Jacks, Marcy - The Hunter's Omega Mate [DeWitt's Pack 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (9 page)

side.

Fingers. The word made him want to shudder. It wasn’t much better than the alternative, and was still a huge violation, but if Tristan was happy, then Isaac wasn’t about to take that away.

He was all right, and that was all that mattered.

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They pulled each other close, hugging naked on their knees. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He’d get to why exactly Tristan would turn himself over to a wolf that wanted to rape him later.

Maybe they’d get lucky,  and Marty would find and skin that son of a bitch so Isaac wouldn’t have to.

“Come on, the vans are a little farther down the slope,” Isaac said,  getting to his feet and pulling Tristan up with him.

Tristan didn’t speak until Isaac finished putting on his  clothes.  “My pack is closer.”

Isaac looked at him.

“Not the pack we just left,” he said quickly. “I mean my first  pack, with James and the others. They can hide us.”

Suddenly something sour entered Isaac’s mouth. “I’m not taking  you back to any wolf pack.”

“They’re not like Deacon and his pack. James is a good leader.”

“Which is exactly why you ran away from him, right?”

Tristan drew himself up, inhaling sharply at the jab. “I left  because I didn’t want to put pressure on them with Deacon constantly  attacking, not because I was afraid they would hand me over.”

“Yet you think they’ll be eager to keep you safe now? With me  beside you? I’m a hunter, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He clipped on his last holster at his waist at those words.

Tristan glared at him. “I didn’t forget it, but I need to tell James  that your friends are coming for them. The only reason why I went to  Deacon was to join our packs so we could stand a chance at surviving  when you came to attack us.”

Now Isaac was starting to get pissed off. Why couldn’t he just  understand? “You’re only saying those things because you don’t  know any better. You’re not like the rest of them, otherwise you  wouldn’t have tried to abandon them. Werewolves are evil fucking  creatures, and there’s a reason why hunters  kill them.”

More and more, Tristan looked like he wanted to punch him.  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. James, Corey, Mick,

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none of them are like that. Not one of them. It’s easy for you to call us  evil when you’re the one chasing us down with  guns in your hands.”

“I watched my whole family get devoured by werewolves!” Isaac  screamed back, and just for good measure he grabbed Tristan by the  neck and shook him a little. “So don’t you fucking tell me I don’t  know what I’m talking about!”

That seemed to get his attention, and Tristan’s mouth gaped a  little. “I’m sorry,” he said, though that stubborn fire was still in his  eyes. “I’m sorry that someone hurt you, but I’m not like that and  neither are the people I grew up with. We don’t eat people.”

Isaac shoved Tristan away from him, angry and emotional. He  started to pace around the little shaded clearing where they’d had sex,  wishing this could be a whole lot easier for them. That Tristan would  just let Isaac take him away someplace where he could be  hidden  from werewolves who wanted to rape him and hunters who wanted to  kill him.

“How close is your pack to here?” He couldn’t believe he was  even thinking about this.

“’Bout five minutes from here. Deacon was always fighting with  James over their land rights.”

Christ, a territory war. He tried to think about where the vans  were, and he had to admit they were a good deal farther than five  minutes away. It would take them at least another solid hour of  running, and there was no guarantee Marty, Dale, or any of the others  hadn’t been spared to run back and make sure that Isaac wasn’t  heading straight for their rides to mess things up for them.

“If I walk onto werewolf territory, I do it with my guns in my  hands,” Isaac said finally.

Tristan licked his lips and nodded. “Okay, we just won’t go too  far in. Someone can run to the main house and bring James to us. That  way, if you think you’re in danger, you can just run for it and no one  has to get hurt.”

Isaac wasn’t at all sure that, just running off the pack territory,

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would be enough to keep the wolves from ripping him into fleshy

pieces if they absolutely wanted to.

He nodded anyway. “Agreed, but then we leave.”

He was glad when Tristan nodded back. “All right.”

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Chapter Ten

In his whole life, Tristan never thought he would see the day where he would willingly show a hunter where his pack lived and then personally escort him onto the property.

There was no help for it, though. Isaac knew how those men worked. He would be able to tell James what precautions were best to take once they found this pack here.

And if they questioned any member of Deacon’s pack before killing them, they would know that another pack of werewolves were close by.

As it was, Tristan was pretty impressed with the way things were working out so far. One of the picnic tables had been brought out for their meeting at the very border of the land, and he, Isaac, James, and  Corey were all sitting down having their discussion. Mick stood, leaning against a pine tree that had had its lower branches stripped away, watching Isaac carefully. Several other alphas were also walking around, pretending to inspect this or that, but were really glaring at Isaac.

Isaac had, in a show of good faith, taken off his guns ten minutes ago and set them in the middle of the table for James to see, though still within easy reach should he need them.

James just continued to give Isaac a narrow look, the look that said he was thinking.

“He saved my life, James,” Tristan reminded him, gently.

Technically, James was no longer his pack alpha anymore, yet because of the way the claiming ceremony had gone down, neither was Deacon.

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Despite this, he still spoke to the man with as much respect as he always had.

“Hmm,” James replied, still staring at Isaac.

That response clearly made Isaac antsy, and Tristan grabbed his hand below the table, hoping it would help.

“Look, I told you where they are, and I told you what they’re going to do if they find you. Whether you use that information or not doesn’t matter to me,” Isaac snapped.

Mick stood away from the tree, but James waved him back.

It was enough to make Isaac tense up even more. Tristan gripped his hand tighter, silently willing him to not reach for his guns.
 
Don’t grab for them. Don’t make it worse.

“Isaac,” James said, finally speaking. “As you can see from the scars on my face, I’ve dealt with hunters before.”

James licked his thumb and straightened out one his black eyebrows. The one that was half missing.

“So I see,” Isaac agreed.

“In my experience with them,” James continued as though Isaac had not spoken. “They shoot first and ask questions later, leading me to believe that this is some kind of gamble you’re making. Gambling that I won’t kill you and will take you up on the advice you’re so generously offering, or,” he said, looking at Tristan, “you might have actually fallen in love with one of my omegas. Either option is pretty unbelievable, I’ll tell you that.”

James then turned his sharp eyes to Tristan. “Which is it?”

Tristan gulped. Right. Should have figured this question was coming. “We’re mated.”

Though he didn’t look, he could still see the way Isaac sharply turned to stare at him from his peripheral vision.

“I’m guessing that means he didn’t know,” James said, more and more becoming interested in the conversation they were having.

“When did this happen?” Corey asked.

Tristan could only shrug. He didn’t even have the words to

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describe it.

“That’s impossible,” Isaac said, still staring like a gaping fish at

Tristan. “I’m not a werewolf.”

“I wasn’t a werewolf when James mated with me,” Corey said.

Tristan had to speak up before Isaac got the wrong idea. “No one  is going to turn you into a werewolf just because we’re mates,” he  said, rubbing Isaac’s hand beneath the table until the tense muscles  relaxed. “It’s not like that.”

“Good,” Isaac said.

Tristan didn’t know whether he should be insulted about that or

not.

“In the rest of my experience with hunters,” James said, getting  the conversation back on track. “They don’t leave their normal, applepie lives for no reason. At least, most of them don’t,” he added. “I  don’t know who hurt you or why, but my pack is peaceful. We’re just  trying to get by, and seeing as how you have nowhere to go as of this  morning, and saved Tristan from a fate I certainly wasn’t hoping for  him, and offering us information that might prove to be useful, I can  offer you a room to stay here. You can both bunk up in Tristan’s old  room, seeing as how you’re mated and all,” he said, smiling and  getting to his feet.

“What do you say?” he asked.

Tristan thought it was a great idea, and he wanted nothing better  than to say yes.

If Isaac thought his life was in danger should he be staying,  however, that would just make him antsy and dangerous to be around  for the other werewolves who lived here.

Tristan looked at him, eagerly awaiting his answer.

Isaac bit his lips together. “Only if I can keep my weapons.”

James nodded. “Fair enough. Be warned though, no one here carries a gun. If someone were to get accidentally shot…” He trailed off, letting the rest  of his sarcastic message sink in with a glare.

Isaac nodded. “Understood.”

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All in all, no one had killed each other yet, and Tristan was feeling pretty damn good about the thought of sleeping in his own bed tonight.

* * * *

“You didn’t tell them about the money,” Corey said.

James pulled his mate close, sticking his nose into that blond hair  for a sniff. Smelled good.

“What money?” he asked.

“The five grand you put into Tristan’s account. You said they had  nowhere to go. If they’d known about that ”—

“What they don’t know right this second definitely won’t hurt  anything. ’Sides, I want to keep an eye on them for now. Can’t do that  if they take off, can I?”

* * * *

“You can put those away, you know. No one is going to attack  you here.”

Tristan glared down  at the Glocks that Isaac kept his hands on,  even though they were still in their holsters, just in case.

Tristan was talking as though the possibility of attack was  outrageous, as though even the most gentle of werewolves wouldn’t  want to take a chunk out  of a hunter.

Even Tristan thought Isaac would kill him the first time they both

realized what the other was.

“It’s not just them I’m worried about. Marty’s still out there,”  Isaac said, which was perfectly true, and the other half of the reason  why he kept his hands on his guns.

Tristan made a disapproving noise but said nothing else. Isaac  wasn’t in the mood to argue with him.

He was too busy looking into the eyes, some frightened, others

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shocked and angry, of the many werewolves he passed as they both

went deeper and deeper into the pack territory.

Isaac had never had the chance to see a pack up close and personal  like this. He knew everyone was given a job to help support the  group, but had never actually seen the omegas carrying their laundry  baskets, the children shrieking at each other while running through the  trees, or watched as the alphas came home, walking naked with their  catch in hand. Mostly rabbits and ducks from the look of it.

If he had to guess, he’d say that the omegas carrying their clothes  were going to a stream somewhere to wash them in.

“This pack doesn’t have a lot, does it?”

Tristan shrugged. “We get by. Not like we need to have the  perfect lawn or the newest truck in order to survive.”

That was true, and no one here had the look of someone who went

without food, either.

Finally, Tristan brought him to one of the houses that seemed to surround a large round clearing in the middle. The grass around here was patchy and littered with weeds, but in the clearing it was just dry brown dirt with a couple more picnic tables. Probably where pack meetings and socials were held. Definitely where the picnic table  Isaac had sat on earlier had come from.