Everything That You Are (23 page)

Dennis took his seat at the desk to jump on his computer while Michael left the office to find his mate. He went upstairs and searched his room but came up empty. A quick investigation of the bathroom, kitchen, living room and spare rooms also proved to be fruitless.

By the time he got to the back yard, where he inhaled deeply but couldn’t find a trace of the man’s scent, fear had replaced every lingering ounce of anger and his senses went on full alert. Running back into the house and towards the front door, he yelled, “
Kaden
!” but there was no reply.

Once in the driveway, he detected the faint scent of ocean spray that belonged to his boy, along with a few other scents that were vaguely familiar. In the few moments it took for his father and Betas to join him outside, his memory kicked in.

The men from the barn.
Their scents were blended in with that of his mate, but they went no farther than the front of the house. He ignored his men’s questions and concentrated on the ground, spotting the presence of tire tracks that didn’t belong to any of their vehicles. The tracks ended where dirt met concrete, as did their combined scents.

They had his mate. The sick bastards had the audacity to snatch him right in front of his home.

Once again, he’d failed his mate out of negligence, and the only one paying for his inability to take proper care of the man was
Kaden
himself. Only this time, Michael was fully aware of what he’d lost. He knew his mate’s sweet, innocent smile, his charming desire to put the needs of others above his own,
his
bright, contagious laughter.

This time, he knew exactly what the man would suffer due to his failure to protect him, and he had no one to blame but himself.
Again.

There was no holding back his black rage. He screamed out his frustration and his men and father had the good sense to vacate his immediate presence as he found the nearest thing to him and threw it with all of his were strength across the lawn. The lawnmower snapped the trunk of a ten year old tree some twenty yards away with a loud crunch.

“Michael!” his father yelled.

“They took him! Sam, they took him while I was sitting inside trying to get over his past. He’s living it all over again because I couldn’t get my head out of my ass long enough to comfort him.
To protect him.”
He heard his voice crack but he didn’t care. His mate was suffering at the hands of monsters and he had done nothing to prevent it.

“Then we get him back, all of us, but you need to focus. Your mate needs you, and we will stop at nothing to help you get him back.” The deadly, determined look in his father’s eyes, mirrored in the faces of his Betas, encouraged him to marshal his chaotic thoughts and assume the role he’d been preparing for his entire life. He was their Alpha, his mate’s Alpha, and he’d be damned if he was going to let someone else usurp his role.

“We have
work
to do.”

* * * *

Pain erupted in
Kaden’s
skull as he felt a large hand strike the side of his face with a force that snapped his head back, spraining his neck. Another slap had blood bursting from his lips and filling his mouth.

A rough grip yanked the front of his shirt upwards then slammed him back down. He blearily blinked open his eyes to stare into the face that haunted his dreams and filled his waking thoughts with dread. He could feel the sickening emotions of lust, pride, and anticipation course through him, radiating from the man’s touch and threatening to drown him in their intensity.

The cold, hard grit of concrete pressed into the flesh of his back and the weight of the powerful man above him made the dank air in the room seem more and more oppressive by the second. He didn’t need to look around to know that he was in Gregory’s basement. The smell and cold and darkness of the room were as familiar to
Kaden
as the pain he had come to associate with the man looming over him.

The fear that had consumed every cell of his being for longer than he cared to remember returned in full force. He’d managed to put it aside over the past year for Missy’s sake. Learnt to bury it so that he could have the chance to explore a world that didn’t revolve around pain and humiliation, but it was back. Living and breathing, inside him and on top of him, and he could feel his chest burning in an attempt to suck in air that he couldn’t pull into his lungs fast enough.

“Did you really think you could hide from me forever? I own you, boy.” Gregory grabbed hold of his hair and wrenched his head painfully to the side. “And I see you’ve been letting someone else enjoy your body.” Gregory leaned his head down and bit viciously into the mating mark left from Michael.

The pain of the man’s fangs as he tore into the sensitive skin of his neck was nothing like the untainted, arousing passion that Michael evoked in him. That one act, that one desecration of the only thing in his life that was still pure and beautiful and perfect, was more than he could take. It felt worse than any violation of his body and emotions he had been forced to suffer through by this man.

He twisted his neck away from Gregory’s jaws, feeling the tendons in his neck tear and warm blood spurt from the wound to splash onto his chest and spill to the floor beneath him.

Agonising pain swept through him, searing every nerve ending from his abdomen to his scalp, but his act of defiance was well worth it. He’d spent almost his entire life bending to the will of others. Learning to fear the physical pain they subjected him to as well as the emotions they bombarded him with out of their own ignorance or for their personal gain.

Gregory’s distant, angry shout would have brought a smile to his lips had he been able to control the muscles in his neck and face, but he could settle for the satisfaction of the man’s curses.

“Stupid little whore!” Gregory said between clenched teeth.

Kaden
knew the gash and loss of blood wouldn’t kill him, but it would force the Alpha to give him time to heal before the man could risk using him in any way. Gregory spat the blood still in his mouth onto
Kaden’s
cheek, cursing him before he brought the back of his hand across his face again, causing
Kaden’s
vision to blur and new pain to blossom in his head.

The door to the basement opened and
Kaden
could just make out Thomas’s scent as he heard the Beta ask, “Is he awake yet? Shit, Gregory, what the hell did you do?”

“Just reclaiming my property.
The boy did this to himself,” Gregory growled.

Thomas took in all the blood coating
Kaden’s
body and spreading in a puddle on the floor and shook his head. “We need to use his power.
Now.
Deals are falling through and…”

“We’ve waited a year and a half—we can wait a few more days. By then, he’ll at least be able to sit in with me for a few conferences. We can renew deals with other
weres
here first,
then
we’ll start visiting with the humans.”

Gregory ripped
Kaden’s
shirt from his chest to use as a compress to stanch the flow of blood. When he applied more pressure than needed,
Kaden
had to bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood in order to keep from crying out. Between the pain and lethargy from blood loss, it was getting hard for him to follow their conversation.

“Fine, but I don’t think you should use him for your own entertainment until then either. The sooner he heals, the sooner we can get things taken care of,” Thomas said.

Gregory fisted his other hand in
Kaden’s
hair and dragged him to the back wall of the basement while chuckling. “Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about that. It’s using his power that saps his energy. Isn’t that right, boy?”
Kaden
managed a weak glare as Gregory placed a steel cuff, on a short chain bolted to the wall, around his ankle.

“Gregory,” Thomas growled in warning.

“Whatever. I’ll leave him alone. Meanwhile, we have meetings to set up. Get the others and meet me in my office.”

Thomas gave one last leering look at
Kaden
, then turned and left to do his Alpha’s bidding. Gregory proceeded to rip his jeans from him roughly and jerked his head towards a rusted pot lying three feet away.

“You know where to do your business. I suggest you use these next few nights to rest up. I’m looking forward to giving you your punishment for running from me.” He placed his hand back over the wound in his neck and squeezed until
Kaden
let out a cry of pain. “And you try to pull any more stunts like this and I’ll break your fingers, you understand me, boy?”

The threat wasn’t idle, but
Kaden
couldn’t bring himself to respond. Thankfully, Gregory was too impatient to set up his meetings with the men he planned to manipulate using
Kaden’s
power to stay and push the issue. The large Alpha rose from the ground and strode out of the door.
Kaden
could hear the loud click of the padlock on the other side as Gregory locked him in.

Alone, naked and in pain,
Kaden
allowed the darkness and familiarity of the room to surround him and swallow his fears like it always did. This is where Gregory always brought him to be punished or to await his punishment.

What the man didn’t know was that this room had always offered
Kaden
a measure of solace and escape when he was left alone. Like any arrogant, conceited prick, Gregory believed that anyone would rather be in his presence than out of it, but down here,
Kaden
could lose himself in his secret dreams.

Only this time, there were no dreams. No hopes, no desires. No fantasies that his mate would come to his rescue like he had imagined so many times in the past.

He’d walked out on Michael without even waiting for their last week together to end like he had promised he would. There had been no mistaking the looks of anger and disgust on the faces of every man in that office where he had laid
bare
his past. What’s more, he had yelled at Michael again for rejecting him at their first meeting.

He didn’t have the energy to blame his mate for the result of his life anymore.

Kaden
tried not to let his fears over Missy’s future consume him. He was fairly positive that if Katherine didn’t take her in, Cheryl would. Katherine would be able to teach her about her were blood and possibly find information to help her with her power.

He wasn’t sure if the brief respite from his misery, his job at the ranch and his few days of happiness with Michael, had been worth it or not. It felt as if he had been given a taste of what everyone else took for granted, only to feel more pain as it was ripped away so suddenly.

He wanted to rage against the injustice of it all. To scream and cry and reject the world that had tossed him away before even giving him a chance to live, to love, but it would do no good. He would escape again. He was stronger and wiser than before. There was no doubt that he would be able to find a way, but for now, he would endure like he’d always done.

He began to think of his time at the lake and the lessons Michael had taught him about shifting. As painful as the memory of the man was, remembering those words might be his only chance to escape this time. He had no doubt that Gregory would be watching him more carefully, but being able to shift would definitely help when an opportunity to run made itself available.

Chapter Nine

It had been three days—
three days—
since his mate had been taken from him. The stress of waiting was eating away at Michael’s mind and insides like acid. Dennis had pulled up records of Alpha Gregory’s bank accounts and influxes of cash that were unaccounted for, but they couldn’t accuse the man on that find alone.

No one in Gregory’s or Michael’s pack knew about
Kaden
except for his men, parents and Gregory’s Betas, so it would be one Alpha’s word against the other. With
Kaden’s
questionable background and mage blood, Michael had to admit that the man’s testimony might be looked upon as unreliable.

This morning, however, Mother Earth must have decided to reward their efforts to unravel the truth because they finally got the break they needed. Joseph, in his oh-so-charming, threatening way, had managed to intimidate a wolf belonging to Alpha Gregory’s clan whom they had discovered was doing business with the man.

Fortunately, it had not been hard to convince
Gustin
that his Alpha had been taking advantage of him. For years,
Gustin
had been meeting with Gregory in order to discuss the financial plans and state of his expansive landscaping business. He’d admitted to leaving every meeting feeling confident that his business was producing successful profits, but the numbers never added up when taxes came due and his accounts wouldn’t match the sums of his inventory.

Gustin
had also admitted to having seen a young man who fitted
Kaden’s
description on occasion, at Gregory’s house during his meetings with the man, but had been told he was a relative from another clan. Michael had been appalled to learn of the blatant disregard Gregory obviously had for his clan, but even worse was the fact that his clan members had seemed to accept the sad state of affairs.