The Trail Back (2 page)

He went to the room he’d set up as an office and took a seat behind his desk. He needed to continue to build his business. He had already found four hybrids, but needed to find more.

His drug was growing in popularity at an alarming rate, and he needed more stock. The staid and composed world of vampire-kind was being turned on its head for the first time ever, and his drug was the cause. Demand for the drug was exceeding even his wildest dreams.

Opening his e-mail, he found that he now had inquiries for his product coming from covens in Europe. His plan to rule the world was going to take months, not years, and he owed it all to his first little hybrid, Kaitlyn Winters.

His cock was hard again in an instant. He’d never quite been able to rid himself of his fixation for her. As soon as Jeremy returned with his wolf, he’d personally go and get the wayward Kaitlyn. Her mates will now have dropped their guard and be easy to eliminate. This time she would not be walking away from him. He’d build a special cage just for her and keep her blood for him alone. He was going to rule the world, and she was his reward.

The room exploded into action as Brayden found himself unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything except stare—stare down at the tiny, dirty, and bloody bundle of fur that was now his entire reason for living.

“Prescott, do a sweep and see if anyone followed our guest here,” Caleb said, his tone one hundred percent Alpha. “Lachlan, take Meg into Landon’s office and have Kaitlyn, Sean and our guest, Isabelle, join you.”

“I’ll do a wider sweep and be back shortly, my heart,” Aiden said. Brayden looked up to see Aiden give his mate a lingering kiss before running from the room so quickly that he seemed to disappear.

“She’s going to need blood,” Sean said, clapping a hand on Brayden’s shoulder and pulling him from his stupor. “We know from our experience with Kaitlyn that she’ll die without it.”

“She’ll die? What can I do? What does she need?” Brayden had stood in his panic, holding his mate close against his chest. Her heartbeat was a slow thud against him. Sean was right, she was dying.

“She needs your blood, Brayden,” Sean said calmly. “Any blood will do, but I’m sure you would prefer it be either yours or your brother’s.”

Sean was correct in that assumption. He wouldn’t have anyone else’s blood inside his mate.

“I’ll call Charlie Paige,” Caleb said. “She was on her way here, but if Jason is closer we’ll get him to come instead.”

“I can help,” Brody said.

The demon. Brayden felt like kissing the small man. He could get a doctor here in an instant.

“Do you know where this doctor is? Have you been there before?” Brayden asked, desperate to get his mate the help she needed. Once he knew the doctor was on her way, he’d deal with his idiot brothers.

“Brody will get a doctor here for your mate as soon as he can, Brayden,” Landon said.

The big bear shifter smiled at him and clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. Brayden heard his collarbone snap.

“I’m glad you’ve found your mate. Your brothers are good men. They just don’t realize it yet. They’ll be back.”

He grew furious at his brothers for abandoning their mate when she’d so obviously been badly injured. After fifty-one years of infinite patience at their disregard for humanity he finally snapped. Aiden appeared at his side and snatched his precious mate from his arms just seconds before his wolf took control of him. His own rage joined with that of his wolf’s and the shift was swift.

“Go get your damned brothers, Brayden. We’ll keep your mate safe,” Caleb said.

Brayden barely heard them talking through the hum of his rage. He’d always been the calm and patient one of the three of them. He’d had to be. Despite this being an unprecedented lack of control for him, he was not about to abandon his mate.

He directed his thoughts to his brothers.
“Wherever the fuck you are, you need to get your asses back here.”

“Fuck off,”
Josh said.

“You know we can’t have a mate, Brayden. What the hell are you doing?”
Shane said, his mental voice icy with rage.
“Go hug your mate and forget about us. We’re not going to be involved in this.”

“You selfish pricks. She’s dying. She needs our blood or she dies—blood from all of us. The vampires have nearly drained her.”

Brayden shifted back without giving them the opportunity to argue with him. If his brothers were worth salvaging, then they needed to prove it, and prove it now. He’d thrown down the proverbial gauntlet.

“Sorry, Caleb, Aiden. I’ve got my wolf under control now.” He walked to Aiden and held his arms out for his tiny wolf.

“You don’t want to go after your brothers and drag them back here?” Caleb asked.

“He has more important things happening right now,” Aiden said.

He handed Brayden his mate and clapped him on the shoulder. His newly healed collarbone snapped again. The vampire was strong.

“They need to finally let it go, Brayden. You’re doing the right thing.”

Brayden shuddered as his mate’s fur rubbed against his naked skin. Despite her poor condition she still smelled wonderful to him. She smelled like the pine forest on a snowy night, clean and crisp. Simply wonderful. He sat and placed her carefully in his lap. He was in the middle of the tavern, with the entire pride assembled for the Alpha and his brother’s wedding to their mate, Meg, and he was getting an erection.

“I told them she needed their blood as well as mine,” Brayden said. He smoothed his hand over his mate’s matted coat. “Now we’ll see what they do.”

“I may have to kill you if you show your bits to my mate again,” Landon said. He handed Brayden a pair of sweatpants.

“Do we know her name?” Brayden asked. He looked around for the vampire who had rescued his mate as he handed the tiny wolf to Landon while he pulled on the sweatpants. He didn’t see her in the tavern.

“Sean and Kaitlyn are talking with Isabelle in Landon and Elliot’s office,” Aiden said.

“Thank you,” Brayden said. “I’m a little out of it right now.” He stroked his hand over his mate’s fur and wondered who she was, what she’d been through. She looked to have a myriad of injuries that had failed to heal when she’d shifted. They’d clearly done more than just drain his mate of blood.

“Brayden, let’s wait in Landon’s office while Caleb contacts the doctor,” Meg said. “It’s warm in there, and I know your mate must be feeling cold.”

“I’ll start a fire,” Brody said.

Elliot came up behind Brody and picked the smaller man up in his thickly muscled arms. Brayden smiled when Elliot kissed the top of his mate’s head with open affection.

“There’s no fireplace in there, baby. You’ll burn the whole building down.” Brody blushed and disappeared from Elliot’s hold. “Damn. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad. I bet he’s in the restroom again.”

“No one’s mating is easy, is it?” Brayden said. He watched the big bear shifter race across the tavern in search of his mate.

“Not if mine and Kaitlyn’s are a typical example, no.” Meg said.

As Brayden followed her into the office, he became aware of a change in her usual scent. He knew that Kaitlyn was pregnant, but no one had mentioned anything about Meg. This was going to make the Alpha and his brothers even more protective of Meg, if that was even possible.

He looked down at his mate and wondered what sort of trouble was going to follow her to Pine Falls. No matter what it was, his pride would be right beside him to help protect her. He just hoped that his brothers would to be there as well.

* * * *

Josh stopped running. His legs ached and his chest burned as he panted for breath. He’d never run so hard in his life. He could run for days as his wolf and never tire, but he usually didn’t run in blind panic. He and Shane had run straight up the mountain that lay behind the town. Despite the snowstorm and freezing temperatures, Josh felt overheated. He was burning up inside, and he didn’t know why.

Shane barreled into his side, knocking him into a snowdrift at the foot of a huge pine.

“What the fuck did you do that for?”
Josh asked. He stood and faced his brother, his canines bared as he snarled.

“You’re not going back, are you?”
Shane said, his tone belligerent.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
His anger drained from him. Josh didn’t want Brayden’s mate to die. He shook the snow from his thick white coat. The freezing snow had done nothing to cool the fire burning through his veins.

“It’s a trick. Brayden is fucking with us in an attempt to get us back there. He wants us to join him in ‘happy-ever-after’ land.”

“What if it’s not some kind of trick? Do you want her to die?”

“I don’t even know her. She’s a stranger to me. What do I care?”

The fire in Josh’s veins ignited into an inferno of rage. He leaped on his brother’s back, easily wrapping his jaws around Shane’s neck with his unexpected assault. Josh’s wolf tasted blood and wanted more. Shane had threatened his mate.

“Fuck.”
Josh released his brother’s throat and let Shane shake him off.
“My mate? I just attacked you for threatening my mate. This can’t be happening. I don’t want this to be happening.”

Shane snarled at him and stalked away. Josh sat and watched as his brother struggled with the same internal battle that he was also struggling with. The scent of their mate had engaged their wolves in something their human forms were never going to accept, a mating.

Their wolves had been their saviors for the past fifty years and now they were becoming a curse. Josh felt lost. He’d never allowed himself to experience his human emotions before, and he felt totally adrift. At the first hint of any feeling, other than rage, he’d always retreated into his wolf. It had protected him from feeling anything. But now his wolf was desperate for its mate. It was experiencing feelings that Josh didn’t even have names for.

“What do we do, Shane? My wolf is going nuts. It wants to go back and be with her.”
Josh walked to his brother’s side and licked a line of blood that ran down the fur on Shane’s neck.
“We have no escape now. If we shift back to human it’s going to be even harder not to feel anything for her.”

“We’re screwed,”
Shane said.
“We have to do what we always vowed we’d do if this happened. We can’t ruin Brayden’s chance at happiness. He’s sacrificed the last fifty years of his life for us. It’s our turn to return the favor. She’ll die if he mates her without us, unless we’re already dead.”

Josh looked into his brother’s eyes and saw the same desolation that he felt run deep into his soul. He saw his own unrelenting pain reflected back at him.

“We have to make sure she’ll survive first,”
Josh said. He turned to look down the mountain, his shoulders sagged as his head dropped.
“We need to go back. Once we know she’s going to live we can finally find our peace. We can die.”

Brayden followed Meg into Landon and Elliot’s office and was surprised to find it full of people. He took a seat on the sofa, close to the small electric heater that was running in the corner of the office. He held his unresponsive mate securely on his lap and sent her all his strength with each stroke of his hand over her coat.

She was in a severely weakened state. He didn’t need to be a doctor to recognize that. Her breathing was shallow and labored, and her heartbeat was slow and weak. She scented of mate, as well as blood and pain. His heart twisted to see her so abused. He needed to know everything that had happened to her. Then he would deliver retribution. His wolf growled its approval of a bloody revenge.

The raised voices around him interrupted his plotting. The vampires were not just going to be hunting Kaitlyn now. They would also be coming for his wolf. He fought his own wolf for control. It wanted to shift and hunt his brothers down. Then it wanted to drag them back here to help protect their precious gift.

Brayden wanted their help in protecting her, and she deserved it. She deserved a whole lot more from them other than their protection, but if they returned to do that, it would satisfy his wolf enough not to kill them. The man in him wrested control from the wolf. They needed to come back on their own if it was to mean anything. They had to begin caring about something.

“Where did you find her?”

The crowd in Landon’s office parted at his softly spoken question. It allowed him to address Kaitlyn’s mother, Isabelle, directly.

“In an abandoned holiday camp near Bulwark Peak in Canada,” Isabelle said.

She turned and walked toward him, not stopping until she stood directly in front of him. He growled as she reached her hand toward the wolf in his arms.

“I didn’t know I was bringing her to her mate.”

“How could you?” Sean said. “Aiden didn’t know he was bringing Kaitlyn to hers, either.”

Isabelle didn’t look at Sean. She kept her gaze fixed on Brayden, her hand remaining outstretched. “She seems weaker now. I’m sorry I didn’t find her prison sooner.”

Brayden ground his teeth together and nodded his permission. Isabelle stroked her hand over the dirty fur of his mate’s head.
A prison. My mate was in a prison.

“Were there others in this prison?” Brayden said, grinding the words out through his gritted teeth.
What the hell has my mate been through?

“There were four shifters in one of the cabins. Each was contained in their own metal cage. The cages had been electrified. I took this woman because I judged her to be in the worst physical condition.”

Kaitlyn walked over and placed a hand on Brayden’s shoulder. “I was nearly dead when Aiden’s blood saved me.”

“Is that what she needs?” Isabelle looked around at the shifters in the room. “You really know how to save her? How to save them all?”