Should have Put a Leash On It (18 page)

Though Rylan had stopped, Micah still didn’t see what he’d hoped for. Rylan stared emptily over his shoulder, giving no indication that he even knew Micah was there.

If Rylan wasn’t responding as the man, then maybe Micah could appeal to the wolf. The wolf was something wild and untamable. Trevor might have controlled the human part of Rylan, but shifters were half animal. Animals, especially wild animals, never liked being told what to do.

Micah eyed the knife nervously and inched closer so his chest pressed against Rylan. He made sure to keep Rylan’s face in sight as he slowly bared his neck. All Rylan would have to do was bite down and Micah would be unable to stop him.

There was the tiniest flare of his nostrils.

Bolstered by the small victory, Micah gently took Rylan’s hand—the one without the knife—and raised it so Rylan’s fingers traced over the bite marks on his neck.

The other man whimpered and shuddered violently. Rylan’s wolf knew him, knew he was theirs.

“Rylan—”

Whatever he would have said next was cut off abruptly when Rylan struck out with the hand he was holding, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing into the dining table and chair set. The chairs scatted under his weight, tipping over and he landed heavily on the table. The wood itself didn’t even creak at the impact. Zeke did good work.

His breath left him in a painful exhale and he groaned, getting back on his feet. His jaw throbbed. Damn, Rylan had a mean left hook, the lucky ambidextrous fucker.

By the time he was back on his feet, Rylan had already left the kitchen and he could hear his mate’s footsteps as Rylan pounded up the main stairs. Hopefully Asher would have cleared it by now.

Grunting in pain as his jaw clicked back into place, Micah ran after him.

He caught up to him just as Rylan reached Remy’s door and he saw Remy standing there. Remy looked unfazed by the fact Rylan was wielding a butcher knife. Holding his breath, he prepared to jump in front of Remy. But then he saw Rylan hesitate.

Asher, Sage, Mars and Gabriel closed in around them. Remy must have set them up to form a net so Rylan wouldn’t be able to get away should he try to run.

Remy backed up and Rylan followed, not raising the knife but not looking away from Remy either.

Sprinting in front of the others, Micah made sure to enter the room behind Rylan. Skylar was lurking behind the door, waiting and no doubt ready to spring and attack.

Edging closer to Rylan, Mars and the others entered the room behind him. The half-dressed wolf whispered an ultimatum. “Take him down, Micah, or we will. He’s not in control.” The other betas closed in around him and Rylan. Even Asher looked torn as to who to side with.

Micah knew his duty as beta was to first and foremost protect his alpha, but that was before he mated Rylan. He’d promised Rylan that he would always come first. So now it was time to stick with that and give Rylan a little longer to fight the compulsion Trevor implanted.

“Rylan won’t hurt Remy,” Micah insisted desperately. He just wanted to give Rylan a chance. Remy and Rylan had been best friends since Rylan had first come to the pack. If there was anyone Rylan would die to protect, it would be Remy.

“Just a little bit longer. He’s slowed down. Look! He’s barely moving forward now.” He pleaded with the others to wait, keeping himself between them and Rylan.

Rylan could have already taken the opportunity when Remy opened the door to strike and do some pretty serious damage. But he didn’t. That should count for something.

He looked at Remy for support, but the alpha wolf only shook his head sadly. “Micah, I know what you’re waiting for, but he isn’t going to snap out of it. That’s not how this works. I saw it with Zeke’s best friend and he didn’t even recognize Zeke.”

“He didn’t hurt you when he had the chance,” he argued. No one was giving Rylan a chance.

Skylar hissed from somewhere behind him. Time was running out.

“Enough, Micah. This is cruel, it’s hurting him,” Remy said, his voice breaking.

Remy was backed up to the bed now and had nowhere else to go unless he jumped onto it. If Remy did that, Skylar would attack and Micah doubted the vampire would be able to control the urge to kill the threat to his mate.

Micah focused on Rylan’s face, taking in the sweat beading on his brow and the slight tremble of Rylan’s bottom lip. They were right. He couldn’t let Rylan stay in pain.

Micah shot forward and griped Rylan’s wrist, muttered an apology and twisted sharply.

Rylan let out a sharp yelp, but dropped the knife as Micah had hoped.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

When Rylan began to struggle, Micah wrapped his arms around him and held on tight. Rylan shouted and tried to get free, hitting and kicking out at anyone who came to help Micah contain him. Mars flew backward as Rylan connected a kick to the shifter’s stomach and got an arm free to lay Gabriel out with a single punch. The panther would be pissed about that when he woke up.

Micah tried to calm him down, making sure Rylan breathed in a lot of his scent by shoving his arm in front of Rylan’s face. He expected Rylan to bite him, but instead Rylan went limp.

Rylan collapsed to the floor in a heap before Micah could adjust his grip to catch him. He thought Rylan might have been hurt, but as he checked his mate’s breathing and pulse, Rylan let out a deep, grizzly snore. Rylan was asleep again.

He let out a deep breath of relief. “Fuck.”

Remy stared down at Rylan, his expression unreadable. “So...he was sent to kill me.”

Micah paced nervously up and down the length of the corridor outside Remy and Skylar’s room. They’d spent hours getting everything ready. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

“Yes. The first thing he’ll do if he’s still under Trevor’s influence will be to look for a weapon. He’ll find the ones we left, then come after me. After that...we’ll see.”

Why was Remy so certain? “How do you know?”

Remy met his searching gaze. “It’s how I’d plan it. But I don’t think this is the only thing Trevor wants him to do.”

Yeah, Micah was of the same opinion. It was just a case of what the other part of Trevor’s plan was. And this was the only way. They’d discussed every possibility and this was the safest plan for Rylan and the only one that stood a chance of actually working. Elder Lavi and Elder Van had reluctantly agreed with the plan and were coordinating forces in case Rylan had a secondary mission to head over to the Coven House and grab Jacko.

Jacko had even convinced the two elders to promise to only incapacitate Rylan and not actually harm him. Micah owed the young wolf one hell of a muffin basket. At least he didn’t have to worry about Jack getting into trouble for the next few hours. Zeke was locking down the pup in the panic room kitted out as a media room. Micah wondered if the elders actually thought the room was fooling Jacko.

Everyone had their orders and now it was just a case of waiting. Skylar had also gone over to the Coven House so that the elders could have a live feed to what was going on through his connection to Remy and access to the security cameras via Alex’s laptop.

Liam and the hawk had taken the cubs over to Hank and his mother’s house to get that on lockdown, too. Everything was as well planned as they could make it in the limited time. Rylan wouldn’t stay asleep for long. They’d put him back in his room and placed a guard out there until five minutes ago when they were ready. Now it was just waiting for Rylan to sense there was no one outside his door and try again.

Micah paused in his pacing and spoke his biggest fear aloud. “What if he never comes back?”

Unexpectedly Remy snorted.

“He better get back to himself. He stole all the copies of the video of you freaking out and trying to kill Zeke when he sent you that sex toy kit. Rylan’s the only one who still has a copy and I don’t know where it is,” Remy explained in a concerned tone as if the thought of losing the evidence of Micah’s utter humiliation was a crime.

Micah spun around in surprise. “What?”

“Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t see it coming.”

Micah’s jaw dropped as he remembered Rylan making goading comments about his computer problem. Having the pictures of his horrified face as he looked down at the extreme sex toys turned into a screen saver and stickers that covered the laptop had been infuriating. Especially since he never managed to catch whoever was doing it.

“That little shit,” he exclaimed.

Remy rocked back on his heels, laughing.

Micah was still shocked that Rylan had gotten away with it for so long. They were going to sit down and have a chat about Rylan’s sneaky tendencies when this was over.

“So you and Rylan, huh? Is it for real?”

Micah wasn’t overly surprised by Remy’s question. Remy was Rylan’s best friend and was probably worried that Micah was playing him or not in this for the long haul. They were legitimate concerns considering a few days ago Micah was a mess, desperate to find Rylan and weeks before that he was convinced he and Rylan would never be able to stomach being in the same room as each other let alone the same bed.

“The more time I have to digest the news that Rylan is my mate, the more right it feels. My wolf is finally at peace when I’m with him. I’ve never had that,” Micah mused.

“No, I remember you losing control or getting growly a lot when I was little. As I think back on it now, most of those times coincided with something about Rylan. His first kiss, first date, when he got into a fight with teacher who tried to feel him up.”

He resumed pacing to burn off the anxious energy.

Micah growled as he remembered the ex-school teacher. “Yeah, I beat that fucker black and blue and ran him out of town.” And he’d taken a beating himself for not telling the alpha or the beta before challenging a much older wolf. He’d had to leave not long after that because he realized he was stronger and more naturally dominant than the pack beta.

“I told him you were the one that ran old Mr. Link off. He never believed me,” Remy said with a shake of his head.

That made Micah stop again and frown. “Why?”

Remy fell back on the bed until he was flat and looking up at the ceiling. It was something Remy used to do when he was younger and trying not to think about something he was worried about.

He joined Remy on the bed, sitting on the edge. “I don’t know, he was really shaken by what happened. The old pervert managed to grope Rylan’s ass before Rylan got away. When you came home the next day with Link gone, and you sporting a broken nose and a black eye, I think it scared him.”

“Huh, guess I understand—” What he was going to say died on his tongue when a soft knock sounded on Remy’s closed door. It was the signal they were waiting for. Ashlock was the fastest vampire after the elders and could handle sunlight for long enough to help them, so he’d taken the part as the early warning system. The knock was to let them know it was time to start and that Rylan was awake. Next, Ashlock would run down to warn the others, then take up a covert position somewhere to tail Rylan when part two of the plan kick-started. Part two was essentially a prettied up version of winging it.

Remy sat up excitedly and gave a goofy smile. “Ooo, I’ll go get the bucket guts. I’ve always wanted to say this...Action!” Remy jumped off the bed and ran for the buckets lined up against the wall.

His little brother was actually fucking excited about this.

Micah stared. What was he worried about? Clearly this plan had been put together by geniuses.

Micah still had mixed feelings about this and he wasn’t convinced it was going to work. But he’d put on his rigged vest and gotten into position regardless. Everyone was ready and the temporary camera they’d put in Rylan’s room had shown that Rylan had found the knife they’d hidden by the door.

Everyone was wearing a stab vest, but they’d taken precautions and also made sure that though the combat knife looked the part, the blade itself was actually blunt and was one of the set Micah used for sparring and training the others since he was the best with blades next to Sage. He’d yet to master throwing them to hit a bull’s-eye with his eyes shut.

It would do for the purposes of putting on a convincing performance.

As long as Rylan didn’t look at the weapon too closely. Which was why Mars and Hunter were on distraction duty. They would be knocking in the door any minute now to get this show on the road and prevent Rylan from inspecting the knife.

Standing around the corner from Rylan’s room, about half way between there and Remy’s room, he heard Mars shout. There was the sound of struggling and fighting before the wolf yelped and there was a heavy thud of a body falling to the floor.

Mars’s part had finished.

Next up was Hunter. The enforcer would drive Rylan into the towel and bedding cabinet where he would find another weapon. They had all agreed that having another means of killing would make it more believable than the prospect of Rylan singlehandedly being able to overpower and slay them. It was in case Trevor could somehow see any of this.

The scent of blood washed his way a few seconds before he heard another crash and Hunter shouting, “Don’t shoot!”

It was the signal that Rylan had found the prop gun as planned. One gunshot later and Micah switched his weight from one foot to another in anticipation.

It had been Micah’s idea to use a prop gun that made all the noise of a real gun and felt like one, too, in training drills. The only different was that it didn’t shoot any bullets. War games were a good way to train and bond with pack members. As it turned out it was also a great weapon to use if one was ever in the market to fake one’s own death.

He heard Rylan’s footsteps coming closer and scented Hunter’s blood. Once they were
dead
they were to lie where they’d fallen until Ashlock gave the signal that Rylan had left the Alpha House.

Micah crept forward when Rylan’s footsteps paused.

Nothing.

He could smell his mate was close, but he couldn’t guess why Rylan was hesitating. Was his scent affecting Rylan, too?