When No Doesn't Cut It (19 page)

Troubled by how little Damien knew about mates and the way they were meant to support each other, Scott filed that under the long list of things the two men really needed to talk about.
  Giving him a small smile, Scott said, “I will be with you every minute of every day if that’s what you want.  I’m your mate, hon, and Alpha Mate of this pack.  Any problems you have, I swear, we will cope with them together.  You’re not alone anymore, okay?”

Damien didn’t say anything but the worry on his face lessened.  Giving Scott a quick kiss
, he let go of him and headed over to the door.

“I’ll be outside when you’re finished
with your call,” he said before closing the door behind him.  Left alone in the room, Scott hurriedly found his jeans and a t-shirt.  Pulling on his boots, he found his phone and scrolled through his contacts looking for Shawn’s number.  The sooner he and Damien could get this mess with the stolen children sorted, the sooner the two of them could sit down and have a long talk about what it meant to be mates.  Damien had to learn that he didn’t have to do everything by himself, and that Scott could be trusted to be with him in anything the man had to cope with - both personally, because Scott hadn’t forgotten that Damien was going to talk to him about his past, but also in his position as Alpha of the San Antonio pack.

Chapter Twenty Two

Three hours later and the living room in Damien’s pack house looked like a war zone.  The men from the Cloverleah pack had arrived an hour after Scott had called Shawn.  To say that the San Antonio pack enforcers were surprised at the sight of
six men just appearing in Damien’s pack house, complete with computers and overnight bags, was an understatement.  Fortunately Scott arrived at the house before any blood was spilt.

Now the investigations were underway and Damien was edgy.  Scott
and Shawn were ensconced in the office holding interviews with the women and children of the pack. Damien felt that the interviews would be best done in family groups with each woman allowed to have a support person handy.  Some of the men of the pack had rebelled at the idea of their mates being interviewed by other males in private, without their presence.  Even if the males concerned were the Alpha Mate and a Shifter Guardian. But Damien stood firm and two guards were posted at the office door to ensure that no-one interrupted what Scott and Shawn were doing.

Scott had been adamant that the women in his pack deserved the right to speak to someone in authority without being censored by their husbands, partners or anyone else that might cause the women to keep quiet about any problems they were having.  Already he had asked that two “mothers-in-law” be removed from the pack house when
they were supposed to be supportive of two of the wives.  When the wives had tried to speak, the older women had over-run the conversation and tried to belittle the person they were supposed to be supporting. 

Scott had told the
supposedly supportive women to leave, but they had not been very cooperative and the enforcers had to come in to remove them.  The fact that some of the wives in his pack may be domestic abuse victims did not sit well with Damien. But from the brief messages Scott had sent him via their mind link, it seemed that was a real possibility. Shawn had sent three women already to another room with Kane, to be held safe until Damien and Scott could talk to them together.

Now Damien had antsy pack males wanting to know where their women folk were.  Some women being separated in another room of Damien’s house, because of goodness knows what
, but probably domestic violence.  Seven children, stolen by a pack member, who all needed to be returned to their parents, and in the meantime had taken over Damien’s media room and were being looked out for by Dean and a couple of pack females.  And it seemed that it wasn’t just the females and children in Damien’s pack that had been having trouble.  Rumors of cage fighting and gambling on pack grounds had also been reported through Scott’s mind link, but Damien had to wait until he could actually talk to Scott in private before he could investigate that problem.

In the meantime
Diablo and Troy had set up their computers on the dining room table and were currently searching law enforcement databases to see if any of the children had been reported missing to the authorities.  Dean had talked to all of the children as soon as he arrived. His quiet manner seemed to encourage the children to talk openly about how they were taken and details about their parents.  Shawn had suggested that none of the parents involved should be contacted until Diablo and Troy had worked out just how much of an official issue the children’s disappearance had caused.

As a rule, wolf shifters stayed away from involving local authorities in pack matters.  But Dean’s talks with the children suggested that the children came from parents who were lone wolves.  This might have been why it was so easy for Jacob to steal the children
in the first place.   Damien hadn’t been able to work out how any man, even a wolf shifter, could steal a child from pack grounds, but it seems the man had targeted children who had very little in the way of support.  All of the children spoke of hard working parents with large families and no pack ties. 

The children had been abducted, in most cases in broad daylight, while walking home from school, or from a sporting event.  Diablo was worried about this factor, pointing out that it indicated Jacob had spent time hunting down lone wolf families and then spen
t a lot of time stalking a particular child before taking them.  This indicated that Jacob was a very intelligent psychopath and while Damien wasn’t pleased with what Diablo had to say, he did think the cat shifter was right.

As Damien went to get himself some coffee
, he thought about the different things he knew about Jacob.  Like many of the men in Damien’s pack, Jacob had come to his pack as a young adult, thrown out of his original pack for being gay.  At the time, Damien hadn’t thought anything about it because it was a really common scenario all over America.  While gay rights were increasing nationwide among the humans, some wolf shifter packs were slower to adapt and many male wolves either had to hide their orientation or leave the pack they were born to.

Jacob had fitted in well enough.  He didn’t have the size or power in his wolf form to be an enforcer, which was the coveted position in Damien’s pack.  However, his human form was too big
, and his nature so non-submissive, that he wasn’t able to attract Damien from a sexual point of view either. 

A
s Damien stood drinking his coffee, he realized that Jacob had spent a lot of his time trying to get closer to his Alpha.  When Jacob had realized he could neither seduce Damien, because frankly Damien wasn’t interested and had his roster of subs in place by then, nor work for Damien as an enforcer, Jacob came to work at the club and trained as a Dominant.

Unfortunately Jacob was a harsh Master and many of the subs refused to play with him.  After one nasty episode, where Damien had to get involved, Jacob confessed that the only reason he had become a Master was because he wanted to get closer to Damien.  Damien remembered how the man had pleaded for some position, something where Jacob could be perceived as
necessary to his Alpha. 

At the time, Damien had been having trouble
with the local population. A couple of the pack’s teenagers were causing havoc among the locals with their wild ways, and worried that the boys would reveal their true natures to humans, Damien sent Jacob to handle it.  The position of pack liaison officer grew from there and as Damien had preferred spending his time at the club than being on pack lands, he had allowed Jacob to take over the mundane daily pack hassles that every pack has.  Jacob had held, what Damien now realized was a very powerful position, for more than ten years.

Damien looked up as Griff came into the kitchen.  Damien didn’t know Griff or Diablo very well.  Wh
en he had been at Cloverleah the two men had only eyes for each other, and while Damien had been impressed with the men’s fighting skills, he hadn’t taken any time to talk to either man.  Griff was almost as tall as Damien and a big man in his own right.  His long wavy brown hair framed an easy-going face; Griff’s goatee turning the man’s face from good looking to drop dead handsome.  Damien could see the family resemblance between Griff and Kane.  Apparently the two men were cousins and had been friends virtually their whole life, according to Shawn.

“Diablo said he’s got some news for you, when you’re ready,” Griff said.

Sculling back the rest of his coffee, Damien said, “Thanks.  I think the best idea would be to get everyone together so we can all share our news at the same time.  Can you get your pack together and let Malacai know?  I’ll go and see if Scott and Shawn are free?”

“No probs,” Griff said easily as he filled two cups with coffee and
sauntered back out of the kitchen.  Damien followed more quickly.  He knew his edginess was getting out of control, and for some reason he felt that seeing Scott would help.   Going down to his office, he listened at the door and then knocked quietly.  Opening the door, he saw Shawn and Scott sitting together, talking quietly.  No one else was in the room.  Damien decided to ignore the look of embarrassment that flashed across Scott’s face when he looked up and saw Damien watching him. 

It would
appear that Damien had been the topic of conversation and for a moment Damien worried about what Shawn might have shared with his mate.  Shawn had lived with the San Antonio pack for almost a year before he ran off, with hunters behind him.  In that time he had been important to Damien, both as a man and as a well respected Master in the club. If anyone had secrets to share about Damien then it would be Shawn. 

Determined not to let that thought overwhelm him, Damien simply said shortly, “we
’re going to have an informal meeting, if you have some free time, so no-one has to repeat themselves with any information they have found.”

Shawn stood up and patted Scott on the shoulder before leaving the room.  He smiled at Damien as he passed the man, but didn’t say anything.  Damien looked over at Scott.  “Any problems mate,” he said quietly.

Scott shook his head.  “Nothing I can’t handle Damien.”  He came over wrapping his arms around Damien’s waist and dropping his head to Damien’s chest.  Damien’s body thrilled at the contact.  Even fully clothed, his mate had the power to soothe and arouse him all at the same time.  But as Damien held the man close he could sense the unease and anxiety in his mate’s frame.

“I
can sense there’s something wrong,” he said, hoping Scott would tell him what he and Shawn had been talking about.

Scott looked up at him and Damien was struck again with just how handsome his mate was.  Scott’s eyes were a brilliant blue
even though the anxiety Scott was obviously feeling shone through as well.  Damien realized that was something else he really appreciated about the man in his arms.  Scott was so open about how he felt, but when Damien tried to access their mind link to try and get a handle on what was upsetting his mate, he noticed that Scott was blocking him again.

“There’s just a lot going on,” Scott said
, “and that gives us so little time to get to know each other.  I have a problem dealing with that side of things sometimes.  It’s nothing for you to worry about.  You have enough on your plate as it is, at the moment.”

But Damien was worried.  If Scott had any doubts about their mating and was talking to Shawn about it, then there was a good possibility that his mate would leave.  And just the thought of being without the man in his arms
, for even one day, was enough to make Damien’s heart ache with a loss he couldn’t describe.  Fuck.  Was this what it is like to be in love?

Suddenly a huge surge of possessiveness surged through Damien.  His wolf was clamoring to get out - to hunt down and kill any possible person that could tempt this man away from him. 
To savagely tear apart anyone that might convince Scott to leave.  Trying to forestall that line of thinking, because really Damien couldn’t in all good conscience go into his living room and wipe out the Cloverleah pack, even if his wolf thought it was a good idea, the man bent his head and gave Scott a crushing, bruising kiss, as a growl threatened to burst out of his chest.

Long minutes later, Damien lifted his head to see the half lidded look of lust on his mate’s face.
  Damien’s wolf eased back, content this was a lot better look on Scott’s face than the worry that had been in his eyes before.

“I’m not leaving you, lover,” Scott gasped quietly, obviously reading Damien’s
reason for being possessive correctly.  “I told you I wouldn’t leave you.  I give you my word that I won’t.  Although if that is the type of response I get every time I have a bit of a problem with our mating, I might not be inclined to sort it out.”

So there was a problem!
  Damien knew it and from the look on Scott’s face now, eyes open wide and an ‘oops’ on his lips, Scott had realized he had made a slip up as well.   Damien quickly put a smile on his face and made a motion to the door. He hadn’t let go of Scott and he didn’t think he was likely too for very long time. 

If he kept the man tightly in his arms
, then any problems Scott thought they had could be sorted.  Damien and his wolf agreed on that tactic even as Damien said teasingly, “and as much as I would like to follow through on what was definitely a promise of more, we do have a meeting to attend.  But we will talk more, mate of mine, I can guarantee it.”

Tilting his head to the side, Scott looked up at Damien, but let the man lead him out of the room.  As they neared the living room
, Scott tried to wriggle out from Damien’s embrace, but Damien wouldn’t let him go.  He might have even growled a bit at Scott’s efforts to get free, because Scott stopped wriggling and wrapped his arm around Damien’s waist.  Satisfied, Damien prayed to the Fates that the problems with his pack could be solved quickly.  Because then he could apply some serious brain matter to the concept of love - something Damien had refused to feel for another person in well over 100 years, but could very well be feeling now.