Page 5 of Safe in His Arms

The man’s thick thumb trailed across his jaw and Devon wanted to puke. But his body went limp and Devon prepared for the inevitable.

“Don’t worry boy, you’ll like the feel of my thick cock in your ass.”

Goddess, he wanted to die.

He should have died.

But Devon knew that never prayer never worked. The goddess didn’t listen to him. Too bad he was too much of a coward to kill himself.

Chapter Three

Roman

Roman wasn’t sure why he’d stayed as long as he had. Once he’d been done eating he’d wanted to leave, but his wolf refused.

The stubborn fucker.

Roman knew that he could have left, but he also knew every time he ignored his wolf, he got himself in shit.

Hell, he’d practically closed down the bar. Even Jason the bouncer had left. If he’d been drinking it would have made sense to him, but nope, after the first beer, he’d switched to water.

People had left slowly until Ro was the only one left. He figured maybe his wolf was trying to protect the bar, but everything had gone pretty chill. Now it was almost midnight and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

When it looked like Rex was only open because of him, Ro got up to leave, he’d paid his tab a while ago. His wolf seemed on board, so Roman went for it.

Ro walked towards his truck. He was almost there when he heard a sound. He paused and looked around, but didn’t hear anything.

Ro shrugged and figured it was one of those night sounds. He was about to move again when a gust of wind blew his way bringing the most tempting scent he’d ever smelled, and if Ro hadn’t controlled himself, his wolf would have broken out.

As amazing as the scent was, it also smelled all wrong, as if it was tinged with fear, making it almost metallic. At least, that was the best way Ro could describe it.

Ro didn’t even realize he was moving in the direction of the scent until he was almost upon it. It was pure instinct. He couldn’t have stopped if he tried. He needed to figure out what it was, where it was coming from.

Roman couldn’t remember ever feeling like this, but his wolf instinct was in control even though he was still on two legs. The one thing both he and his wolf could agree on was that he needed to find where that smell was coming from—andnow.

Ro moved like he was in a trance, or maybe on the hunt. That was how it felt, as if his world had narrowed to just that scent. Everything else felt like background noise.

Ro came to the alley that both the bar and the town bakery beside it shared. The alley had been blocked by a dumpster, but Ro pulled it forward easily.

What he saw there had him enraged.

Before Ro knew what he was doing, he pulled the big man away from his prey. A smaller man was hunched in the corner trying to make himself as small as possible. With the dumpster gone, the smaller man was no longer trapped, but he couldn’t seem to move.

All Ro’s instincts wanted to check on the smaller man who still had panic and fear rolling off him, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what had been about to happen there. And when Ro registered what the scent meant, and with the scene in front of him, he totally lost it.

Even though Ro controlled his shift and stayed in human form, he wasn’t human. All his instincts said kill, maim, destroy this human for having the audacity to touch his mate.

Anger like he’d never felt flowed through Ro and he let it out on the big man. That thought the man could not only touch Ro’s mate, but without fucking permission.

It didn’t register that the man beneath him was weaker, Ro wanted to kill him, spill his blood.

Ro felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and growled. When he saw his mate move away from him in terror, that seemed to snap Ro out of his anger fog, or whatever that had been. He’d never had a moment like this before in his life.

Ro took a deep breath before focusing on his mate and speaking. “Please, don’t be scared of me, I would never hurt you.”

The smaller man, his mate, was caught in his terror though, so Ro sent some calming alpha pheromones his way. When he was breathing a little easier, Ro said to him, “Go inside and tell Rex to call the sheriff.”

Instead of moving to do his bidding, that seemed to send his mate into more of a panic, “No, please no.”