Fated

  fucking mind and went savage. That’s why Masters loved using them and that’s why he had to protect his Pack and get them out of the city before they gave themselves away and got grabbed.

  He was their Alpha and it was his job to protect them and to keep their existence a secret. If he didn’t get them safely to their property in New Hampshire by tonight so that they could shift freely, he’d have to lock them up and that would make them hate him even more than they did now.

  They needed to leave.

  Now.

  “Shift back to human and get your ass in my truck,” he snarled, moving in closer until they were nose to snout and those razor sharp teeth were too damn close to his jugular for his comfort. “Now.”

  Her snout wrinkled as she bared her fangs and growled at him, letting him know exactly what she thought of his plan. She didn’t want to shift, and to be honest, he couldn’t really blame her, because once she did, she was going to be in for a hell of a time as her human side did its best to process the left over silver nitrate. It was out of her system, but it still left a poison behind that her more fragile human body was going to have deal with.

  It was going to be pure misery and right now he didn’t fucking care.

  He had a job to do and he wasn’t going to let her, or anyone else stop him from doing it.

  *-*-*-*

  “I’m sorry, Mick,” Kara said as her cousin walked by her holding cell with his mate. “I’m really sorry about-”

  He grunted, letting her know that he understood, which was a good thing since she hadn’t been able to finish that apology. As she knelt over the draining grate of the cell where the bossy bastard usually assigned to her when he had to lock down all the Pack in Boston, she couldn’t help but smile. That is until she got sick again a few seconds later. Then she wasn’t smiling anymore, but on the inside…

  Okay, she wasn’t smiling there either since she felt like she was dying, but at least she’d taken the bastard down with her. At the very least, she’d taken his clothes down with her when she’d shifted on the staircase to tell him to go to hell, but all she’d managed to do was to start a marathon of vomiting that she sincerely hoped she would be able to forget one day.

  He’d cursed, wrapped her in a blanket and carried her halfway to his truck until he started cursing again, turned back around and carried her back inside, heading straight for the basement and issuing orders to round up the Pack and have them locked down before sundown. As soon as they came to her usual cell he’d placed her on the floor, stolen the ruined blanket from her and promptly stripped before turning on the overhead shower system and rinsed them both off as well as the metal floor that she’d decorated seconds earlier.

  Once that was done, he’d glared at her, left the cell to grab a blanket to wrap around his waist, came back to glare at her some more, left again, and periodically came back to glare at her, letting her know in his own special way that he was pissed at her. Every time she tried reminding him that she’d told him to go ahead and take his Pack to New Hampshire, that she could take care of herself, the jerk had simply ignored her.

  Okay, granted, she’d been kneeling on the floor, gagging and coughing, but he still should have been able to make out what she’d been trying to say. He shouldn’t have cared that she wasn’t going with them since he normally got pissed off when she drove up and used his Pack’s land to shift. He’d bitch, tell her to get out, but she always ignored him because they both knew that it was best for everyone if she shifted on Pack land.

  Not that he would have cared if she’d been shot by a hunter, but as the top Alpha in Boston it was his job to continue to make sure that their existence remained a secret and if that meant letting her run in his woods, then he had to suck it up and let it happen. Just like he had to allow her to have a cell when she couldn’t get out of town to shift.

  “You need to shift back,” the bossy bastard that had thrown a hissy fit to make her shift to human in the first place demanded as he strolled into her cell.

  “I’m fine,” she said, in absolutely no mood to shift again, she tightened the blanket around herself, backed into the corner and closed her eyes, telling herself that the nausea had to stop at some point.

  “Shift,” Drew snapped as though being a complete asshole was going to make her do what he wanted.

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered pathetically as she brought her legs up closer to her body and tried to sleep, hoping that she would wake up feeling better.

  “You need to shift to heal,” he snarled, sounding extremely cranky, which when she thought about it, was pretty much normal for him.

  “Too sick. Dying. Go away,” she mumbled, shifting to get more comfortable in her corner, but the metal floor was really killing her ass and back.

  This was a basic Pack cell, four walls made out of thick metal with a floor to match, a drain grate in the middle of the floor, showerheads placed strategically in the ceiling to clean up any messes made over night and of course the blood from whatever meat that was thrown in the cell to appease the beast’s need for raw meat and a lovely reinforced metal door with a small window lined with bars. These rooms weren’t set up for Alpha’s who could change at will and were in total control.

  An Alpha’s room usually had a very big and very nice leather mattress on the floor so that they could curl up and go to sleep, a television protected behind bulletproof glass, a mini-fridge in the wall, a real bathroom and their doors weren’t locked once the sun went down. Alphas were free to come and go as they pleased. They could patrol the hallways and make sure that no one in the Pack had managed to escape their cells.

  “Are you going to get sick again?” he grumbled after an awkward silence in which she’d hoped that he’d taken the hint and left her in peace, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen until he was done snapping at her and trying to interrogate her.

  “I’m fine,” she said miserably, not bothering to point out that there was nothing left in her stomach and that all she was doing was dry heaving at this point.

  “Good,” he said firmly, sounding pleased as she suddenly found herself back in the big bastard’s arms and being carried out of her cell.

  She would have argued, or at the very least growled at him, but it felt too damn good to be in his arms and within seconds, she found herself fast asleep.

  Chapter 10

  “Oh, God yes! Harder! Oh, God!”

  “Fuck!”

  “That’s it, baby, harder!”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up!” Drew shouted as he walked down the hallway, past all the cells that currently held Pack members who were working out their leftover energy from last night’s shift.

  Every. Other. Fucking. Cell.

  It seemed that all of his Pack needed to work off some steam this morning, he realized as he walked towards his cell, trying to block out the sounds and scents of sex and becoming more agitated with every passing second. He rubbed his hands roughly down his face, trying to block everything out, wishing that he could shift and run through the forest and get the hell away from here, but he couldn’t do anything he wanted anymore.

  He was Alpha and had responsibilities, so many fucking responsibilities, he thought bitterly for the first time in a long time as he quickened his pace so that he could check on his newest responsibility. God, how he’d hated her before, but now…

  Now he cursed the day that Mick came to his father and asked for sanctuary for the Packless bitch. His father should have banned her from his territory instead of just refusing to allow her into the Pack. What the fuck had his father been thinking? he wondered as he rammed his fingers through his hair.

  Her own fucking Pack had thrown her out when she was only a kid. That should have been a fucking clue, because Packs usually protected their cubs and cherished their females. Females were the key to Pack survival. The more females they had, the better odds they had at finding their mates and having more cubs to fill the Pack. It was extremely unusual to kick a cub out
, never mind a female and his father should have considered that before he’d granted her amnesty and allowed her to stay in Boston.

  His life would have been so much better if his father had. It would have made more sense if his father had taken her into the Pack simply because they coveted females so badly, but to refuse her the way that he had and allowing her to stay had never made sense to him. He’d asked his father several times about her, why her Pack had thrown her out, why he hadn’t allowed her to join them and the only answer he ever got was to make sure that she was never allowed to join their Pack.

  Well, now he’d seriously fucked that part up, he thought with a growl as he walked into his cell and found the woman who’d made his life a living hell since the day that she’d showed up at his door, lying in his bed.

  He cocked his head to the side as he studied her, beautiful, curvy as hell and now part of his Pack, whether he wanted her to be or not, which meant that he’d failed his father. Then again…

  Maybe it was time that he found out exactly why his father hadn’t banished her when he’d had the chance.

  “Why didn’t my father send you away?”

  *-*-*-*

  “I know you’re awake,” the persistent bastard said, wrecking her hopes and dreams that he would just go away.

  “Well, I guess you win the Nobel Prize,” she said sarcastically, hoping to pick a fight with him so that he would forget this line of questioning and she could make a well-timed escape.

  “Cut the shit, Kara,” Drew said, apparently knowing her a little too well.

  Sighing, she opened her eyes and rolled over so that she could face him. He was leaning back against the metal wall, completely naked and uncaring, which wasn’t really surprising given that they were shifters. Nudity wasn’t a big deal to them.

  Normally, but she’d have to admit that she’d always enjoyed the sight of Drew without his clothes on. It wasn’t something that she’d ever admit to anyone, especially not to him. So, since it wouldn’t really help to give herself away, she looked a little to the left so that she wasn’t tempted to let her eyes run over him, taking in every delicious tanned muscle and-

  Oh, hell she really needed to get out of here, she realized, shaking her head in disgust at herself as she got to her feet and headed for the door, but the large bastard apparently wasn’t done with his interrogation.

  “Why didn’t my father send you away, Kara?” Drew asked as he smoothly stepped in front of her, blocking her one and only exit.

  “Because he found me utterly charming,” she said dryly, ducking beneath his arm and making her escape as she tried to block out yet another unwanted memory.

  Not even a century old and she already had too much regret in her life. That day was one of many that still haunted her and not something that she was going to talk to him about.

  “Why did your Pack banish you, Kara?” the asshole that had way too much power over her life demanded.

  “None of your business, Prick,” she said, using her favorite nickname for him as she made her way towards the exit, deciding that yes, she would risk getting arrested for indecent exposure.

  He merely chuckled as he followed her. “Oh, sweetheart, you should know better than to piss me off,” was the only warning she got before she found herself picked up and brought right back to the cell that she’d spent last night in, only this time he didn’t place her nicely on the leather mattress, but simply dropped her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded even though it was more than obvious what he was doing when he walked to out the door and slammed it shut behind him. The sounds of deadbolts immediately followed, confirming her suspicions.

  “We’ll talk later,” he drawled as he walked away, leaving her sitting there fuming, not because he’d locked her up, which she was pretty pissed about, but that she’d let a golden opportunity to kick him in the balls pass her by yet again.

  *-*-*-*

  “Watch your back, bitch,” his lovely mate said as she shoved past him.

  He stopped walking and sighed heavily, fucking Alpha abilities, he thought with disgust as he took in her beautiful heart shaped ass as she stormed off. If only he’d been blessed with a regular Pack mate.