Cam's Fortune Read online

  The wolf remained quiet for a moment, only his slightly rapid breathing belying his apparent calm. “I don’t hear them nearby.”

  “I’ll grab a few of the supplies before—”

  The solar lantern went dark, turning the cellar into a pitch black hole in the ground.

  “Of all the—” Cam bit off the rest of his complaint and smacked his hand flat against the unyielding column. His palm burned with the force of his blow.

  The wolf grasped his wrist. “Don’t. I can see well enough to find the supplies you’ll need.”

  A thought intruded, and even though he couldn’t see anything but the faint glow of the wolf’s eyes, he didn’t take his eyes off the spot where he knew the wolf stood. “That’s right,” he said. “You’ve chosen me for a heat mate and now you have to take care of me, don’t you? Prove yourself worthy of my submission.”

  The wolf growled low and tugged on Cam’s wrist. Cam stumbled forward a step, around the column, until nothing separated him from the wolf.

  He twisted his free hand in the wolf’s soft t-shirt.

  The wolf grasped that wrist too, his grip firm and unyielding in the utter darkness that surrounded them. “Submission does have its rewards.”

  “There’s power in submission,” Cam said softly. He immediately regretted saying it.

  “Yes,” the wolf said, and then he leaned into Cam, pressing his mouth and nose to Cam’s exposed throat and sniffing deeply.

  “Don’t.” Cam’s voice wavered. He clenched his teeth.

  “This wolf you knew—”

  “I’m not going to talk about him.”

  The wolf raised his head, his faintly glowing eyes the only thing Cam could see in the darkness. “You’ll tell me—”

  “I won’t,” Cam said, not an ounce of give in his tone. He wouldn’t talk about Henry. He already regretted the few things he’d said. Defiance was easier when he couldn’t see the result.

  Easier but possibly short-sighted, he realized half a second later when the wolf growled again, pulling Cam tighter to him. Claws bit into the flesh at Cam’s wrists. The bulge of a hard cock pressed against Cam’s own, softer, bulge.

  “You going to tear out my throat over a dead guy?” Cam asked carefully. He might be making a mistake—a life-threatening one even, but this was one time he wasn’t willing to back down.

  “You will submit,” the wolf said and there could be no mistaking the cold, hard truth of his words.

  “Haven’t I? I’ve said I’ll submit to your heat. I’ll spread my legs and let you rut inside my ass as long as you want, but Henry is off-limits. You got that?” By the end, his voice had edged into defiance again but Cam didn’t care.

  The wolf’s teeth snapped too close to Cam’s face. He flinched and jerked back, his pulse thundering in his head, but the wolf didn’t do anything but breathe hard against the side of Cam’s neck.

  After a moment, the harsh breathing slowed and the wolf said, “You belong to me now. Whoever this Henry was to you—his memory is just that. A memory. Part of the past. I’ll be your future.”

  “Go to hell,” Cam said and at that moment he couldn’t have cared less if the wolf tore out his throat. “Henry will never be just a memory. The bond we had—”

  “Has been broken,” the wolf said darkly.

  “You don’t know shit about—”

  “I know this.”

  Cam clenched his teeth, then exhaled in a rush when his anger wouldn’t subside. He tried to jerk his arm free, but the wolf didn’t ease his hold. “Let—”

  The wolf covered Cam’s mouth with his.

  The move startled Cam like nothing else would have. He’d expected violence and although the wolf’s hand had an iron hold on Cam’s wrist and his other hand had come up to grip the back of Cam’s neck to hold him still, the pressure of his mouth against Cam’s was soft and careful.

  Cam had just enough time to breathe in through his nose and then the pressure was gone.

  He stood there in the wolf’s grasp, breathing almost as harshly as the wolf himself.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” the wolf said.

  Cam stared straight ahead. No point in looking anywhere else. He couldn’t see anything but those fierce eyes anyway. “Why’d you do that?”

  “You were right. I could taste your submission on your lips.”

  “I didn’t have time to—”

  A finger pressed Cam’s lips against his teeth. The tip of the wolf’s claw tickled the underside of his nose.

  “Shh,” the wolf said. “Don’t ruin our moment.”

  What the hell?

  Cam didn’t know how to respond to that. He cleared his throat. “I think it’s time we got the hell out of here.” He tugged lightly against the wolf’s hold on his wrist.

  The wolf released him.

  Cam exhaled and with shaking hands started to button up the front of the flannel shirt he wore. The wolf moved away, but Cam couldn’t pinpoint the direction of his movements. Cam had managed to get three buttons fastened when he decided he should probably feel out the knife wound in his chest.

  He carefully ran his fingers along his skin. The area was tender and hot and sensitive to pressure, but the slit the knife had made sliding into him had already scabbed over. Cam pushed against the scab and a sharp ache started up between his ribs.

  No way he would be able to stand a shoulder against his ribs. The wolf had been right—carrying Cam out of here was not an option.

  A scuff nearby raised Cam’s head. “We ready?”

  “I’ve gathered a few things for you.”

  Cam rubbed his hand across his mouth and contemplated the wolf he couldn’t see. “Thanks,” he finally said.

  “Your care is my responsibility.” The wolf’s hand wrapped around Cam’s upper arm. “I don’t hear anyone nearby. We should go now.”

  “I can’t see anything. You’ll have to lead me up the stairs.”

  “I had no intention of making you climb them alone.”

  Cam heard what the wolf hadn’t said. “I’m not going to try to run off when we get outside.”

  “It will be safer for both of us if I help you stay true to your word.”

  Shit.

  “I’m not lying.” And he really wasn’t. He had no intention of running off just yet. He would never escape the wolf in his current condition.

  “Good,” the wolf said. “But your submission doesn’t change my need to keep you close. As soon as I feel safe, I won’t be able to hold back my heat’s next cycle. I already want to fuck you so badly that every whiff of your scent makes me question why I shouldn’t take you right now.” The wolf’s claws bit into the underside of Cam’s arm and the harsh timbre of his voice sparked along Cam’s nerve endings. “If you were to run even a few feet . . . I don’t believe I could hold back the instincts already overwhelming me. I would be lost to the lust craze and I would have you even if it was the last fuck either of us ever had.”

  A sharp tingle raced down Cam’s spine.

  And if a spark of . . . of something . . . had settled into his gut at the notion of this wolf taking him like that, well, that was between him and his dick. His head and his heart could stay the fuck out of his way.

  Now that he was feeling a little better and he’d accepted that he wasn’t going to get away, he might as well enjoy what he had coming.

  Because Cam had decided: he was in the mood to fuck.

  Chapter 7

  The escape from the cellar went more smoothly than Cam could’ve hoped even as a best case scenario. It was daylight outside, early morning, and the bright sun had almost blinded him when he stepped over that last step and into the scruffy grass surrounding the cellar door. The door had been one of the upright kind, built into a small building that was nothing more than a cover for the stairs leading down into the cellar.

  After twenty feet of sneaking around the side of a stucco and brick two-story house with a back porch that stretched from one end of t
he house to the other and created a balcony for the second floor rooms, he was more out of breath than he’d expected and the muscles in his chest had started to pull with every step he took.

  The wolf didn’t slow down for him. Cam didn’t expect him too, but it would’ve been nice to take it just a little slower. Still, he did his best to keep from going slow enough to make it necessary for the wolf to drag him along beside him.

  He had a strong suspicion that was exactly what would happen if he gave in to the weakness in his legs.

  The house was old. Cam knew that not because the mortar holding the brick together under the porch had weakened, busting up in places and leaving gaps and holes where he could see the white of thick spider webs filling the empty spaces, but because he could see the freeze-resistant pipes running to and from the external water recycler and up under the porch and into the house. The external units were more expensive, needed significantly more maintenance, and were usually a last resort for those people who either didn’t have the money or the desire to do full on renovations to accommodate the internal units in an older home. Compliance with the water regulations had never been negotiable.

  It was easy to see that the owner of this particular home considered the water regulations a relic of the States’ government from before the arrival of the wolves and the creation of the protectorate. The wolf urged Cam forward and Cam carefully stepped over the sawed in half pipes, his hand flat to the brick beside him for stability.

  A long-legged, fuzzy brown spider scurried out of one of the thick webs and across the brick as fast as Cam could pull his hand back.

  He rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the tension and watched the corner of the house behind them while the wolf continued to pull him forward with that tight grip on Cam’s upper arm.

  He had a bad feeling chasing him and it had nothing to do with the wolf at his side.

  “Where’d they go?” he asked as quietly as he could. The words were barely audible, so low, in fact, that Cam doubted a human standing across from him would have been able to make them out without reading his lips.

  The wolf shook his head and glanced back at Cam.

  Cam grimaced and shuffled another few feet alongside the house. He’d had to go to a half squat as the ground rose; the one end of the porch had been almost six feet off the ground, while the other barely reached four. Cam stood nearly six-four in his bare feet. He nor the wolf either one were going to be easy to hide if it came to that.

  The wolf’s head came up, raised at an angle that made Cam think he was listening for something. Cam held his breath and listened as well.

  A faint . . . swishing sound. A breeze through the trees. Squirrels chattering. Insects humming. A click.

  Shit.

  The wolf lunged upright, his hold on Cam’s arm tightening painfully. Cam had no time to get his feet under him before the wolf threw him sideways. A bullet ricocheted off the brick, spraying sharp pieces of stone. Cam came up against the wall several feet away and—

  The wolf had put himself between the gunfire and Cam.

  A sliver of brick caught Cam on the cheek just as he turned and ran for the corner of the house.

  As soon as he hit the corner someone grabbed him by his shirt.

  Cam brought his arm up, knocked off the grip and slammed his fist into the side of the—

  Ah shit.

  The woman staggered into the side of the house and crumpled just as something heavy slammed into Cam’s spine.

  The hit knocked the breath right out of him, and he smacked into the ground hard.

  “Now, you fucker, what are you doing sneaking around our place with a goddamn wolf?”

  * * *

  Cam groaned and stared up at the ceiling and wished—

  Yeah. He’d much rather have been getting fucked right then instead of having the shit beat out of him.

  Strike that.

  He’d much rather have been getting fucked by that wolf than having the shit beat out of him by these assholes. And that woman—she was the meanest of the bunch.

  She had a nasty bruise on the side of her face and her jaw was swollen. Every glare she sent his way made him wince. She was pissed as hell and she’d been pinching the fuck out of his balls for the last quarter hour every time she asked a question he wouldn’t answer.

  He’d like to know where she had learned that particular technique because he was ready to have a few harsh words with somebody.

  He’d bash their fucking skull in if given half the chance.

  “Don’t know what the—fuck!” Cam yelled. His body jerked against the narrow-backed chair as if he’d been struck by lightning.

  His legs were tied to the chair legs just below his knees so he couldn’t close them. His arms were tied behind him and the back of the chair. Windows let in the warmth of the sun to streak across a wide table and the other seven chairs, and if the kitchen hadn’t become a den for torturing Cam, he might have called it old-fashioned and homey.

  He was grateful he hadn’t been stripped naked considering how he was being punished for not offering up the answers his captors wanted from him, but the sweat pants didn’t offer much additional protection from the rough handling his privates were getting.

  No one had opened his shirt, but blood had started seeping through, and he worried about what they might do if they realized he’d been stabbed by their friend.

  “I told you before,” he panted when he could breathe again. “I don’t know that wolf, never met him before today, and I didn’t have anything to do with your friend’s death. I was dragged here against my will and you’d think you would understand what the fuck I’ve already been through since you found me trying to get away from him.”

  He’d created his story early and had stuck by it. He would go to his grave repeating it if that’s what it came to, because he sure as hell wasn’t admitting to having a connection to their friend’s death while he was tied to a chair in front of the lot of them.

  He was pretty sure the wolf had been shot and left for dead somewhere outside. Cam had been too busy having the shit kicked out of him by the loud-mouthed motherfucker who liked sucker punching people to really notice what was going on, but he’d heard the roaring and the rifles and none of the three men who’d come around the house a few minutes after things got quiet had been acting concerned about anything other than Cam.

  They’d lifted him up off the ground by his arms, stretching the muscles and flesh around his knife wound until Cam hadn’t been able to catch his breath and then dragged him inside the house.

  “Cammy, that’s enough,” one of the guys said. He was tall and slender with light brown hair and eyes so green they looked almost unnatural under the kitchen’s bright lights.

  Cam’s eyes flickered her way. Her sullen glare told him as clear as words to keep his fucking mouth shut.

  Cam never had liked it when people told him what to do.

  “Cammy, huh? Bet that’s a bitch name to—”

  A hard punch in the gut just about made him pass out. He gasped for breath as he tried to silently count backward from ten. He blamed the knife wound. He could usually take a punch better than that.

  If that damn wolf wasn’t dead, Cam was going to have to have a talk with him when this was over. What the hell good was being an alpha if you couldn’t stop assholes like this from getting the drop on you?

  Henry had always been adamant that there was no greater honor than to reach alpha status.

  Cam was starting to think the wolves’ alphas were overrated.

  Loud-mouthed motherfucker put his hand on the tall man’s arm. “Let her alone, Liam. She’s prob’ly gonna be lucky if she don’t have a broken jaw.”

  Cam shot the speaker a look meant to convey how stupid he thought the guy was. If Cammy had had a broken jaw, she would’ve been in too much pain to be pinching the fuck out of Cam’s balls. To tell the truth, he really should’ve been in a lot more pain. At this point, he couldn’t reasonably
deny that the wolf had been right. Cam definitely had some of the wolves’ alien biotechnology inside him cleaning up the mess his recent activities had done to his body.

  He just hoped he got out of this situation before anyone here realized that he wasn’t suffering quite as much as he should be.

  Cammy glared with as much hostility at the loud-mouthed motherfucker as she’d been directing toward Cam.

  “What is it you’ve been through?” Cammy asked. “Was that wolf fucking you?” The look she gave Cam made him sure the only thing she wanted to hear was—

  “None of your fucking business.”

  She fisted her hand in his hair and pulled his head back. Cam winced and met her gaze.

  “You’re wearing Chris’s clothes.”

  Cam kept his mouth shut.

  “Who are you?” she asked, for the first time.

  Funny how no one seemed to have even realized they’d all skipped right over that.

  “My name’s Cam,” he said.

  Cammy slapped him hard across the mouth.

  “Ahh.” Cam slowly exhaled the breath he’d sucked in right before her hand connected with his face. He licked the fresh blood off his bottom lip and the sharp tang made his mouth water. “It’s like a bad joke, isn’t it?”

  The tall man had a frown on his face and he looked closer at Cam’s face.

  “I know you—” He started.

  Loud-mouthed motherfucker said, “Don’t you try to tell me—”

  “It’s Lujan.”

  “Bullshit,” Cammy said, looking startled all the same.

  Cam laughed. It hurt worse than he expected.

  Cammy started to smack him again, but the tall, green-eyed man grabbed her by the wrist.

  “That’s enough,” he said.

  Loud-mouthed motherfucker yanked the tall man around by his shoulder. “Get your hands the fuck off her.”

  One of the others stepped forward and hauled loud-mouthed motherfucker backwards by the collar of his shirt. “You don’t touch Liam.” The guy’s voice was deep and gruff, and Cam took a second look at him. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d need a second look, but that voice said differently. He wore a plaid shirt, short-sleeved, with glasses that had a crack at one corner of the lens—old then, out of date, and the guy probably hadn’t had the money or time to get somewhere to replace them.