproval.

“I thought I told you not to leave the house.” His tone was clipped, filled with ice.

D rocked from foot to foot, wondering if he had the nerve to confess why he was here. The look on Sloane’s face was dark, angry.

That couldn’t be good.

“I need to tell you something.”

“And it couldn’t wait until I came back?” Sloane stepped aside, allowing D into his home. The wolf looked like he was ready to throttle D, even more so than usual. His eyes glanced around Sloane’s new home, taking in the way it looked as if the man had already settled in.

He liked the way it was furnished. It was modest, but comfortable looking in the way—

“Dudley?”

D slowly turned, afraid to be kicked out on his ass—again. Why did his father have to stick his two cents in just when Sloane had declared that he was giving D another chance? Magnum never cared before, so why start now? “M–My father called.”

Sloane closed the front door, his eyes telling D that Sloane had an idea where this conversation was going.
Oh, hell’s bells.
He might as well get used to being alone for eternity because Sloane was going to raise the roof with this one.

“And?”

Here goes everything.

“And he said since I’m such a screwup that he would take care of my little problem,” D blurted out quickly while he had the courage to do so. “Not in those words,” he added. His face heated as he drew in a slow and somewhat shaky breath.

Sloane crossed the room, taking a seat on the couch. D wasn’t sure he should follow, so he stood where he was at the front door. It was better to stay right there in case Sloane told him to get the hell out.

“And you had nothing to do with that?”

D shook his head quickly as his eyes widened. “No, I swear. I’m not even sure how he got the number.” He squirmed a little where he stood, feeling Sloane’s eyes bore through him. This so wasn’t going well. It was, however, going about how D expected it to go. Sloane was pissed at him.

“You could have just called and told me. I asked you not to come back out by yourself.” Sloane rested his elbows on his knees, his fingers knotting together as he studied D.

D hated the disappointed look on Sloane’s face. It hurt more than Magnum’s ever did. Yet again, D had made the wrong decision. He had thought that by coming here, he could be sure that Sloane was safe.

Apparently Sloane didn’t agree with that decision.

“I’ll drive you back to your house.” Sloane rose from the couch and then cursed when the first rays of dawn began to lighten the world outside. His walk to Sloane’s had taken longer than he thought. “Get upstairs, now!”

D scrambled to climb the steps. He knew he had time. Being only in his early hundreds, the sunlight would blister him quickly, but the first rays wouldn’t harm him. By the harsh command Sloane had given him, D wasn’t going to argue, though.

He reached the top of the steps and wondered where to go. There were four doors in the hallway. Sloane brushed past him and opened the second one. “In here.”

D followed. He found himself in a master bedroom. Was it Sloane’s? The room screamed masculinity with its deep emerald greens and rich golds. Sloane went to the closet and pulled out dark curtains, as if the man had anticipated D being there.

“They’ll be up in a second. Get under the covers until then.”

“But—”

“Stop arguing and do what I say,” Sloane snapped as he hung the curtains. D crawled onto the bed and then scooted under the covers.