Under Sean’s Protection by Lisa Oliver

Chapter Twelve

Kyle fingered the stitches on his neck. The bathroom light was bright enough but due to the angle of his neck appearing in the mirror, it was hard to see.

I’m so sorry, Sean.

The bite mark was all he had from Sean, and if Kyle was going to die, and it seemed likely, he wasn’t about to let them take the one tangible memory he had of his claiming away. He pulled at the stitching with his fingernails for what seemed like hours until one of the knots came loose.

“There you are,” he said at last.

He carefully pulled the sutures out of his skin, not wanting to tear the skin and ruin the bite mark. He was pleased it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. Maybe the drugs are still numbing my pain. His eyesight was a bit better, and he knew his wolf was there under his skin, so something was wearing off.

How did they get the drugs into me in the first place? He thought back over the breakfast. Pancakes. Eggs with that awful smell. Potatoes. Bacon.

Right. The bacon. Sausages. More pig.

Kyle remembered that Janelle made a big point of saying she didn’t eat them. They must have been laced.

Once the stitches were all out, Kyle gently washed the surface of his precious bite with warm water and soap. He was determined to remove any trace of their tampering.

Fuck, Sean, I wish you were here holding me right now.

Kyle tried to imagine how his mate would handle the situation he was in. He wouldn’t have gotten taken in the first place, Kyle reasoned – Sean wasn’t likely to have a father who’d sign away his rights to the council and willingly just hand him over like he was a bag of sugar.

And while it was nice to think that if Sean was able to figure out where Kyle was, he wasn’t just going to show up and kick down the door, scoop Kyle up in his hunky arms, and carry him off on the back of his motorbike. Though that would be nice. Kyle sighed.

What would Sean do? Kyle only had a limited knowledge of assassins full stop, and it wasn’t as though he’d had a lot of chance to learn about his new mate, but thinking about his mate logically gave him focus.

Controlling emotions. Yes, Sean would do that. Acting emotionally caused mistakes and poor judgement. Kyle knew that from living with an abusive father. He replayed the scene when he first met Sean. How a complete stranger with a dizzying scent came into his home, right in the middle of a shitty situation, and stayed cool.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Kyle crossed his legs, and tried to breathe deeply. He figured that was the best way to gain control of his emotions and keep calm. It wasn’t easy when Kyle kept remembering how some crazy woman was going to feed his cock and balls to pigs in a matter of hours.

Work. That’s it. Whenever Kyle was working on a construction project, he was relaxed. Even if the work was strenuous. Even when it was stressful with deadlines and demanding clients who don’t know the difference between a hammer and hacksaw, Kyle stayed cool. He breathed himself into that zone.

When Sean gets here, I’ll be ready. Yep, when not if. Even a small progress was better than nothing at all.

/~/~/~/~/

Sean left his bike off the highway, just inside the tree line of the forest. He quickly covered it with some branches and leaves and set off on foot to the spot where he was sure that truffles grew. Relying on a combination of scent and memory, his wolf eager to help now he was actually doing something, Sean was flooded with memories of his time with Janelle.

She used to bring me here. Janelle. Following her damn pigs.

She was the housewife from my dream.

The memories wouldn’t stop, and Sean shuddered at some of them. Having sex in the cold, damp woods – always a pleasure for a wolf shifter attracted to his partner – a nightmare when on a job. She was warm, once he was inside her, Sean remembered that and hated how that memory made him feel. The shit I had to do in order to fulfill a damn contract!

Thank the Fates Ranger met Aiden when he did. It was thanks to his fellow assassin that the council backed off all the assassins after Ranger was ordered to kill his mate over an inheritance deal. Aiden and Ranger offered them a home and Sean was looking forward to building a new life for himself without being ordered to do anything by anyone else. Meeting Kyle had doubled that resolve, so now he just had to get him back.

Sean was getting closer now. He could smell the truffles and certain landmarks were becoming more familiar. A fallen tree, already covered in moss and new life back then, looked exactly the same. It’s funny how time works, Sean thought as he kept moving. I’ve changed so much over the years, worrying about who I was and what I wanted. But that tree? It doesn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone and it hasn’t changed a bit.

Janelle had changed too. Not that Sean had given her a thought since the job was done, but seeing her on the video earlier, he could tell that she had aged considerably. She’d tried to hide it, of course, with hair, make up, and wardrobe. Like some fading movie star who can’t bear to be out of the spotlight.

Sean considered his boots, tight faded jeans, and leather jacket. I look exactly the same. Probably wearing the same clothes as I was back then, too.

He was at the spot. Sean bent down and rubbed his hand over the holes where the truffles had been recently dug up. The soil was moist and fragrant. Looking up, he saw that the sun had about two hours left. He investigated the ground around the base of the old oak tree. The truffle patch, she called it.

Hoof marks from the pigs were visible all around. Sean scanned them, working his way out in a spiral pattern, trying to work out which direction the footprints came from and where they, hopefully, returned.

Sean got down low and sniffed deeply. Yes, he could smell the pigs. A lingering scent of a person as well, likely a shifter, but Sean couldn’t be sure. The scent of the pigs and the truffles were overpowering everything else.

Finally, he spotted a boot print. Just the heel, from the shape of it. The rest of the print had worn away. It had been a day, maybe more since someone was here.

Come on, Sean, think like a tracker.

Glancing up at the sky again, Sean breathed down his panic at the waning daylight, and tried to stay focused on the task.

Take your time. Don’t rush. Be smart.

He kept repeating one of Tron’s earliest mantras as he repeated his spiral search.

There! Broken branches. Probably someone trying to wrangle the pigs back. Those stubborn bastards never wanted to leave a food source, unless they were forced. Sean looked up and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment and settled his pulse.

When he opened them again, the path was clear, as if laid out by breadcrumbs, or in this case, pig trotters.

West. Following the path of the sun.

That’s where Kyle would be.