When he’d finished speaking he tipped up Tucker’s chin to kiss him again. Tucker wrapped his arms around Gavin, shivering a little at the words. His father had told him what Gavin would say. The words were always the same andhe’d used that word again, traditional, but to actually hear them had affected him more than he would have thought possible. His eyes were blurry with tears as his father embraced him next, saying to the crowd, “The mating between our alpha and his mate is complete. They are bonded now and forever. ”
Cheers broke out around them and for the next thirty minutes or so, Gavin shook hands and received hugs from just about everybody there, it seemed. A soft hand on his arm made him turn to find Nicky standing beside him with a muscular, good-looking young man at his side. “Tucker, I’d like you to meet my best friend, Logan. His mate is our beta, Ian. ”
Logan smiled at him. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Tucker. Welcome to the pack. ”
“Thanks. Damn, Nicky, are all the mates models or something? I’m beginning to feel pretty inadequate. ”
Nicky laughed and locked his arm through his. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? Seriously, something about the wolf blood of their mate definitely has an effect on humans and even the natural pets. Logan’s human, of course, and he was always cute, but after he mated with Ian, he became ripped like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. ”
“And Nicky tries to embarrass me every chance he gets. Actually, I asked for an introduction so I could warn you about something. Nobody ever told me, so when it happened after my ceremony, it freaked me the hell out. ”
“Told you what?” Tucker said nervously.
“About the shift. It’s the full moon, and in a few minutes, to celebrate, they say, the whole damn pack of wolves will shift and run with the moon. Scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it. ”
As if that was their cue, Gavin came over to Tucker and kissed him fiercely before turning to the crowd, puttin
g back his head and giving an unearthly howl that echoed around the clearing. The other wolves joined in right away, and clothes began flying as they quickly stripped and began to contort their bodies in the change Tucker had only witnessed once before. It had scared him half to death then, but this was even more frightening. Only a few dim torches burned around the ring, so most of the light came from the full moon. One by one the pack members dropped down on all fours and shifted into all manner of wolves, some black, some brown, and one huge silver wolf that bounded past Nicky, butting its head against him as it passed and almost knocking him off his feet. Tucker saw Marissa, near the front row, falling down on all fours, her heavy breasts with their wide brown nipples swinging under her. She glanced over at him and snarled as she shifted into a huge black wolf.
Tucker whirled around to see both his father and his mate already shifted. Gavin’s fur, he remembered, was dark brown. His father’s was gray. Two sets of eyes stared at him as he backed slowly away, unable to stop his feet from moving. The wolf that Tucker knew was Gavin followed slowly after him until Tuckerbacked up against Logan’s solid form. Logan put a hand on his shoulder and whispered to him. “Don’t be afraid. He won’t hurt you. Touch his head. ”
Tucker put out his hand and felt the soft fur on top of the wolf’s head. Gavin’s wolf turned and gave another loud howl, again echoed by the other wolves, all shifted now, before bounding away into the forest, with the others following after him.
“Damn,” Tucker said, his legs still feeling unsteady. “I hope that doesn’t happen too often. ”
“Only every chance they get,” Nicky said with a twist to his pretty mouth. “Personally, I think they just like to get out of cleaning up. C’mon,Logan, let’s start folding up some of these chairs. ”
“I can help, too,” Tucker said. “I’d like to put on some jeans or something, though. I’ll go find my clothes and be back in a minute. ”
Nicky waved him away, and Tucker started back down the moonlit path to the lodge. What had seemed like such a short distance when they first left the lodge in the twilight looked somehow more sinister and a lot farther away in the dark. Tucker looked around uneasily. Without the larger than life presence of the wolves, the place seemed almost deserted, though there were plenty of people still coming and going from the lodge. There was absolutely no threat to be seen anywhere, yet Tucker had a strange feeling of being observed. He hurried to the door of the lodge and looked back behind him on the path, but it was completely deserted. It was then that he heard a soft cry, not from outside, but sounding like it came from behind him, inside the lodge in the big common room.
He ran toward the sound and saw a small figure crumpled on the floor near the front door. Standing over him was a man he didn’t recognize, but who looked vaguely familiar. Trained as a detectiveto notice and remember people’s appearances, Tucker focused for a moment on the fact that the man was tall, about thirty-five or so, with dark hair and regular features. Nothing was remarkable about him at all, except for the fact that he looked just as surprised to see the boy there as Tucker was. Tucker rushed over to the young boy and began checking him for injuries. “What happened?” he asked sharply.
“I-I don’t know. I heard a cry and found him lying here just as you came in. ”
Tucker glanced up at him and noticed he was carrying what looked like a small doctor’s bag. “Are you a doctor?”
Before he could answer, Tucker heard a shout behind him. It was Nicky, and he came rushing over. “Oh my God! What’s happened?”
“Calm yourself, Nicky, dear. I was just getting ready to examine him,” the man said, bending down beside him and opening his bag. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. ”
Nicky, who had fallen down beside the boy, taking his head in his lap looked up at the tall man. “Thank you, Jeremy!” He glanced over at Tucker. “This is Dr. Jeremy Tate. His sister is the mate of one of the gammas. Oh Tucker, could you go find Rory? This boy is his little brother, Adam. ”
Dr. Tate stood up again, still holding his bag in one hand. “No, that won’t be necessary. ”
Nicky looked confused. “But…Rory needs to know what’s happened—Marco too. ”
“Oh they’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, I have to insist that you stay right where you are, Tucker. ” Tucker took a step backward as the doctor pulled a small black oblong from his bag. Tucker recognized the object in his hand right away. That was the smell then that he’d been trying to recognize since he first came on the scene, the slight burning smell. Tate had used a Taser on the boy and was now about to use it on him. His mind registered the fact almost objectively, as if it were happening to someone else.
“Jeremy, what are you doing?” Nicky yelled and tried to jump up in front of him. Tate pushed him aside, like batting away a troublesome fly. He pointed the Taserat Tucker’s chest. “Say goodnight, Tucker. ” There wasn’t even a chance to run as he hit him with it. Tucker had been hit by a Taser once before as part of his training on the police force in Florida, and it was an experience he’d vowed never to repeat. The second the Taser hit him it felt like a four by four struck him in the chest and kept hitting him over and over. He couldn’t drag in a breath and his body tensed like one big cramp as he fell helplessly to the floor, unable to break his own fall. His head bounced on the wooden floor, stunning him even more, and his whole body went into spasms as Tate followed up the Taser with a fist to his head, and the darkness crashed down heavily on top of him.
Chapter Nine
Tucker woke up to darkness so complete that it almost had substance. Disoriented, feeling around frantically, he touched a wall behind him, and quickly scooted up so that his back was against it, and it helped to ground him. He wasn’t tied, but he was naked, the cement icy and damp under his ass. His heart was pounding, beating much faster than normal, whether from his predicament or some other cause he didn’t yet know. His head felt thick and muzzy, and his chest hurt. He knew from experience that the ache in his chest most likely came from the Taser, as did the pain and fuzziness in his head. He felt for a knot on his head and found it quickly near the base of his skull. It was sticky with blood, and he wondered how long he’d been knocked out.
As his eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom, he saw that there actually was one small dirty window, wide, but only about eight or ten inches in height, up on the opposite wall. Outside the window, he could just make out the roots of some type of bush. He was in a basement then, but where? He got shakily to his feet and began to walk the perimeter of the room, holding one hand on the wall to figure out how large a space he was in. He ran into a set of stairs halfway around the space. He crawled carefully to the top and found they led up to a steel door, from the feel of it, locked, of course and with no light seeping around the edges. Making his way back down, he continued around the space until he came back to approximately where he’d started, judging from its position across from the small window. Even though the space wasn’t large, maybe fifteen paces long and fifteen wide, he’d had to stop three times on his way around the room to rest, and his body ached all over like he had a bad case of flu. He hadn’t run into anything—or anyone—on his circuit around the room, so he assumed it was mostly empty. He slid back down the wall to rest for a few moments and try to formulate some kind of plan, but right now he was coming up empty.
A strip of light appearing at the bottom of the steel door startled him, and he thought briefly of trying to hide behind the steps to ambush whoever was coming, but he quickly discarded the idea. He was much too weak to try any such thing. Better to bide his time and see what he was up against. Maybe a chance to escape would present itself.