Chasing Seth (13 page)

“Give him time, Sheriff. He’ll come around,” Nick said quietly. He could only imagine the pain Kasey felt when his mate rejected him so adamantly, but he knew the only reason Seth didn’t feel the connection was because of fear. If Kasey treaded lightly enough, Seth would begin to trust him soon enough. “I’ll be by his side every minute.”

Kasey gave him a tight smile of thanks and left. As the clinic fell from view in his mirror, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he’d left a part of himself behind, vulnerable and aching. His jaw clenched to hold back the howls of rage and anguish his wolf wanted to let forth. The Created one had destroyed more than his chance to claim his mate, but a piece of Seth’s soul Kasey could only hope he would someday be able to return to him. He wondered if the background check he’d placed on Seth had come in yet. There might be information in there that would lead him to Taggart.

Seth watched the sheriff’s truck leaving the clinic parking lot. He felt a sense of panic invade him when the taillights disappeared. He tried to shake it off, but his hands trembled. Why? He looked helplessly at Nick standing at the other side of the parking lot. It felt as though he were drowning in fear. Not fear of Taggart or what they would do to him if they were truly still alive, but the fear Kasey wasn’t coming back. It literally drove him to his knees in anguish. His eyes were wild, and his body shuddered. He could hear his name from a long way off. “Seth?”

“Doc?” A soft female voice followed it. Then a pair of strong hands lifted him to his feet. He blinked and focused enough to see Nick holding him up. Seth’s teeth were elongated as the wolf side of him fought for dominance, and his eyes had bled into their canine counterparts. “What’s wrong with him?”

Nick sighed at his friend, shaking his head. “He’s reacting to the sheriff leaving him after such a traumatic event, the big idiot. The sheriff is his mate, and though he hasn’t recognized or accepted the fact, his wolf side reacts very strongly to it. His wolf is burying his humanity and attempting to take over. You wouldn’t happen to have Kasey’s number, would you?”

A whimper tore free from Seth’s throat at the mention of the other wolf’s name. A suffocating weight dropped over him, blanketing him in a heavy sheet of despair. He felt as though he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t understand what was going on. “Nick?” he managed to croak out in question once Chessie had gone back inside the clinic to use the phone.

“It’s okay, Seth. Let’s just get you back to your house for now. Chessie is calling the sheriff to meet us there.” Nick didn’t launch into an explanation, because he wasn’t even sure if he could explain it to Seth enough to make him understand. Once a wolf found its mate, it held on for dear life, and with Seth being a Rho, his instinctual reaction to feeling abandoned by his mate would cause a depression so severe it could literally drive him to take his own life. And if Nick tried to explain that to Seth, he’d have to tell Seth the truth about himself, because otherwise how else would he know?

Seth allowed Nick to help him into his car, and he leaned weakly against the seat. He found it hard to concentrate on anything. Sounds were muffled to a dull roar, and he could feel the wolf side of him pushing forth, so strong. It felt as though it were the night of the full moon, one of the few nights he couldn’t truly leash the wolf inside him. The sense of hopelessness crowding in on him reminded him of being held captive by Taggart and his pack. But it seemed stronger and more intense. His canines elongated further and pressed into his lower lip, cutting into it.

The passage of time had no meaning for him. It could have been twenty minutes or even an hour by the time he found himself in his house. The shifting of his eyes between wolf and human sight was making him dizzy. Would it be easier just to shift? Or would that be worse?

The human items surrounding him made no sense to him in those moments either. The wolf side had no use for them. What did he care for a television set when he felt as bereft and barren as an empty desert stretching on forever?

Not since childhood had Seth’s wolf side pushed so hard for control. His skin itched to change, to mold into the canine counterparts that were always there. The smell of the forest called to him. The solitude of the forest screamed for him to embrace it. He dug his nails into his scalp to try and erase the thoughts, to garner a semblance of himself. It wasn’t enough. He gave Nick a helpless look. “I’m sorry, Nick,” he whispered before he fled out of the house and straight into the woods.

Before he’d even been completely engulfed by the shade of the trees overhead, he’d shifted into his wolf form, racing through the trees and bushes. He wanted to outrun all of his demons, the pain of his past and present, to forget the emotions Kasey stirred in him. A loud howl rent the air around him as it burst forth from him uncontrollably. The unbearable sadness in his wolf consciousness made Seth wonder if maybe Kasey had been telling the truth. A shudder wound its way through him at the thought of letting himself believe it, though. The thought of being vulnerable again terrified him more deeply than the thought of Taggart kidnapping him again.

Like the other day, he found himself just running flat out to burn off the restlessness inside of himself. The muscles in his legs burned by the time he managed to slow down to a trot before eventually collapsing in the same clearing as he had the night he’d first come across Kasey. Somehow he’d instinctively found his way back to this same place. Everything always came back around to Kasey—his thoughts, all of the events of the past few days—and as he lay there thinking of the other man, he knew he felt a deep attraction for the arrogant Cheyenne who had come crashing into his life. He couldn’t deny it any longer.

He whined deep in his throat, bringing both paws up to cover his ears. He just wished he’d never come here. It’d taken two years to recover enough of himself to return to the human world completely, and now he was on the verge of losing those fragments again. Only this time to a strong yet amazingly gentle werewolf who didn’t know how to take no for an answer. He should have been overjoyed Kasey had taken the hint and left him alone, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of abandonment. To the wolf inside him, it seemed like the end of the world. It wasn’t like Kasey wouldn’t return, but he couldn’t seem to get his wolf to understand.

The sheriff held some kind of pull over his wolf. It was as if it were a hypnotic aura demanding he submit to the older wolf. Whenever he was near Kasey, it took all of his strength not to roll over and show his belly in submissiveness, like a wolf to its Alpha. When he’d felt Kasey’s teeth scraping against the side of his throat that night in his office, it had seemed so natural to want to allow his head to tilt further, granting him access. An intense desire for Kasey to sink his teeth into his throat had almost consumed him. He’d never wanted Taggart or any of the others to dominate him. When they’d forced him to submit, there had never been such a deep sense of rightness to it. His body had never sung out for them to touch him. The lust gripping his stomach when he was near Kasey was so strong and fierce that it stole his breath.

The fur along his body rippled with the shudders tearing through him. Heightened emotions always made him this way. Seth didn’t like to be in environments that weren’t peaceful and calm. Anything else always left him unsettled and restless. Thunder rolled overhead from dark, ominous clouds, the sound almost drowning out another one. He lifted his head when he heard another wolf call in the distance. It caused him to flinch, but he knew it wasn’t Taggart. He knew Taggart’s call quite well and would never forget it. Instinctively, he recognized Kasey’s call, and before he could try to control himself, the wolf once again took control and let forth a joyous howl, calling to the other wolf. He growled at the wolf within him, but the wolf just wagged his tail happily as he waited in eagerness for his mate.

Chapter Seven

Kasey
was just looking over the report on Seth when his cell phone rang. He flipped it open without looking at it, barking, “Yeah?”

An anxious female voice came over the phone. “Kase?”

He immediately sat upright in his chair, dropping the file. “Chessie, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Seth. Nick said you need to get to Seth’s house right away. Seth was acting strange. Nick seemed to think he might hurt himself.”

A swear word slipped free from Kasey, capturing the attention of his deputy, Julian. “I’ll be right there.”

Julian lifted an eyebrow at him. “Trouble?”

“Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll be back later.” Kasey threw his jacket on and raced out of the station. He berated himself for leaving his pup. He should have listened to the instincts telling him to turn around, but he’d just assumed it was because of his wolf not wanting to leave his mate. Of course, it had been that and more.

The drive felt interminable, and by the time he reached Seth’s house, his teeth were gnashing together. Nick stood on the front porch waiting for him. “Where is he?” Kasey demanded.

“He took off before I could stop him. He’s in the woods somewhere,” Nick stated flatly. “His wolf is reacting to being left behind.”

“You were supposed to watch him!” Kasey growled before stalking toward the back of the house. He wasn’t even inside the woods before he shifted, immediately scenting for Seth and darting off in the direction his pup had headed. With no idea how much of a head start his mate had, Kasey let forth a loud call in the hopes his mate would answer. If the wolf had as much of a hold on Seth as he suspected, there should be an answering call.

He wasn’t disappointed. A joyful howl reached his ears, and he grinned, loping off in the direction it came from. Seth’s canine side seemed to be fully in control. Kasey howled again, beseeching his mate to return to his side. The other wolf responded again, this time closer than before. Eagerness to see his pup urged his paws faster, covering more ground. Fat drops of rain began to fall from the heavy clouds above as he got closer to the one person, the one wolf, who meant the world to him.

Relief flooded Kasey when he spotted the black wolf rushing toward him. Seth skidded to a stop in front of him, pushing into him affectionately. Kasey breathed in deeply the smell of cinnamon and sunshine, practically purring in satisfaction. They wound themselves around each other, and eventually he had Seth pinned beneath him. He nuzzled Seth’s throat affectionately, attempting to soothe his pup. Their fur was soaked through by then, but neither cared about anything except each other and being close to one another.

Shifting back to his human form, Kasey stroked his hands along the powerful muscles beneath the black fur. Rain still fell down on them, but it had lessened to a light drizzle for the moment. “It’s all right, pup. I’m here. I told you I wasn’t going anywhere. I just wanted to give you some space.”

A low whine echoed from Seth’s throat, and then he shifted. He lay underneath Kasey, staring up at him with sad eyes. “I don’t understand why,” Seth whispered, blinking furiously against the drops of water dusting his eyelashes.

Kasey gave him a gentle smile, leaning his forehead on Seth’s. “It’s all part of being mates, my pup. Your wolf knows we are connected, and it reacted to my leaving after you went through something so traumatic. It felt abandoned. Our wolves are intertwined with each other. You are the other half of my soul, Seth, just as I am yours.”

Kasey slid the tip of one finger down the younger wolf’s cheek in a light caress. His body leapt at the lust darkening Seth’s gaze at his touch. “I am trying so hard not to push you for more than you are ready to give,” he murmured huskily, “but when you look at me like that….”

Seth flushed, and his eyes closed, drawing a soft chuckle from Kasey. Kasey rubbed his nose against his pup’s teasingly. “You are so adorable.”

Blue eyes opened with a flare of indignation, but before Seth could lay into him for saying such a thing, Kasey kissed him. It wasn’t a hard or rough kiss like the last ones had been. It was soft and tender, just a light kiss meant to comfort. Kasey probed lightly along the seam of Seth’s lips, requesting access to his mate’s mouth. A soft moan shuddered through his large form when Seth tentatively responded, opening to him like a flower to the first drops of dew on a cool spring morning. The moan deepened into a lusty growl when Seth’s tongue slid wetly over his. Slipping one hand between their bodies, Kasey delicately strummed his fingers over Seth’s belly, seducing his mate with a gentle touch. A sigh from Seth flooded his mouth, and Kasey deepened the kiss while sliding his fingers under the hem of Seth’s shirt to touch bare skin. Electricity zipped from the tips of his fingers straight down to his groin.

Breathing heavily, Kasey broke the kiss with a gasp, wrenching himself to the side and collapsing among the wet leaves on the forest floor. If he didn’t stop now, he wouldn’t be able to stop at all. Seth had no idea what he did to him. His cock, hard and aching, dug into the zipper of his uniform, but Seth didn’t seem to realize just how thin his control was stretched, for he followed Kasey, splaying his body over the large Cheyenne’s. He buried his lips into the hollow at the base of Kasey’s throat, swiping his tongue over the skin there. Kasey gasped, gripping Seth’s arms lightly. “Seth… stop,” he begged.