Jacks, Marcy - The Hunter's Omega Mate [DeWitt's Pack 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (11 page)

they were making. Every once in a while I’d look through the spaces  in the boards to see what they were doing. They ate the food first then  started ripping at my parents’ skins. Then they turned into naked  people and just kept on
 
eating
.”

Tristan pulled Isaac into his arms, kissing his cheeks, neck, and  forehead, and Isaac buried his face against Tristan’s shoulder to  prevent him from seeing his tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Tristan muttered  between kisses. “I promise no one here is like  that. No one here will  hurt you.”

“I know
 
you
 
won’t,” Isaac said. The
 
but
 
at the end of that sentence

was unsaid.

Tristan nodded and just kept right on rubbing Isaac’s back and

neck.

Maybe he would be able to think of the other people in this pack as…well, almost something like Tristan, but not now. Right now he

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was only here, offering to help them, because Tristan insisted on it,  and if he told him that the people here were not dangerous, he would  take his word for it until proven otherwise.

After a minute he sniffed, wiped his face, and got up. “We should

go,” he said.

Tristan nodded. They’d both already showered and dressed, so  now it was just a matter of getting back to James and finishing their  plan of attack.

But then Tristan stopped. “You were fifteen nine years ago?  You’re twenty-four?”

“Yeah?”

Tristan’s lips pulled up in a catty smile. “I’m older than you are.”

“
What?
” Isaac thought for sure that Tristan was only twenty or

twenty-one. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Christ.” And all this time Isaac had been thinking of Tristan as  some young kid. Well, no harm came in that, did it?

He took Tristan by the hand, wishing he ’d wipe his little smirk off  his face as they set off to make plans with James.

* * * *

Marty scarcely allowed himself to breathe. It was a trick most hunters would do well to learn if they wanted to survive in this business longer than three weeks. The ability to calmly, and quietly, take in the oxygen they needed, even when the heart pumped with adrenaline. Not an easy task at all.

The others breathed so loud, especially the one with the cold, that if he had a sniper rifle he could take them out in the dark if he wanted

to.

Unprofessional bastards, the whole stinkin’ lot of them. That little prick Isaac Foster especially, and Marty couldn’t wait to stick his knife in that fucker’s chest.

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If the tracks they’d followed were right, he and that werewolf he’d taken should be here. Somewhere within one of those shitty looking houses.

They were careful to stay in ahead of the wind. After figuring out just which direct the tracks were going, Marty had ordered his men to go on ahead, scout the area, and when they came back with the estimate of where exactly the pack had been hiding, Marty checked the wind and they took the long way around to make sure no werewolves would sniff them out when they came upon them.

If some of them went sniffing around in the area where Dale and the other men had been, that was fine, they would expect the hunters to be coming from the southern direction, not the  north.

Wolves were always so stupid.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here,” Dale muttered, his hands shaking from the excitement around his rifle.

Hunting down two packs in two days. The money they could get from selling the pelts of all those wolves would damn near see them through the winter, and Marty had earned a little vacation.

He could rent a warm, cozy little cabin for the Christmas holiday, invite his daughters up, and rest his feet over a wolf-skin rug by the fire.

That sounded so nice.

“They’re in there,” Marty said. “I can see a bunch of them through

the windows.”

“What are they all doing inside?” one of the hired hands asked.  “Thought wolves preferred it outside.”

“Maybe they’re eating dinner.” With the apparent threat of any  wolf hearing it gone, Marty cocked his weapon. It made a satisfying  click as it spat out an empty shell.

“I don’t like it,” said another hand.

“You want to get paid or not?” Marty hissed. “The money’s in  their pelts. We get no pelts to sell, we get no money, end of story.”

His bones were aching much too hard for him to be having these

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arguments, and for the first time in a long time, the promise of such a  large reward was making him eager to get started as well. Almost as  eager as Dale, who cocked his own weapon.

“I could use a new truck,” he said, grinning.

Marty turned to address the three hands. “We’ll use the tear gas.  Get out your masks. We’ll smoke ’em out and pick ’em off before  they even know what hit ’em.”

Isaac’s voice answered him from above. “That’s usually how you

do  it, isn’t it?”

The sudden fear of a trap came on him too late before a heavy weight smashed down onto his back. He screamed loud, and so did  Dale and his three hands as more alpha wolves came down on them from the trees like falling fucking apples.

Marty heard the crunch in his shoulder, and the pain was damn near blinding.

“Isaac!” he shrieked, just to keep himself from screaming in pain.  “You fucking cocksucking traitor!”

Isaac took him by the back of his jacket and yanked him up, completely oblivious to  the pain he was causing him. “You’re not taking this pack,” he hissed in his ear.

Marty tried to spit in his face, but his awkward, twisted position, made things difficult, and he missed.

One look and he could see that Dale and one of the hired hands

were  already dead. Maybe their necks had been broken from having  two hundred pounds of muscled werewolf fall on top of them, Marty  couldn’t tell. Of the other two, one was sobbing like a little girl, his  arms twisted so tightly around his back it looked as though they might  pop out of his joints. The other stayed on his knees, a bleeding gash  alongside his head, but otherwise he glared silently at his captors.

A true warrior. Marty should have focused his attention on him  instead of Isaac.

“How can you betray us? You told me what they did to you. How

can you work with them?” Marty demanded.

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Isaac’s jaw and neck went tight, but he didn’t even move until

someone called his name.

“Isaac!”

Isaac spun at the sound, and Marty watched as that werewolf from earlier, the  one he’d stolen from the other pack, ran over to him and threw his arms around his shoulders.

“Christ, are you okay? Is it over?”

“Told you it would be fast,” Isaac responded then looked over to a  larger man with a scarred face. Clearly the alpha.

The alpha nodded. “You told us the truth. Thank you.”

Isaac had given them their hard-won tactical secrets. That dirty  fucking …

“Tell me, Isaac, you a pitcher or catcher?” Marty sneered.

“Fuck off, Marty,” Isaac snapped.

“You know how we work, son,” Marty said. “They’ll kill us, but  for every one they kill, five more will come looking, and they’ll skin  that boy alive. They’ll burn his still-living body and then piss on his  ashes.”

The blond werewolf, the one Isaac had fucked them all over for,

was the one to step forward and punch him in the jaw.

The strike was so powerful Marty was powerless to fight against  the blanket of darkness that swept over him. They would kill him  now, but at least he would be passed out for it. There were better  ways to die, more glorious, but as far as death went in the hands of the  enemy, this one wasn’t bad.

* * * *

“What will you do with them?” Isaac asked, though he had a  feeling he didn’t want to know. He was hardly friends with any of  these men, Christ, they could barely all stand  to work together, but it  chilled him to know that they were probably going to die while Isaac  would go free because he’d mated with Tristan.

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“We’ll question them first, make sure they didn’t send anyone else  our way. After that…” James trailed off with a shrug, meaning, yeah,  these guys were going to get murdered somewhere out in the woods.

But that was the way it was in the war between hunters and  werewolves. They killed each other at every opportunity they could  get. The werewolves at least did it to survive, and only when  necessary, whereas the hunters went out and searched for trouble on

purpose.

Isaac told himself not to feel sorry for those men just because  they’d shared a campsite for a couple of days. They were the same  men who’d put his gun in a tree over a river, not caring if he fell in  and knowing he couldn’t swim. They would have watched Tristan be  raped right before they decided to murder both him and his rapist.

Regardless of whether or not this pack was as good and peaceful  as Tristan claimed, Isaac would be forever grateful that he’d met  Tristan and got out of the hunter life before he became as crazed for  revenge as these people.

A warm hand slipped into his own, and he squeezed back, looking  into Tristan’s green eyes, smiling.

“Maybe we should get out of here before they start. They’re never  very cruel about it, but I don’t think we should watch.”

“Good idea,” James answered for him, eyeing Isaac. “I’ll call you  back if we need anything. Tristan, I want you to tell Corey that I’ll be  a couple of hours.”

Tristan nodded, and they both turned to go.

“What will they do to them?” Isaac whispered, not wanting Mick  or James or any of the wolves behind him to hear what he was saying  until they were a fair distance away.

“Don’t know,” Tristan whispered back. “This is only the second  time this has happened in our pack, where hunters were captured,” he  clarified. “The last time the alphas stayed away for a couple of hours  with them, and they all came back looking bloody and green.”

So the alphas didn’t much like the torture process either. Well,

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hopefully that would be punishment enough for what they had to do.

For now, Isaac himself would need to find a way to make amends  for the lives he’d taken in the name of revenge. There weren’t  hundreds, like Marty, but enough that he would have to pay for it  somehow.

There was a sound of a scuffle behind them and a shout. Isaac

looked behind them just to see the last of the living hands, Isaac  couldn’t even remember the guy’s name, grab one of the guns the  hunters had dropped in the shrubs, and then point it at Tristan’s back.

Isaac moved just as the shot from the supressor on the weapon  pinged out. His first thought, his first emotion, really, was a crashing  wave of fear that stopped his heart and stole his breath.

He hadn’t been fast enough. He didn’t get in front of Tristan fast  enough and now he was shot. Tristan was going to die. That was the  punishment Isaac would face for his years as a hunter. The death of  his soul mate.

The thought rocked him to his core and  stuck a burning pain deep in his chest, and the ground sprung up to meet his face.

“Isaac!” Tristan’s shout sounded far away, but then his face came into view, worried, alive.

He smiled, recognizing the pain in his chest for what it really was.

Isaac had been shot.

Thank God.

“Isaac, stay awake. Isaac!” Tristan shouted again.

Isaac lifted his hand, it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and  touched Tristan’s wet face. He wanted to tell him that he was okay,  but only an airy exhale escaped his mouth when  he opened it. Then  his world went dark, and he was happy.

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Chapter Twelve

Isaac came to, not knowing how much time had passed, his head felt thick, chest burned like there was a fire inside of it, and his mouth

was dry as all hell. He felt like absolute shit, and a bright piercing

light was stabbing him in the eyes.

He groaned and tried to turn away.

“Isaac? You awake?”

Tristan. He sounded much healthier than Isaac felt.

“Window,” he muttered.

There was a shuffle of feet, and then the brightness was turned  down to something he could better manage as the curtains were pulled  shut.