Jacks, Marcy - The Alpha Wolf Kidnaps a Mate [DeWitt's Pack 1] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (3 page)

It was a shame, too. Corey really liked coming here.

He caught a hold of Dean’s arm as they left the bar, and damn whoever was watching. “Will you stop and talk to me?”

Dean jerked his arm away. “Why bother when you don’t want to be with me because you think I’m dangerous or something.”

Corey fought the urge to sigh his frustration, but that would only make things worse. “I didn’t say you were dangerous, just, some of the things you go out and do―”

Corey didn’t get a chance to finish as he was shoved into the brick wall of the bar. Dean’s hand was on his shoulder, his blue eyes up close, intense, and filled with a little bit of that paranoia that made

Corey worry for his own safety.

“You cannot talk about that. You can never talk about that.”

He was serious. Corey could see it in his eyes. He’d always known how strongly Dean felt about his …job, but Corey didn’t feel altogether fine with the way Dean was holding him, or looking at him.

Corey shoved him off. “I haven’t been.”

“Good. Because if you have―”

“What? You’ll what?” Corey demanded, body shaking with rage

and, dare he admit it, fear.

Dean was by far the most dangerous man Corey knew. If that had been a threat he was about to utter, what could Corey have done about it?

Dean shook his head and turned away. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

Corey hesitated. He had no cab fare and no car of his own, so he

18
                          
Marcy Jacks

followed Dean back to the van, staring at the back of Dean’s head,  wishing he knew what the other man was thinking. He considered just  parting ways with him for now and catching his own ride home or  walking, but he was in the passenger side of Dean’s van before he  knew it, and they were heading out.

It really shouldn’t have made him nervous that they were heading  in the direction of Dean’ s house and not Corey’s.

* * * *

“You hear that, James?”

James was already turning the keys to the ignition. “Sure did.”  And it sounded a whole lot like that asshole had just threatened his mate. James knew to take it seriously, too, considering he could smell the stink of the guy’s anger and paranoia even from where he was parked on the other side of the lot.

Suddenly, the fact that Corey was involved with someone bothered James a whole hell of a lot less.

James put the truck in gear and followed the van.

The Alpha Wolf Kidnaps a Mate
                  
19

Chapter Three

Corey reached behind himself for the seat belt and buckled himself in. “Dean, you’re going really fast,” he said, his eyes all but glued to the shaking needle of the accelerometer. His body was tight with fear. “Dean? Slow down!”

“You have been talking about my job, haven’t you?” Dean said  suddenly, his face staring straight ahead at the gray road. The bar  where they’d had their lunch was just outside of town, and now they  were on the long stretch of two-lane, empty highway, and nothing but  a giant forest of pine trees on either side of them.

Corey’s fear turned into a full on panic. “No! I swear I haven’t  told anyone anything! Jesus, Dean, who
 
would
 
I tell?”

The first time Dean had told him, during a drunken night of  rambling, that he was a hunter and slayer of all things paranormal, but  mostly vampires and werewolves, he’d been quick to point out, Corey  hadn’t taken him seriously.

Dean the slayer. It was too
 
Supernatural
-ish, and right now, the  Dean sitting across from Corey in the van had none of the TV Dean’s  coolheaded, deep-voiced sex appeal.

Corey hadn’t thought anything, of course. Dean had been drunk,  and was likely rambling off something he’d seen on TV, but then, the  next morning after they’d both sobered up, he confessed that what he  said was the truth, and then proceeded to show Corey the collection of  wolf heads he had mounted in his basement.

Werewolf heads, he’d said they were.

That had nearly been the end of their relationship. Corey hadn’t wanted to be involved with a delusional man, but then, on Dean’s

20
                          
Marcy Jacks

insistence, he accompanied him one night for one of his hunts, and  watched a man transform into a monster before attacking a local farm.

Corey had believed him then and had readily accepted Dean’s  insistent promise to never speak about what he did to anyone.

It all certainly explained all the hunting gear Dean had and his  strange need to carry it all in the back of his van. The van Corey was  currently a passenger in now.

Early on in their relationship, after Dean had made his confession,  he’d seemed so happy and carefree. Happy to not have to carry his  burden alone anymore, he’d told Corey.

Little by little, however. he’d become this angry version of  himself, until the happier version hardly existed anymore. Corey had

never  seen him so rattled before in the entire year they’d been  together, and now, with all those weapons in the back of the van, he  was seriously worried for his safety.

“Dean, I’m telling you, I never told anyone about you, I swear to  God,” Corey said, thinking of all the knives and ropes and traps and  everything else in the world that could be used to kill him sitting in  the back under the tarp.

“Why don’t you believe me?” he demanded when Dean still  didn’t answer.

“Because I’m debating on whether or not I should believe you.”

He couldn’t believe it. “What? Why wouldn’t you believe me?  What’ve I ever done to make you not believe me?”

This wasn’t right. Dean could be obsessive, snappy, and usually  on a full moon, even paranoid, but Corey had so rarely had any of those emotions directed at him, and never to this extent, that now that

he was experiencing it, it was throwing him off kilter. Had he  experienced this before and just brushed it off as a bad mood due to  Dean’s work? This certainly couldn’t be coming from nowhere.

“I don’t believe you because there’s a werewolf following us right  now.”

“What?” Corey twisted in his seat to get a look at the red Ford

The Alpha Wolf Kidnaps a Mate
                  
21

behind them. The driver was keeping at a safe distance, but still must  have been matching the insane speed Dean was going at for it to keep  up with them.

“Who is that?” Corey asked. Oddly enough, he felt safer with a  truck tailing them, not quite so alone. It meant that if Dean really was  finally going too far in his paranoia, then at least someone was around  for it. If Dean decided to stop in the middle of the woods and drag  Corey out of the truck, which he could totally do, seeing as he had the  muscle to do just about anything he wanted, and Corey had always  been…less than built, then there was the chance the driver behind

them would notice. Maybe if the driver of the truck saw the van  pulling over in such an odd place, he would call the police.

Right, and they would arrive just in time to find Dean fleeing the  scene, disappearing forever, and Corey’s dead body would be buried  somewhere out in the bushes for the squirrels to pick at. Getting  inside the van with Dean had been the single dumbest thing Corey  had ever done in his life. It was too clear to him now that Dean didn’t

believe a word of what he’d said outside the bar about not talking

about his work.

“It’s the werewolf from the bar, the one you were chatting it up

with.”

“
What?
” Corey was yelling that out a lot lately. “That was just  some guy. He said he was new in town and he introduced himself.  He’s not a  werewolf.”

Corey refused to believe it. That the man with the nice dark-chocolate eyes and kind smile, and
 
huge
 
size, James, could have been a werewolf preying on Corey was just too ridiculous.

Ridiculous, and nearly as scary as the situation he was in now.

“He’s a werewolf,” Dean said through clenching teeth. His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the steering wheel. Corey pictured those fingers suddenly around his neck, and he shivered.

“He’s a werewolf, and I catch you making nice with him at our table, like you both knew each other or something.”

22
                          
Marcy Jacks

“I’d just met him, Dean!” Corey yelled. His voice fought for  supremacy over the roar of the engine. It was steadily louder, the  burning scent of oil clogging the air, and the whole van vibrated with  its overexertion. Anymore of this kind of driving and Dean was going  to make the van give out.

That was probably for the best. He kept right on yelling, hoping to  make Dean so flaming mad that the van would stall, and James, or  whoever was behind them, would have to stop and help.

He’d take the possible risk of a potential werewolf over the very  real and very immediate threat of a paranoid boyfriend any day.

“He was just some guy trying to be nice, and you act like a crazy  jealous prick about it! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“He’s a damn monster! And you’ve been helping him track me. I  know you have.”

“Why the hell would I want to help a werewolf?”

“Because you’re a supporter,” Dean said. “I saw the way you were  looking at each other. Maybe you’re fucking each other under my  nose.”

Okay, egging Dean on wasn’t helping. It was making things worse. The engine wasn’t giving out, and Corey was trapped in the van with Dean and about a hundred things in the back that could be used to kill him.

He had to try again. Dean loved him, they shared things with each other, and just because their relationship had been rocky lately didn’t mean he would try and hurt Corey because of an unfounded suspicion.

Uh, did it?

“Dean, please, please, believe me. I’m not a spy. I don’t know  who that guy is back there, and I would never do anything to hurt  you.”

A choked sound, like a sob, seemed to force its way out of Dean’s  throat. His knuckles got whiter around the steering wheel.

“Dean?” Corey asked, afraid he already knew what he was

The Alpha Wolf Kidnaps a Mate
                  
23

thinking.

“Do you love me?” Dean asked.

“I―yes, of course I do.”

Dean shook his head, barely casting a glance at Corey. He’d heard  the hesitation in his answer and now he’d made up his mind. “I–I  don’t believe you. I’m so sorry, but I don’t believe you,”

That only meant one thing for Corey if he didn’t get away.

Dean was out of his damn mind, and Corey was going to die in  this van if he didn’t do something. All because he’d had the stupidity  to stick it out with a paranoid werewolf hunter.

He knew what Dean did to humans who sided themselves with the

evil creatures he stalked at night. He’d captured a warlock one night  and brought him home for questioning. Corey wouldn’t have even  known about that had he not dropped in for a visit and then heard the  muffled  screams coming from the basement.

He was evil, Dean had said. A slaughterer of virgins and children,  who bathed in their blood to stay forever youthful.

Corey had heard that and, though still uncomfortable, had  believed him nonetheless, and then had never  again dropped in for a

visit without calling first.

Dean had seemed so sure about the warlock’s guilt. He was a pro  in the field of hunting and fighting and surviving, yet now he was  accusing Corey of spying on him for a werewolf.

If he was wrong about that, who knew how many other times he’d  been wrong when he brought home a witch, warlock, or vampire  feeder for questioning. How many innocent, normal people had he  tortured for information?

The more he thought about it, the more the answer to his problem

became clear. There was only one way to escape from a moving  vehicle. No soft patches of grass on the side of the road, however.

This was going to hurt.

He unbuckled his seat belt. Dean noticed and immediately tensed.  “What are you doing?”

24
                          
Marcy Jacks

Dean reached out to grab at him, and Corey’s heart lurched into his throat as those strong fingers nearly curled around his wrist, but  Dean had reacted one millisecond too late. Corey had already flung himself out of the van.

The Alpha Wolf Kidnaps a Mate
                  
25

Chapter Four

James slammed on the brakes, and it was a testimony of his super human strength that he didn’t fly right through the windshield.

Neither he nor Mick were much on seat belts.

That didn’t matter, and he barely heard Mickey’s loud and rage-filled cursing as he very nearly flew out of his seat and through the glass. James’s stomach was too busy introducing itself to his tonsils.