STORY EXCERPT

Nate’s red Yukon drove into the empty parking lot, pulling up right next to Mason’s truck. Mason got out and walked over to meet them. He really didn’t like Nate. The man had one smart-ass mouth on him, and Mason wasn’t the one to deal with that kind of crap.

“Did Rick tell you about Ian?” Selene asked as she jumped out of the back. She turned, grabbing a bag and handing it off to Mason.

Mason had been sitting in his SUV, waiting on Nate and Selene to meet him in southern Kansas. Mason and the rest of the crew had already been through here, but Rick had sent him back to retrieve Dorian’s brother.

“Just that I need to make sure he doesn’t run and to take care of him.” Rick hadn’t given Mason a whole lot of details, but he had asked Mason to make sure Ian didn’t run and to handle him with care.

He wasn’t really sure what that meant. But after Rick and Nate had pulled his ass out of trouble in Georgia, it was the least he could do.

Mason had wanted to bring Benito and Miguel along, but Rick had said that the less people around Ian right now, the better. It made Mason one curious man to know what was wrong with the guy.

Selene shook her head. “It goes way deeper than that. He crashed when we first picked him up. I had to perform CPR on him. Do you know how to do CPR, Mason?”

Mason nodded. “I took a course in college.” What did she mean he crashed? Like…a heart attack? Oh, hell, Mason hadn’t signed up for that shit.

But he couldn’t let Rick down, either. The man had allowed Mason to stay in his Rebellion group. Mason had nowhere else to go, so, he would deal with this.

“Good,” she said as she nodded in approval and stepped back. Mason peered inside and had to look twice before he saw the frail human lying under piles of blankets. The only thing Mason could see was a head of wavy brown hair.

“Is he really that small?” Mason asked as he hiked the bag Selene had given him over his shoulder.

“He is,” she replied as she inclined her head in a nod. “But don’t let his small frame fool you. He’s pretty strong when he’s fighting to get away.”

Mason took the bag Selene had given him to the SUV and tossed it inside. He then opened the back of the truck and spread out the blankets Rick had sent with him.

Mason hadn’t known what they were for at the time, but now he saw the wisdom in sending them. He walked back over to the Yukon and lifted the human from the back, amazed at how light he was. If Mason didn’t know for a fact that a man was in there, he would have sworn he was just carrying blankets.

Selene closed the back of the Yukon, her eyes softening as she looked at the blankets in Mason’s arms. “Keep him warm. We wanted to stop for clothes, but Rick made it clear we weren’t to stop until we met up with you.”

Mason nodded as he gently laid the guy down in the back of his truck. He grabbed some of the blankets he’d brought with him and layered Ian. Once he had Ian tucked in, he closed the hatch.

“Keep an eye on him, cat,” Nate warned with an assessing scowl that made Mason feel as if he didn’t measure up to the werewolf. “He’s fucking quick.”

“Why is everyone going through the trouble of bringing this man to Rick when it sounds like he doesn’t want to go?” Mason asked Selene, ignoring the asshole standing by the driver’s door.

“He’s a fang addict, Mason. Rick should have told you that.” Selene sounded irritated. “He also has a shitload of cuts and welts all over his backside. There’s antiseptic cream and other things you might need to keep the wounds clean in the bag I gave you. Thank goodness we carry a medical kit with us in the Yukon at all times.”

Mason wanted to ask what in the hell happened to the human, but he knew Rick wanted him back as fast as he could make it. “I’ll clean him up by the time I get halfway back to Rick.”

“Good luck,” Selene said as she walked back toward the front of the Yukon. Nate just glared at him, and Mason just flipped Nate off. The man gave him a toothy smile that wasn’t meant to be pleasant.

Mason crawled back into the driver’s seat and adjusted his mirror so he could see Ian if he popped up and tried to get free. From the man’s state, Mason didn’t think he would be getting up anytime soon.

He pulled from the parking lot and headed back toward Colorado. He had a long drive ahead of him and hoped the small human didn’t give him any problems.

Mason made it about twenty miles before he saw flashing lights ahead.

He could tell that the cops were conducting a checkpoint by the way their cruiser was positioned.

Mason knew the cops of the smaller towns were enforcing martial law. Normally martial law was used to enforce curfew and to try and bring order back to chaos.

But Mason knew changelings were being widely hunted and the cops at this checkpoint were sure to be using a BAT—blood abnormality tests.

BATs were carried by every Breed Hunter, military personnel, and law enforcement officer. They were small handheld devices that resembled a glucose machine. One drop of blood and a small light on the device would either turn red, for nonhuman, or green, for human.

It gave an on-the-spot reading.

The machines were first generation, and found to be faulty at times. But the Breed Hunters killed regardless.

False positives were never retested by the Breed Hunters. The human died as soon as the light turned red.

Mason leaned over and opened the glove box, retrieving the small piece of synthetic skin that matched the color of his fingertips. Behind the small application was a dollop of Dorian’s blood. Dorian was human. The blood was encased in a tiny plastic bag that was sealed to the synthetic piece.

Mason applied the piece to his index finger, praying the adhesive bonded before he approached the cops. He pulled up to the flagging officer and stopped the SUV, rolling his window down. “Evening, Officer.”

ADULT EXCERPT

“Tell me, Ian. What part of sex bothers you?”

Images Ian would rather forget swamped his mind, making him fight not to curl into himself. He couldn’t. He was studiously bound, not only by Mason’s presence, but by the leather, chains, and locks as well.

But the images were free to torture him as he thought about Calico and then Newman. The sadistic way they had taken him, forced him, and humiliated him, he would rather die than reveal.

“All,” he whispered out in a tortured breath. “I hate every last aspect of the act.”

“But you like when I suck your cock,” Mason reminded him.

Ian fought not to be taken under by the memories still crashing through his mind like violent waves. He tried to remember the pleasure Mason had given him just last night, but the memories were too many, too bloody, too shameful in their power and wouldn’t let go.

Ian could feel the tears falling as he struggled to breathe. His chest became so tight he felt like he couldn’t pull in enough air. The craving slammed into his gut like a sledgehammer, shattering his newfound feelings for the restraints resting gently against his skin.

Mason unlocked Ian’s thighs and pulled him up from the bed as Ian struggled to get free. He yanked at the chains, crying out, wanting to hurt something for the way he had been hurt, wanting to return the agonizing pain with deadly accuracy.

“Focus on me, Ian.” Mason’s deep, baritone voice echoed through Ian’s mind, shattering some of the images trying to pull him under. But not all of them had fled. More were coming his way as Ian cried out.

His teeth were grinding together so tightly that his entire jaw was throbbing in pain, but the craving still had its deadly talons embedded in Ian’s flesh.

“Ian, open your eyes!”

Ian’s lips parted, his breathing labored as he slowly opened his eyes. It hurt so badly to look at Mason as his own body betrayed him. “Please, Mason. I need. Please.” Ian strained his voice on the last word, feeling as if he were truly dying.

“Yes,” Mason agreed. “You do need, and I’m going to give you the distraction you need to fight this. We are going to work through this, Ian.” Ian almost broke under the lash of Mason’s confident voice, but it wasn’t enough.

Ian didn’t want to work through anything. He wanted to be bitten and didn’t care. He just did not care. All he wanted was his fix, his high, and it didn’t matter that he now knew the bite was slowly killing him. His body still hungered for something that was so deadly for him that Ian knew, one more bite, just might be the last one.

Ian swayed as Mason brought him to his knees. He felt the gates of hell opening once more, pulling him in, the dark abyss calling to him.

“Pleasure,” Mason said close to his ear, “will combat pain.” The cold blunt edge of something rubbery pushed into his ass, filling him and making him squirm.

Ian didn’t understand what Mason was talking about or what he was doing until his body began to vibrate, really vibrate this time, not from the pain, but from something Mason was doing to him. Pleasure he didn’t know he had the capacity to experience washed through him as he felt the last vestige of claws slowly slip from his skin, from his mind.

“And this is on the low setting.” Mason’s rough, sexually laced voice growled into his ear. Ian’s body arched and his thoughts scattered as the vibrations grew harder, more intense. He was shaking as Mason held tightly in his hand the chain that led from Ian’s collar to his pelvic bone, stopping him from falling backward.

“What do you need, Ian?”

Ian’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as his entire lower half pulsated in pleasure. The vibration slowed by a notch, and Ian was terrified Mason would stop.

“What do you need, Ian?”

“More, Sir,” Ian cried out. “I need more.”

Ian’s arms slammed outward, but they couldn’t go anywhere when they were locked at his sides. All he could do was fall forward into Mason as whatever Mason had put in his ass shuddered harder, making Ian fuck thin air.

Mason gave a low chuckle. “More?”

Ian wasn’t sure he could handle any more. Mason was feeding a hunger that had been dormant for so long, until last night, that Ian was willing to beg, borrow, and steal to prolong the sensations. The man had woken something up inside Ian.

Last night had been fantastic, but right now, with what Mason was doing to his body, Ian would—the thing vibrated even harder now, making it almost impossible for Ian to breathe. “Yellow!”

The sensations lessened, but didn’t go away. Ian didn’t want them to recede, but Mason was doing too much too soon. His body wasn’t used to such pleasures and Ian feared he would drown in them if Mason pushed him too far.

“We can continue this pleasurable torture all night, Ian,” Mason said as he leaned back, putting some space between them. “Or we can finish this.”

Ian was panting, his mouth dry as hell as he glanced up at Mason.

“Don’t worry.” Mason’s eyes blazed with a sensuality that bordered on madness. “I won’t let you go. You won’t fall without me there to catch you.”

Ian licked his dry lips. “Finish it, Sir.”

One side of Mason’s mouth turned up into a sinful smile as he lifted his hand. There was some sort of small remote in his palm. Ian watched as Mason’s finger touched the lever and then slid it all the way up. The overwhelming sensations were drowning him, killing him with pleasure, building, increasing. He felt his cock swell, pulse, and the pleasure didn’t abate.