The blond man shook his head, still looking down at Eli with that pity he was starting to hate. “No, never met him before. Do you want me to help you get home?” he asked, addressing Eli at that point.
He was a little hero, too. Brilliant.
“I’m fine,” Eli gruffed, pulling himself up to his feet. The stupid ground beneath him heaved, and he nearly keeled over. He would have had Blondie not grabbed him by the arms and pulled him straight again.
They were nearly the same height, but Blondie was still just a little bit shorter. There must have been some muscle in that slim
frame because he pulled Eli’s arm over his shoulder. “Take it easy.
I’ll get you where you want to go.”
“I’d be careful with that one, son,” said the bartender. “He’s been
known to start up some trouble with other people as of late.”
Eli was never tipping that man ever again.
“I’ll be okay,” said Blondie, who, with some minor difficulty, fished his wallet from his back pocket and put some bills down on the bar.
“Will that cover his drinks?”
“I’ll put the rest on his tab.”
Fucker was probably going to just pocket the money and put the whole thing on Eli’s tab regardless. Eli was going to have to have a conversation with this man, his mate, about not trusting people so damn much.
Especially with eyes like those.
“Okay, thanks.”
Eli could barely do anything but sag as he was led out of the bar.
They walked for maybe ten minutes, which were excruciating on his eyes with the sun blazing down on them. Christ, he wished he could go back to the relative darkness of the bar so he wouldn’t have these needles piercing him in the corneas.
Eli muttered directions, but they must not have been very clear
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 13
because Blondie ignored him and kept on walking.
“Highway 22,” Eli said again, louder this time, and his ears hurt
for it.
“What?”
“Drop me off there. I can get back home from there.”
Thankfully, Blondie didn’t try to fight him on that. “If you say
so.”
“What’s your name?” Eli asked and then prayed he wouldn’t forget it. He would need to find this man again after he’d sobered up.
There was a slight hesitation, and Eli feared that his mate wouldn’t want to divulge too much personal information to a drunken loser like him.
Clearly, Blondie was a human, but despite that, he must have been, at least on a subconscious level, aware of the strange pull between them, because he did answer. “Chris.”
“Chris what?”
“I’ll keep that to myself for now.”
Fair enough. Eli had never seen Chris in town before, and he had been coming down here a whole lot more than was necessary, so he must be new.
Still, small town like this, Eli had a first name and a description, that was all that he should need if he wanted to find him again after he
sobered up.
“You shouldn’t be walking around here by yourself,” Eli said, managing not to slur. “It’s dangerous.”
Chris smiled at that. “So I’m told. But I’m a big enough boy, don’t worry.”
Not big enough for the things that would be stalking him once any other werewolf or werefox or were-anything got a look at those eyes.
Maybe he wasn’t born with them, though. “What happened to your eyes?”
“Didn’t think you’d notice that,” Chris said. “They’re just like that. I can see just fine. I don’t know. I was born with it.”
14 Marcy Jacks
“Oh.” It was natural then, not some product of being blind in one eye or any such thing.
Eyes like that, in the shifter communities, were considered extremely good luck. Not for the person who had them, but for the were who took the individual with the bicolored eyes as a mate.
Of course, that wouldn’t stop other weres who knew they weren’t mated to him from trying to seduce him, if only to capitalize on that luck a little. It wasn’t exactly unknown for the more unfriendly were types to try and rape someone who had eyes like that either.
And lately, this area was crawling with those types of weres.
The town was small, and getting to the outside of it took almost no time at all. Five more minutes and they would be right at the turn that would lead then to Highway 22, and Eli could go down it, get to the hidden unpaved road that led back to his pack land, and then fall into bed. Sobering up shouldn’t take him very long. He’d nap for five hours and that should be more than enough for the alcohol to run its course through his system.
He’d be dreaming about his mate tonight, he knew that much.
Of course it couldn’t be that simple.
Something with the power of a moving train smashed into them, knocking them off their feet, and Eli slid across the rough pavement with all the grace of a rag doll.
He heard Chris’s shocked yell, and he tried to get up before a grimy boot pressed down on his chest.
He looked up, blinking against the sun that was behind the figure attacking him, and he scented wild werewolf all over him, along with at least one other.
“Well, well, look what we have here. Didn’t I kill you already?”
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 15
Chapter Two
“Didn’t I kill you already?”
The words had Eli sucking back a sharp breath, especially when the man leaned down to squint into Eli’s face, and Eli recognized him as one of the wolves that had attacked his pack all those weeks ago. Two months. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“It is you!” The wolf hooted, slapping his knee. “Christ, I was sure I’d sliced your neck clean off!”
“That was my brother,” Eli seethed through his teeth.
The man frowned at that and adjusted the cap on his head. “That’s disappointing. Was hoping it meant we could survive things like that.”
That’s right. These guys were new wolves, transformed only for the sake of becoming peons in Deacon’s new pack.
They must still be learning about their new abilities.
“I can teach you about all the
