Watching Out For Fangs (The Cloverleah Pack Book 7) (26 page)

“There are four men we want. Why have only three men stepped forward to fight? Has someone forfeited already?” Clarkson sounded pleased about the prospect.

Jax flexed his muscles, which were substantial. “The two Fae you are so eager for are both mine. So I’ll take two of your men at the same time, just to get this over with.” He pushed off his jeans, smirked at Aelfric and Fafnir who both winked and waved at him, and then stepped into the pack circle as naked as the day he was born.

“Challenger shifts first,” Kane called out as the rest of the men arranged themselves around the circle. The four men chosen by Clarkson seemed to be playing rock, paper, scissors, which Josh would have thought hilarious, if it wasn’t for the seriousness of the situation. His wolf was on edge, snarling in his mind. It had been sheer torture for both man and wolf to hear Kane go through his “negotiations” as though his mate was nothing more than a house chattel. Josh was never letting Vadim go and he would fight for his mate until his dying breath. In fact his wolf was panting for the opportunity.

Finally two men walked into the pack circle, stripped down and shifted. They didn’t seem keen on being naked among a whole pack of gay men, which had Josh laughing in his head again.

Jax looked at the two wolves – they were a decent enough size as far as shifter wolves went, but they were nothing special. One was a russet brown, while the other was a mix of grey and white. They growled and tried to look menacing. Jax smiled and then, still showing his teeth, he shifted into his Dire wolf form. Standing at least three foot taller than the challengers at the shoulder, Jax lowered his head and snarled, showing wickedly long teeth. Josh burst out laughing as the two other wolves took one look at Jax in his shifted form, before taking off out of the pack circle and heading for the tree line.

“Stop, you fucking cowards. Come back this instant,” Clarkson yelled, but clearly the thought of fighting a Dire wolf shifter was more than the two enforcers could handle.

“Tobias, Thomas, Ryan, chase them down and bring them back,” Kane ordered. “They don’t have permission to run on our lands.”  The three wolves took off for the trees and seconds later there was sounds of fighting. Josh knew that his friends could handle themselves against two beta enforcers, so didn’t worry about it, and apparently Kane wasn’t bothered either.

“Okay. Under pack law, your two men ran from the circle, forfeiting the challenge. So Jax, you can shift and go back to your mates.” Jax tilted his neck at Kane in such an overt show of submission that Kane laughed out loud.

“You could have warned us you had a Dire wolf shifter in your pack,” Clarkson grumbled.

“You could have warned us you had four vampires and four magic enhanced humans in yours,” Kane said easily. “Notice it doesn’t bother me, because it is none of my concern what you do in your pack. It’s a shame you don’t offer me the same courtesy.”

Clarkson’s eyes were so narrow they looked like piss slashes in the snow.

“So what surprises has the mate of the Omega got – he turn into a dinosaur or something?”

Kane beckoned Matthew forward. The man was huge, almost as big as Damien and just as tough.  Matthew smirked down at Clarkson as he walked past into the circle. He flicked the button on his jeans and rested his hand across a considerable crotch.

The two men singled out by Clarkson had a hurried whispered discussion, both of them glaring daggers at their Alpha. Finally one man stepped forward and without a word, shucked off his clothes, and shifted, into a rather pretty black and grey wolf.

Matthew sighed as though the whole thing was just one giant inconvenience. Stalking over to the wolf who was crouched and growling, he leaned down and placing a large hand on the wolf’s back, snarled, complete with human teeth.

“Submit,” he growled and Josh felt the tingle of Alpha power. The wolf tried, he really did. He snapped, he tried to leap up, but Matthew had a firm grasp on the wolf’s shoulders and the beta wolf was hopeless to defy Alpha power. After a long drawn out minute, the pretty wolf whimpered, tilted his neck and then shifted.

“Say it.” Matthew growled again.

“I yield,” the young man called out. Matthew let him go and stood looking at Clarkson.

“There are seven Alpha’s in this pack,” he said, with a smirk that lit up his handsome face.

“You can go back to your mate, Matthew,” Kane yelled out. “Challenge won by submission. You’ve lost the two Fae and the Omega so far.  Want to try for the vampire? Josh step up.”

“No fuck it, this pack is a menace,” Clarkson said, his eyes damn near rolling in his head. Turning to the rest of the men who’d accompanied him he screamed, “Attack! Attack! Kill every last one of them and bring me the Omega.”

Finally Josh could let his wolf out. He peeled off his jeans and shifted within seconds. Chaos broke out and Josh dived right into it.

Chapter Thirty Four

Vadim had blinked and Josh was gone. One minute he was standing to the side, preparing himself to accept that his beloved mate was going to have to fight, and he was going to man up and trust his mate’s skills, and the next Josh was in the thick of things. At least that was where Vadim thought he had gone, given that he couldn’t see him anywhere else. Honestly he had just blinked once.

Cursing up a storm, Vadim noted the four vampires were all heading towards him. A good thing in one way because Vadim wouldn’t be fatally wounded by the poison in the men’s claws. But honestly? He wanted to find his mate. Not even bothering with a “hi, how’s things in Atlanta”, Vadim swung out his arms, becoming like a swirling dervish, decimating all four vampires in seconds.

Heads on, heads off. Fuck. 
As much as Vadim needed to get to Josh, vampires were damn sneaky about surviving wounds that would kill most other species. Huffing with annoyance, Vadim ripped four heads from four prone bodies, then looked around. Where the fuck was Josh? He didn’t dare use their mind link, because he could sense enough from his mate to know that the man was fighting hard. One moment of distraction could be fatal. But it was really hard picking out his wolf from the huge pile of snarling, snapping fur that had completely covered the pack circle.

Vadim caught sight of a tiny grey wolf – much smaller than the rest, fighting off a large motley colored wolf to one side of the fur heap. Figuring it must be Dean, Vadim zipped over, just in time to lift the wolf off the ground one handed, while clawing the muzzle of the invading animal.

“You’d better be Dean,” Vadim said with a gasp as the larger wolf attacked him again. A quick yap – what was that? Vadim didn’t speak wolf but he guessed Dean was letting him know he was right. Or? Fuck it, should have checked out who was who in furry form a lot sooner. But the scent seemed right. Holding Dean tightly under one arm, Vadim slashed and clawed with the other hand, letting his poison work through his nails. To survive it, the wolf would have to shift but it was clear the bastard didn’t know it. Even staggering, the wolf kept coming and Vadim backed up towards the porch, eager to put Dean down, but not wanting to drop him and leave him open to further attack. 

Probably guessing what Vadim intended to do, the wolf started attacking Vadim’s legs. Vadim kicked out as best he could, but it was freaking hard to do while keeping his balance and he could feel blood start to pour down his thigh. He watched until he saw the wolf spring off his haunches intent on knocking Vadim off his feet. At the last minute, Vadim curled his fingers into a semi-circle and plunged deep into the animal’s back as wolf teeth struck Vadim’s thigh bone. One wrench of his hand, and Vadim was holding the spine in his hand, the rest of the wolf fallen to the floor in a heap. Boneless. Ha. Vadim almost laughed, but just then another wolf, bigger, with huge dark eyes came barreling towards him and Dean.

“Oh fuck,” Vadim said.  His trouser leg was soaked with blood. He didn’t have time to stop and heal. But instead of holding still, and trying not to be a distraction the little grey wolf yipped excitedly, trying to get down. Matthew? God he hoped so. Seconds later a loud howl sounded from the middle of the pack circle, and Vadim looked over to see one black and one white wolf, standing in the middle of a heap of bodies.  The other wolves were all sniffing around, apparently checking that every Atlanta member was dead.

“Is this Matthew?” He asked the grey wolf, who nodded his head. “Awesome,” he croaked out as he carefully put Dean down, and then fell to the ground. Black spots were appearing in front of his eyes and Vadim had just enough time to see his light colored wolf running towards him before his world went black.

/~/~/~/~/

Shifting back into his human form Josh knelt on the ground, gently slapping Vadim’s face. Unfortunately the vampire was unresponsive. Josh could smell the blood and could see how much was seeping into Vadim’s expensive black pants. He ripped open the offending material, horrified to see Vadim’s marbled thigh was a mass of blood and gouges. There was even a flash of bone evident through the gore.

“Get some blood in him, we’ll try and heal this mess.” Jax’s voice sounded firm and calm beside him and Josh saw no reason to ignore his friend. Biting into his own wrist, his erratic heartbeat encouraging the blood flow, he pushed his wrist against Vadim’s unresponsive lips, growling when the blood just fell like wounds down his chin.

“Here, let me,” Matthew said, squatting down beside Vadim’s head. Matthew was still naked from his shift, and Josh wasn’t keen on the big man’s junk hanging over Vadim’s forehead, but he could bitch about that later. Pressing firmly on Vadim’s chin, Matthew got the vampire’s mouth open, and Josh hurriedly reopened his wound and wedged his wrist in Vadim’s mouth. At least now the blood was going in the right place. Matthew stroked down Vadim’s throat trying to encourage a swallow reflex.

Looking down to Vadim’s legs, Josh watched as Fafnir, Aelfric and Dean were all holding their hands above the torn up flesh. Dean had a soft light that bathed his skin, although the little Omega totally ignored it. The haze coming from Aelfric and Fafnir’s hands was blue. Some of the smaller wounds were healing up, but the major injury was still bleeding out as fast as Josh was trying to drip his life force into the man.

“Dean, pull back,” Matthew ordered. “You’re draining yourself.”

“He fucking saved me,” Dean snapped back. “My healing is supposed to work on all species. I’m not going to let him bleed out.”

Josh felt as ragged as Vadim’s thigh. He could see Dean literally wilt before his eyes and knew he would never forgive himself if something happened to one of his dearest friends. As much as Josh was worried his mate would die, Dean’s sacrifice was too much.

“Maybe Vadim needs some physical help,” he suggested. “The wound is too open. We need some fishing line, or suturing stuff or something.”

“I can sew him up if we had the stuff,” Jax said.

“We’ve got the stuff,” Fafnir added, waving his fingers.  Sure enough the Fae had a wicked looking needle and some fine thread. Josh wasn’t sure what it was made of, but he nodded his head. The action made him woozy and looking down he could see his blood flow had reduced to mere droplets as his skin automatically healed around it.

Lifting his arm from Vadim’s unresponsive mouth, Josh went to slash himself open again, but a big hand on his arm stopped him. “Wait until the wound is closed up,” Matthew said, his eyes full of concern. “No point in good blood feeding the grass.”

Josh knew his friend had a point, but it wasn’t easy sitting there, watching Jax pierce Vadim’s flesh with the ruthless efficiency he had come to respect, while he sat and did nothing. Matthew had pulled Dean aside and was holding the small man, who was trembling, probably from the healing efforts he’d put in.  Aelfric was holding his blue haze over Vadim’s skin while Jax worked, Fafnir pulling the muscles and torn flesh together making things easier for his mate.

Looking around, Josh became aware of how quiet everyone was. The entire pack had formed a protective ring around Vadim and the men working on him, and Josh felt a lump well up in his throat. Swallowing it down was an effort, but Josh insisted. Turning his face to Kane, who stood sentinel with Damien and Griff by his side, he managed to say, “Was anyone else badly hurt?”

“Nothing a shift didn’t cure,” Kane said. “All our visitors have been dispatched and Shawn is on the phone to the Council now, trying to have the remainder of the Atlanta pack disbanded. The Council are furious, but they are more concerned with the magicked humans and the fact that vampires were brought in as well. We’ll get your mate sorted out, and then have a large bonfire I think. I’m not having those body’s contaminating our forest land.”

While Josh knew that the Atlanta pack had to be stopped, and disbanding them was probably a good idea, the beta in him felt a pang of sadness for the mothers, children and young people of the Atlanta pack. It wouldn’t be easy for them to find another pack to take them in. Still, that was what the Council was supposed to deal with. It wasn’t his concern. Looking down he could see that Jax was tying off his thread and that the bleeding was down to the smallest trickle.  The big man looked up and there was a gentleness in Jax’s normally hard violent eyes.

“Try feeding him now,” Jax said softly. “Use your mind link, try and reach him in every way possible. I don’t know enough about vampires to be sure it will make a difference, but anything is possible, right?”

Slashing his wrist, Josh got back to work. He wasn’t going to let his mate just die on him. They hadn’t had nearly enough time together. Fucking man was damn near immortal – it’s about time he started acting like it.