Rise to Submit [Rise of the Changelings, Book 4] (Siren Publishing Epic Romance, ManLove) (3 page)

Ian was gasping for breath, his eyes flickering around wildly for a way out. She was stronger than she looked. They were around the same height, Ian having maybe an inch or two on her, but hell if she didn’t have him immobilized. “Who are you?” he asked as he stopped struggling. He was too tired, and struggling with her while he was naked wasn’t the most comfortable thing he had done.

“We are friends of Dorian’s.”

Shame washed over Ian at the mention of his brother’s name. Aside from his parents, Dorian was the one person on this planet that Ian loved. Why would Dorian care enough to rescue him a second time? He knew his brother looked at him as trash. Ian was a fang addict and hung out at a BDSM club. How could Dorian not look at him with contempt? “Are you taking me to him?”

The woman gazed down at him, and Ian saw pity and anger in her eyes. “Are you going to run again?”

Ian turned his head, refusing to answer her. Hell yes he was going to run the first chance he had. How did he know this woman was telling the truth?

For all he knew, she could be someone out to find Dorian and using Ian to get to his brother. He had been in the club for months, and wasn’t sure what was going on in the world around him.

But Ian had heard snippets of things being said by the vampires.

Dorian was a highly sought man.

As he lay there, Ian began to shiver. His body was shaking so badly that the woman grabbed a few blankets and tucked them around his trembling body.

But that didn’t help. The shakes were getting worse. He was beginning to think the shivering had nothing to do with being cold.

All of a sudden excruciating pain raced through his body like a wildfire out of control, and Ian cried out in an agonizing expulsion of breath. He whimpered, the pain too intense as his chest began to hurt so badly that he curled into himself.

“Shit, Nate, something is wrong with him. Pull over!”

Nate’s red Yukon drove into the empty parking lot, pulling up right next to Mason’s truck. Mason got out and walked over to meet them. He really didn’t like Nate. The man had one smart-ass mouth on him, and Mason wasn’t the one to deal with that kind of crap.

“Did Rick tell you about Ian?” Selene asked as she jumped out of the back. She turned, grabbing a bag and handing it off to Mason.

Mason had been sitting in his SUV, waiting on Nate and Selene to meet him in southern Kansas. Mason and the rest of the crew had already been through here, but Rick had sent him back to retrieve Dorian’s brother.

“Just that I need to make sure he doesn’t run and to take care of him.” Rick hadn’t given Mason a whole lot of details, but he had asked Mason to make sure Ian didn’t run and to handle him with care.

He wasn’t really sure what that meant. But after Rick and Nate had pulled his ass out of trouble in Georgia, it was the least he could do.

Mason had wanted to bring Benito and Miguel along, but Rick had said that the less people around Ian right now, the better. It made Mason one curious man to know what was wrong with the guy.

Selene shook her head. “It goes way deeper than that. He crashed when we first picked him up. I had to perform CPR on him. Do you know how to do CPR, Mason?”

Mason nodded. “I took a course in college.”
What did she mean he crashed? Like…a heart attack?
Oh, hell, Mason hadn’t signed up for that shit.

But he couldn’t let Rick down, either. The man had allowed Mason to stay in his Rebellion group. Mason had nowhere else to go, so, he would deal with this.

“Good,” she said as she nodded in approval and stepped back. Mason peered inside and had to look twice before he saw the frail human lying under piles of blankets. The only thing Mason could see was a head of wavy brown hair.

“Is he really that small?” Mason asked as he hiked the bag Selene had given him over his shoulder.

“He is,” she replied as she inclined her head in a nod. “But don’t let his small frame fool you. He’s pretty strong when he’s fighting to get away.”

Mason took the bag Selene had given him to the SUV and tossed it inside. He then opened the back of the truck and spread out the blankets Rick had sent with him.

Mason hadn’t known what they were for at the time, but now he saw the wisdom in sending them. He walked back over to the Yukon and lifted the human from the back, amazed at how light he was. If Mason didn’t know for a fact that a man was in there, he would have sworn he was just carrying blankets.

Selene closed the back of the Yukon, her eyes softening as she looked at the blankets in Mason’s arms. “Keep him warm. We wanted to stop for clothes, but Rick made it clear we weren’t to stop until we met up with you.”

Mason nodded as he gently laid the guy down in the back of his truck. He grabbed some of the blankets he’d brought with him and layered Ian. Once he had Ian tucked in, he closed the hatch.

“Keep an eye on him, cat,” Nate warned with an assessing scowl that made Mason feel as if he didn’t measure up to the werewolf. “He’s fucking quick.”

“Why is everyone going through the trouble of bringing this man to Rick when it sounds like he doesn’t want to go?” Mason asked Selene, ignoring the asshole standing by the driver’s door.

“He’s a fang addict, Mason. Rick should have told you that.” Selene sounded irritated. “He also has a shitload of cuts and welts all over his backside. There’s antiseptic cream and other things you might need to keep the wounds clean in the bag I gave you. Thank goodness we carry a medical kit with us in the Yukon at all times.”

Mason wanted to ask what in the hell happened to the human, but he knew Rick wanted him back as fast as he could make it. “I’ll clean him up by the time I get halfway back to Rick.”

“Good luck,” Selene said as she walked back toward the front of the Yukon. Nate just glared at him, and Mason just flipped Nate off. The man gave him a toothy smile that wasn’t meant to be pleasant.

Mason crawled back into the driver’s seat and adjusted his mirror so he could see Ian if he popped up and tried to get free. From the man’s state, Mason didn’t think he would be getting up anytime soon.

He pulled from the parking lot and headed back toward Colorado. He had a long drive ahead of him and hoped the small human didn’t give him any problems.

Mason made it about twenty miles before he saw flashing lights ahead.

He could tell that the cops were conducting a checkpoint by the way their cruiser was positioned.

Mason knew the cops of the smaller towns were enforcing martial law. Normally martial law was used to enforce curfew and to try and bring order back to chaos.

But Mason knew changelings were being widely hunted and the cops at this checkpoint were sure to be using a BAT—blood abnormality tests.

BATs were carried by every Breed Hunter, military personnel, and law enforcement officer. They were small handheld devices that resembled a glucose machine. One drop of blood and a small light on the device would either turn red, for nonhuman, or green, for human.

It gave an on-the-spot reading.

The machines were first generation, and found to be faulty at times. But the Breed Hunters killed regardless.

False positives were never retested by the Breed Hunters. The human died as soon as the light turned red.

Mason leaned over and opened the glove box, retrieving the small piece of synthetic skin that matched the color of his fingertips. Behind the small application was a dollop of Dorian’s blood. Dorian was human. The blood was encased in a tiny plastic bag that was sealed to the synthetic piece.

Mason applied the piece to his index finger, praying the adhesive bonded before he approached the cops. He pulled up to the flagging officer and stopped the SUV, rolling his window down. “Evening, Officer.”

The man tipped his hat in a friendly gesture, but Mason saw his hand rest on the butt of his gun. “I need your driver’s license and registration.”

Mason grabbed his wallet from the center console, pulling out the fake ID Freedman had given him. He then reached up into the visor and grabbed the totally fake registration and handed them both over with a friendly smile.

“I’ll be right back,” the cop said as he walked the length of Mason’s truck, using his flashlight to see inside. He paused at the back, and Mason knew the cop spotted Ian. “You got company back here?”

“Yeah,” Mason said from the window, sounding casual as he waved toward the back. “My brother took the first half of driving and was bushed. He crashed out in the back.” Mason held his breath as the cop walked back toward the driver’s window. He could see the guy’s partner walking toward them.

“I’ll need his ID as well.”

Mason dug out the fake ID Freedman had given him for Ian just in case something like this happened. He handed it over. The cop glanced at Ian’s ID and then nodded. “Anyone else in the truck?”

Mason shook his head as he gave the cop an easy smile. “Just me and my brother.”

“Everything all right?” the cop’s partner called out.

Cold brown eyes stared at Mason for a moment, weighing him carefully, and then the cop nodded. “Yeah, I need you to run these licenses for me.”

His partner took them from the first cop, eyeing Mason before he walked back to the cruiser.

To say Mason was a nervous wreck would be an understatement. His father had made him attend college under an alias. Mason was proud of being a jaguar changeling. His father was hiding in the closet for fear of anyone finding out and taking his pharmaceutical company from him. He hated that Mason wouldn’t deny their heritage, so he had shipped his troublemaking son off under the assumed name Mason Seattle.

But as soon as his father had tried to blow him up, Mason Seller was known to the world as a suspect wanted for questioning in connection with the bombing that took place at a Georgia college. At first the authorities heading up the investigation had tried to keep Mason’s name out of the papers—considering who his father was—but it didn’t stay hidden for long.

If the cops figured out who he was, he was in deep shit. Mason glanced at the name on the guy’s uniform.
O’Malley.
He watched O’Malley pull the BAT from a case clipped to his utility belt. Mason knew this was coming, but it didn’t stop his heart from speeding up.

“I need you to take a voluntary blood screening. Do you agree to take the test?” The cop eyed him, waiting for Mason to refuse. He knew that if he refused, his ass would be tossed into the back of the police car.

O’Malley gave him a look that said he would willingly hurt Mason if he had to. It wasn’t something Mason wanted to find out. Because cop or no cop, Mason wasn’t going to let anyone hurt him. He would kill the son of a bitch before he allowed the man to lay one finger on him.

Mason held out his index finger, pad up. “Go right ahead, Officer. Make sure you use a clean strip. I don’t want to catch anything.”

The cop chuckled, and Mason wanted to punch the man. “Don’t worry. Everyone who has been tested on this baby so far has been human.” And now Mason wanted to do more than punch the man. It sickened him to see such prejudice.

The strip pierced the synthetic skin, moving it a minute fraction. Mason held his breath, waiting for O’Malley to call his bluff, but the man didn’t seem to notice. He was sitting there sweating bullets. Being arrested was something Mason couldn’t allow to happen. If shit went south, they were going to have one hell of a chase on the back road.

The machine light came back red, and Mason damn near fainted.

“It seems your blood isn’t nor—” The machine beeped again, and this time the tiny dot was green.

The cop smiled at him. “Damn machines. That’s the fourth time that’s happened.”

“Do you need to check again?” Mason watched the man carefully, using his heightened senses to let him know if the cop became anything other than calm.

“No need.” The cop shook Mason’s hand and Mason prayed the small piece of skin stayed in place. “I rechecked the others when it did that, and they came back negative for abnormal blood. I think I need to replace this machine.”

“Maybe,” Mason replied casually, goodnaturedly.

“I need to check your brother now.”

Oh, hell.

The man was out to screw up Mason’s already fucked-up night. Mason slowly exited the truck and walked toward the back. The cop’s hand automatically went back to resting on the butt of his gun as Mason opened the hatch. His gut was twisting at the way O’Malley was acting. A nervous cop was never a good thing.

“He sure is buried under there.” O’Malley said it playfully, but Mason heard the suspicious tone. He grabbed Ian’s hand from under the mounds of blankets, pulling it up for the cop.

“Let me see his face.”

Mason lowered Ian’s hand and pulled the blankets down enough to expose only the man’s head. Ian groaned and then turned, his eyes fluttering open. He lay there staring at Mason and then looked over at the cop. His cobalt-blue eyes were stunning as fuck, but Mason could have done without the wide-eyed look.

“Don’t worry,
Marc
. The cop just needs to check your blood.” Mason moved so O’Malley couldn’t see his face and gave Ian a quick wink.