Tane's Mate: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifter's on the Run Book 1) (5 page)

“Thanks, but I’m not a slut or a whore and I don’t want you.”

“Really? Let’s put it to the test shall we?”

He sat on the side of the bed and pulled off his shirt. His chest was nothing but a mass of muscle. Muscle she wanted to touch and caress. She could feel her insides melting as he sat there. Her hand jerked with the desire to rise up and touch him. Even being bandaged up, she wondered what his weight would feel like when he covered her. How he would feel pounding into her.

With a cry she closed her eyes and turned her head. She wanted him. Something she couldn’t identify drew her to him.

He pried the fingers loose on one of her hands and wrapped it in his.

“Don’t worry, it goes both ways. I want you too; I’ve simply got more impulse control. Years in the military taught me. Combine that with the fact that I was held six years by my government against my will as they used me as a test subject, and I have control down to a science.”

“Six years?”

“Yeah, but I’m one of the lucky ones. I saw men die every day because they couldn’t take what was being done to them. In the beginning I and the rest of the males here were in the control group. There was the group that got the animals and the group that simply got abused. That’s the group we were in. Once a week they would come in and give both groups an injection. One held changed DNA; they said it would work on a molecular level. The other was a placebo that hurt like hell as it worked its way through our bodies. I’ll never be sure how it happened. Was it a mistake the day they injected us with a plethora of animal DNA or was it done deliberately? All I know is when I came back to my right mind several months later I wasn’t myself anymore. That’s the day I knew my time had run out and I needed out.”

“Was it easy to escape?”

He gave a wry smile. “Not like it was for you. They weren’t intending to let us go, but you’d be amazed what males with animals in them can do. We can jump higher than they thought. Had more strength than we let on. I was being sent back to war and I refused to be used anymore. They should have known we would escape. It wasn’t like we hadn’t tried more than once. They even killed a few of us trying to escape. Then they made us something we were never supposed to be.”

“I would have escaped too. I tried in the past you know. This wasn’t my first time. They beat me down, punished me by putting me in a deep hole in the dark. That’s how they punished all the females.”

“There’s more of you?”

“Yeah, I don’t know how many. I met ten others but they said there were more. They were moved before I came.”

“They must be mates.”

“Mates?”

“Yes. Just like you. You’re my mate and they plan on using you to control me. I am guessing they made mates for the others as a way to control them.”

“I don’t know if we are mates. Maybe, but I do know I don’t want to control you.”

“I know.” He caressed the side of her face. “Don’t worry about it tonight. We’ll work it out in the morning.

He shucked his pants and slipped under the covers. Carefully he pulled her body to his and wrapped her in his arms before giving her a gentle kiss and encouraging her to sleep.

‘Mates.’
It was the first thing she thought as she woke up. Doing her best to keep her breathing slow, she went over last night’s conversation. Tane thought they were mates. Try as she might, she couldn’t come up with a good counter argument. He had pulled her to him the first moment she met him and the tug was getting increasingly harder to ignore.

She had been used, abused, and now set up to be someone’s mate. No one had asked her opinion or given her an option. Although if they had flashed a picture of him at her she might have had a hard time saying no, but this was against her will. If and when she met someone, she wanted it to be on her own terms, and not because her body couldn’t turn him down. And with the way things were going she wasn’t going to be able to say no when he got around to telling her it was time for him to bed her.

“I know you’re awake.” Tane’s deep rumbly voice made her secret parts quiver.

“I wasn’t trying to make you think otherwise.”

“No you were simply trying to figure out how to get out of the mess we’ve found ourselves in.”

“Yeah. What do we do now?”

“Let’s start by checking your wounds. Turnover, the one I’m concerned about is the spinal cord.”

She flipped over to her stomach. He slid the cover slowly down her body making her shiver as his hand went to the bottom of the shirt she was wearing and deftly pulled it up, his fingers leaving a small trail over her back until they reached the area the bandage covered.

A shiver went through her. Desire with a side of white hot need. He was definitely her mate. She could feel her animal stretch in her as it growled with passion. It wanted to be stroked and touched until it rose up and claimed the male.

A hard shake of her head knocked all thoughts of claiming away and she took the time to monitor her breathing. She couldn’t let him know how he affected her. Turning her head just a little she caught the flaring of his nostrils and the gleaming of his green eyes. He knew. Biting her tongue to keep from moaning, she closed her eyes and buried her head. Yeah, it was the coward’s way out, but sometimes you needed to know when to retreat.

He left the bed going into the bathroom, she could hear the water come on before he came out. The heat of his touch was now mutated through the latex gloves he was wearing. The bandage came off pulling just a little against her skin.

“You’re healing well. Still an angry red but the skin is starting to knit back together. Dev didn’t sew you up, he simply used medical strips to pull the skin together; he felt it was the best chance for your back to heal without scaring but it also means you’re not doing any heavy lifting or any running for at least another day.”

“Let’s hope no one comes for me in the next day or so.”

“We can hope.” He changed her dressing after cleaning the wound. He made quick work of all the other dressing sites telling her those bandages would come off tomorrow.

“So what am I supposed to do? Stay here in bed and let you wait on my like I’m a queen?”

“I’m not the serving type, sorry. You can get up, you just can’t overdo it. Why don’t we go into the kitchen and see if they left us anything to eat?”

Her stomach rumbled right on cue and she sat up trying to inch her shirt back down. She slept in what she had on yesterday except he had changed her shirt; she was wearing one of his. It was something she could get used to, wearing his shirts.

Flashing him a shy smile, she got up.

They left the bedroom and made their way to the kitchen. The other males were there cleaning up. When they saw them, they placed two plates in front of them holding the food they had set aside.

“Thank you,” she gave them a smile. For a militant group of males who each had more than one animal inside of them, they were nicer than she would have thought.

Tane looked around the room at his men taking a deep breath before speaking. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Dead silence followed. Tane waited, the males would know what he was talking about.

“Does it matter which you tell us first?” Ben asked, his eyes now firmly on Leza.

“No. Leza tell them what you told me last night. They have a right to know.”

She turned her eyes to him going over their conversation until her mouth rounded with an o. Licking her lips, she looked at the males.

“I told Tane that there were other women. But I don’t know if they’re your mates. All I know is there were other women like me where I was held.”

“Do you know where you were held?” Jayden asked.

“I…no. All I know is it felt like we traveled days to get where I was when I escaped. I don’t have directions or anything concrete to go on.”

The males nodded and went back to cleaning the kitchen. There was an air of sadness around them with muted joy. She could see the cautious hope in their faces as they went about their tasks.

Leza turned and looked at Tane before eyeing her food and shoving a bite into her mouth.

Next time she looked up only Tane was there.

“Why do I feel like I failed them?”

“You didn’t fail them. You gave them hope, something they didn’t have yesterday. Now they are like everyone in the world again. They have a potential mate; they just don’t know where she is. It’s kind of like waking up to find out you’re really human and it was all a bad dream.”

“Except it’s not a bad dream, it’s reality and we aren’t human anymore.”

“Well when you put it that way.” A wide grin took over his mouth making her want to kiss him. “Finish eating.”

She turned back to her plate. Once done she moved to the sink and washed their plates and put them away. They walked back into the bedroom and she commandeered the shower first with a laugh.

What was she going to do? Being around Tane was making her giddy, as if she had a chance at a totally different life but she knew better. They were living in a bubble that could burst at any moment. The men in black would come and get her. They would never let her go, tracker or not. When they came, Tane and all his men would be in trouble. Now was her best chance for escape; if she stayed, and if Tane made love to her she would be a goner. Leaving might become out of the question then.

*~*~*~*

“I feel like killing something,” Jay said before he sat down.

They were sitting in the living room, a thick silence in the air as each male thought about what Leza told them. There were more like her. Females who were likely their mate, but they had no idea how to find them.

“We could kill all the innocents in the town,” Dai said quietly as he balanced the tip of a knife on his finger.

“I dare you,” Lore said throwing a grin at Dai.

“You take all the fun out of things, Lore. You know he’s all talk no action.” Ben threw a grin at Dai.

“I understand what he means though. It feels like we were just given something on one hand and someone snatched it back with the other hand. Should we go look for them?” Dev asked.

“Where would we start?” Tane asked, walking into the room. “Now we know there’s a chance at a different future, but running off to find them without being informed makes no sense. Besides, if they aimed one at us they’ll aim another. When they aim enough we’ll get a location.”

“If they don’t capture us,” Dai stated the obvious.

“That has always been the case, Dai. They obviously know where we are, but they haven’t sent anyone in to try to abduct us. I have to wonder why.”

“Maybe we’re worth more to them free than we are captured,” Lore speculated.

“All right but why? That’s what we need to figure out. Are they still monitoring us after all the precautions we have taken? Do they know about the jobs we have pulled? We need answers and sitting still won’t give them to us.” Tane eased back in his chair after flexing his shoulders.

“Then we move,” Dev said quietly. “After Leza is healed.”

Tane nodded, closing his eyes as his head leaned against the top of the chair.

“I was thinking…she has steady hands. I can teach her how to work with explosives,” Jay said to the room.

The gasp that came from the doorway didn’t have them turning their heads. She walked quietly but they all heard her.

“My hands are steady, good for cooking and manual filing. As well as doing my nails, thank you very much.”

“Just trying to think of what you can do to become a part of the team.”

“Sounds to me like you’re trying to kill me, Jay.”

“Nah, just welcoming you.”

Dai looked her up and down before shaking his head. “She’s not a sharp shooter, doesn’t have the heart for it.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” She frowned at all of them.

“They’re really just welcoming you. We could always use additional help but no one is going to make you into anything you’re not.” Tane stood and walked over to her wrapping his arms around her.

“I’m not like you. I never went into the military. I never even played cops and robbers when I was a kid. I don’t have a fascination with guns and I have no special skills unless you count the animal that lives within me. It would be best for everyone if you let me leave.”

“Do you really want your freedom?”

She opened her mouth then shut it. Was that what she really wanted? Her heart was screaming no, while her mind was saying do the logical thing and run fast and hard. Her animal on the other hand was tearing her up on the inside with her desire to snuggle into Tane’s arms.

“I don’t know what I want.” She told the truth. There was too much going on inside of her to really know.

“I’m not letting you go, Leza. From the moment you drove onto my land you belonged right here by my side. You’re a part of us and we don’t release easily.”

“What part of
I might get you killed
don’t you understand?”

“I understand it all.” Tane looked around the room at the males sitting there. “We understand, but that doesn’t mean we’re willing to back down from the fight.”

“They will come. You know they will. How many can you fight off? What if they send everything they have after you?”

Tane took her hand and walked back to the chair; he sat and pulled her into his lap.

“We live together, Leza and we die together.” Dai said it like a promise.

Leza sat on the porch and watched as the sun began its silent and spectacular descent over the horizon. She watched the sunset the last five nights and nothing had changed. She sat on this porch and pretended not to have a care in the world as she waited for Tane, Jay, and Ben to come back. They were a day overdue and she was worried about them. She wasn’t sure where they went. Tane told her they took care of problems for others but that was all he was willing to say.

How her life was changing. She had fallen into a routine. Every morning she made breakfast, helped clean the kitchen, then watched television with the guys or asked questions which they miraculously answered. The more they answered the more she began to understand she wasn’t leaving; she knew too much. Maybe it was a good thing. At this point she didn’t think she could willingly walk away.