Defying Pack Law (4 page)

He shook his head at her. “Caught you,” he
announced in a low timbre that still had the ability to make her
tummy flip over, even in her current state.

Her heart raced faster. Her past had finally
caught up to her, and the shock of it, along with the rest of her
injuries, thankfully made her black out.

Chapter
Four

Nathan looked down at Dana’s still form and
seethed. Her naked flesh was covered in bruises, scratches, and
welts. Even more astonishing, her captors had feared her enough to
wrap her body in links upon burning links of silver. He dropped to
his knees, and ignoring the sizzling pain, he grasped the silver
chain and pulled it apart as easily as snapping thread. Her skin
was chafed red and blistered where it had touched her, and he
boiled with anger.

I’m going to kill them slowly and
painfully.
He’d reserve a painful
punishment for the dirty miscreants—those who still lived, that
was—who’d dared touch the woman he’d claimed as his when still only
a boy. Never mind she’d run from him. Dana was and always would be
his.

His beta appeared in the doorway and whistled
as his keen gaze took in her state. “Holy fuck. What kind of sick
bastards treat a woman like that?”

The kind who need to die
twice.
Nathan couldn’t speak. He couldn’t.
Anger and grief over her condition choked him. He sniffed her, the
stench of her pain and blood heavy enough to pull his wolf to the
surface to growl at the insult done to his woman. But relief tinged
his emotions as he didn’t find any traces of rape.
Thank God.
Healing her
body would be easy given her lycanthrope blood.

Healing emotional trauma, that would have been
a lot harder.

He scooped her up, her weight like nothing in
his arms. He winced as her face spasmed into a grimace as he
unwillingly caused her pain, but he had no choice. He couldn’t
leave her lying there for the amount of time she’d need to
heal.

He cradled her to his chest, wishing he had a
blanket to cover her as he strode past his beta, who had joined him
in freeing Dana along with several others from the pack.

John sucked in a breath as he got a closer look
at her. “Damn. They beat the living crap out of her.”

“
Gee, I hadn’t noticed,” Nathan
replied through gritted teeth. “Status report.”

“
Eleven of the bastards are dead,
but the leader and several others got away. We saw evidence of
others living here, women too, but they appear to be
gone.”

Nathan turned a cold gaze onto his beta. “I
want the cowards found and brought back to me—alive. Especially the
leader.” He had plans for the bastard, painful plans.

“
Eddie and Joe are already tracking
them.”

“
Good. Let’s get her home.” Nathan
emerged from the cellar of the dwelling in which they’d found her
imprisoned. In the light of the fires burning as his men set the
makeshift compound alight, Dana appeared even frailer, her injuries
more glaringly bright. Nathan breathed deep of the vengeance he’d
wrought. The scent of carnage hung in the air, a miasma of violence
that would serve as warning, hopefully, that his pack meant
business.
Touch my woman, and face the
consequences.

It mattered not that he hadn’t
officially marked her or that she’d fled him so long ago.
She is mine.
How she’d
managed to evade for so long not only him, but the scores of other
Lycans hot on her trail, was a mystery. Her scent shone like a
bright beacon that drove him wild with an urge to possess her, to
mark and claim her.
And claim you I will,
willing or not. I won’t let you leave me again.

The growl of his Jeep as it approached made him
hug her to him tighter. Kody was at the wheel, and with a flourish,
he swung it into the gravel drive and leaned over to open the
passenger door, flashing a white-toothed grin.

“
I see you caught the runaway.
Awesome.” His smile faltered as he caught a glimpse of her. “What
the fuck did they do to her?”

Nathan just growled.

John replied, “Apparently, they mistook her for
a punching bag. Ignore Nathan. He’s just bent ’cause she fainted
when she saw him. Can’t say as I blame her. That’s one ugly-ass mug
he’s got.”

If Nathan’s cargo hadn’t meant more than his
pride, he’d have punched his best friend’s lights out. As it was,
he made a mental note to do so later.

Kody, usually the jovial one, didn’t reply to
the banter. It seemed he couldn’t tear his green eyes from her
unconscious form. “Is she going to be okay?”

“
She will be,” Nathan
replied—
she has to be
.

John opened the rear passenger door and hopped
in before holding out his arms to take Dana. Nathan just glared at
him. No one would touch her until he’d made her irrevocably his. He
wouldn’t take any more chances.

John snorted. “You can’t get in while holding
her, man. You might end up hurting her more. She’s not going
anywhere, and I’m not going to steal her. Tell your beast to take a
pill.”

Nathan sighed. His rational side understood
John was right, but he still found it hard to hand her over even
for the few seconds it took to clamber into the backseat and get
her back. He didn’t like the keen interest both his friends showed
in her. Sharing Dana wasn’t a part of his new plan, not knowing
what he did about her.

Her face contorted for a moment in
pain at the shuffle as they got situated, and Nathan’s rage bubbled
up all over again.
If only I’d caught up
to her sooner, this would have never happened.
“Get the syringe,” he barked.

“
She’s gonna be pissed if you dope
her,” John remarked as he leaned over the seat to grab the med kit
in the back.

“
She’s going to be pissed no matter
what once she wakes up. I’d rather that not happen until we’ve made
it back to the compound.” He left unsaid,
where running away will be a lot harder now since we beefed
up security.

John rummaged in the kit until he located the
needle filled with a tranquilizer, a must for the times they needed
to bring in a wild rogue for questioning, or in this case, a
reluctant female.

“
Go ahead.” Nathan watched as John
pricked her shoulder and depressed the plunger. At the sharp prick,
Dana’s eyes shot open, wild with anger and pain.

“
You bastard,” she spat. “I’m
gonna-gonna . . .” Her voice trailed off as the heavy-duty tranq
put her back to sleep, a deep one that she wouldn’t wake from until
he had her right where he wanted her—in his house and in his
bed.

John handed him a blanket as Kody took off with
spinning tires. Nathan tucked it around her as best he could,
uncaring of his own nudity. John managed with some contorting to
get into his tracksuit and waved Nathan’s at him.

“
Come on, man. Hand her back over
for a second and get your bare ass covered. No one wants to see
your dick. Besides, I want to get our deposit back on this baby
from the rental place. I don’t need your ass sweat stinking it up
and costing us extra.”

John’s humor pulled a smile from Nathan, and he
handed his precious burden over to his beta only long enough to
pull on his own clothing. He had to admit he did feel a little
better clothed. He also took an extra moment to get his boots on.
Dressed, he held out his arms, and John, with a wry smile at his
impatience, handed Dana back. Nathan settled her into his arms and
finally relaxed enough to look at her, and past the bruises marring
her skin.

She’d changed in the last twelve years,
matured. She’d let her hair grow out, and it tumbled about her in a
messy golden wave. Her skin, the parts unmarked by violence, was
lightly tanned and just as soft as he remembered, he found, when he
traced a finger across the curve of her cheek to lips still plump
and full. She’d lost the softness of youth, just like he had, but
he didn’t mind the toned muscles he’d noticed in her arms, or the
flat ridges of her stomach. A life on the run spent in defense mode
would make anyone hard. He’d soon see to it that she regained the
soft life she deserved.

He stroked her hair with a gentleness his
friends would look askance at. He’d been anything but gentle these
last couple of years. He hadn’t had a choice. With the Lycan
population explosion across the country, and the increase in
rogues, survival was for the fittest only. As pack alpha, he’d
fought to get his position, fought his own father, as a matter of
fact, who refused to face the fact the world had changed and they
needed to change with it. But that had only been the beginning of
his battles. He’d invested time, sweat, and money into making their
compound secure, in making life for his pack a better
one.

Yet, in everything he’d done, he’d never
forgotten his primary purpose—find Dana and make her
his.

To have her so close to him again, even pissed
off and injured, completed something in him. She represented the
missing puzzle piece in his life, and he’d never let her go again.
Even better, he’d do his best to make sure she never wanted to
leave.

If she didn’t kill him first.

* * * *

John watched Nathan cradling Dana’s injured
body and fought the urge to take her from him. He’d heard of the
animalistic need to possess unclaimed Lycan females. He’d actually
laughed about it. As resident physician, he’d deemed himself above
such a base need, even as he’d watched others succumb. After all,
he’d met other unmated Lycan females, and while he’d felt at times
a mild interest, he’d never experienced or expected anything like
the magnetic pull Dana exuded.

His recollection of her from way back was
vague. He’d left for university before she’d matured enough to be
interesting. During his brief visits home, he’d heard about her
from Nathan, and even more about her after she ran away. He’d
puzzled about the girl who’d made his best friend fall into a funk
after she left. He’d wondered what kind of golden pussy she had to
make Nathan obsess about finding her again.

But now, faced with her, and even
worse, after having touched her, he couldn’t deny the draw. It
didn’t help that his wolf stirred restlessly in his mind and urged
him to regress to a more primitive state, pushed him to want to
shed his humanity and challenge his best friend and alpha over the
right to claim the female.
Or
, as his mind slyly reminded him,
as pack law permitted,
share
her.

Were he human, the thought of
sharing a woman, any woman, with another man would have horrified
him, sent him running. And the human part of him cultivated at
their schools did recoil, but his Lycan side that had grown up in a
polyamorous household didn’t care. It wanted this woman no matter
what. He’d heard the orgy stories from other mated groups, seen the
movies. Hell, his own mother had shared her bed with all his
fathers, sometimes at the same time—a mental image he blocked
quickly. Group matings were a part of his heritage, and while he’d
never actually thought he’d indulge, he no longer found himself so
sure.
Who am I fucking kidding? I can’t
deny the idea of watching and participating in a group fuck doesn’t
have its appeal. Well, so long as the other guys keep their body
parts to themselves.

Of course, there were a few problems
with his fantasy about sharing the golden she-wolf. One—Nathan had
made it abundantly clear he’d never share, not after losing her all
this time. And second, from what John had learned about Dana over
the years from his friend’s drunken ramblings, one of the reasons
Dana had fled was to avoid being forced into a polygamous
relationship.
I wonder if, maybe with the
right incentive, she’d change her mind?

Watching Nathan tenderly stroke her,
and seeing Kody’s eyes in the rearview mirror tracking them, and
inhaling more than likely her scent, John wanted to sigh.
Ah shit. Not him too. Talk about a clusterfuck in
the making.

The couple of hours’ drive to the small
airstrip was done in tense silence. Nathan had retreated into an
uncommunicative shell. Dana slept, still drugged. Kody drove with
one eye on the backseat. And John rubbed his temples, trying to
dispel the headache caused by his clenched teeth.

Only once they stopped on the runway did Nathan
snap out of it. “John, you’re coming with me. Kody, you go back and
meet up with the boys we left behind tracking. Even if they haven’t
found those bastards, get your asses out of there. There’s
something about this whole setup that stinks, and I’d rather have
you back home protecting the compound than out here by yourselves.
I’ll send the plane right back for a pickup.”

“
Aye, aye, Captain,” Kody replied
with a grin and salute.

John hopped out of the truck and came around to
take Dana from Nathan. Perhaps a little too eagerly judging by the
dark glare his alpha shot him. John couldn’t care less. Holding her
again did strange things to him. There was arousal, which kind of
shamed him given her battered state, but a surge of even stronger
protectiveness swamped him, a desire to save her from harm. His
wolf’s need was more basic—mark the woman.