They both glanced over at the slight figure on the bed and Cade sighed. “Yeah, I can’t see him beating up anybody as little as he is either, but that’s what he said. Assuming he’s telling the truth, I don’t think anybody will be looking for him, except maybe his probation officer. He’s been abused in the past, and still has the scars to prove it, but they’re healed over. Could be what he and his little brother are running from. That bothers me too. Where arethe child’s parents? We need to check it out.”
Rayce nodded. “What are you going to do?”
“Fuck if I know. I don’t want this, and I don’t want a boy who looks like he’s fifteen years old. He’s not my type at all, damn it. And he’s too fucking young.”
Rayce watched him sympathetically, and nodded. “I know, mon ami, but not much you can do about that, is there?I meant, what are you going to do about taking them with us? You’re attracted to the boy, no?And he’s your mate—you can’t leave him behind.”
Cade grimaced and glanced back over at Jax. He’d finished his breakfast and was trying to follow their conversation, though Cade was pretty sure he didn’t understand a word. When he saw Cade staring at him, he tossed his hair out of his eyes and picked nervously at the sheet covering his chest.
“Of course, I’m fucking attracted to him, damn it! I can barely keep my hands off him. I know it’s the soif de sang. But I don’t want to be so attracted. I don’t want to feel like this. I want to just rewind this whole damn thing back to this morning. I wish I’d never passed by that stupid diner.”
“What should I tell the others?” Rayce asked quietly.
“Tell them…tell them nothing until I can find out more. Maybe it’s some kind of mistake. Maybe I’ll wake up in the morning and be back to normal.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Cade,and you know it. You’ll have to mate with him soon or the bloodlust will overpower you. You could shift without warning and hurt him badly.”
Cade turned an incredulous face toward Rayce. “I would never hurt him, but he’s scared to death of me. Look at him.”
Both men gazed at the boy on the bed until he glared belligerently back at them. “What?” Jax said hotly. “Don’t get any ideas, and give me back my damn clothes. They’re bound to be dry enough by now.”
Ignoring him, Cade turned back to Rayce, shaking his head. “Despite the charming personality, he seems exhausted. I think he’s running on pure adrenaline now. I want him to rest a few hours. We’ll leave for Georgia this afternoon.”
Rayce nodded and shrugged. “Wherever you say, Cade.” Cade glanced back over at Jax, who was still eavesdropping on them shamelessly, his brow wrinkled as he tried to figure out what they were saying.
“He’s going to fight me every step of the way. You realize that,don’t you?” Cade said miserably.
Rayce nodded and smiled. “I’ll stay with Connor and Paul and give you some privacy to deal with him. It’ll do us all good to have a little rest.”
“Yeah, and maybe give this rain a chance to clear out. Oh, and send out Paul or somebody for more clothes for both of them. Jeans, shirts, underwear. Two of everything for now and another pair of boots, for God’s sake. ” He gestured contemptuously toward the ones he’d pulled off Jax when he got him to the room. They were made of cheap vinyl and had a little stacked heel. Cade strongly suspected they were girls’ boots. “Heavier jackets too,” he said, gesturing contemptuously at the offending garments hanging on the chairs to dry.
Cade pulled out a piece ofpaper from his pocket. “I’ve written down Jax’s sizes here. I got them off his old clothes. You should be able to guess pretty close on the kid. He’s about eight or nine years old, I’d say. Do we have any extra helmets?”
Rayce shook his head. “I’ll add that to the list.”
“First quality. Nothing cheap, and none of that punk shit Jax was wearing. Tell everyone to eat at the diner for lunch or better yet, order pizzas. We don’t need to attract any more attention than we have already. I think they’ll both sleep now that their stomachs are full. The little one is almost out on his feet already.” He gazed at Jax speculatively. “To be on the safe side, see if Sean’s mate has any of those pills left that the dentist gave her in Atlanta. They’ll make Jax sleep.”
Rayce glanced back toward the bed with a smile. “I don’t think they’ll be necessary. Looks like your little ones are already asleep.”
Sure enough, as they’d been talking Mason had drifted back over to the bed with Jax and was curled up next to him. Jax had fallen sound asleep beside him, sitting up, his head lolling back on the headboard, his mouth wide open, with the takeout box still in his lap. Cade blew out an exasperated breath and shook his head, walking to the bed to stand over him. He didn’t want to have this damn tender feeling for the boy. He didn’t want to feel like he needed to take him in his arms and hold him as he slept. He leaned over to take the box away and pull Jax down so he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck. He never awoke once as Cade moved him, just curled up on his side next to Mason with a sigh.
“What am I going to do with you?” Cade asked softly, staring down at the boy. His wolf leaped inside him, full of suggestions, but he forced it back down. Even though his wolf strongly approved of the boy, Jax wasn’t his choice, would never have been his choice, and Cade felt stunned and angry—and trapped. He knew it wasn’t the boy’s fault, but he couldn’t help the resentment bubbling up inside him.
Of all the times for the bloodlust to rear its ugly head, this had to be the worst. Cade was moving his small pack to the north Georgia mountains to join his cousin Zack. Zack was one of the alphas of the Dark Hollow Wolf Pack, a huge alliance of packs that included northern Georgia, parts of Tennessee, and all of western North Carolina.
Zack’s father, Cade’s uncle, had left Louisiana many years before when he’d lost the challenge for leadership of their pack. When the old alpha died, his two sons, Cade’s father and his uncle, had to fight for leadership of the pack. Since a pack could only have one alpha, the brothers knew they would eventually have to face each other in the ancestral ring or else go out and start a new pack. The wolves loved their pack land, and all the wolves had close emotional attachments to it, so starting up a new pack was not only difficult, but almost unthinkable. They knew even before they fought that no matter what happened, one of them would have to leave. Unable to accept the domination of another alpha, yet lacking a following, young alphas were often left literally homeless until they either left the area to find a new pack or assimilated back into their old pack at a lesser ranking. Wolves were never happy alone—it was almost a foreign concept to them.
When the time came, the brothers had faced each other in the ring and Cade’s father had won. Humiliated and heartbroken, his brother left the pack, eventually winding up with their distant relatives in North Carolina. In time, he’d built his own lodge in the nearby north Georgia mountains, forming an alliance with the Dark Hollow Wolf Pack. When he was killed by Hunters a few years before, his son, Zack, had assumed leadership of his pack and the alpha role.
It wasn’t the greatest solution to go to Zack for help—two alphas in the same location was never a good idea—but it was the only one he could come up with on such short notice. They’d left Louisianain a hurry, because he wouldn’t fight his own father for leadership of the pack. The fact that he knew he would win just made it even more imperative that he leave. His father loved leading the pack, and it would have crushed him to be defeated.
Every time a young alpha reached full maturity, he was required by their law and their ancient traditions to challenge the leader’s authority. Once Cade knew his father would never withstand his challenge, the only course he felt he had open to him was to leave the pack and strike off on his own, just like his uncle had done years before.
When he’d told the others he was taking off, his brother Connor insisted on coming with him, and when they pulled out, his best friend, Rayce, along with twelve others, some of them mating pairs, joined them. It looked like Cade had formed his own pack, whether he’d intended to or not.
Cade had plenty of money, almost his entire wages from the years he’d spent in the Army, including the money in the trust fund left by his grandparents, but he had no clear idea of what he should do next. When he called to talk to his cousin, Zack said there was plenty of pack land that he could build on, both in north Georgia and in North Carolina. It already belonged to the packs, and as family, he’d be welcome to it.
Cade had actually planned to take his time getting to Georgia and maybe see some of the countryside, raise a little hell before he had to settle down and be responsible. It had been a while since he’d been able to be on the road with the bikes, and he was restless. He and Rayce bought their bikes when they were still in their teens, and other young men in the pack had followed their lead until they formed a small group that liked to ride together every chance they got. Rayce had come up with the name Sons of Darkness, along with the logo of the wolf, mostly as a joke.
Cade was having fun before all this started, working and playing hard and enjoying his life. He’d been nowhere near ready to settle down. Now, saddled not only with a pack to look after, but an unwanted young mate, everything was different. Now he had others to care for, and one person in particular. The boy was not even someone he’d normally be even remotely interested in.
Although he’d been with men before, his preference really was for girls like the ones he’d been with back home in Louisiana. He liked girls who had a little meat on their bones, with big breasts and full,curvy asses, girls who’d been around, who knew the score and never asked him to give them more than he was capable of giving them. The few men he’d been with had been others in his father’s pack, big, tough, brawny guys who could take a pounding and still come back for more. When he got an urge to be with a man, he wanted a real man, and not some femme kid. If he had to have a bloodlust with a man, then he would have wanted someone more like that. They could have formed an alpha pair that would be damn near invincible against their enemies.
