Man to Man [Wolf Creek Pack 3] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove) (13 page)

Donovan nodded. “I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. I definitely know it is not Douglas or Timmins’s families.”

“Or their relatives,” Joe added.

Reece nodded. “Could you go with Joe and Nate and get them out of here? Tell them that it’s an order from their alpha, and they need to leave immediately, taking only the most important necessities.”

Donovan nodded. “What are you going to be doing?”

“Hopefully, putting a stop to their little plans. After that, we’ll be right behind you.”

“Reece, if your pack members join with Joe’s pack, where does that leave you?” Keeley asked as he turned back to his mate, one hand coming to rest on Reece’s chest. “You’re the alpha here. How can you be an alpha with no pack?”

Reece looked up at Joe. “Can your pack use another enforcer or two?”

Joe grinned. “Always.”

Jim knew his father would jump at the chance to get a couple of capable enforcers in the pack. It also meant that he and Donovan wouldn’t have to choose which pack they lived in. It was a win-win situation as far as he was concerned.

“But, Reece, you—” Keeley began again.

“Keeley,” Reece said as he glanced back down at him, “I never wanted to be an alpha. I was perfectly happy being an enforcer. The only reason I became one is because I won the challenge when I killed the alpha of this pack.”

“But—”

Jim felt an overwhelming need to tell the little man to shut the fuck up. He was trying to talk Reece out of moving to Wolf Creek Pack, and that meant talking Donovan out of it as well.

“Keeley, I swear, I—” Reece stopped for a moment as he looked over at Nate. “Would you mind?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Nate grinned, reaching up to grasp Reece’s hand.

“I would rather be an enforcer than an alpha. I never wanted this job. I have no desire to be an alpha, truly. I would be much happier being an enforcer and coming home to you every night,” Reece said as he looked back down at Keeley.

“Truth,” Nate replied.

“I was also telling the truth when I said that I love you,” Reece quickly added.

“Truth.”

He lifted his head to look over at Nate, nodding at him. “Thank you, Nate.”

“Anytime.” Nate laughed, releasing Reece’s hand and stepping back to lean against Joe.

Jim cast a quick glance over at Donovan, wondering what he thought of the little scene between his alpha and another man. Donovan didn’t strike Jim as a man that avoided saying something if he truly meant it. So, if he wasn’t saying those three little words that Reece had just spoke, did that mean he didn’t feel that way?

Jim didn’t like the ache that thought created in his chest. He knew his and Donovan’s situation was a little different than Reece and Keeley’s. For one, both Jim and Donovan were enforcers and had dominant personalities.

And, while they had kind of worked that out in the bedroom, they hadn’t worked it out in their normal everyday lives. They were just kind of playing things one day at a time right now. They avoided any conversations that involved the future.

They were both avoiding it.

“Do you believe me now?” Reece asked Keeley, bringing Jim’s attention back to the current conversation.

Keeley rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, I believe you. We’re going to live in Wolf Creek, and you’re going to be an enforcer just like Joe.”

Yes!
It was all Jim could do not to pump his fist into the air in triumph. Reece and Keeley were moving to Wolf Creek, which meant Donovan would be, too.

“Of course, this means that you can visit with Nate whenever you want to. Don’t forget that, Keeley,” Joe quickly added.

“I’m not sure that’s a selling point, Joe. Can you imagine the trouble the two of them could get into?” Donovan smirked as he patted Joe on the back. “Nate doesn’t have any cookie sheets, does he?”

“Oh, yeah,” Joe groaned good-heartedly. “I didn’t think of that,”

“Maybe you should just stay here.”

“Don’t you all have a job to do?” Keeley barked out.

Jim chuckled as the little man glared at Joe and Donovan. They immediately held up their hands in surrender. “Yes, sir,” they said as they started for the door.

“Reece, keep your cell phone on. I’ll call you as soon as we’ve contacted everyone,” Donovan said.

“And I’m going to call my father right now,” Joe added. “I think we might need a little more protection before the night is out. I want to get everyone out of here first, and then we can worry about their belongings.”

Reece nodded. “Thank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate this. Please pass on my thanks to your father as well.”

“You helped us without reason when we needed it,” Joe replied. “You helped keep my mate safe. My father won’t soon forget that you did the right thing in helping us. Luckily, he has a soft spot for Nate.”

“I think that’s as it should be.” Nate chortled as he followed Joe out the door.

Jim rolled his eyes at Nate’s antics as he followed Nate and Joe out the front door. He adored the man that had made his brother so happy, but Nate could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

Jim climbed into the truck with Donovan and watched as he turned it on and then drove down the driveway. Once they reached the main road, they drove in the opposite direction from what they came when they arrived.

“Do you know where we are going?”

Donovan nodded. “There’s only about thirty members left in the pack, so we won’t need to contact too many people. I’m going to hit the closest families first, get them moving. From there, we need to hit the families farther out. I’m hoping a few of the folks can tell us who might be involved and who might not.”

“Well, Douglas did say that the core families didn’t lose any members, so I’d just ask who did and hope that they are the ones we need to get back to Wolf Creek.”

“That’s kind of what I was thinking, too.”

Jim was still reeling from the revelation that someone was actually using their own pack members as blood donors for vampires. Vampires and wolves did not mix. Ever. They hadn’t since the war nearly five hundred years ago.

While Jim didn’t have any plans to associate with vampires anytime soon, what bothered him more than that was the betrayal by one pack member over another. Hell, a whole slew of pack members were in on this plan, and it disgusted Jim to no end.

“I don’t get how someone could do something like that, Donovan. It’s sick.”

“Baby, some people just don’t care about that. They crave money and power more than they care about others.”

Jim warmed at the word
baby
but not much. He was too chilled by everything he had heard to warm up anytime soon. He had a desperate desire to curl up in bed with Donovan and never let him out. He was pretty sure it was the only way he could get warm.

“This is really freaking me out, Donovan. I’ve always known I had a home in my pack, that I was accepted even if no one knew I was gay.” Jim shook his head, feeling kind of numb. “For someone to betray their pack that way…I just don’t get it.”

“I doubt you ever will, babe. You’re not built that way. You’d no more betray a member of your pack than you would betray me.”

Jim’s mouth dropped. “How can you know that? Granted, we’re mates, but we’ve only been mated for a few weeks. How can you possibly know that?”

“Seriously?” Donovan’s eyebrows were up near his hairline when he turned to look at Jim. “Jim, I’ve spent the last few weeks getting to know everything about you, inside and out. I know what kind of man you are.”

Jim felt kind of stunned by Donovan’s confidence in him. He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. He just turned and watched out the front window. It wasn’t that Donovan was wrong, because Jim would never betray his pack. He just didn’t expect Donovan to believe in him so much after just a few weeks of knowing each other.

But he’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel good.

“Jim, how much experience do you have as an enforcer?”

Jim grimaced. “Not that much, actually. That was always kind of Joe’s area of expertise, not mine.”

“But you can fight if you need to?”

“Oh yeah, I can fight. My father made sure that we were all trained to defend ourselves. I just prefer not to fight if I can help it.”

Donovan nodded like he agreed. “Me either, but I will if I have to, and we might have to. I don’t know what we’re facing, but I have a pretty bad feeling here.”

“I think we make a pretty formidable team.”

Donovan’s quick grin warmed Jim even more. Considering they were walking into the unknown, Jim was glad he could see such a look on his mate’s face.

“I agree, and I’d prefer if we stayed as close together as possible. We’ll work a lot better if we stick together, and I won’t have to worry so much that something might happen to you if I can keep you in sight.”

“I can fight, Donovan, remember?”

“I believe you. But I’d still prefer if you tried to stay out of a fight if at all possible.” Jim’s eyes widened when the smile fell from Donovan’s lips and he grew very serious. The steering wheel crackled when Donovan’s hands tightened around it. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Jim.”

“I’d prefer it if you restrained from getting injured as well.” In fact, the mere idea of Donovan getting hurt, again, made Jim’s stomach churn. “I don’t care how long it’s been, I’m still getting over the last time you got hurt.”

Donovan chuckled. “I’ll remember to duck next time.”

“It’s not a laughing matter, Donovan.”

“Jim—”

“How you can sit there and joke when you had a hole in your chest just a month ago, I’ll never know.”

Yes, Donovan had recovered. And yes, it had actually been a pretty minor wound as wounds went, but still. He had been shot. Jim still had nightmares where he couldn’t get Donovan’s blood off his hands.

“Do you have any idea what it was like to see you with a hole in your chest? Or blood all over you?”

“Jim—”

“What?” Jim snapped.

Donovan pointed out the front window. “We’re here.”

“Oh.” Jim quickly turned to look out the front window as his face filled with heat. He had been ranting and raving so much he hadn’t even realized that Donovan had turned the truck off. They were just sitting there. Even worse, Joe and Nate were standing in front of the truck staring at them.

Jim felt like a bonehead.

He unhooked his seat belt and opened the door, climbing out. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he walked around the front of the truck to join Joe and Nate. When Donovan climbed out of the truck and joined them, giving him a knowing look, Jim kind of wished a hole would open up in the ground and swallow him.

“This is the Baker residence,” Donovan said as they started toward the front door. “As far as I remember, Mr. and Mrs. Baker have three kids, ages two, three, and six. Mrs. Baker’s mother also lives with them.”

“Any humans?” Nate asked.

“Mrs. Baker senior is human, but her husband was a shifter.” Before they reached the front door, Donovan turned and pointed further down the dark road. “There are four more houses down this way that we need to stop at, but Jim and I feel we need to talk to each one of them as we go, find out what they know.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly what Jim had said but close enough. Jim just didn’t want them walking into any situation they were unprepared for. With the hairs standing up on the back of his head the way they were, Jim was being extra cautious.

“Sounds good,” Joe said.

Jim hurried to stand next to Donovan when he knocked on the door. When Donovan paused and raised an eyebrow at him, Jim replied silently to his mate.
“Anything you face, we face together.”

Donovan’s easy grin was Jim’s reward for his support of his mate, and Jim would take that good-looking grin every damn time. It made his knees quake so much that Jim had to draw in a deep breath when Donovan raised his hand to knock on the door.

However, when he did, he got a lungful of a smell that he couldn’t quite place. He grabbed Donovan’s arm to stop him from knocking, but it was too late. Jim leapt at Donovan, taking him down to the ground just as a shotgun blast tore through the door.

Just as quickly as he landed, Jim jumped back up and pressed himself against the side of the house and then turned to check that everyone was okay. Donovan was still on the ground, but he seemed unhurt. Joe had Nate pressed up against the side of the house at the edge of the garage and out of the line of fire.

“I can smell you,” a male voice shouted from inside the house. “I know you’re out there.”

“Mr. Baker?” Donovan called out as he edged closer to Jim and then stood up. “It’s Donovan Morgan. Alpha Reece sent me.”

“Donovan? How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Turn on your porch light, Carl,” Donovan called out. “I’ll step into the light.”

Jim’s eyes widened as panic flared up inside of him as the porch light turned on. When Donovan started to move toward the light, Jim grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back. “Donovan, no!”