Chapter Two
The going was hard. Davey’s leg switched between sending sharp shooting pains up to his hip and back to aching as if a lump of lead was chained to it. He was tired, too, as though the trauma had drained his energy. But he didn’t stop. He kept on going until the familiar smells of the camp filled his nostrils.
Once almost there, he shifted into his human form and adjusted the sweatpants he always wore so they were sitting comfortably over his cut. He then wiped his hand over his cheek, brushing away a streak of sweat.
The light was slipping from the sky and the temperature had dropped as he approached his home. The pack had congregated beside the horseshoe-shaped wall. Aleco stood next to Pedro with his brow creased. The flames of a fire lit several figures all standing with tense postures.
“News?” Aleco directed at Flo.
“No, but Davey isn’t back yet.” Flo poked at the fire.
“Yeah, I am,” Davey said, limping up to them.
Aleco turned. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Trap. Stood on a fucking trap, didn’t I.”
“What?” Flo rushed up to him.
Davey sat on the wall and tugged at his sweats, revealing the bloody gash on his ankle.
“Goddamn.” Pedro stooped to look at it. “That’s nasty.”
“I’ll get antiseptic and a bandage. Don’t move.” Flo dashed off.
“Where the hell was the trap?” Aleco asked.
“Over near Rocky territory.”
“What were you doing over that way?”
“I wasn’t sure.” Davey had just run, gone with the wind and the stories the smells on it had told him. “I thought I picked up a sweet scent.”
“Julie?” Pedro asked quickly.
Davey shook his head. “I was mistaken. When the trap got me I realized I’d fallen next to an azalea bush. It must have been that. For a moment I thought I was onto something…then…whack.” He glanced away and bit his bottom lip. The memory of the shocking pain was still fresh.
“Sorry, buddy.” Aleco set his hand on Davey’s shoulder. “Appreciate what you were doing for us. Wish you hadn’t got hurt.”
“I guess I was just lucky to be able to get out of it.” An image of the man who’d helped him loomed in Davey’s mind’s eye again. He’d been strong but gentle and had exuded calm control.
“Yeah, how did you?” Aleco’s frown deepened.
Davey pressed his lips together, words forming in his mouth but reluctant to get out into the open. He wasn’t sure where to start explaining to his Alpha how he’d escaped the trap. What would his reaction be if he said a beautiful but possibly deadly mountain lion shifter had saved his foot and possibly his life?
Would the pack plan a hunt for the lion? Chase it off their territory, or worse, kill it? They might just be dogs, but there were lots of them and with the thought of a cat around…
Flo returned with an armful of medical paraphernalia. “Here, drink this.” She thrust a small tumbler at him.
“What is it?” Davey asked. He sniffed the green liquid then screwed up his nose but was glad of the distraction from Aleco’s curious gaze.
“Something to stop your foot rotting and falling off.” Flo tutted. “Stop talking and drink up.”
Davey did as instructed.
“You got this?” Aleco asked, apparently no longer inquisitive about the trap and how Davey had freed himself from it. Unsurprising, since he had a missing mate to find.
“Sure,” Flo said. She looked Pedro up and down. “You guys go get some rest. We’ll hammer your door down if we hear anything.”
“We don’t need rest.” Pedro slammed his fist into his palm. “We need to find our woman.”
Aleco clearly had other ideas and Davey watched as his Alpha stomped into his cabin, his male mate close behind.
It pained him to see Aleco in such turmoil. But he had great faith in his ability to think straight and figure out the situation. One thing was for sure, though—if someone had taken
Julie, if she hadn’t gone of her own free will, there’d be hell to pay. Aleco wasn’t a man to mess with, even if he did have a few years on the rest of the pack.
A sudden burning sensation heated his wound. “Ah, fuck, what’s that?” It stung like a bee.
Flo was dabbing at the torn flesh with a gauze swab. The scent of alcohol drifted upward. “Man up, it’s just antiseptic.”
“It stings.”
“Yeah, well, it will sting a whole lot more if your foot falls off.” She continued to clean the cut.
Davey pressed his lips together and resisted pulling his leg away. He knew Flo was right—he’d seen the rusty old trap. It was likely swarming with lethal bacteria and unsavory debris.
“What’s going on?”
Davey glanced to his right. His cousin Raul was striding toward him with his arms crossed over his bare chest.
“Davey got in a trap,” Flo said, shaking her head at the oldest of her two mates. “Over near Rocky territory.”
“Jeez, really?” Raul stared at Davey’s ankle. “That’s a crock of shit.”
“Tell me about it.” Davey huffed.
“Who the hell would be laying traps?” Raul uncrossed his arms, straightened then held up his palms. “Does Aleco know?”
“Yeah, course. He’s got other things on his mind, though.” Davey was relieved to see that Flo had stopped cleaning and was now wrapping a bandage around his ankle.
“Sooner we get Julie back, the better.” Raul frowned and rested his hand on Flo’s shoulder. “Can’t imagine what he and Pedro are going through. Malec and I would be insane with worry if you disappeared, baby.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Flo taped up the bandage and stood. She went into Raul’s arms and he held her tight.
Davey watched them and for once a strange longing went through him. He wanted the connection of love and commitment too. For so many years he hadn’t been bothered either way, but now…now he hoped it was in his future.
With the mountain lion?
No . He shook his head. What a ridiculous thought. Him with a cat? That was a laughable scenario.
“You finished?” he asked Flo, his voice a little gruff as he sifted through his thoughts.
“Yes.” She turned but stayed locked in Raul’s arms. “Go into your cabin and lie down. Let the medicine work.”
“No. I need to help find Julie.”
“You need to get your weight off that leg otherwise Aleco will have a sick member of his pack to worry about as well as a missing mate.”
Davey sighed. He knew Flo was right. And he didn’t want to give his Alpha anything else to fret about. But he did want to help find Julie. Perhaps he could go out with Patrick in the Jeep. He could scan the streets as they roamed around. There was nothing wrong with his eyes. And if he shifted, went in the back and took in the air...
“Don’t even think about it,” Flo said. “Go and rest.”
Davey puffed out an exaggerated sigh but did as she’d instructed and headed to his cabin. It irritated him that he’d let Flo boss him around. It made it seem as if he were bowing to the instructions of a woman who wasn’t his mate or even a blood relation. But as he went into his dark, quiet cabin and shut the door, he figured it was because she only had his best interests at heart. He needed to heal. Rest, sleep and nourishment were all that was in his immediate future. And until he was firing on all cylinders again he wasn’t much good to the pack.
He didn’t bother lighting a fire or making a meal. Instead he grabbed a glass of milk then went into his bedroom. After drawing the curtains, he flicked on a dim bedside lamp and peeled off his clothes. He then slid naked between the cool sheets, being careful of his ankle, and stared up at the ceiling.
Shadows danced across it, the flickering of the fire in the center of the camp just penetrating the thin material at his window.
His mind began to make patterns and pictures with the light and dark patches skimming over the curved logs making up the roof of his cabin. The knots became part of the picture and before he knew it, the mountain lion shifter was hovering over him, green eyes staring with an intensity that drew a shiver down Davey’s back. He could make out broad shoulders, a chest made for pressing up against and abdominal muscles that would feel perfect beneath an inquisitive wet tongue.
Davey slipped his hand beneath the sheets and took hold of his cock. It was hardening and his testicles tingled. He curled his toes and tensed his belly as he stroked from root to tip.
‘Got yourself in quite a fix, haven’t you, buddy.’
The voice of the lion man came back to him like an echo in his mind. Deep and confident, seductive, and intriguing, Davey couldn’t ignore it.
He worked his cock firmer, groaning at the sensation. Oh, to have that voice in his ear whispering dirty things. To be able to hold the lion’s cock, take it in his mouth, up his…
Davey sat, his eyes wide open.
What the hell am I doing?
He was fantasizing about something that could never be. He was imagining bending over and letting that stranger, that cat shifter, put his dick where the sun didn’t shine.
But still he massaged his cock. He was getting harder by the second, blood rushing to his shaft. The thought of taking a cock up there had always been unthinkable. But now the previously unimagined was getting to him.
He never would have guessed it. Couldn’t have guessed which way he would go. Fractious, he shoved the sheets aside, exposing himself. He tipped back his head and closed his eyes, goaded by his developing, forbidden fantasy. The other shifter’s handsome face hovered before him, lips parted, cheeks a little flushed.
Davey imagined that was how the lion man would look if he were hard—the expression the other shifter might make when coming.
And damn, he’d seen that cock. Even flaccid it was an impressive length and girth. What would it be like to have it at his disposal? To hold it the way he was working his now? How would that feel?
His heart rate picked up at the thought. His erection jerked in his hand. He wanted to come. Hard and fast while picturing the godly vision of the man who’d saved him.
Hunching his back, tensing his arm and tightening his fingers, he allowed the climb to release to begin. He needed it so bad. When the heck had he last tossed off? He couldn’t remember. Yet now with his ankle in shreds and a calamity gripping the pack, all he could think of was the hot guy who’d been his knight in shining armor. How much he wanted to fuck him, be fucked by him.
That last thought threw him over the edge. He gritted his teeth, held his breath and allowed the pressure in his balls to erupt. He came, his body spasming as he did so and his cock tip basting his hand in semen.
The image of the mountain lion filled his mind. Then the man he’d shifted into, so at ease with his nakedness, so keen to help. Davey’s asshole clenched. Another spurt of cum blasted from his cock.
He groaned long and low, savoring giving into a Technicolor sexual moment when everything had been so bland and pale for so long. Now brilliant, bright lights flashed behind his closed eyelids. His whole being seemed to fill with rainbows of color, desire, lust and longing. Even as he sated his immediate need the want for more was there, germinating, growing, pushing upward with a dogmatic insistence.
It couldn’t be ignored.
As his orgasm subsided, Davey’s heart seemed to swell with his new knowledge about himself. It was a relief, as though he’d been denying it and obstructing the sensation. Yet it took hold of him, barely allowing him to think of anything else as he realized what it meant.
He was gay.
Not only was he gay, he’d met the man he wanted to be his mate. With everything he was, he knew the lion shifter already had hold of his heart and soul. And nothing and no one would stop him being at one with the most beautiful creature to have ever stepped onto the earth.