Devin's Mercy [Shifters of Mystery 4] (2 page)

werewolf form. The alpha was huge as fuck. Sage, Martin’s son, was

the only werewolf to match Martin in size. Devin wasn’t sure where

to go or what to do. Even with several feet of distance between him

and the alpha, he was terrified. He wasn’t a fighter, but he knew how

to defend himself.

He watched in fascinated horror as the alpha and his son took

swipes at each other. Devin crossed his fingers and held his breath,

hoping to the gods that Sage defeated the bastard. Out of the corner of

his eye he saw Jeremiah take off after Charles and hoped the sick

bastard met his demise. Charles deserved nothing less than a brutal

ending.

“No!” Devin shouted, watching in slow-motion horror as the

alpha pulled a knife out that Devin knew for a fact was made of silver.

The handle was wood, but the blade was pure silver. Before anyone

knew that the alpha had a weapon, Martin sliced Sage’s arm and then

rounded on Mercy, cutting him across his stomach.

Not Mercy, please not Mercy.
Devin had crushed on the man for

years, but Mercy had never batted an eye at him. That hadn’t stopped

Devin from wanting the man, though. Martin spun on his heel and

took off. Devin didn’t care about the alpha at the moment. No, he had

to get to Mercy. He ran toward the man, feeling tears springing to his

eyes. The alpha was going to die for this.

“What happened?” Jeremiah asked as he emerged from the

woods.

Devin dropped down to his knees, feeling helpless as Mercy lay

on the ground groaning, blood spilling from his gut. He wiped at the

tears and then pulled his shirt off, pressing the fabric into Mercy’s

wound. He shook his head as he answered Jeremiah. “Martin pulled a

silver blade from out of his pocket. It had a wooden handle. He scored

Sage’s arm before taking off.”

Devin’s Mercy

11

Sage walked toward his truck, a grimace on his face as he climbed

inside. The man grunted, but didn’t say a word.

“We need to get back to the house,” Jeremiah said to Mercy and

Devin.

“You’re letting me come?” Devin asked in surprise.

“Yes, but every single man in that house will be watching you. If

you try anything, I’ll slice your throat from ear to ear and deliver your

body to Martin’s front doorstep.”

Devin shook his head as he helped Mercy to the truck. “I may

have been blind, but I’m not a fool. I’ve seen what Sage can do.”

“It’s not Sage you have to worry about,” Jeremiah warned as he

drove the men home.

Once they were at a farmhouse outside of town, Sage held on to

Devin’s upper arm as he escorted him down into an unfinished

basement. It looked as if it had been thrown together as an

afterthought. The beams overhead were exposed, and the walls were

bare and made of concrete. There was no drywall in place, no finished

floors, nothing to say that this room was used on a regular basis. It

was as unfriendly as a basement could get.

The place matched the occupants’ present personalities perfectly.

Sage’s unrelenting hold on Devin’s upper arm reminded him that

he wasn’t here to sightsee. The man marched him across the room and

Devin didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to leave Mercy, but he wasn’t

going to argue with Sage.

For one, the man was too damn big to argue with. The werewolf

could crush him with a hand tied behind his back and blindfolded.

Devin had no doubt about it.

And two, he didn’t want to be kicked out. As crazy as it sounded,

Devin wanted to stay close to Mercy, even if it was in a basement. He

needed to know if Mercy was going to be all right. He felt partially

responsible for getting the man hurt, even if he hadn’t been the one

with the blade.

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Lynn Hagen

Devin hadn’t tried to stop Martin, and he hadn’t warned anyone

the man had a silver knife. The silver would stop any wound from

completely healing. Not only would Sage have a scar over his forearm

now, but Mercy would have one across his stomach.

That was if the man even healed.

From what Devin had briefly seen, there had been a lot of blood.

That worried him, but he knew any amount of begging to go check on

Mercy would fall on deaf ears. Sage didn’t want to hear anything

Devin had to say right now. Sage was going off of what he seen back

in town.

No, he hadn’t tried to stop Martin. In his eyes, that made him just

as wrong as the psycho alpha.

Devin glanced around to see a lab set up on the other side of the

room. There was even an exam table and a mini fridge. “Is Doctor

Kell here?” he asked curiously.

“How do you know about the doctor?” Sage asked with a snarl

that made Devin pull back in fear. He marched Devin over to a steel

cage and opened it, shoving Devin inside. As the lock snicked into

place, Devin felt as if his life was over.

Sage was going to kill him.

There were no buts about it. The man had a hard gleam in his dark

eyes that told Devin he was utterly screwed.

He curled his fingers around the cold, steel bars as he stood there,

feeling the bitter cold of the basement creeping over him. He had used

his shirt on Mercy’s wound, and now Devin was freezing his ass off.

As the chill crept over his skin and began to seep into his bones,

Devin started shaking. He knew that his teeth would be chattering

soon. He hated the cold. Winter was his least favorite season. “Your

father went nuts when he found out that Doctor Kell was gone. He

suspects you, but he doesn’t know for sure.”

“First of all, don’t refer to that man as my father!” Sage’s words

were filled with so much hate that Devin felt the rage crawl through

him like an infection.

Devin’s Mercy

13

Devin swallowed. The scar on the man’s face made Sage ten

times more frightening as he stood there glaring at Devin. He knew

the alpha had scarred Sage’s face, deeming him an outcast, but Devin

didn’t care. Sage used to be his friend. He just wished they still were.

“Never make that mistake again.”

Devin deleted the reference from his vocabulary.

“And second, are you going to try and escape so you can let him

know we have his precious doctor?” The question held such bitterness

that Devin was afraid to answer the man. He had never seen Sage act

this way before in all the years he had known the man, and it scared

the hell out of him.

“I have no loyalties to that bastard,” Devin answered honestly.

“You seemed pretty cozy with him back in Mystery,” Sage said

with a snarl.

Devin could see that no matter what he said, Sage was going to

bite his head off. He walked to the other side of the cage and sat

down, curling his legs in as he glanced around him. He wasn’t sure if

this was any better than how Martin had treated him, but at least Sage

wasn’t beating the shit out of Devin or handing him over to a

depraved human.

“I did what I had to do to survive, Sage. I’m sorry about attacking

Jeremiah, but I was left with no choice.”

Sage scoffed as he turned on his heel to leave. “We all have

choices.”

“How is Mercy?” Devin asked as the werewolf began to climb the

steps. He ignored Sage’s smart comment. If the man only knew half

of the stuff Devin had been through at the hands of the alpha, Sage

wouldn’t be so quick with his judgment. Sage of all people should

know how his father treated people. The guy had exiled his own son

for crying out loud.

When Sage kept going, Devin could feel the tears welling up in

his eyes. He wasn’t a bad person. It wasn’t his fault that Martin had

forced him to come along. It wasn’t his fault that Martin forced a lot

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Lynn Hagen

of things on Devin, period. The man had a corroded and twisted mind,

and the rot was only growing deeper. Devin hadn’t been strong

enough to fight the alpha, so he did the only thing he could.

Survive.

Devin curled into a tighter ball as the chill of the basement grew.

He knew he was going to have to undress. If he didn’t, he would ruin

his clothes when the full moon rose tonight and he shifted. He was

unmated. That meant he had no choice when it came to shifting. As

soon as darkness fell, Devin would be lying in his cage in his

vârcolac
form.

Devin quickly removed his jeans and shoes when he felt his skin

begin to tighten. He didn’t have much time. He could see from one of

the dirty basement windows that the sun had almost set. As he folded

his jeans and set them aside, Devin began to shiver so badly that he

jogged in place to generate some body heat.

He felt stupid as hell for jogging naked, but once again he was left

with no choice. Not if he didn’t want to freeze his balls off.

When pain shot down Devin’s spine like a fissure in the earth,

Devin dropped to his knees and huddled in the corner of the cold,

steel cage. All he could think about was Mercy as his skin felt like it

was being shredded from his bones. Devin cried out as he writhed on

the cold floor in agonizing pain.

His jaw locked as every damn bone in his body felt like it was

breaking. The pain was almost unbearable. As cold as the basement

was, Devin began to sweat as he tried desperately to breathe. It wasn’t

easy. The pain from shifting shot through his body in waves as Devin

rolled to his hands and knees and tried to crawl away from the agony,

but it didn’t do him any good.

Devin rolled to his back, crying out as bones crunched, reshaping

and transforming. He screamed as his body grew and small hairs

sprouted, covering his body in a layer of fur. Devin rolled back to his

belly, crawling slowly across the dirt floor once again as he panted

heavily, his claws digging into the dirt as his eyes shifted.

Devin’s Mercy

15

He threw back his head and howled as the pain ripped through

him once again. He pushed to his feet, staggering and slamming into

the steel bars, reminding him once again that he was trapped. His

head fell back, howling with a strong lungful of air as the shift

completed.

Devin lowered his head as he looked around the basement and

knew he wasn’t going for a run. Other howls rent the air from above

him. Devin glanced up and wondered if Mercy had shifted as well.

The man was wounded, so he knew it was going to hurt like a son of a

bitch when Mercy shifted.

“Let me out,” Devin whispered desperately as he rocked his head

on the bars. He was warm now, but that small relief gave him no

comfort. He didn’t deserve to be locked away like some criminal. All

he wanted to do was go check on Mercy.

The werewolf may not have ever given Devin the time of day, but

that didn’t mean Devin wasn’t concerned about the handsome man.

He used to be friends with all of the men upstairs from his pack and

still cared about them, even if they no longer cared about him.

“It seems I have a visitor,” Doctor Kell said as he entered the

basement in his werewolf form and raked his cold, dark eyes over

Devin. The man just stood there watching him, as if seeing a

werewolf in a large cage was an everyday thing for the man.

Devin didn’t trust the guy. Kell was Martin’s pack doctor and did

what the alpha commanded him to do. Devin may have had the same

reasons, but he knew for damn certain that Kell hadn’t been beaten

when he went against the alpha.

Devin had.

He backed away from the bars and took a seat on the floor in the

far corner of the cage. Devin had witnessed what a scientist could do

and wanted no part of it. If Kell thought he would use Devin as a

guinea pig then the werewolf had another thing coming.

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Lynn Hagen

“I see you don’t trust me,” Kell said flatly as he walked over to his

table of beakers and took a seat on a stool, giving Devin his back. “I

completely understand.”

Devin seriously doubted the man understood anything about him

or what he had gone through. Kell had been treated like royalty in the

pack because he was not only the doctor, but a scientist. Martin pretty

much gave Kell free rein.

No, he would never trust Kell, even if he was here with this small

pack now. But then again, Devin didn’t trust anyone. That luxury had

been forced out of him by men so ruthless and brutal that he knew he

would never feel safe again. Not even thoughts of Mercy made Devin