Sunshine's Kiss (10 page)

Sam’s throat muscles moved up and down as he swallowed. “With me?”

“With you, and only you.”

“Damn.”

“The human side of me wants a lot more.”

“Like what?” Sam’s words came out in a soft, needy whisper.

“I want to know you, your likes and dislikes. What your favorite color is, what you like to eat, what makes you laugh or cry. I want to hold you at night and keep you safe from your nightmares. And I want to hold you during the day and share your dreams.”

“Damn.”

A burst of laughter shot from Jesse’s mouth. Sam looked stunned. His eyes were as round as saucers. But what Jesse didn’t see on Sam’s face was fear, and that was what he was the most apprehensive about seeing.

“So, what happens now?”

“I suppose that’s up to you.” And Jesse wished to hell it wasn’t. The chances of Sam telling him to go to hell were pretty damn high. “I can tell you everything, just bits and pieces at a time, or nothing at all.”

“I’m really confused by all of this, Jesse.”

“I know, baby. I wish I could make it easier for you.”

Sam pushed away from the fence and started walking down the road again. He shoved one hand into his pocket and let the one with the cast dangle at his side. Jesse hurried to catch up, matching his steps with Sam’s.

Sam glanced over, looking up at him through the fall of his bangs. “What’s on omega?”

“Oh, you do like to get to the heart of the matter, don’t you, Sam?”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And I’ll no doubt say it again.”

Sam smiled as he looked down at his feet again. “So, tell me. Why did Desmond call me an omega if I’m not Lycan?”

“That I can’t give you an answer to because I do not know. I think because of our isolation from the rest of the packs, a lot of information has been lost over time. There are things that even I don’t know. But I can tell you what an omega is if you really want to know.”

“Okay, then tell me what an omega is.”

“There are several types of pack members, sort of like rankings within a military unit. I am the alpha, the leader, and there is only one of those per pack. Next is the beta, or the second-in-command. In this case, that would be Cort. It’s his job to make sure the pack runs smoothly when I am unavailable. He is also like the middleman between me and the pack. If they have a problem, they bring it to Cort and he brings it to me.”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Jesse could, too. Cort was so intense, and he was always worrying about everything and everyone. He was a very serious type of guy. Sometimes Jesse wondered if his brother knew how to laugh at all.

“Next is the gamma, the fighter or enforcer.”

“Nate?”

“Yeah, that’s kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it?” His brother Nate was six foot eight and weighed well over three hundred pounds. The man was huge. “Nate is my enforcer. He ensures that my orders are carried out, and he is in charge of security.”

“My security or yours?”

“Both actually. It’s Nate’s job to keep the entire pack safe.” Jesse thought about that statement for a moment and decided he needed to expand on it. “It’s actually my job, too. My pack, or my family in this case, is important to me. Keeping them safe from harm is
very
important to me.”

“So, he’s not going to be following me around everywhere, is he?”

“No.” Jesse chuckled. “Nothing like that. It’s more along the lines of making sure no one bothers you or harms you. If you have a safety issue, you need to come to me and I will inform Nate, and then he will take care of it.”

“Kind of like a mafia hit man?”

Jesse nodded. “Something like that.”

“What about Gabe and Jake?” Sam asked. “Do they have a job in the pack, too?”

Jesse shook his head. “Gabe and Jake, and your mother as well, are called zeta. Zeta means pack member. A theta is a human that is mated to a pack member.”

“If I’m a theta then, why did Desmond call me an omega?”

“I don’t know, Sam.” Jesse frowned. “I wish I did.”

“What exactly is an omega?”

“Well, in the past, the omega was low man on the totem pole in the pack. He bore the brunt of the pack’s aggression. At least, that’s the way I understood it to be. I stopped that practice when I banished my father. It’s abhorrent.”

“Who’s the omega in your pack?”

“Jake.” Jesse grimaced as he remembered all of the beatings his youngest brother had taken before Jesse banished their father. Jesse and his brothers had tried on numerous occasions to keep their brother safe, but that just seemed to make things worse for Jake.

Sam’s sudden inhale of breath had Jesse whipping around to stare at him. “What?”

“That’s why Jake was always hiding from your father, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I always wondered why he—” Sam shrugged and glanced down at the ground. “I knew Jake hated your father, but he would never tell me why.”

“Our father was taking all of his aggression out on Jake.” Jesse ground his teeth for a moment at the remembered beatings his brother had endured. “We tried to protect him, but it didn’t do much good. It seemed like the more we tried to keep Jake safe, the harder our father beat him. It was like he felt he had a right to beat Jake whenever he wanted to.”

“That actually kind of makes sense, though, considering how Desmond beat the crap out of me. If he felt I was the omega, then he probably felt he had every right to attack me, too.”

Jesse stopped walking so he could turn and stare at Sam. “Why didn’t you—” Realization suddenly struck him. “You didn’t know.”

Sam stopped to look back at him. “Didn’t know what?”

“That Desmond is different like me.”

Sam grimaced. “No, it seems I’m blind, deaf, and dumb on just about everything.”

“How long were you two together?” Jesse hated asking. The words were stale on his tongue. But he needed to know.

“We dated for about six months.”

Jesse didn’t miss the little glance Sam sent his way and hoped he could keep his Lycan under control. The beast was fighting to get out and reassert their claim on Sam.

“We never slept together, though.” Sam looked off toward the trees as if lost in thought for a moment. “There was something always holding me back. No matter how nice he was in the beginning, I just couldn’t bring myself to let things go that far.”

Jesse wanted to pump his fist into the air in triumph. His beast was sitting up howling in relief. “Maybe you recognized that we were mates even then.” He could hope anyway.

A small smile tugged at Sam’s lips before he started walking again. “Maybe.”

Jesse looped his arm around Sam’s shoulders and started steering him back toward the main house. As much as he wanted to continue talking with Sam, the workday awaited them. Their talking would have to wait for now.

“You said that a few of the ranch hands were part of your pack,” Sam said. “Who are they?”

“Rocky, the foreman, and Frank, Toby, Costa, and Kay, who are simply ranch hands.”

“No one else?”

“No, I told you, we’re a pretty small pack. Besides us boys and your mother, those five men are the only other ones that live here on the property. After my father left, I didn’t want to be put into a position where someone might live here that didn’t know about us. Of course, I had no idea that you didn’t know at the time.”

“Do all of the hands know about me, too?”

Jesse grinned as he tightened his arm around Sam’s shoulders. “Baby, how many times do I have to tell you? Everyone knows about you.”

No sooner had those words left Jesse’s mouth than he heard the sudden report of a rifle. A mere second later, something hit him so hard in the arm that it spun him around and dropped him to one knee. Jesse blinked for a moment as shock rolled through him.

Just as a second report filled the air, it dawned on Jesse what he had heard. He grabbed Sam by his good arm and dragged him down to the ground as fast as he could, and then covered Sam’s body with his own.

“Jesse!” Sam screamed, all of the fear in the world in that one little word.

“Ssshh,” Jesse murmured as low as he could as he covered Sam’s mouth with his hand. “You must be quiet, Sam. Someone is shooting at us. Even the smallest sound can give our location away.”

Sam’s eyes filled with fear, but he nodded, pressing his lips together beneath Jesse’s hand.

“Good man.”

Jesse glanced around and tried to find a safe spot for them to hide. They were essentially lying right out in the open. The tree line was all the way across the field, and the house was back up the driveway. Plus, it was midmorning and the sun was shining down on them. They could easily be seen from several different directions.

The forest seemed safer. If they could get to the thick, dark trees, they might have a chance of hiding from whoever was shooting at them, at least until the others could arrive or they could make their way to a more secure spot.

He suspected that the person shooting at them was Desmond Kent. The man had walked away way too easily. Granted, he was beat and he knew it, but still, for someone that seemed to want Sam so badly, Desmond had given up rather easily.

Jesse closed his eyes for a moment and sent out a mental call to everyone in his pack, something only an alpha Lycan could do. He warned them that he and Sam were being shot at and he was wounded. And he told them he was taking Sam and heading for the woods to hide from whoever was shooting at them.

“We need to get to the trees, Sam,” Jesse murmured as he opened his eyes and looked down at Sam again. “I want you to start crawling in that direction the moment I roll off of you. Stay as flat on the ground as you can and keep your cast hidden. It’s so bright it’s like a beacon.”

Jesse knew that was the wrong thing to say when Sam’s face drained of color. Jesse levered his body up just enough to pull his cotton shirt over his head. He quickly grabbed Sam’s cast and wrapped his shirt around the bright green cast.

It was only when he heard Sam’s deep inhale that Sam noticed the red blood soaked into the white shirt. “It’s just a scratch, baby. I promise. Lycan heal fast. I bet it’s all healed over before we reach the woods.”

Jesse was lying through his teeth, but he needed Sam not to be panicking right now. The shot wasn’t lethal, but it was deep, going straight through the meaty part of his arm. He suspected the bullet had been silver as well, which just reaffirmed his belief that Desmond Kent was behind the shooting. Only a Lycan would think to use a silver bullet to kill another Lycan.

Jesse planted a quick kiss on Sam’s lips and then slid off of the man and onto the hard ground. He grabbed Sam’s hand as soon as the man rolled over onto his stomach and started crawling toward the tree line, using only his arms to move his body.

Every few feet, Jesse paused to look over his shoulder and make sure that Sam was following him. He heard a few more shots as they crawled through the tall grass. Each time, Jesse stopped and pushed Sam’s head down to the ground. Most of them seemed to be searching shots as if someone was trying to flush them out. Two of them came too damn close for Jesse’s comfort.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually they reached the trees. Jesse waited until Sam caught up with him and then gestured for his mate to precede him. Once Sam’s body disappeared into the woods, Jesse looked out over the property. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew someone was watching, waiting. He could feel it in his bones.

Jesse turned away from the threat behind him and crawled into the woods to where he was really needed. Sam’s safety had to be his top priority, no matter how much Jesse and his beast wanted to find whoever was shooting at them and rip them to pieces for putting Sam in danger.

The moment he was inside the thickness of the forest, Jesse sat up and pulled Sam into his arms. He heard a single sniffle and a large sigh that rattled Sam’s chest as the man clutched at him desperately.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered. “I’m so sorry I brought this here. I never wanted that. I just needed to be somewhere safe.” Sam suddenly pushed away and started shaking his head. Jesse knew Sam was losing it. “No, I shouldn’t have come here. I should have stayed and fought Desmond. He never would have—”

Jesse grabbed Sam and captured his lips in a brutal kiss before the man could say another single word. Jesse ravaged Sam’s lips, licking and sucking at them, until Sam slumped against him. When he raised his head, Sam’s eyes looked dazed and out of focus.

“You did not do this, sunshine. You are not responsible for the actions of someone else. I’m just sorry that your safe haven is no longer safe.” It broke Jesse’s heart that the one place Sam had run to for safety was no longer safe for him. “I swear I’ll make it safe for you again if it’s the last thing I do.”

Sam’s lips thinned at the same time that his eyes cleared. He nodded and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He glanced around the thick foliage and then back to Jesse. “So, what now? How do we get back to the main house?”

Jesse smiled at the bravery Sam was showing in the face of the danger they were in. He cupped the back of Sam’s head and brought their faces together, giving Sam another kiss, a quick one this time.