Claimed Mate Read online

  “It was my dad’s old fishing cabin. He’d come up here to drink and get away from my mom. Sometimes he’d come back early.” Vince shook his head. “I don’t think about that. I’ve made this place my own. Look.” He opened up the old refrigerator, his voice rising with enthusiasm. “See, wine instead of cheap beer. I even have real glasses for you.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll wait a little bit. Can I use the bathroom?”

  “Sure, it’s that door.” He pointed to the one on the right.

  She nonchalantly grabbed her purse and made her way down the hall. Closing and locking the thin door behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief. He’d let her take her purse. She dug into it, pulling out her cell phone and checking for service. “Come on. Come on!”

  “Are you okay in there?”

  “Just fine.”

  While she waited for the bars to appear she took advantage of the flushing toilet. Who knew when she’d get another chance to pee. On the wall across from her was a hand-embroidered sign, its glass dusty. If it’s brown, flush it down. If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

  She choked back hysterical laughter. Someone had worked hard on that one, trying to express a water shortage in the mountains in terms a lady could read without blushing. She wondered who that had been. Vince’s mother? His grandmother?

  She flushed and washed her hands, letting the water run while she checked her phone for bars, but none appeared. She dialed anyway, trying the main number at the ranch first, but it didn’t go through. “Damn it!”

  “Are you sure you don’t want wine? It’s almost happy hour,” Vince called through the door.

  “I’m sure.” The room had a high window she doubted even a child could squeeze through, and even if she could, it looked like it was painted shut. There was no escape.

  “Are you coming out?”

  No, she wanted to scream, leave me alone. But she turned her phone off to save the battery, tucking it safely out of sight in her purse, and opened the door. He was right there.

  “Just finishing up.” She gave him a bright smile and squeezed past him in the narrow hallway, catching a glimpse of the other room where an enormous bed took up the entire floor.

  One bed. She had to get him to take her down the mountain before he drank any of that wine.

  She led him back out into the main room. “It’s getting late, Vince, I really do have to finish my packing and get ready for tonight.” She turned just as the mercurial switch from genial host to angry suitor flashed across his face.

  “I’m not taking you back until we get things straight. Now, have a seat and I’ll pour you a glass. No one comes here but me. No one will find us. We can stay here and talk for as long as we need to.”

  Serena tried hard to calm the panic closing her throat.

  Someone would find them, wouldn’t they? If she didn’t show up for her goodbye dinner with the council, would they even think to send out a search party? Or would they think she’d just skipped it and taken a taxi instead? And, if anyone looked, how would they find her? There wasn’t a scent trail to follow with a car.

  Now she wished she’d gotten over her shame at turning tail and running home and at least called her family and told them, but it was too late now. It might take them a few days to start to worry when she didn’t answer her phone.

  And Gabe. A wash of regret brought tears to the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back, not wanting Vince to see.

  She’d told Gabe she never wanted to see him again. She’d lied. She desperately wanted to see him again. And it was not just because of Vince, but because right now, she wanted to run into his arms and feel them wrapped tight around her, keeping her safe and warm. And loved.

  “Let me help.” She reached for the bottle of white wine Vince pulled from the refrigerator.

  “I’ve got it.”

  She watched carefully as he poured the wine into glasses that still had white stickers on the bottom. At this point, she wouldn’t put anything past him, and she didn’t want him to slip anything into her glass. Gone was the friend who had helped her settle into her new job. Instead there was this man who seemed like a spoiled, fretful boy.

  “Come on, sit down.” He led her over to the couch and perched on the edge of the caved-in seat. “I’ll give you the good side that still has a few springs.”

  She set her wine down on the battered coffee table and put on the firm voice she used with clients. “This is ridiculous. I’m not pretending any more, Vince. It’s getting late and I need to go. Now.”

  He put his glass next to hers and stood up, his fists clenched at his sides. “I love you, Serena. You’re the perfect mate for me. You’re smart and beautiful. We can walk the dreamscape together. I can’t get the Fever again, because I don’t have a physical wolf, but on the dreamscape, I can give you the Bite and we can mate like wolves.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Vince. You can’t give me the Bite on the dreamscape. It’s a live virus. It doesn’t exist in the night realms.”

  “You don’t know that.” His face turned red. “In my dreams, my wolf is just as big and strong and powerful as those fucking shifters. I’m an alpha. You’ll see.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her away from the couch.

  “Ow! You’re hurting me. Let go of me, Vince.”

  She tried to fight free, but he moved back toward the hall, dragging her with him, his fingers digging into her flesh.

  “You have to understand. I’ll make you understand. Once you see my wolf, the Fever will start and I’ll have the Bite. I’ll sink my teeth into your neck and infect you and you’ll want to mate with me.”

  “No, I won’t.” She kicked him, the toe of her sneaker bouncing off his shin. He ignored her as if he hadn’t even felt it and shoved her into the bedroom. She hit the edge of the mattress and fell back, scrambling to get up as his heavy body landed on top of her.

  She hit him like a wild thing, scratching and clawing, punching when she could. But it was no use. He had her wrists and he wrapped them tightly with rope, the sharp fibers digging into her skin.

  “I didn’t want to have to do this.” He sat up, shoving his hand through his hair and panting. “But once I’m in your dreams, you’ll see we’re meant to be together.” He left the room, coming back in with something in his hand.

  “I’m not letting you in, Vince.”

  “You’ll have no choice.” He showed her the small vial and syringe. “I have the Narcolite here. You know, once you take it, you’ll be in REM sleep, and there will be nothing you can do about it.”

  Panic raced through her. She’d used Narcolite on patients, but only with a doctor’s prescription and only in extreme cases. Most patients came willingly to dream therapy.

  “You can’t do this. You have to have my permission, Vince. And a prescription.” She struggled with the ropes as he measured the dose, but they only seemed to dig in deeper.

  He pushed up her sleeve and leaned on her body, keeping her in place. “Hold still,” he grunted. The needle pricked her arm. “There.” He moved off her and smiled. “Just a few minutes, sweetheart, and we’ll be together in your dreams. And then your wolf will see my wolf and we’ll enter the Fever together. Don’t you see, Serena? It’s fate.”

  Serena fought the sleep falling over her. Could Vince’s crazy scenario be possible? Could the heat she already felt under her skin become the real fever without the stimulus of the live virus? She’d never heard of such a thing, but she wasn’t a doctor or a scientist. Was her wolf so desperate for a mate that she’d change her mind and take Vince, simply because he was there?

  If that were true, then fated mates were a myth and it was all just an accident of chemistry. She slowly shook her heavy head. No, she didn’t believe it. There was true magic in dream walking, not just science. There had to be magic in mating. There had to be fated mates, and her’s was definitely not Vince.

  Despite her best efforts, her eyes grew too heavy to keep open. The mattress shifted
as Vince climbed into bed next to her, snuggling up against her bound body, and she shuddered in revulsion.

  “Go to sleep, my love. I’ll be in your dreams.”

  She tried to fight the heaviness pulling her down, but it was no use. She could only flinch as Vince tucked up against her defenseless body. His hand crept up under her shirt and cupped her breast, just as she fell into the darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Serena woke in her usual place on the dreamscape, wearing a plain white sleeveless dress, her feet and legs bare. Dream therapists set up dream universes with familiar territories they could steer clients through at will, and she breathed a sigh of relief that this sunny forest clearing was her normal choice for greeting clients. Like all dreamwalkers, the astral was a real place for her. The sun was bright in her eyes, the grass was soft and damp on her bare feet, and when the wind picked up, she felt a chill.

  The bright-blue sky above her began to cloud over. This was her dream, and her subconscious was trying to send her a warning—he was coming.

  She began to walk fast across the meadow, heading for the forest nearby. He was the stranger here. That meant she had the advantage.

  It was the middle of the afternoon in the real world. No one she knew would be asleep. There was no one to turn to except herself. The Narcolite could keep her under for hours. She had no choice; she had to do something that would not only violate everything she stood for as a dreamwalker and a member of the shamans’ circle, but would also lose her any chance at being a pack therapist. She had to violate someone else’s dreams and get some help.

  She shifted to wolf and sniffed, trying to find a trace of someone, anyone she knew, on the astral. But the only thing she could smell was danger on the air. She drew a shield around her. Vince wasn’t a trained dreamwalker. She might be able to hide from him for a while.

  She rose up above her world, flying into the astral where she could sense other dreamers. Some were wild vortexes of emotion. Some were dreamwalkers like herself, trained to control the dreamscape. She searched desperately, looking for someone she knew. It was bad enough to enter someone’s dream, but to disturb someone who didn’t know her and wouldn’t understand that this wasn’t her normal way of operating, that was unthinkable. Normally. But this wasn’t a normal situation, and she was desperate.

  She sensed a familiar presence and focused on that, but when she drew close, she was horrified. Sam was in the dreamscape. Why or how, she didn’t know. She descended into his dream. His aura was red with the Fever, and when she drew near to him, his wolf turned, its eyes flashing electric blue.

  She loped up to him, whining and sniffing his face. His wolf sniffed her all over, his tongue lolling out.

  “Sam. Please shift, so I can talk to you.”

  But he stayed as a wolf, brushing against her leg over and over again, rubbing her with his scent. Her wolf pushed at her, harder than it could in the physical plane.

  So this was what it was like to run with a lover in wolf form. Heat raced under her fur, and she pressed closer to Sam. He licked her cheek, and her wolf whined in ecstasy. This was what they wanted, a strong mate.

  She pushed her wolf back. What about Gabe? He was the mate she wanted, not Sam. Not yet. Not until they took the Bite. Then the virus would rush through them and seal their bond. But her wolf had other ideas. This one was here and strong and in their dreams. They should take the Bite now.

  She fought back her wolf’s desires. She was in control, not the beast, and if she let Sam Bite her here, it wouldn’t be real. The virus couldn’t take hold. She had no idea what would happen to Sam, but she knew she couldn’t do this to him. She’d hurt him enough already.

  She shifted back to human, her white dress blowing in the breeze, her wolf confined under the surface.

  Sam butted his furry head against her thigh.

  “Sam, I’m in trouble. Do you understand? I’ve been kidnapped by Vince Ethelwulf. He’s got me in his father’s fishing cabin.”

  Sam whined. His eyes were glazed, and the red almost mist of his aura flashed. There was something more than just the Fever here. Something was wrong with him. She wanted to shift into wolf and smell him, to see if she could figure it out, but she was afraid. If her wolf took control again she might lose any hope of getting Sam to rescue her, with or without a dream Bite.

  “Sam, I need you to be human. Can you shift so I can talk to you?”

  The air around them grew heavy. Electricity crashed. Vince had found her.

  She wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck. Her wolf whined in pleasure, pressing against her, and she almost forgot what she needed to say.

  “Sam. Find me. Vince Ethelwulf has me. I’m drugged and tied up. Do you understand?” She thought she saw a flash of awareness in his hazy eyes, and then it was gone. “Sam, what’s wrong with you? Are you drugged too?”

  She couldn’t be sure he understood any of what she was saying. He was either drugged or the virus had him so tight in its grip that his wolf had taken over. Either way, he was her best chance.

  Lightning cracked overhead, turning the dark sky a blinding white. She stood up. “Wake up, Sam. Find Gabe. Tell him—” The wind rose, whipping her hair into her eyes. She wiped it away, exposing her face to the flying dust and debris. Trees lashed from side to side, and a branch crashed down inches away. Her subconscious was warning her—she couldn’t stay any longer.

  Vince was coming. It was time to run.

  GABE HAD NO IDEA HOW long it had been since he’d given up talking to his twin, but he assumed it had at least been a few hours. He’d circled the cell so many times it should have wear marks in the cement and Butch was on his third cup of coffee.

  “Gabe.” Sam’s groggy voice drew him across the cell.

  “Forget it, Sam. We’re better off not talking.”

  “It’s Serena. We have to get to her.”

  Gabe shook his head. “Trying to tempt me into breaking out, just so you can kill me? That’s pathetic, Sam.”

  Sam growled. “Don’t think I don’t want to, but you’re going to have to stand in line. She found me while I was sleeping. She’s been kidnapped. Taken by that asshole, Vince Ethelwulf. You know, the one who’s always such a jerk in the canteen.”

  “Found you? Kidnapped? What the hell are you talking about? There’s no way she came in here and I didn’t notice. And you’ve been snoring over there, dead to the world.”

  “She’s a dreamwalker. What the hell do you think I mean? She found me while I slept.”

  Hot jealousy poured over Gabe. “She walked in your dream?” Visions of Serena coming to him while he slept fought with picturing her in Sam’s dreams.

  “I don’t know, asshole. Maybe she just likes me better.”

  Gabe lunged. He pressed his face into the corner and stretched his arm through the bars, trying to get around the wall into his brother’s cell.

  Sam’s laugh rolled out. “Relax. I was sleeping, stupid, and you’ve been pacing your ass off.”

  Gabe’s blinding rage eased, but his jealousy was still there. He realized Sam was still talking.

  “Gabe, we have to get out of here. She’s in danger. We need a plan.”

  Serena was in trouble. Maybe hurt. He thought about the strange man’s scent all over her cabin that had driven him crazy the last time he’d been there. His wolf howled inside and the rage pulsed red. He’d find him. And when he did, he’d tear Vince Ethelwulf limb from limb.

  The push to shift and go get the man who had Serena pulsed through him. Run, run, run.

  He hit the wall hard with his fist, the bruising pain shaking some sense back into him. As a wolf, he’d never get out of here. He didn’t even stand a chance as a human. “They’re never going to let us out. We’ll have to tell Chuck, and they’ll send someone. Where is she?”

  “Really? You think they’ll find her in time? We know her scent. As crazy as this is, we’re both fever-linked to her. We could find her if she was in Timbuktu. By
the time Chuck realizes this is more important than his lunch break, and the chief pulls everyone off this dog attack case that’s got them so worked up, God only know what the fucker will have done to her.”

  The red haze covered his vision, and he howled.

  “Shut up, Wulfric!” came from around the corner.

  Gabe forced his wolf back and tried to think through the emotion driving him into pure instinct.

  “You’re just as screwed up as I am,” Sam said. “Admit it.”

  “So what if I am?” Gabe wiped sweat off his brow and leaned his back against the wall, letting the cool cement ease some of the Fever’s heat. “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to cause a ruckus and get some food. When Chuck brings it in, I’ll jump him, get the keys, and get out.”

  “And let me out.”

  “I’m not that far gone. Two of us will be better than one. While we’re away from Serena, I think I can control myself. But once we get there...”

  Gabe waited for Sam to finish his thought, but there was only the sound of panting from the other side of the wall. He twisted inside with sympathy. God, this was difficult for him, hearing the aggression in Sam’s voice. But what must it be like for his twin? And what would happen when they saw Serena? Would the Fever take the last of their bond and shred it to pieces?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The dreamscape was a maelstrom of vicious wind and rain. Serena ran and hid behind a rock. She panted and wiped water from her face. She’d made sure he’d followed her here from where Sam had been, but now Vince was drawing ever closer. Now, he was in her inner sanctum and she was on the run.

  “Serena.” Vince’s voice carried to her on the wind.

  No one should be able to get into her sacred space. No one. But Vince had proven that he had no morals and he’d burst through every wall she’d set up to protect her space.

  “Come here, sweetheart. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Yeah, sure. You’ve tied me up and drugged me in the physical world.” She had to keep him here. As long as he was here, he wasn’t doing anything to her sleeping body. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold rain soaking her dress.