Isaiah (19 page)

“Because Adal mentioned your leader putting some kind of shit on the knife blade. I would presume that to mean the leader was involved, and since Tim and Otto and I got a good look at your blood, along with Steven’s, we know you are both fucked up physically. It’s easy enough to make the assumption that your entire lepe might be infected with whatever is wrong with you two.”

“Not the entire lepe,” Steven ground out between tightly clenched teeth, his thin lips pulled back in a sneer. “Just the males of mixed blood. Our lepe is not like yours. I guess you wouldn’t know that, though, since you refused to come breed with one of our females.”

“I’m gay,” Bae snapped. How many times was he going to have to explain that? “And besides which, I don’t support forced breeding, which is rape no matter what you call it.”

He expected Steven to argue, but the man remained silent and Bae didn’t have the time or desire to argue with the douchebag. Bae wiped Isaiah’s wound clean then tossed the bloody wipes and took out a bottle of sterile water used for flushing wounds out. He held the bottle out to Steven. “Can you uncap this please?”

Steven tore off the plastic seal and popped the tab off the nozzle tip. Bae didn’t think thanking him was necessary. After all, he and Adal were the responsible for Isaiah being hurt.

Dorso groaned and Bae wanted to kick Steven as a new wave of anger rushed over him.

“Thank God you didn’t kill Dorso. He’s a good man.”

“He’s human,” Steven said tonelessly.

Bae squirted some water into the wound then glared at Steven long enough to say, “Oh fuck you. We are not superior, as evidenced by the funk you have.” Steven turned red and www.total-e-bound.com

ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

118

ground his teeth together and Bae went back to taking care of Isaiah. “Dorso better not be permanently hurt, either.”

“Or what?” Steven growled. “Your threats will only go so far.”

Bae finished the last bit of cleaning the wound and he straightened and looked Steven right in the eyes. “They are not threats. Don’t mistake them for such. They are simply facts.”

He turned and set the bottle in the sink. Working with his hands cuffed was definitely slowing him down. He managed to get the antibacterial ointment and set it out, then he took more gauze and tape out as well. “I’ll need your help, which, considering this is your fault…”

“If you’d have just come to our lepe when our leader asked, we’d have kept you then,”

Steven muttered before sealing his lips into a thin line.

Bae didn’t ask. He was piecing it together. His lepe would have wanted to farm out his sperm, with him attached of course. Bae had been refusing such pairings ever since he’d turned nineteen, the age breedings began. How many times had he refused? And how many times had he not been told about the request? Would his father have refused for him?

Bae kept running questions through his mind as he worked and, with Steven’s grudging help, managed to medicate and wrap Isaiah’s wound. Adal had returned and was kneeling beside Dorso, one hand planted on the now conscious man’s chest. Bae didn’t think Dorso was coherent, not fully, but he would be soon.

“What do we do with him?” Adal asked, and Bae realised Adal was actually petting Dorso’s chest. “I would like to keep him.”

“He’s not a pet,” Steven snapped at the same time Bae opened his mouth to rip Adal a new ass hole. “He is a man, and I don’t have an answer to the first question. It would be best if he were kept…unaware.”

Bae got, from the look Steven was giving him, that Steven wanted Dorso kept unconscious. “I can’t dope him up for you.”

“You would have to have morals.” Steven sighed and gestured at Adal. “Stop touching him or I will cuff you. Secure…Dorso. You, Dr Warren, need to strap your mate—”

“His name is Isaiah Trujillo. Mr Trujillo,” Bae said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Steven looked like he was going to refuse but he finally rolled his eyes and said, “Fine, then secure Mr Trujillo to the table and get in the passenger seat.”

www.total-e-bound.com

ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

119

“I’d rather ride back here.” It was a long shot, but Bae had to try.

Steven, gaze locked with Bae’s, trailed a hand over Isaiah’s throat. “I don’t give a shit what you want right now. You’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass.”

“I’ve been a pain in the ass?” Bae shouted, indignant and fed up. “You—”

“Shut up!” Steven roared, and Bae saw the way his hand gripped Isaiah’s throat. His words died in his mouth. “I will hurt Mr Trujillo every time you deem it worth disagreeing with me. You, then, will be responsible for his pain and suffering from here on out.” His smug look made Bae want to gag. “So, Dr Warren, what is your decision?”

“Can I check Dorso real quick?” That wasn’t arguing.

Steven didn’t move his hand off Isaiah. “No.”

Bae turned and made his way to the passenger seat. Steven and Adal exchanged a few words then Steven sat in the driver’s seat and started the van.

“Where are we going?” Bae asked. Steven glared at him before putting the van in reverse. Bae wasn’t intimidated. “What’s it going to hurt to tell me? You’ve got me, and my mate, and Dorso. What am I going to do, magically blow up your lepe or something?”

Steven steered the van around and ignored Bae, so he took it as a challenge and kept pelting him with questions. “What are you? You don’t smell like me or Isaiah. But you mentioned your lepe, and the breeding programme, so that makes it sound like you are an Amur shifter.” Bae studied Steven’s profile as the man got on the highway heading out of Denver. Steven, like Adal, looked to be of Korean descent. Both the men were attractive, Bae supposed. It was rather hard to be objective. “Are you gay? What about Adal? He was all over Dorso—” Bae peered around the seat with that comment on his tongue. He wouldn’t put it past Adal to be molesting Dorso.

Adal was sitting on the floor beside Dorso, eyeing him hungrily but not touching him.

“Freak,” Bae muttered then immediately felt like a jerk. Then he got mad at himself for feeling bad. “Don’t touch him,” he growled at Adal. “I meant what I said, he better not be hurt either.”

Adal’s eyes rounded and he shook his head so hard Bae half expected it to come flying off his shoulders. “I wouldn’t! I just want to touch him, but I won’t. It would be wrong without his consent, and I cannot take such an action against him.”

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

120

Now it was Bae who thought his eyes were about to pop right out of their sockets. He really looked at Adal, saw the worship in his expression as Adal stared at Dorso. Adal wouldn’t hurt him—no, couldn’t, that was about what he’d said. Could he have…? Bae glanced from Adal to Steven then back to Adal. He was still staring at Dorso as if Dorso was the greatest treasure.

Surely it wasn’t as it seemed to Bae? But yes, Adal’s features softened even more and he shivered slightly as Dorso exhaled. Bae was thinking it sure appeared that Adal had found his mate. And if he was right, it was going to be its own mess.

Bae turned back to studying Steven’s profile. “Do your kind have mates?”

Steven scowled, his thick eyebrows almost meeting in the centre of his forehead. “Amur shifters have mates if they are lucky. I know of one mated pair besides you.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Bae said so slowly it was impossible to miss the insult in the supposition his listener was an idiot. “I asked if your kind have mates. You aren’t an Amur shifter any more than Adal is.”

“We’re halfbreeds.”

Steven swore and thumped the steering wheel. “Shut the fuck up, Adal!”

Bae twisted around in the seat. Adal hitched his shoulders. “It makes no difference for him to know now or when we get home. Dr Warren will need to know everything we can tell him if he is to help our lepe. Actually”—Adal perked up, as if realising something important—“It would be best to give him as much time as possible to think about the information. And remember, Bashuan said only once Dr Warren took care of the others could he see to us.”

What kind of fucked up was that? Bae almost felt sorry for his abductors. “What’s wrong with the others in the lepe?”

“Adal,” Steven warned. Adal, thankfully, ignored him.

“None of the females are able to carry a cub to term, if,” Adal stressed the word, “they can even get pregnant. Bashuan has tried bringing in Amur’s from every lepe. He really wanted you, Dr Warren, but your father told him no repeatedly, even when your leader tried to force him to hand you over.”

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

121

Oh wow. Dad does love me in his own way. I was seriously doubting it.
He knew his father had been in a very difficult position, and had hoped Bae would agree to sire a cub or two eventually. “When was this?” he asked.

Steven grunted and shot Adal a mean look in the rearview. Yet it was Steven who answered. “A few months ago. I think your father took an instant dislike to our leader since he asked to have one of your sisters sent over.”

“Which sister?” Bae had a lot of half-siblings, more than he’d ever know of since the men and women were farmed out for the reproductive abilities.

Steven’s cheeks darkened and he sounded ashamed when he answered. “Datwana.”

Bae felt sick and angry, and he knew right then he’d not do anything to help the leader’s lepe, not when it meant the perverted fucker wanted to rape fifteen year-old girls.

“He should be skinned alive,” Bae snarled, unconcerned if his opinion offended Adal or Steven.

Steven didn’t say a word, he kept glancing in the side mirror as if afraid to look at Bae.

Adal murmured an agreement, of sorts. “What he likes is wrong, but he is our leader. No one has challenged him, and we can’t.”

“Why would we?” Steven asked, although there was so much contempt in his voice that Bae suspected he was hiding a burgeoning fury towards his leader. “Bashuan has said no one can defeat him, and so no one tries.”

It was a familiar refrain in lepes, at least in the ones Bae knew of. His own was run by a power-mad fool who was, unfortunately, his grandfather. Chung-Hee ruled with an iron fist and all those other trite descriptions used for manipulative, borderline psychotic asses. But Bae had found that refusing to cave was possible, and it could, perhaps, set one free.

“So why don’t one of you challenge him?”

Steven jerked and nearly side-swiped the car in the lane beside them. Bae looked at Adal, who was frowning as he stared at Dorso. “Seriously, it sounds like this Bashuan asshole doesn’t care about either of you. I bet he makes certain you believe you are less, completely less, than his full-blooded Amurs.”

“He does,” Adal said as Steven muttered, “We are.”

“You are not,” Bae addressed Steven first. “What you and Adal are, are people, shifters, just like the others are.”

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

122

“What we are is pumapards, part Puma and part Amur leopard,” Steven corrected tonelessly. “And that is less than a full blooded shifter. How could it not be?”

Bae wanted to lean beat some sense into Steven, but the most he could hope for was to make the man listen. “No, that makes you and Adal unique shifters, or a unique type of shifter, rather. A new breed, one that might be the Amur’s salvation.” Well, he was pretty sure Adal wouldn’t be. He was ensnared by Dorso.

“Then why are we weak and dying?” Steven asked, flashing an angry look at him.

“Why are Adal and I the ones with tainted blood, as you saw when our blood was checked?

Because we are the hope for the Amurs?” Steven sneered the last part, but Bae heard the underlying longing buried there.

Honestly, for such sick shifters, Adal and Steven appeared to be quite strong and healthy. An idea began to formulate in Bae’s head. “Maybe. Would one of you be willing to give me a fresh blood sample? For testing purposes.”

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

123

After a short argument between Steven and Adal, Bae had a sample of Adal’s blood.

Steven was going to be a stubborn shit and that was fine with Bae. He didn’t know why he was trying to help the jerks out anyway. They had hurt Isaiah and Dorso, but Isaiah was fine, Bae could feel him resting peacefully, absorbing the information Bae shared with him. Dorso would be fine as well, he thought, and Adal was hooked on Dorso. Bae figured it’d be quite a shock for Adal and Steven to learn they had mates, or could have them, anyway. He’d bet everything he owned that Bashuan had told them as halfbreeds they wouldn’t ever find a mate.

Yes, Bae had no proof, but in his mind, it stood to reason, and it sure explained why Adal hadn’t said anything about having found his mate—he didn’t know he had. Granted, Bae could be wrong, but he didn’t think so. Unless… Well, he supposed Adal could get all loopy and lovelorn over any man he thought was attractive.

Nah, he still didn’t buy it. Those two were mates, and Bae would tell Adal so when the time was right if he hadn’t figured it out. Before they got to the lepe, anyway, wherever that was.

“How much further?” he asked Adal. “I’d like to run all the tests I talked to you about before we get to your lepe.”

“At least another six hours, maybe more in this thing.” Steven looked shocked at himself and quickly turned the radio up.

Bae, now in the back with his hands uncuffed—Adal had not wanted blood drawn with Bae having such limited movement—set the centrifuge and pressed ‘on’.

“The longer it takes, the better. Maybe we could stop for the night somewhere.”

Adal narrowed his eyes at Bae. “We really aren’t stupid, not as stupid as Bashuan says.”

Well duh.
“Would he have sent you and Steven if you were stupid? At all?”

Adal blinked and blushed a ruddy brown-red. “It’s because we are disposable.”

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Bailey Bradford

124

“Think about it. Why would he send someone not capable of doing the task set for them?” Bae argued. “Disposable? He would love for you to believe that. It would make keeping you under his thumb so very much easier. If you believe, and if Steven believes, that you are useless, unimportant, less than, stupid and whatever shit this Bashuan has told you two, then he can keep you right there doing his bidding.”