Stranded (Boys Behaving Badly Book 4) Read online

  Only deep cover wolves used scent-blockers. Bioenzypin was far too dangerous a drug for frequent use, and addictive to boot. At the moment, there were no deep cover wolves at the compound. Would Gavin have authorized the use of the drug now?

  If he thought it an emergency, yes.

  I hadn’t camouflaged my scent going in, nor covered my tracks in the compound—I’d wanted him to know it was me who broke in. I’d wanted him to know how angry I was. Could they have missed my scent? Could they be thinking my little B&E was a full-blown attack on the compound?

  Shit. Maybe…?

  This wasn’t what I’d wanted. Shit. It was time to end the game.

  But not before I found out the name of my Mate.

  I kept running until I spotted an opening up ahead, a clearing where the moon would reach into the dense forest and I would have enough light to read a name on the page.

  The scents were all different in these parts, mixed with the poignant scent of the Farrows. We were nearing their border. Hopefully, the amalgam of scents would distract them long enough for me to steal those few needed moments.

  I stepped into a clearing awash with moonlight and shuddered. The silver globe hung in the cloudless sky, calling to me, begging me to join her in the light. It would be madness to shift now, though. Too close to the full moon, and too easy to turn feral.

  I jumped toward the branches above me, hiding in their messy foliage. Somewhere behind me, my pursuers rounded the clearing to avoid the light. Some wolves couldn’t bear it as well as others.

  It didn’t matter. I had only seconds to spare. Shrugging off my backpack, I tore through the zipper and pulled out the almanac. Thumbing through it, I finally reached the Beck family registry, pages and pages of it, detailing the lives and loves of all the Becks who had chosen to follow Lazar alphas.

  There on the last page, beneath my father and brother’s names, I found my own, and beside it—

  The blow came hard and fast from the back, toppling me off the branch onto the mulch covering the clearing’s floor.

  I landed first, breaking my attacker’s fall. The almanac flew off somewhere, and I hit my chin on a rock hidden beneath rotten leaves. The sharp pain stunned me blind. I thought I heard something…the rustling of leaves or someone’s laughter…and I started to move.

  A dark boot came out of nowhere, connecting with my stomach. Pain burst, dull and heavy, knocking air from my lungs. I gagged, gasped, and started coughing.

  The sounds around me distinctly formed into laughter.

  “I told you I smelled a Lazar bitch! Didn’t I tell you? I told you,” a voice trilled.

  I recognized the voice. Mace Keeley. A Farrow scout. Shit. If Mace was here, it meant his brother wasn’t far behind. The Keeley brothers were notorious for petty raids, their Bioenzypin addiction, and their unhealthy codependency.

  “Yeah, yeah,” replied Darnell in confirmation, punctuating the agreement with a kick of his own, this time to my head.

  My neck snapped back. I tasted blood. My vision swam, and I fought the desire to heave. Nearly losing the battle, I managed to prop myself up and lift my head. The sickness abated.

  “Do you think she’s worth anything?” Mace asked, kicking my hand from beneath me, so I’d fall back onto the ground. “Oh, do you think we could have some fun?”

  His voice was eager and breathy. He might have been stoned. I reminded myself, recalling the file we had on them, that he wouldn’t act without his brother’s lead.

  Darnell was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. He crouched beside me, grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me up. He looked at me as if he was inspecting a bug, a distasteful curve to his upper lip. He wasn’t impressed by the bloodied nose, the split lip, the unfocused gaze. He wasn’t even interested.

  After a moment he shoved my head down and rose, bored. “Whatever,” he muttered and walked away to hide from the moon in the shadows.

  If they had known my last name, they might have acted differently. If they’d known me, they would have. But they didn’t. And I was done waiting.

  I forced myself to whimper, flooding the air around me with the scent of fear.

  Glee rolled off Mace in waves. He was the bully. He would enjoy inflicting pain.

  I bet he wouldn’t be as keen on the receiving end.

  I caught the boot a moment before it connected again with my stomach. A short twist, and I felt the satisfying snap as Mace’s ankle broke. While he wailed, I yanked his foot forward, used it to prop myself up, then kicked down hard on his kneecap, snapping it backward. His wailing intensified.

  When I pushed to my feet, Darnell came at me with a switchblade. I scoffed in disgust. What manner of wolf required weapons? I grabbed his arm as he launched at me, planning to use his momentum against him.

  But there was no momentum. He had tricked me, keeping his weight on his back foot and luring me into overexposing my left. He would’ve gutted me then, if I hadn’t seen Halftooth’s grim scowl in my mind’s eye as my elbow went flying outward.

  I closed it back in, just in time to catch the blade between my arm and my side, moments before he buried it in me. Having realized my mistake, I held fast and twisted my body, trying to break Darnell’s grip on the blade.

  His left arm free, he raised his fist. I was prepared for the blow, but I wasn’t ready for what came next.

  Suddenly, a savage snarl pierced the air, and a black shadow filled my vision. Darnell’s right arm was ripped out of my grip, his body sent flying. The shadow followed it, and enormous, slavering jaws snapped shut on Darnell’s left shoulder. The Farrow screamed, clutching at the powerful muzzle and trying to dislodge it.

  For a second, I thought he would shift. His frame shimmered, his skin becoming grayish in the moonlight, and his own jaw breaking open. But so close to the full moon, it was impossible to shift willingly and pure madness to try.

  The beast at his shoulder sensed the shift too and tightened its jaws, lifting Darnell’s body effortlessly into the air and shaking him like a rag-doll. Screaming, Darnell gave up fighting and was tossed aside to where his brother still lay wailing in pain.

  The wolf growled, its raven pelt bristling with open hostility as Darnell managed to stumble to his feet, his left side entirely bloodied and his eyes filled with rage.

  I stared in shock at the black beast that stood between me and the Keeley brothers. But I didn’t have to ask who would be mad enough to actually shift near the full moon. I recognized the wolf.

  “Oh, is that how it is?” Darnell’s voice carried a hysterical note as he tried to help his brother up. All the time he kept his eyes on the wolf, terror and rage blended into hard hatred. “The bitch must be worth a whole lot more than a little fun, Lazarus. I’ll make sure to remember her.”

  The wolf’s flanks bunched, readying itself to launch at the Keeleys again, but the brothers cried in unison and scurried out of the clearing. For a long time, the only sounds were the limping gaits of the brothers as they retreated and the deep rasping breath of the enormous wolf.

  When their scent had finally faded from the breeze, I allowed myself to breathe freely.

  Another growl rumbled through the silent air, and I froze. My gaze flew to the black wolf. It stood in the middle of the clearing, its pelt nearly silvered by moonlight, its blue eyes waxing black. The fur on its back was still bristled and a snarl twisted its mouth as a growl rolled out like thunder. Lost to the moon, the wolf was glaring at me now, ready to attack.

  “Easy,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “Easy, Lazarus. I know what you are. I know who you are.” My mind flashed to that stolen moment before the Keeleys had attacked me.

  There on the last page, beneath my father and brother’s names, I found my own…

  Beck, Artemis (June 22nd, ‘86 —)

  Designation: Warrior (a).

  Mate: Lazarus, Gavin

  “I know you, Mate.” My voice was quiet and mellow, but steady as a rock. A slight quiver, and I mi
ght lose him to the madness. “I know why you had to shift.”

  The first and final imperative in the lives of wolves: Protect your mate, even at your own peril.

  Despite my crooning, the wolf’s stance remained aggressive, its tail beginning to quiver in agitation.

  I had to get through to him, to the man inside. “I mean, I understand why, but I still think it was a stupid thing to do. I had the situation under control.”

  That did it.

  Wet crunching sounds filled the clearing as lupine bones broke and rewove into a human shape, and even before the vocal chords finished forming, he was berating me, “Kawl ’at undahr kontrrrrrol? He nearrrly killed you!”

  He must have seen the smugness in my face, because he snapped his mouth shut and stared at me. Suddenly, the wolf’s memories settled into the man’s brain, and his entire demeanor shifted. He knew I knew. His gaze grew more intense—a wolf in human hide assessing a new adversary. Or a scrumptious morsel.

  Almost at the same time, my gaze was drawn to a prominent part of his naked anatomy. Flooded with adrenalin and surmounting a life-and-death situation, it was no wonder his cock was fully erect. The wolf within him was surely demanding contact, reassurance in the most primal way known to wolf and man.

  When I glanced up, he was done contemplating me. His eyes communicated only one thing. He took a step forward.

  My backward step mirrored his movement, and I put up my hand as a barrier. I blurted, “Just because I know what’s written in the almanac doesn’t mean I accept you as my Mate, Gavin Lazarus, and I forbid you to touch me until I say otherwise.”

  He froze. Denial of physical contact was a severe punishment among wolves. Between mates, it was unheard of. “You can’t do that.”

  I tilted my chin. “Watch me.”

  His cock bobbed. He was reacting to the challenge. It would’ve pissed me off…if I wasn’t flattered. Gavin folded his arms across his chest, and my mouth went dry.

  He grunted. “How long do you think you’ll be able to keep this up?”

  I scoffed. “I’ve been doing this for four years, now. I think I’ve gotten damn good at being denied.”

  “I’m not denying you anything.” He drew his arms wide apart, and his mouth curved into a lopsided smirk. “Come and get it.”

  I nearly sputtered. “You selfish, egotistical—”

  “What do you want?” he asked sharply, the playful demeanor vanishing into thin air as he crossed his arms again.

  I stared at him for a moment. What did I want? Beside tackling him to the ground and riding him until we were both spent. Beside kicking him in his teeth and watching him suffer for the pain he’d put me through. What did I want from him?

  “I want the truth,” I said finally. “I want to know why you denied me these past years?”

  He worked his jaw, staring at me, but for a long time nothing came out. Finally, he asked, “Does it matter?”

  “It matters to me,” I said. “You ostracized me from the rest of the pack, from my own designation, sending me away.”

  Gavin looked unperturbed. “I had to make sure you got the best training. I couldn’t count on Mike not letting you off easy, just because you were his sister. And I had to make sure you’d be able to fend for yourself. Worrying about you was driving me insane.”

  There was logic in his words, but it only served to anger me further. Especially, when he looked so nonplussed, so lacking in remorse. I tried again. “When I finally got back to team training, I had to fight to reestablish my position. Do you know how hard that was?”

  “Yes,” he said bluntly. “That was the point. If you’d trained with the rest of them, you would never have been anything more than Mike’s little sister. Or later, my mate. Combat Master’s sister, Alpha’s Mate. Nothing more. Not really. A pack is only as strong as its alphas, both of them. If either one is perceived as anything less…” He shrugged.

  Again. Logic. I got it; I could clearly see his point. But I still wanted to punch him in the face. “You rejected me in front of the entire pack. You left me stranded in my own home.”

  He stared at me, his muscles tensing. “I never rejected you. I gave you time. A prerogative I never enjoyed.” He must have intuited that I wanted to call his bullshit, because he continued, “I was twenty-seven when I had to step into my old man’s shoes. Younger by two decades, at least, than the youngest alpha in the northern hemisphere. And I wasn’t ready.” Gavin looked away then, the admission appearing to cost him too much. “Being alpha, you don’t just get authority over the pack. You take their strength, their loves, their pain. In those war-torn times, for every wolf we lost, I died with them, I cried with their parents, I withered with their mates.” He looked at me again, angry and cautious. “You were sixteen. Sixteen. I couldn’t—” He drew a deep breath. “I wouldn’t have you go through that.”

  There. Finally. A chink in the man’s armor.

  “But you had no problem going through that alone?”

  He shrugged off my words. “By that point, I’d been doing that for twelve years. A few more shouldn’t have mattered.”

  My eyes narrowed. A quick calculation made them widen in shock. “You imprinted me when I was four years old?”

  He sputtered, his arms falling to his sides. “Me? I was only doing chore rotation at the nursery when a toddler with grubby little hands asked to be picked up, and then shouted, ‘Mine!’ Before I knew it, she sank her teeth into my shoulder!” He pointed to the blemish where two crescent-shaped rows of freckles formed what looked like a bite mark.

  There was so much outrage and indignation in his voice that I couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

  A thick growl filled the night, and I found myself backing away hastily as he charged me until I was pinned against a tree trunk. He wasn’t touching me, but the heat radiating off his body engulfed me with sudden awareness of the undeniable presence of a beast.

  “Do you find it amusing?” he asked, his voice low and dark.

  I shook my head. No longer laughing, I felt my heart hammering within my ribcage. His broad chest flooded my vision, tapering down to a flat deliciously-contoured stomach, and a gorgeous cock that was heavy with desire. The well-sculpted lines drew an image of hard masculine beauty, and I was instantly aware of the fact that my hands itched to touch him.

  I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. I didn’t know if I wanted to.

  I glanced up and was struck by the hunger in his eyes, by the yearning in the air around him. Seemingly without volition, my hand rose to his face. I watched him tense for the touch, and then close his eyes and clench his jaw when I hesitated.

  “I came to you every time you called,” he spoke quietly, his voice straining. “No matter what I was doing, I dropped everything, and I came to you. I came for you.”

  The training sessions, I realized then. No one else trained with the alpha. He had too many duties to attend to. But every day, for an entire hour, he’d made sure I could touch him.

  Skin to skin.

  My fingers brushed the lock of his hair behind his ear then cupped his stubbled cheek. “Mine,” I said, finally staking my claim.

  With an oddly satisfying guttural sound, Gavin kissed me.

  The first contact stunned me, sending a shock of electricity through me. It might have been the split lip, though. Regardless, I couldn’t breathe.

  His tongue was demanding entrance, and when my lips parted, he plunged inside to explore, to lay his own claim. Like a drowning man fighting for breath, he moved with hunger and desperation, and soon, I could do nothing but join him.

  His arms snaked around me, dragging me against him until my toes barely grazed the ground and I could feel every glorious inch of him burning with lust. Hot and moist, his breath sent chills down my back when he moved his mouth to my neck. The scent of him, of sandalwood and soil, engulfed me.

  Pulling the neck of my sweater aside, he planted an open-mouthed kiss on my shoulder. Tongue an
d lips and teeth tasted me, lingering over the fluttering pulse point. He made quick work of my sweater then moved his reverent ministrations to my breasts. Each exquisitely taut nipple was attended to, his mouth laving and sucking one hardened peak, while his rough hand teased the other. Too preoccupied to mind anything, I clutched onto him as my limbs weakened and warmth welled in the apex of my thighs.

  When I moaned, he shuddered at the sound, his chest rumbling with approval. It echoed deep within me, calling forth every primal instinct.

  I rolled back my head, relishing the tightening knot in my belly. When Gavin’s fingers dipped beneath my waistband, then lower still, I stopped breathing.

  His large calloused palm cupped me, and my eyes flew open, locking with his own dark gaze. His desire was overwhelming to see, to comprehend. My eyes fluttered shut when another wave of pleasure swept me, and he retaliated for the inattention by pressing the heel of his palm into my clit. I nearly came. I did cry out, my mouth forming something unintelligible as I snapped my gaze back to him.

  He grinned at me. Slowly, his fingers began to stroke along the soaked crotch of my panties. I moaned again, and he began to move his hand in a circular motion. Each circle offered more pressure, more friction, more of that luscious sensation that carved its way into every extremity.

  I thought this was it, that I was going to die of bliss right there.

  I became aware that along with my own heart’s erratic thudding, I sensed Gavin’s heartbeat, too. It echoed inside my head, growing ever more dominant, ever more urgent.

  He drew back, sucking on my lower lip, licking the trace of blood. A soft nip, and he snagged my attention again. I stared at him, my vision hazy with desire, and I saw that his own eyes were glazed, hooded, lost to the pleasure.

  But he was also determined to pull back. With his heartbeat pounding in my head, it was so easy to read him. Not here, his eyes said. Not like this. You deserve more.

  My mind was too muddled, too far gone to form words, so when he moved to pull away, I acted on instinct alone. My hand wrapped around his hard cock and tightened.