Primal (Wrong Side of the Tracks 2)

Dane was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps he was inside, taking a nap, as he’d often do on hot days. But their bed was empty. Had he gone to relieve himself away from the homestead?

Jag had taught Dane some bird calls to use when they wanted to find each other, but no matter how many times he cried out through a tube made of his hands, Dane offered no response. Panic was slowly squeezing Jag’s heart, and he wandered away, calling out Dane’s name, even though there was no guarantee the others wouldn’t hear him.

Dane was always cautious when exploring the junkyard, but he no longer wore the collar and could have gone farther than usual, driven by some curious find. What if he’d fallen down a tall heap of junk, and broken his leg or injured himself in some other way?

Jag ran back to the house to grab a first aid kit and stuff it into his backpack, but he stalled at the sight of pages from Dane’s book cut up and arranged on the little table Dane had fashioned out of a box and the side wall of an old washing machine.

With a buzz at the back of his mind, Jag stared at the figures of Captain America and the Winter Soldier cut out from the pages of the book he’d gotten for his mate at Rosen and Shane’s home. They were facing one another on the table above a row of words, which had also been extracted from a book and arranged into several sentences. Jag had no idea what it said, but there was a large ‘!’ at the end, which in his experience expressed a scream.

Heat bubbled up inside him as he looked back at the two heroes regarding each other with intense, angry stares, but no matter how unwilling he was to believe the facts, this was a message. One that was angry, growly, and full of hate.

And that could only mean one thing—his mate had deserted him at the first chance he got.

Jag’s heart beat like mad, and Frank’s anger now seemed like a tiny inconvenience in the face of Dane’s betrayal. Torn between fury and despair, Jag grabbed his spear and ran out at top speed.

Chapter 12 – Dane

Dane’s throat felt as if it were in the grip of an ever-tightening noose that might take away his breath at any moment. Maybe he should have waited longer, until Jag trusted him enough to visit Dane’s family alongside him, but it had already been too long. He didn’t even want to imagine what kind of thoughts had been passing through his parents’ and siblings’ minds since his disappearance.

None of them would have believed that he’d just gone and abandoned them to live out the rest of his life on greener pastures, which meant that for the past three weeks, they'd endured knowing that he was either dead or abducted. He couldn’t let them suffer like this a minute longer! But while their budget must have been very tight in the past few weeks, he’d come bearing gifts—the money from the mattress, which he’d tied to his body under the oversized T-shirt.

His body was sore from all the rough sex he and Jag had been having, and the jog through uneven terrain hadn’t helped, but Dane followed the same way he'd taken during the hunt, now without having to waste time and energy on scouting. Despite the growing soreness in his limbs, he was determined to reach the fence and find a way out of this place.

Perhaps he should have left as soon as Jag was gone, but it could have been a test, so instead of running off, Dane took his time cutting out words and pictures from the comic books Jag had brought him, because he intended to be back and needed to let his man know that.

This past month had been quite the revelation, and while Dane had been annoyed with many things or angry at Jag’s beliefs that benefited neither of them, he’d found the simple life beyond the reach of society calming, and the unflinching affection Jag was offering—the answer to needs he didn’t know he had. The fact that the junkyard was a convenient way to hide was yet another reason to return once his family knew what was going on, because while Dane’s bruises might have healed, the thought of accidentally meeting Rob was like frost spreading in his heart.

Most people would have been surprised by his readiness to replace one toxic, dominant man with another, but they didn’t know Jag the way Dane did. Yes, he’d kept Dane by force, but for all his misguided reasons, Jag was kind at heart, and had taken care of Dane the best way he knew. He was intense, and rough, and sexy, and while his way of life was so very incompatible with the real world, there was an inner logic to it that gave Dane a sense of safety.