Everything That You Are (2 page)

A low growl coming from inside the car distracted him from his appraisal and he turned to see Nick leaning over from the driver’s side seat to stare at the boy with a harsh look on his face. “That’s that little dancer who whores himself out to every desperate john in the club on his breaks. You saw him earlier. Come on, Michael. He’s hot—but nothing but trash.”

That statement angered Michael, but he had no reason to doubt his friend. He’d never visited the bar he and Nick had just come from, and therefore knew nothing of the people who worked there. Not to mention the fact that he’d witnessed a questionable exchange earlier between the dancer and another man.

As he looked down at the shame-filled yet hopeful expression of the boy, however, his desire beat through him so fiercely that it took his breath away.

Myriad emotions tore through his chest. Fear of what his clan might think.
Shame at throwing away his mother’s hope for grandchildren.
Confusion as to why Mother Earth would choose a male mate for him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t do this right now.”

The boy frowned and took a hesitant step forward but Michael quickly span around. Seating himself inside the vehicle, he told Nick to start driving in a voice so gruff he almost didn’t recognise it as his own. He didn’t even realise that his hands were shaking until it took him three tries to buckle his seatbelt.

Nick cast covert glances at him with a concerned look on his face but Michael was too wound up to offer an excuse for his unusual behaviour. Doubts swirled like wildfire and he struggled to analyse the situation as he did all others, by weighing the pros and cons.

Five minutes into the trip home, he wanted to yell at Nick to turn the car around, but he bit his tongue. He needed time to digest this new information. The dancer worked at the club, which meant he should be there the following night. That gave Michael at least a twenty-four hour window to get his head and his hormones under control.

At least that’s what he repeated to himself.

By the time Nick pulled into Michael’s driveway some thirty minutes later to drop him off, though, he couldn’t take it anymore. The cherubic features and longing expression in the man’s eyes plagued his mind, along with the crushed look on his face when Michael had refused him.

“We need to go back.
Now.”

Nick paused in confusion. “Did you leave something there?”

A desperate burst of laughter escaped Michael’s lips. “You could say that.
My pride.
My
sanity,
and something a hell of a lot more important.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just trust me. I need to get back to that club.” He locked gazes with Nick, imploring with his eyes.

Another half an hour later, Nick pulled into the same parking lot and Michael was out of the car before it stopped rolling. He could still detect the scent of his mate but it was overpowered by that of another shifter. Not giving up hope, he tracked, sniffed and asked about any trace of the dancer, but after an hour, he’d found nothing.

Cold dread invaded his body and clung to his heart with a vice-like grip. He didn’t believe in once-in-a-lifetime chances, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d blown his.

Once again at his house, he managed to give Nick an absent thanks and weak smile. “Guess I’ll have to find it another time.” There was no way he could divulge his shame to his friend. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

He didn’t wait for a reply before climbing out of the car and slamming the door closed. He felt his face flame a little when he noticed that Nick refused to drive off until he saw him inside his house. He must look more shaken than he thought. He walked through the dark interior of his house, not bothering to turn the lights on, having no need of them thanks to his wolf’s eyesight, and went straight to the kitchen to pour a full glass of bourbon.

Walking back out to his living room, he turned his body slowly in a full circle, taking in the comfort and majesty of his elaborate yet modest home. He tried to pretend that the dancer he had met earlier tonight piqued his interest only because he had seemed so effeminate. And it was the truth—his features had been so delicate that if it weren’t for his flat chest and the bulge in his shorts, he could easily have been mistaken for a female. But the sick, gut-wrenching loss that permeated from within called his bluff.

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he would find him and to hell with the consequences.

* * * *

Kaden
collapsed to his knees on the gravel of the parking lot and watched the car as it made its way down the street and took the only person he’d ever been attracted to away from him. The momentary glimpse of him in the club had mesmerised
Kaden
and he had soaked up every detail of those striking features before being rudely yanked out of the back door.

The man had shoulder-length hair so black that it had shone under the flashing lights in the club, and his body was massive yet trim. It was his glowing, hazel eyes, however, that had held
Kaden
captive.

The john hadn’t taken it well when
Kaden
had given him back his money for the blow-job he’d agreed to give, but he didn’t take the hard shove and cruel words he’d received personally. He just couldn’t get the image of the stranger out of his mind. He’d wanted desperately to run back into the club and find out if the huge arms on that man would hold him as tightly as he imagined, but didn’t want to risk being approached by another john.
 
 

Up close, the man had seemed so handsome and smelt so good that he’d been robbed of words. For that one brief moment in time, his hopes had soared…then been slaughtered in the next. The pain of the man’s rejection had been confusing at first, a shock to his system, and the longer he knelt there, the more intense the feelings of hurt and abandonment became.

He didn’t understand the cacophony of agonising emotions filling him and they soon became more than he could bear. He doubled over as his chest constricted in racking, sharp pains that quickly spread throughout his body, threatening to consume him if he didn’t retain his grip on reality.

A low-pitched, keening wail pierced his ears, drilling into his skull until there was nothing but that horrid sound reverberating throughout his head. After a while, his throat became so sore that he had to force it closed, only then realising that the wailing had been coming from him.

Despair filled every cavity of his being until he was nothing but an empty shell, and still he couldn’t understand the feelings coursing through him. A gentle caress on his right shoulder had him lurching sideways in his effort to get away from whoever had discovered him in his moment of weakness.

“It’s okay, boy. I won’t hurt you,” a voice said. It was deep and commanding, and
Kaden
felt drawn to raise his eyes to look upon the intruder. This man could easily be the same height and build of the man who had just deserted him. His frame was large and imposing, but the streetlamp behind him backlit his features, making his face hard to discern.

Kaden
still felt empty, battered, and knew there was no way he could bring himself to perform tonight, despite the fact that he needed the money. He didn’t want to return home and risk his mom and sister seeing him like this, but there was nowhere else to go.

He slowly got to his hands and knees, feeling as if he had aged forty years, and said, “Sorry man, I’m done in the club for the night. Find another entertainer.” His voice caught on that last word as he remembered the look of fear on the face of the man he had risked his last vestiges of pride for. Hopelessness threatened to take what will he had left to him as he got to his feet and headed blindly for the street.

A hard hand clamped onto his shoulder and span
him around. Before he could even react, another hand gripped his throat in a hold so tight he saw black spots dancing before his eyes in seconds. A torrent of sickening emotions lit his body on fire until he thought he would pass out. Hate and lust and greed pounded into his mind mercilessly, with such force that this new pain
superceded
his own.

His scream was cut off before it could even reach his lips.

“Unlike you, I don’t take rejection so well,” the stranger said.
Kaden
tried to struggle but the man pulled him against his hard body and released his shoulder to lock his arm around
Kaden’s
torso and arms in a vice so strong it was all he could do to keep air in his lungs.

He was half-carried to the far right corner of the parking lot, into a narrow opening between two buildings,
then
slammed face-forward into a wall.

By this time, he was so desperate for air that when the man loosened his grip on his neck, he could do nothing but gulp down great breaths. He could feel the much larger body pressed against his entire length, the stranger’s cock jutting into his backside almost like a promise, or threat. Hot, alcohol-laced breath fanned across his cheek from behind as he heard the man say, “What clan are you from?”

Oh shit! How could I not have noticed?

He’d known the man he had approached earlier was a wolf—had been taught to recognise their scent by his father so many years ago—but he had been too wrapped up in his misery to take note of this one.
Kaden
would have laughed at his stupidity had he not just been spurned by the only man whose attraction actually meant a damn to him, though he had not the slightest clue why.

He had to get the man’s flesh off his own. There was no way he could battle the other’s raging emotions and physical strength at the same time. Although he had to admit he wasn’t even close to his match in sheer brawn.

“I have no clan…” He felt himself yanked back, only to be slammed again into the brick wall in front of him. Pain blossomed in his head and chest and his cry was choked off. Real terror began to flood his body on top of the disgusting feelings of the other man, and his thoughts scattered into fragments.

 
“Coven, then?
I can smell the mage in you. The truth, boy, or I will cut your tongue out,” the man sneered.
Kaden
tried to concentrate on his words, but fear had already replaced coherent thought.

“P—please.
I don’t know.” He swallowed as a hand once again clamped down fiercely around his throat, and tried desperately to think of something the man wanted to hear. “No coven. No clan. I have n—nothing…” Suddenly, he was whirled around and felt the iron grip of the stranger disappear.

Kaden
somehow managed to lock his knees to keep himself from falling, but instead of looking around to find an escape route like he knew he should be doing, he glanced up at the stranger and found himself frozen in stark terror.

The man was rubbing his cock through his pants and sliding his gaze lewdly over
Kaden’s
body.
The look in his eyes when they finally caught and held
Kaden’s
kept him immobile.
They were crazed and feral, but it was the intelligence behind them that shone through the most.

That was never a good combination.

“Pretty,” the stranger said as one corner of his mouth lifted up into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, I think I’ll take you home.” Just as
Kaden
found the courage to run, he felt an iron fist strike the side of his head and heard the sharp crack of his skull hitting the wall behind him before the world fell away.