Jacks, Marcy - Taken by the Alpha Wolf [DeWitt's Pack 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (16 page)

Ryan could only imagine what had happened to put him in that in  between state and to make him tear through the  hunters the way he  did.

It made him yearn to see Blasius all the more, to confirm with his own eyes that the other man was safe.

Ryan didn’t want a repeat of history. More than that, he didn’t want Blasius to be killed while Ryan watched in some sort of strange twist with fate.

He jumped through each small battle, no longer focusing on finding that one hunter or with joining in with any of the other werewolves. All he wanted was…

There he was!

Blasius was in his human form, and naked, as though he’d just

transformed so that he could use his bare hands in this battle instead

of simply latching his teeth around any part of that hunter that could  be grabbed onto and ripping it out.

Ryan didn’t call to him. He wouldn’t dare distract the other man  from a fight with an armed opponent.

He slunk around their own personal battlefield. Ryan didn’t  recognize this hunter, but he was skilled and eager to keep on  fighting, despite the many slashes on his face and body that seeped  blood through his clothing.

Even if this hunter survived, he would become a werewolf, but

that didn’t seem to faze the other man, or maybe he just wasn’t fully  aware of his injuries yet. Then he charged at Blasius with his  machete.

Blasius practically danced out of the way, that was how fast he

was. The hunter roared with anger while Blasius played with him.

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“I don’t fucking care about your pelt!” the hunter screamed. “I’m

gonna cut you up and put your fucking head on my wall.”

Blasius snorted at him, smiling at the threat. “I’ve been told that

on more than one occasion, boy,” he said. “Ye should know that every  man who has ever told me such a thing wound up buried on my land,  their graves danced on by the pups.”

That made the hunter lose it altogether, and he charged again.

Ryan wasn’t the sort who  would challenge a crazed, and armed,  individual like that, but he was not the expert on hunters, here. Blasius  had been fighting these men off since before Ryan knew they existed.

Ryan’s only concern was making sure that no hunters tried  sneaking up on his lover while he was occupied with the hunter he  battled.

Eventually, he did see another hunter trying to make a play for it.  Someone ran up, though he stayed a safe twenty feet away, got down on his knees, his eyes totally focused on Blasius’s back, and then started loading shells into his shotgun.

With a growl, Ryan launched himself at Blasius’s would-be attacker.

When the man snapped the break-open shotgun back together and pointed it, Ryan’s heart jumped. He wasn’t going to make it!

His claws dug into the earth, kicking up chunks of dirt as he pushed himself to go faster than he ever had in his life. He jumped, his claws outstretched and his mouth open, teeth ready to sink into the hunter’s neck.

The gun went off just as Ryan landed on him. He’d been so quick, however that the two of them actually rolled in the dirt, and Ryan fell off of him.

Ryan shook himself off, found his prey, and then jumped on him again with another animal snarl just before the now-injured hunter could pull out a blade to fight him  off with.

Kill him! Ryan was going to fucking kill this man for ever trying to get Blasius when his back was turned!

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And he did kill him. While fully aware of his actions, Ryan clamped his teeth around the man’s head and bit down until he heard a crunch, until the body beneath him stopped twitching.

He let go and stared at it, the stinking scent of death now wafting from the man.

Ryan’s nose crinkled in disgust as he stepped away.

He had no excuse for what he’d just done. He couldn’t blame it on the wolf within him, he was completely in control, and he couldn’t blame it on the anger and rage he felt either because, again, he was entirely in control of himself.

He made the decision to kill this man, and in doing so, he’d as good as decided to leave the human  world behind.

Ryan looked up, the feeling of eyes on him making him suddenly aware of his surroundings again.

Blasius was watching him. There was blood, sweat, and long slices crisscrossing over his chest, but he smiled at Ryan.

“You defend me?”
 
he asked through that bond that they shared.

The answer was obvious.
 
“Of course I do. I―”

He didn’t get the chance to finish as Blasius’s eyes flew wide, and he ran to Ryan with all the speed and panic that Ryan had when he’d run for the hunter.

He understood what  was happening much too late, and Blasius was faster than Ryan would ever be.

Blasius threw his arms around Ryan’s furred chest, shielding him from the next loud boom to crack the air.

Blasius cried out, taking the majority of silver pellets to his back,

while only some struck Ryan, and most of those very few didn’t even  penetrate his thick coat of hair.

Ryan’s heart dropped when Blasius fell forward, unable to hold  his weight any longer.

Ryan looked up and saw the hunter, the leader of this attack and  the man who’d been a part of the team that killed Decker, look back at  him, smile, and then disappear into the shrubs.

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No!

Ryan shifted back into a man without intending to. He called out for help but didn’t know what help could be had since every other alpha was busy tending to their own wounds. The remaining hunters had either escaped or were captured by the werewolves now carting them off kicking and screaming.

“Blasius? Hey, wake up.” Ryan gently, but quickly, smacked his face until he groaned and opened his eyes.

He couldn’t even sigh with relief that his lover was awake because his face had started to sweat even more profusely than before, and the color of his skin was changing to a faint greenish sort of hue.

Ryan felt under Blasius’s back, the same way he did to the pregnant female.

Coated with blood. His skin was slick with it. Likely it had more to do with the fact that he had a hundred silver pellets spread out along his back than any deep injury, but he was still losing blood, and the silver was slowly starting to poison him.

Blasius just smiled up at him. “I’m glad it will be me this time,” he reached up to touch Ryan’s face. “Even if ”…

Ryan grabbed his hand, knowing the thing that Blasius could not say. “No, no! Don’t you dare talk like that. I do love you. I do.” His voice cracked when he finally said it, and he wished he’d said it sooner, wished he’d accepted it sooner and just stopped being an idiot about all of this and accepted his mate. “You’re going to be all right.  Okay? I promise nothing will  happen to you.”

Blasius nodded in agreement, but Ryan knew the other man was only doing that to shut him up. Even when he was dying, Blasius was still seeing to Ryan’s feelings.

“D’ye mean that? Ye love me?” Blasius asked.

“Yes.” Ryan was crying now, full  on bawling his eyes out until it got to be hard to see the man beneath him, but he couldn’t stop.

Blasius never stopped smiling, even after he closed his eyes and stopped breathing, his body going lax in Ryan’s arms.

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Ryan entire body went rigid tight, and  his eyes flew wide open.  He listened for the sound of his heart but heard nothing. He kept on waiting for it to start up again, but there was no sound coming from inside him.

Ryan shook Blasius a little, as though that would get some kind of

response out of the man.

It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. Ryan wasn’t a child. He knew what  had just happened. He wouldn’t say it, though. He wouldn’t. He  couldn’t admit that this had happened.

“Blasius! Wake up! Get up!” he screamed.

Ryan became aware that the other members of James’s pack were  surrounding him and Blasius, even those other werewolves that Ryan  didn’t recognize. Out of everyone, they looked the most heartbroken  at the sight.

Ryan looked around at them, unable to believe that they were all  just standing there.

“Someone help him! Do something!” he yelled.

James stepped forward, knelt down, and put his hand on Ryan’s  shoulder. His scarred face was saddened as he looked Ryan in the  eyes. “He’s gone. You know this.”

Ryan shrugged out of James’s grip. “No!”

Ryan lost track of everything else after that. His brain wouldn’t  put any coherent thought inside of his head. There was nothing but  animal instinct inside of him, so much so that, when the others tried to

come and take Blasius’s body away from him, Ryan went  wild.

He swiped his green claws out at them, roared until they backed  away with fear. Some of them pointed their fingers at him. Others  stared with unmasked horror.

Ryan didn’t care. He looked down into Blasius’s face and kissed his cold lips, and then everything inside of him burst open, his body exploding with size, or maybe just exploding.

Screams sounded, he could hear the shouts of the alphas as they backed away from them, but the last thing Ryan heard before he lost

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his mind to the things churning inside of him was the beating of

Blasius’s heart.

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Chapter Twelve

Ryan woke up in a bed with the sun in his face, and his lover,  Blasius, lying alongside of him, sprawled out on his side, staring down at Ryan as though waiting for him to get his ass up already.

“Och, you slept for long enough. It’s about time you woke up,”  Blasius said in that strange, beautiful accent of his. His warm, callused hands slid across Ryan’s cheek, cupping it, and then his mouth descended on Ryan’s.

Ryan could feel that he was definitely several days overdue for a shave. He wondered how he looked for Blasius to be smiling at him like that.

Then he frowned, his eyes going wide as he looked around the

room then back at Blasius.

Everything appeared normal enough, with the exception that a dead man was practically spooning him, kissing him, and touching him as though everything was normal as could be.

“What―?”

Ryan didn’t even know what to ask. Clearly they weren’t dead, so how was any of this possible?

Blasius stroked Ryan’s hair.  “You healed me.”

“What?” Now he was even more confused. “How could… ? I can’t

do that.”

Blasius nodded, and it almost looked like the bastard was having the time of his life in contradicting Ryan. “You can. At least, you used to be able to. Still can, I suppose. That was the power of your dragon. I could not recall it before, but after I woke up and saw the magnificent green beast you had become, part of my memory

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returned. Do you remember it as well?”

Ryan’s first answer would have been a solid no, and he opened his  mouth to give that response.

Then he stopped. Last night’s memory was entirely gone to him  since the dragon he’d become had taken full control over his mind  and body. He might be merged with the wolf now, but apparently,  there was one more entity living within him, and it had been there his  entire life. Nothing had bitten or infected him with it. The dragon had  always been there. Maybe it had been sleeping all this time, Ryan  couldn’t be sure, but it was definitely there now, waiting to come out.

Something else came out of him, too. No, not out. It did rise up  through his subconscious, shooting all the way to the forefront of his  mind.

He saw himself, sort of. It was another memory of the time so long ago with both him and Blasius.

Blasius was injured. He’d been in his wolf form. A beautiful animal, Ryan could remember thinking, even though he knew it was going to die. A hunter had speared him through the shoulder. The spear was still there, sticking out of the flesh, and now the creature limped along the smooth, round stones that were just on the bank of a flowing river.

Ryan watched the animal move along from his hiding place in a great tree, and he was camouflaging himself to keep from being seen.  Despite this, the wolf had smelled him, looked right up at him, and growled, a low warning of what was to come should Ryan―or  Rhyan, as he’d been called back then, because the
 
R
 
had been rolled―decide to come near him to finish the job and attempt to eat him or something.

As though he would ever wish to do something like that, especially after getting a look into those beautiful golden eyes.