Page 16 of Tamed Wolf (Rejected Mates of the Shelter #4)

Blake, Now

“Are we seriously going to a strip club when we’re on the clock?”

“I’m not even responding to that. You know exactly why I’m driving there.”

Brooks sighs and leans back in his seat more. “I just feel like there’s a better time to do this, that’s all.”

“I don’t know how you’re not going out of your skin, man. It’s weird; we had her for a fucking night and a day, and it’s been four days since we dropped her off, but it feels like something really important is missing now.”

“Do you really think the goddess would grant us another mate?”

The hope in his voice kills me, but I was right there with him when everything fell apart with Arabella. “I figure there’s a damn good reason we all felt so strongly for Lark the second we saw her, even before that, actually, if you consider the fact that we were all attracted to the scent of her and were able to pick it out of the hundreds of other scents floating in that club.”

“We shouldn’t have let her leave our house. It feels like it was a stupid move to let her go back to the shelter, even if that’s what she insisted she wanted.”

“Yeah, well, if we’re able to track her down, we’ll fix that.”

I throw the truck in park and pull the keys from the ignition, slide them in my pocket and hop out of the cab.

It does feel slightly sleazy to be here in broad daylight, but whatever. It amazes me how many patrons are here at this time of day, in the middle of the week no less, all of them male of course and mostly wearing what looks like office attire.

The women dancing up on stage don’t have half the appeal that Lark does, and I’m not even tempted to pull up a seat and watch. I know she’s here somewhere; it’s crazy but I swear I can feel her.

A couple of guys in cheap suits with women draped all over them perk up when we walk in, no bouncers around at the door to keep us from entering.

I look around the room, trying to see if I can get a sense for her, looking over to find the two guys casting their companions aside and storming up to us, a fight in their eyes.

I backhand Brooks’ elbow to get his attention, bracing myself for whatever bullshit is about to happen.

“You’re not allowed in here,” one of them spits at us.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“We’re the owners of this club. And we say you aren’t allowed in here.”

“We’re just here for our girl, then we’ll leave,” Brooks says.

That pisses them off.

“She’s not fucking yours .”

Oh. It’s them .

I feel a rictus grin split my face wide, and don’t bother hiding it. “She’s here, isn’t she? Guessed right. I love when that happens.”

They crowd into us more, our commotion starting to gather attention. Camden appears out of who knows where and tries to usher us to somewhere quieter, but when we get to a smaller version of the room we were in last week, Camden is lined up right next to his dads, arms crossed, tension visible in every bit of exposed skin. “I ought to kick your fucking asses,” he says as he eyes me and my brother up. “Real fuckin’ dumb of you to come back here after the damage you caused.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Brooks asks for the both of us.

“Cam, could you go watch the floor while we talk to them?” the one that sems slightly more rational says.

“No, let him stay. I want this all out in the open, and it’d be a hell of a lot easier if he were here as witness.” I pull the papers out of my back pocket I brought just in case and hand them over. “You’ve identified yourselves as the owners of this club, which is good enough for us. You’re being served. Report yourselves to the Alpha House within 72 hours to prevent further complications.”

“For…for what?” Camden screeches. “You’re the sick fucks that brought my mom back with broken fucking ribs! Why don’t you turn your own asses in instead, huh?”

Every muscle in my body locks up and I narrow my eyes at the men that I’m now looking at as though they’re roaches, and I can feel my wolf rising swiftly inside of me.

I shift before I have time to think about what I’m doing, and I start backing the two ex-mates of my girl into a corner, growling and exerting my alpha dominance to keep them from shifting.

“What are you talking about, Camden? We brought her back to the shelter in perfect health. We spent the day at the Alpha House and then took her for dinner before bringing her home safely. If she was injured in any way at all, it’s not on us, and that means these two men that seem to think they still have a claim on your mother decided the hell they’ve put her through already just wasn’t enough.”

I can feel Brooks shaking next to me, trying to stay in his human form, fighting the tide of anger I’ve fully given into. I don’t take my eyes off of the two exes though.

“Which one of you took that precious woman and fucking broke her? Huh?” A chill runs down my spine from Brooks’ tone, and my fangs are just dying to rip into something.

“This is clearly a misunderstanding,” Camden says, putting himself between us and them. “Mom said…” he thinks about this but doesn’t seem to find a conclusive answer. “We should just get her.”

“Take me to her. He’s going to stay and keep an eye on these two,” Brooks commands while he follows Camden out of the room.

I refuse to let them leave me behind though when I could be there with him, finding Lark.

Keeping my back away from them, I herd them to follow. We end up in a hallway that’s clearly not meant for patrons but still smells like sex, and Camden knocks briefly before pulling his keys off his belt on an elastic and lets us in.

The sight that arrests us makes the decision for me. I lunge for the nearest asshole to me, getting a good chunk of his upper leg, and shake my neck until he’s bleeding and rolling around on the floor. I’m feral as I go after the other guy, but like an asshole he runs to jump behind the cage where Lark is currently being kept, in what I’m assuming is the kennel that Beckett found her in.

“Calm down!” Camden yells. “Nothing is happening if you can’t keep control of yourselves!”

“Are you fucking blind?” Brooks yells. “You’re keeping your mother in a fucking dog kennel again, and have the audacity to tell us to calm down?”

Camden plays with his keys, and I relish in the blood dripping off my teeth, staining their white floor.

“It’s just so we can keep control of her. She…she’s been a little wild lately. I didn’t want her to hurt herself.”

Lark is lying there more or less comatose, staring up at the ceiling without any sort of reaction to any of our presences.

“What the hell did you guys do to her?”

I shift back so I can be more helpful, using my alpha dominance to demand Camden’s sweats so my ass isn’t casually hanging out. Then I grab Brooks’ phone as he snatches the keys off of Camden and dives for the cage, hands shaking as he digs through the ring for the one that will let us into the padlock.

I’m calling for backup as fast as I can, sending out a red alert with a location, slipping into the training that dad’s spent so many years pushing into us.

This is the very reason we have wolf hierarchies, why alphas are needed. To keep little bitch wolves like these in line. The wolves that think they’re better than even the most basic of decencies.

Once Brooks has Lark in his arms, all bets are off for the three grown-ass adult wolves in the room with us. In this moment, it really doesn’t matter that Camden’s our friend, or that her ex-mates have any redeeming qualities hidden deep, deep in their black hearts, all that matters is that my wolf sees the she-wolf he wants, damaged at their hands. All of them are complicit in this.

I see the moment they realize they’ve stepped in it, the moment it crosses their brains that they’re not in charge here after all. This might be their club, but it’s our pack, and we don’t drug people to get our desired outcome.

“We can do this two ways. One, you play along and get in that fucking cage you forced the most perfect goddess-blessed woman in, likely countless times, and I keep you in there until I feel like letting you out. Two, you fight me on this and I sink my teeth into your soft necks. I can promise you it’s not going to be as fun as you think it is. For you anyway. I think I’ll take great joy in it.”

“Why?” one of the idiots asks. Literally don’t even care to know their names. “What’s so godsdamned special about her, huh? She’s just another piece of ass. What the hell do you see in her to make you go this crazy on us? We’re good, contributing members of our pack. We pay our dues; we respect the alpha. We don’t cause no trouble ever.”

“I’m sorry, you consider forcing someone that was supposed to be your mate into a contract to stay in her son's life no trouble ? You consider making her sleep in a place made for actual dogs to be an okay thing? You think she doesn’t deserve all the fucking respect you could muster up in your stupid little brain? No.

“I haven’t heard much about you yet, but I’ve heard enough to know what I need to know. You’re trash. You could have been the highest contributing citizens in our entire pack, but the second you decided that that woman wasn’t worth your time and you rejected her, and the moment you started threatening custody of her child if she didn’t do what you wanted, the second you decided to blame her for some of your bullshit, was the second you became the lowest piece of filth.

“So, no. You aren’t ‘good contributing members of our pack’, because good contributing members of our pack respect their mates. I had to sentence my own mate to death. You think I’m going to be lenient with you pieces of shit? You got another thing coming to you. Get in the cage or give me blood.”

“Dads? What is he talking about?”

“Camden, we’ll deal with you later, too. There’s no way you’re innocent in this when she told me you were partially responsible for taking her tips. There may be some messed up pack laws, but it doesn’t mean you have to make it harder on her. And Camden, if your mom has a broken rib, you can thank the two assholes standing next to you. We would never hurt a woman like that. Especially not that woman.”

While Brooks gently carries Lark out of the cage, I can see Camden rethinking many of his life decisions. He can do that on his own time. I extend my hand, asking for the keys to the cage from Brooks, waiting for them to crawl in there and get scrunched up together before slamming it shut and locking them in. “Any of you bozos have extra keys on you? You lie to me, I promise you’re not going to like what happens.”

One of the guys pulls a key ring out of his pocket and I snatch the entire thing from him. “Now, I’m going to go tend to Lark. I’ve got backup coming. Any of you so much as think about putting a pinky outside of that damn cage, I’m cutting it off. You get me?” I wait until the smell of fear permeates the dank room before I follow my brother, and while Lark has somewhat responded to him in my absence, she’s not nearly as alert as she should be.

“We need to get her to a healer. I don’t know what the hell they gave her, but she’s not well.” Brooks has her laid out with his shirt balled up under her head, and her eyes are almost completely dilated as she stares around.

She sits up slightly when I get on the other side of her, grabbing onto the hem of my pants, but her voice is very thready when she uses it. “Don’t belong here. Why are you here? You want another dance? Just— just give me a minute,” she says as her eyelids flutter, and then she’s back to staring out into space.

“I’m gonna go see if I can figure out what the hell they gave her,” I tell Brooks before bending down and pressing a firm kiss to Lark’s forehead.

All three of them look kind of funny scrunched up in a cage that should realistically only hold one person, and this improves my mood the tiniest bit. “Why is she like that?” I demand. “What did you give her?”

The idiot mates don’t say anything, but Camden does speak up. “She’s been in and out of her heat all week, I’m sorry we had to lock her up. She’s not herself and I don’t know if it’s because she won’t allow herself to give in to the heat or what, but she’s been unresponsive like this all day.”

I shake my head. “She’s on something. She smells different. What did you do?” I stare right down at the two I’m ready to chop up into bits.

“They said it was safe,” one of them says.

“Gods, what are you talking about? Dad, you gave her something? Tell me you’re not responsible for this.”

“Camden, from here on out, let’s just assume every bad thing that’s been done to your mom is because of them. Better think real quick about switching your loyalty there, buddy. What did you give her? Do not make me ask you again. You can already bet that whatever you dosed her with is coming your way soon.”

The one that seems slightly more amenable to helping us stretches his leg far enough out in front of him to pull something from his pocket. He hands me a case with a few small syringes in it. “Might have given her too much. It was just supposed to kick start her heat so she’d want us again. I thought if we could just start over, everything would be all right this time, you know? I didn’t really mean to hurt her.”

I get down close in front of him so I’m on his level. “Let me guess; just like you didn’t mean to break a rib?” I see the admission in his eyes when he looks at me, so I shove my hand between the bars and snap two of his ribs for good measure. He starts immediately crying like a little bitch, making me want to break more of them. “You better hope this is reversible, or you’re joining my dead mate sooner than you think.”

I go back in to see Lark, and this time she’s slightly more coherent, sitting up on Brooks’ lap. She’s drooling a little bit, and she’s still flopsy, but her eyes try to track my movement as I approach her.

“They give you anything helpful?” I can tell by his tone he’s not expecting much.

“Yeah. I’m going to call the healer and get him ready for her. I’ll tell you what they said in a bit, I don’t think I want to discuss this in front of her in case it triggers her or something.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Might as well call Beckett too, let him know what’s up. He’ll want to know.”

“Yeah, I’m on that.”

Because I don’t like leaving them alone too long, I step back into the other room while I call up our healer, explaining to him what’s going on, and he promises me he’s going to have a bed ready as soon as we can get her there. Alpha house has all the best equipment for situations like this, and I know he’ll get her sorted out if it’s at all possible.

Then I have to call Beckett and try and rein in my anger enough to be coherent as I recount what we’re going through, what we found, how Lark is, and that we’re going to be bringing her to the Alpha House so that the healer can look her over.

“I’ll meet you guys there. Just let me know when you have an ETA,” he tells me without further questions.