Jacks, Marcy - Handcuffed to the Werewolf [DeWitt's Pack 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Read online

A chain. A big-ass heavy chain with an actual shackle on, something that looked like it might have seen more use five hundred years ago, was around his left wrist.

  He lifted his arm, letting the chain clink and rattle, and following it with his eyes over to where the other end was connected.

  To his mate.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  16 Marcy Jacks

  Chapter Three

  Jason only marginally began to calm down a few minutes after the man, werewolf, shape-shifting-whatever, woke up and started talking to him in a calm language he could understand. Not getting up and tearing his limbs off and drinking his blood or anything, the guy, Mick, had seemed just as confused as Jason was.

  Maybe it was that reason that his heart had started to slow down the crazy beat it had been drumming, or maybe it was the soothing sound of his voice, or even because Mick was the first person to actually speak to Jason instead of ignoring him altogether.

  “Why are we here?” Jason asked, though he already knew Mick had no answer for him. It was just the first thing to pop out of his mouth, the question he wanted answered the most. “I mean, do you know those people out there? Why chain us together?”

  That was the most he’d spoken that wasn’t a yelling scream since he came here.

  Mick was playing around with the chain that connected them. He grabbed a couple of the links between his hands and tugged, but nothing happened. “My guess is that they’re hunters. This is too elaborate for a rival pack.”

  “Rival pack?” Jason said. There were more of these guys?

  Mick nodded then dropped his chains with a heavy clang on the cement ground in disgust, which only made the cement chip. Then his eyes landed on Jason’s end of the chain. “You got a smaller one. I’m guessing you’re not a…you’re not like me?”

  Jason shook his head.

  “What’s your name?”

  Handcuffed to the Werewolf 17

  “Jason Snowe.”

  “Pretty,” Mick replied then turned away quickly.

  Jason was glad he looked away, because his face heated up at the compliment. No one had ever said anything about him was pretty before, and though he’d always associated the word with what little girls and women liked to be called, he found that he liked it, too.

  Mick cleared his throat, then turned back to look at him. “Can I

  come closer to you? The chains on my end are too thick, but I can try

  and break those handcuffs.”

  Every muscle in Jason’s body went tight. Should he or shouldn’t

  he?

  “I promise I won’t try and hurt you. I don’t know what they told

  you about me, but I would never want to hurt you.”

  The absolute mind fuck was that Jason believed him, and why shouldn’t he? Mick was chained up, the same as Jason. Maybe those werewolf hunters up there thought Jason was a werewolf, too, and that was why he was in here.

  Though, how anyone could have ever mistaken him, grouped him in the same camp as the perfect being standing before him, he would never know.

  Jason nodded. “Okay.”

  Mick smiled a little, and then came forward, the chain dragging behind him as he neared his target and got down onto his knees.

  If Jason had thought this man was big before, now, up close and personal, he was frickin’ huge! Jason could smell him, too, the scent of sweat and maybe even the faintest hint of wet dog.

  “Sorry. I know I need a bath,” Mick said, keeping his eyes firmly glued to Jason’s hand. They were the prettiest shade of amber Jason had ever seen.

  Then his words registered in Jason’s brain. “Can you read my

  mind?”

  Mick halted right before he could reach Jason’s shackled wrist.

  “No, I just thought it was obvious that I’m not in the best condition

  18 Marcy Jacks

  right now.”

  “All things considered, I can’t blame you,” Jason replied, thinking of his sweaty ride in that dirty van, bag over his head, and then being dumped in here with all the dust, rocks, and mystery stains. “Bet I’m not much better.”

  Mick’s grin showed his teeth. “I can handle it, don’t you worry.

  Now let me see—” He reached out with both hands to take hold of the

  set of handcuffs that kept Jason’s small wrist attached to the huge

  chain Mick wore.

  He yelled and yanked his hands back the second his skin made contact with the metal, shaking his fingers out, glaring at it, and sucking on the sudden welts that popped up on his skin.

  “What? What is it?” Jason asked, searching for anything on the cuffs that would do that to him.

  Mick shook his head, still sucking on his wounds. “Motherfucking silver is what it is. I’m not going to be able to separate us.”

  Jason’s heart fell like it had when he first saw this place. “Are they going to kill us?”

  “Don’t you worry, baby, I won’t let them.”

  Jason was too concerned over whether he would live through the night to care about Mick’s odd choice in pet name. Or the fact that he’d used one at all, considering they didn’t know each other.

  Mick got back to his feet and started looking around their circular prison, playing with all the rings that had been drilled into the walls, the scratches in the cement, as though searching for some secret way

  out.

  Jason was about to open his mouth and tell him that there was nothing there, that the men who were in here before had to use rope ladders to get out, when a bright light shuddered on above them.

  Jason had grown so accustomed to the dark that for a second it blinded him. A low, animalistic growl had him shooting to his feet, pressing his back against the cement wall. “Mick?” he called.

  “I’m here.”

  Handcuffed to the Werewolf 19

  “Friends already?” said that same gruff voice from before, and spider legs shivered up Jason’s back.

  “Deacon!” Mick yelled. “You dirty, evil, no-good son of a bitch! ”

  Mick had said that last bit so loud and fast it was like one long, hateful word.

  “Get us the fuck out of here! Now!” Mick snarled.

  When Jason was able to focus his eyes again, he noted the way Mick’s muscles had tensed up, becoming so tight that the veins in his body were practically popping through the skin. Hair was slowly sprouting through his pores, and his hands had become long and bony, fingers changing into needlelike claws.

  Holy shit. Jason was glad this guy wasn’t interested in eating him.

  “I think not,” Deacon said, keeping his hands behind his back, still wearing that strange black costume from before. He was just as big, if not bigger than Mick was, and definitely meaner looking.

  There were other men behind him, also not bothering to hide theirfaces in those long cloaks anymore, and Jason watched enough TV to know that when that happened, your captors had no intention of letting you leave alive.

  Mick looked behind Deacon to the other men who stood guard. “I would suggest you got yourself a new pack, but they all smell human. Are you going to offer to change them if they work for you? That it?” Mick demanded.

  Deacon hooted. “Oh no! These are most definitely hunters. But, as you can see, we’ve cut a deal. You and James killed…what was it, six? I can’t remember the number, but it was decent number of their

  friends. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.”

  “He’s a werewolf, too?” Jason asked.

  The next thing he felt was the odd sting of having a red laser light pointed at his eye. He knew what it was the moment he was able to look up and see one of the cloaked figured pointing a hard-core-looking gun at him.

  The sound of rushing feet and clinking chains was the next thing

  20 Marcy Jacks

  he was aware of before Mick stepped in front of him. “Don’t you even fucking think about it!” he snarled.

  Deacon narrowed his eyes.
“Protective of that one, are we?”

  “Unchain us,” Mick demanded.

  “No,” he replied simply.

  “Then let him go.” Mick pointed his with hand behind him to Jason. “He’s a human who has nothing to do with this.”

  “If I’m looking at things right, and I usually am, he has a lot to do with this.”

  “I don’t know any of you,” Jason said. “I didn’t even know werewolves existed until an hour ago!”

  As usual, the people in charge all seemed perfectly comfortable with ignoring everything Jason had to say. The absolute helpless feeling that came along with it was enough to make his blood boil. He didn’t say anything else just in case someone decided to point another gun at him.

  “Why is he even here?” Mick asked. “There’s no way you would have known what he was when you picked me off and brought me here.”

  “We didn’t!” Deacon seemed to be laughing about it. “That’s the hilarious bit. What are the odds of that? Right? I still wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t stepped in front of my man’ s gun.”

  Deacon glared down at Mick. “He was chosen because my new friends here have been searching for someone in town that no one would miss. He moved in not too long ago, and aside from coming and going to his job at the gas station, he never leaves his apartment. Even his phone records show that he doesn’t call anyone.”

  Jason wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Leave it to this guy to announce what a loser he was.

  Mick growled. Jason wanted to ask him so badly what it was these people thought he was, but survival instincts screamed that he wait.

  “Well, that’s enough talking for now. I just wanted you to know who you would be answering to for the next several days.”

  Handcuffed to the Werewolf 21

  Days?

  “Why chain us together?” Mick called. “At least tell me that!”

  Deacon stopped midturn, looking back down over his shoulder, a grim smile on his face.

  “Mostly that was for fun, and to slow you down in case you decided to escape since I know you’re against killing innocenthumans and all.”

  The sarcasm he used when saying the word innocent gave Jason an idea of how much the word repulsed hum.

  “And,” he continued, “for, if you get desperate enough should James not pay your ransom right away, something to eat.”

  22 Marcy Jacks

  Chapter Four

  “I’m not going to eat you,” Mick said at the wide-eyed look Jason was giving him. He’d gone so pale Mick feared he might pass out.

  All things considered, the guy was being a trooper.

  He’d also, apparently, had enough. “What do they think I am? Why did they throw me in here with you? What the hell is going on?”

  “Shh.” Mick stepped forward, putting his hands on Jason’s shoulders and looking down into those deep dark eyes. He was glad when Jason was able to relax under his touch.

  He couldn’t hide this from him. Mick would like to bring him into the truth as gently as possible, the way James had done with Corey, but he couldn’t. They needed to survive, and to do that, they both had to be perfectly aware that they were each a weakness to each other. Then maybe they could really work together on getting out of here.

  “Werewolves take life mates. Sometimes we know our mates are

  nearby by the smell, sometimes we can tell on sight. Our wise woman would say that it’s a spiritual connection, but I don’t really have any idea how it works. I looked at you, and I saw my mate. Deacon noticed it, too, by the way I reacted, and for that I’m sorry. But I promise you I will not hurt you, I will get us out of here, and if you want nothing to do with any of this afterwards, I will understand that, too.”

  It was one thing for Mick to be sexually attracted to his own sex, but another thing entirely to take a mate that was of the same sex. The purpose of even having mates was because Mick was, supposedly, getting ready to breed and have his babies. When James had found Corey, he’d been shocked as hell to see that the mate he’d been

  Handcuffed to the Werewolf 23

  sniffing out had been a male. Old Maggie, the pack’s wise woman,

  didn’t much understand it either.

  But in her usual way of following the advice of ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,‘ she told James to just go along with it.

  Then Tristan, one of their omegas, had mated with a hunter named Isaac.

  Now this.

  Maybe mating with someone’s own sex wasn’t as rare as it was thought to be, rather more kept under wraps by packs that were doing their best to keep their numbers strong.

  Jason shoved Mick’s hands away, and for the first time he realized that his mate had been speaking while he’d been busy worrying about everything else.

  “I’m sorry, I was miles away.” He’d been thinking about what a rare thing it was for him to have a mate who was as beautiful as Jason.

  Jason’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily, and despite the danger, or maybe because of it, Mick’s arousal soared at the sight, his blood pumping to his cock. He wanted to lick that neck, but of course, he did nothing.

  It wouldn’t do to scare his mate any more than necessary. Mick had to remind himself that maybe Jason wasn’t even gay and would not want to be tied to a creature who, inadvertently, was the cause for his imprisonment.

  “I…will think about everything you just said, and maybe we can talk about it after we get out of here.”

  He’ll think about it. It was uplifting and disheartening all at the

  same time.

  Mick would take it. “Agreed.”

  They both walked their separate ways, as much as they were able with the chain linking them together, both searching along the cement walls for cracks or weaknesses that Mick could already tell were not there. It was always better to go over these things once or twice more

  24 Marcy Jacks

  in case he missed something, though.

  “So who’s going to pay your ransom?”

  “James, my pack leader. He’s an alpha.” Mick answered, and then, just because he wanted to show off to his mate, said, “I am, too, but because I’m his second in command, I’m called a beta.”

  “Oh.” Jason nodded offhandedly and kept on feeling along the walls with his hands. The lights had been left on for them, but they were fluorescent, and the bright, fake light nearly hindered as much as it helped.

  “What’s your ransom? I mean, will it be enough to get us both out?”

  Jason was thinking money. It was a natural, human assumption, and also wrong. “I can already tell what Deacon wants. About four weeks ago he tried to make an omega in our pack a part of his harem, and he didn’t quite get the chance to finish right before a group of hunters came in and destroyed mostly everyone in his pack. He wasn’t the best of alpha leaders, so, from what I heard, the omegas who survived all made a run for it, going on their own or letting other pack alphas pick them up.”

  “So he’s going to want that person who got away?”

  Mick sighed. “Most likely. James will want to save us, but he’s not going to hand over one of his own to do it, and the others sure as shit wouldn’t stick by him if he did. We’ll be on our own for a little while.”

  “Great.”

  “I can get us out of this. This,” Mick said, lifting his hand up to get the chain in view, “will slow us down, but I can do it.”

  “How did you even get caught? How can a human catch a werewolf?”

  The disbelief in his voice made Mick ashamed that he had been

  caught. “Humans can do a whole lot of things when they put their minds to it,” he said. “Hunters wouldn’t hunt us if they didn’t succeed in killing us once in a while.”

  Handcuffed to the Werewolf 25

  Jason flushed and looked away. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” They definitely had bigger things to deal with at the moment. “See those slashes right there?”


  Jason looked to where Mick pointed. Three long claw marks had been imbedded horizontally into the concrete wall and had not been filled in with plaster or more concrete.

  “Did another werewolf make that?” Jason asked.

  “While in his wolf form from the look of it.” Judging from the height of the marks, Mick’s wolf would be just a little taller than the previous victim of this hell pit, too.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that I might be able to transform and make another set of claw marks just above those ones, and we might be able to climb out. I can’t jump that high, and I can’t throw you to the top of the hole. I doubt the chain reaches that far anyway, and you wouldn’t be able to pull me up if it did.”

  “We have to go together.”

  Mick nodded.

  “Your wolf won’t…”

  He didn’t need Jason to finish that. “I’m not a wild wolf. Our

  minds are one and the same. It’s just a different shape I take. You’ll

  be fine.”

  Jason breathed a heavy sigh. “Okay.”

  Then he seemed to think about something. “What if the concrete

  chips while you’re cutting it?”

  There wasn’t even just that to worry about. This place looked like a do-it-yourself project that had been badly executed. Some of that concrete could flake away while they were climbing it, and they could both slice their fingers clean through. Then Deacon or any one of his men could come back, and they would both be absolutely fucked.

  “That won’t happen,” Mick said.

  26 Marcy Jacks

  Chapter Five

  The main concern would be if anyone heard him making the long scratching noises that he was, but no one came to stop him. Not when he transformed, not when he lifted himself onto his hind legs to make the loud swipes, not when he jumped higher than that to make more, and not when he shifted back into a man either.

  He kept waiting for someone to come back and shoot him in the face, but they never did.