Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The call Charma had been waiting for came around four in the morning.
“The wolves have your man, and they’ll be meeting up with our crew to hand him over. He should be home soon.”
Charma sank to the ground, relief flooding him, making him weak.
“Thank the goddess.”
“Indeed. I’m happy for you, son. I like him.”
“What happened to his kidnappers?” He hoped they were rotting in hell.
“Those are all the details I have. It’s enough, though, isn’t it?”
“For sure, for sure. I just want them punished.”
“I hear you, but let’s start with being happy he’s okay and getting him home safe. Everything else is just details.”
He knew she was right.
“It’ll be a few hours at the earliest before he’s home, so try to get some sleep, okay? Time to take care of yourself now.”
“I’ll try.” But he was making no promises.
She chuckled knowingly and told him she loved him again. This time, he had the presence of mind to say it back to her before disconnecting the call.
“That Aunt Belia?” Nik asked from the couch where he’d been sleeping.
“Yeah. They found him. He’s going to be home soon.
” Except that soon was a relative term, and he didn’t know how far they’d gotten before Darcy had escaped.
So it could be literally all day before he was actually home again.
He was safe now, though, Charma reminded himself.
And that was the important thing. Not that being able to hold Darcy and check for himself that Darcy was okay wasn’t important, but this was the first step toward that, and he was glad for it.
When Darcy came to, he could feel the movements of a vehicle and it was still dark out. Damn it. Despite his best efforts he was still on his way to his parents’ conversion camp. He curled in on himself and felt tears fill his eyes behind his lids.
“He’s awake,” someone said from next to him.
Darcy frowned. That didn’t sound like the guys that had taken him.
“Oh good. Is he okay?”
“Well, I haven’t had a chance to ask him yet, now have I?” He could almost hear the eye roll in the words. “Hey, Darcy? Are you okay? Anything hurting?”
He curled in tighter on himself and a gentle hand landed on his back, petting him carefully.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re just meeting up with your people to get you home safely.”
“My people?” He sat up, pressing himself against the door of the truck. He was in another goddamned truck. “Those guys are not my people. They kidnapped me! Please don’t take me back to them.”
“Whoa, whoa. Just a minute there.” The guy put his hands up in a placating gesture. “I don’t mean the guys who were chasing you in the woods, I mean the ones that came up to take you home.”
“Someone came to take me home?”
“Yeah, they’ve been looking for you since you got taken from what I understand.”
He was still confused. He didn’t have people.
“The Chameleon Clan?” the guy asked. “You do know them, right? We didn’t rescue you only to put you back in the fire.”
“The Chameleon Clan?” That had to be Charma’s people. That’s all that made sense. “They came looking for me?”
“Aren’t you one of theirs? I mean, I know you’re not a shifter—you smell full-on human, but you’re with one of them, right?”
Darcy nodded slowly. “I am. He’s a wonderful guy.” And he’d thought he’d never see Charma again and now it seemed Charma’s family had come looking for him, come to rescue him.
“Apparently, he’s been pretty worried about you.”
Darcy had been pretty worried about himself, too. He couldn’t quite believe that it was over, that he was on his way back.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you?”
“Walter. I’m with the Western Wolf Den.” Walter held out his hand. “And I’m sorry I knocked you out back there. I didn’t mean to, but I needed to get you stopped before you got any deeper into the forest. No point in running when the threat’s been neutralized, right?”
“That was you? It felt like getting hit by a ton of bricks.”
“My wolf packs a pretty good punch,” Walter admitted. “The guys up front are William at the wheel and Weston is riding shotgun. We’re about fifteen minutes from rendez-vous-ing with the Chameleons. Why don’t you tell me what all hurts.”
“My head,” he answered immediately.
“I’m not surprised. You’ve clearly been punched in the face—the bruising is spectacular—and then you went down hard when I caught up with you.
I think you hit your head on a rock.” Walter reached out, but didn’t actually touch him, fingers hovering over his left eye.
“You’ve got a good-sized lump right here. ”
“You probably should stay awake for the next while,” Weston noted. “Concussion is a real thing and better to be exhausted and proven to be not concussed than get some sleep and never wake up.”
Yeah, that didn’t sound optimal. He would do his best not to go to sleep.
“Anything else?” Walter asked.
“I’m feeling a little raw, to be honest,” he admitted.
Walter nodded sagely. “You look like you got pretty banged up during your run through the woods. Torn clothing—I bet there’s lots of scrapes and bruises.”
“I fell a few times,” Darcy admitted. He’d gone down more than once, tripping over hidden rocks and tree roots. Plus he’d been hit by low branches a few times, too.
“How’s your stomach?”
He frowned. He hadn’t noticed his stomach at all, but now that it was mentioned, he was kind of hungry.
“Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?”
“No. Just hungry and thirsty.”
“Well that we can help with.” Weston passed a bottle of water from the front of the car, and Walter grabbed it, handed it over without opening it.
Darcy’s hands were shaking a little as he broke the seal on the lid and opened it, but he had to admit that he appreciated them letting him open it himself so he could be confident it hadn’t been tampered with.
“We’ve got venison jerky. Homemade.” Weston passed that back too in a Tupperware container, and Walter took a piece before handing it to him.
He figured if these guys were going to hurt him, they’d have already done it, so Darcy took a cautious bite, finding it more flavorful than the jerky you could get at the store. Less salty was the big thing.
“It’s good,” he offered.
“You’re damn right it is. We make our own. Best way to preserve deer meat.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just munched on the jerky and drank his water as they bumped their way along a dirt road through the forest. To be honest, while he was pretty sure at some point he’d be excited that he’d met wolf shifters, right now he just wanted to be home.
Charma tried going to bed, but he was restless and the fact that Darcy wasn’t there was amplified; he’d never been in this bed without his lover.
Oh, sure, sometimes Darcy got up before he did, but that wasn’t the same thing at all.
So he got up and wandered the apartment, winding up standing at the window and looking down into the street.
This was the first thing he remembered about the apartment itself, was staring down at the street and waiting for Darcy to come back with clothing for him.
What a way to meet. They had a story for grandchildren for sure, as his mom would say. The kids of his cousins in their case.
Every time he saw a vehicle come down the street, his whole body would tighten.
Was this the car that was bringing Darcy home to home?
Was that the truck his man was in? None of the even slowed, let alone stopped.
He also scanned the street for parked vehicles, looking for a truck similar to the one that they’d stuffed Darcy into.
Just because he’d gotten away didn’t mean that his parents were going to stop trying.
Or was he just being paranoid? He didn’t know.
Sighing, he leaned his head against the window, trying not to cry.
He’d been so worried and upset and then had come the relief of knowing good people had Darcy instead of the kidnappers, but Darcy still wasn’t home and the worry was still there because something could happen on their way home.
Hell, he didn’t know if the wolves who had Darcy had handed him over to Charma’s family yet.
He wasn’t usually a doom and gloom thinker, but he was having a hard time not drifting into that right now. Because Darcy wasn’t actually here.
“Bro, you want to come sit and put the TV on or something?”
Nik’s voice startled him and he whipped around. “Oh! I’m sorry. I was trying not to wake you.”
“Eh. You, my bladder, the crick in my neck—I’d say you were more a factor than the whole reason.” Nik stood and stretched before hightailing it to the bathroom.
Charma was still at the window when Nik returned.
“I was seriously—have a seat and we’ll turn on the tube.”
“I don’t want to keep you from sleeping.”
Nik gave him a grin. “I can nap tomorrow. There’s a grand prix race in Europe that’s starting soon. I wouldn’t say no to being able to watch it live.”
“That’s a sport, right?” Nik was a big-time sports hound. Watching it anyway.
“Formula-One racing. Cars,” Nik added.
He stuck his tongue out. “I know what Formula One is, you doofus.”
“You didn’t know what grand prix was.”
“That means big prize in English, so it could have been for any sport.” He sat and curled up in one corner of the couch.
“No, it couldn’t. Baseball is World Series. Football is the Superbowl. Tennis is Grand Slam. Golf is the Masters. Soccer is the World Cup.”
Nik looked ready to keep going so Charma held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m not a big old sports nerd like some people. So sue me.”
“Sports fan,” Nik corrected. “Nerds like science and shit, not sports.”
Charma snorted. “That’s what sports nerds think.”
Nik threw a pillow at him. Charma batted it away, and grabbed the remote, tossing it at his cousin. “Watch what you want, maybe it’ll put me to sleep.”