"What the hell is that?" Michel couldn't help but snap while pulling Jason closer and away from the doctor.
Lark gave him a reassuring look. "Just something to stabilize him until I can get him on a drip at the lodge. Come on, Michel. Let me help him."
Swallowing hard, Michel nodded. He watched the doc insert the medicine into Jason's vein, then carefully removed it. "Okay, I know you have a jeep." Lark looked over his shoulder. "Kade, can you drive Michel and Jason to the lodge?" After getting an affirmative from the wolf enforcer, Lark turned back to him. "I won't be far behind you. I just gotta check the others."
"Not much to check here," Shane stated coldly.
Michel looked over and realized the beta crouched next to Brett, whose throat was ripped out. Lark grimaced and shook his head. "I can see that," he said, getting to his feet and turning away.
Shane, unrepentant, rolled a shoulder. "I got tired of him hurting our pack-members."
"It had to be done," Declan assured Shane, giving him a nod. His alpha claimed Michel's stare. "Go. We'll clean up here." He turned to Lark and gave him a quick kiss. "You, too. We'll bring Rachel to ye … see if we can't figure out what the hell they did to her."
"You're killers! Murderers!" Sampson screamed.
Michel ignored him and levered to his feet, holding Jason close to his chest. He followed Kade toward the front, nodding at his jeep keys in a glass bowl by the door. The wolf enforcer swept them up and headed outside.
As Michel maneuvered himself and Jason out the door, he heard his alpha respond coldly, "Ye declared war on me people, Marlow. Odd ye think I wouldn't retaliate." The alpha's voice hardened further as he said, "Ye're damn lucky the CIA want ye alive."
The door closed on the conversation.
Michel hustled across the gravel drive to his shed. Kade swung open the door and, after starting the vehicle, backed it out. Normally, Michel would have locked up the shed door, but only his mate mattered to him right then. After Lark hopped into the back, Michel climbed aboard, still holding Jason close, and settled his lover on his lap.
As soon as he closed the door, Kade started them down the dirt road. "Hang on, man," Kade assured, expertly navigating the road. "We'll have you there in no time."
Periodically during the drive, Lark leaned forward and checked Jason's pulse and color. "He'll be fine," he assured each time.
Michel clung to his alpha-mate's words, praying the human doctor was right.
Lark rubbed his shoulder, drawing his attention. "You claimed him, so that will help." Then he smiled wryly at him. "Although, from the conversation I overheard from Sean and Raul, you have a lot of explaining to do."
"Aye," Michel agreed, grimacing. When his mate had all but begged him to mark him, he'd completely lost control and done exactly that … he'd marked him, inside and out, claimed him, and had every intention of keeping him for his own. Michel prayed to the Fates that he'd be able to convince his obvious city boy to live in the mountains with him.
Setting aside those thoughts for later-I'll find a way, damn it-he focused on the immediate issue-getting his mate well, again.
"I'm gonna give Raul a quick call," Lark informed him. He grimaced. "It took Jared agreeing to stay with him to keep the guy from going to your place. If he finds out I didn't tell him about this, I'd have to hide behind Declan any time I saw the man," he finished on a mumble.
Michel grimaced. Damn, he sure as hell hadn't thought about facing Jason's uncle. Why the hell did he suddenly feel like a teenager facing a parent? Speaking of the man's parents, did they need to be told, too?
"Maybe Raul can get me Jason's vaccination records," Lark commented. "I probably won't need them," he continued, musing almost to himself, "but since you're gonna convince him to stick around, it'd be nice to have, nonetheless. Gotta know if he's allergic to anything."
Michel appreciated Lark's optimism.
Wait, vaccination records? Damn, he'd been out of interaction with human medicine for way too long. Suddenly, he felt old … really, really old.
Chapter Seven
Jason shivered. Cold seemed to permeate his body, chilling him from the inside out. Suddenly, heat slid along his right side. He instinctively wiggled toward it, letting out a pleased grunt at feeling the warmth along his side spread over most of his chest and one leg.
"Mmm, better," Jason muttered. He lifted his free hand and tried to tug the thick blanket over him further. His fingers slid across thick muscle and prickly hair. Confused, Jason pried open one gummy eyelid.
Blinking, he didn't recognize the room where he lay, but he sure as hell recognized the man sprawled halfway across him. Dark eyes stared steadily back at him, filled with concern. "Michel." Jason racked his mind, trying to figure out where they were and why.
It hit him like a ton of bricks … or maybe a pack of wolves. Wolf shifters, to be exact. "What are you?" he blurted.
Michel grimaced, but his gaze held steady. "Me name is Michel McDover. I'm a wolf shifter. You, Jason Truollo, are me mate. I've already claimed ye, and I canna live without ye."
At that point, Jason knew his eyes were big as saucers. Huh? Seriously?
He watched Michel's Adam's apple bob.
After licking his lips, Michel spoke again, almost pleading, "I'd like the opportunity to get to know ye, Jason. I'd like a chance to prove a relationship between us will work. Will ye give me that chance?"
"Man as sexy as you," Jason murmured, reaching up and tracing his lover's deceptively soft beard. "Should never have to beg. God, why would you want some little twink like me? Can't even handle a little needle in his arm," he stated depreciatively. His brows creased as he remembered how he'd ended up … wherever the hell here was with an IV in his arm-which kind of itched, now that he noticed it. "You deserve better."
"I deserve you," Michel spat back while levering up on his arm and frowning down at him. "That syringe was loaded for a shifter's size and metabolism, and ye took it for me. I could have lost ye. Don't ye ever do that to me again!"
Jason gasped at the feral command, mixed with maybe a hint of fear, thrumming through Michel's tone. Before he could figure out a response, the sudden loss of warmth provided by his lover's body hit him hard, causing him to shudder. Jason whimpered and clutched at the man's shoulder.
"Shit, ye're freezing. Why are ye freezing?" This time Michel scowled around in obvious consternation. "Where the hell is the quilt? Just a sheet can't possibly keep ye warm!"
Jason clutched his lover's shoulder. "C-come back," he pleaded. "P-please."
"Ah, sweetheart," Michel crooned. "I'm sorry. Ye'll be fine. Lark said ye'll be fine."
Jason thought Michel sounded as if he was trying to convince himself more than him, and he had no clue who the hell Lark was. "J-just stay. Please?" He hated begging-well, outside of sex, because that had been so hot-but he'd do anything to keep Michel's hot skin pressed against him.
Hot skin? OMG! He's naked!
Jason found his body reacting, which heated his blood, warming him from the inside out. "Oh, mmm," he hummed, rubbing his hardening prick against Michel's hairy thigh. "You feel good."
Damn, did I say that out loud? Now, Jason knew he was hopped up on something!
"Shh, hey, easy," Michel crooned, grabbing Jason's hips, stilling his movements.
Jason whimpered. His prick throbbed and he needed.
"It's okay," Michel assured. "Ye're me mate. I'll take care of ye. I just want ye to know what ye're doing because ye want it, not because yer body is suddenly overheated after bein' so cold."
Blowing out a breath, Jason paused and thought about that. He didn't loosen his grip on his lover, but he thought about what the older man said. Just being close to Michel enflamed him-his earthy masculine scent, his rugged good looks, and the fact that he was a fucking bear! It all played into Jason's deepest desires, fantasies, and set his body on fire. He loved the feel of him, the touch of his calloused fingers, the rub of his whiskers against Jason's sensitive skin.