Page 7 of Cultivating Caden
Like a balloon with a slow leak, Caden deflated. Sorrow once again overwhelmed him.
“I don’t know what happened to them. All I wanted was for them to leave me alone.” Caden jolted up, his eyes wild. “What about the attendant? They dragged him off somewhere.”
It was the first Quade had heard about anyone else being there. He pulled out his phone and tapped Jack’s contact. When the gruff voice answered, Quade asked about another victim.
“Not that I know of. Let me check. Give me a minute.”
It took a few before he came back on. “The sheriff’s department found the attendant, Thomas Ernst, not far from where the attacks happened. They took him to a nearby hospital, where he was in surgery for massive internal hemorrhaging. They worked on him for eight hours before he died. The damage, according to the doctors, was consistent with being beaten to death with blunt objects.” A few key taps were followed by a soft sigh. “And he was raped repeatedly. Damn. I’m sorry, Quade.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that makes everything better.” He hung up the phone, irritation burning in his gut. “I’m sorry, the attendant didn’t make it.”
Caden gasped. “Oh.” And the waterworks started. “That could have been me. Right now, I could be dead and—”
“Stop it. You’re not dead. You survived by quick thinking.”
Those green eyes narrowed. “Quick thinking? Something tore those men apart and I ran because I was terrified. What part of that isquick thinking?”
“You ran because you wanted to live. It’s called survivor’s instinct. I get that you’re angry and hurt, and the doctors will be here to help you deal with it, but for right now—”
“Where am I? This doesn’t look like any hospital I’ve ever seen.”
Lies sprang easily to Quade’s mind. It was how he’d been trained. Deflect, deny, disavow. But Jack had made Caden his problem, so being untruthful probably wasn’t the best way to start a relationship with him.
“You’re in a facility beneath Mount Katahdin. Right now, you’re in our infirmary, where our doctors treated your injuries.”
“That’s bullshit. This whole thing is. There is no such thing as a werewolf or lycan or whatever you call yourself, and I know for a fact that there’s nothing beneath the mountain.” He started to sit up, then grasped his side. “Let me out of here. Please.”
God, Quade hated the expression on his face. Fear dominated it, but hopelessness was mixed in too. No surprise from a man who’d almost died twice. What was going to happen when Quade told Caden he couldn’t leave? Ever.
The day they’d brought Quade here, after finding him half-crazed in the mountains, he’d fought them tooth and nail. He was scared shitless that they’d take him back to his clan and the First would allow them to tear him apart. In the world of lycans, separating yourself from anyone who wasn’t a lycan was the law. After a marathon session with a young vampire, Quade had come home, never thinking about cleaning up. His reception had been… less than welcoming. Bad enough he’d been with a vampire, but amale? No, that was a disgrace to his clan that would have to be eradicated. The sentence was death for both Quade and the vampire.
Quade had been listening in, fearful of their judgment. He called to warn Alomir, telling him that he needed to flee or else his people would kill him. When they found Quade, they locked him up, caged like a rabid dog. That would have been bad enough, but it was only the beginning. For bringing shame on his kind, Quade was sentenced to death. But, as was the way of his people, it wasn’t going to be quick and painless. No, Quade would be hunted by his family and friends. They gave Quade a head start, because it would be no fun to kill him outright. Seeing no other options, Quade ran. He knew it was going to be a failed effort, because no one ever escaped.
Within minutes, the whole pack descended on him, tearing the muscles in his hind leg, crippling him. If it hadn’t been for Alomir, Quade would have died that night. Alomir came with a veritable army of vampires. Apparently he was some kind of royalty among them, and he risked it all to save Quade.
The First was enraged that filthy vampires dared to set foot on their lands and stick their noses where they didn’t belong. Alomir reminded the First that as a prince of their kind, he was within his rights to claim Quade, and that if the lycans stood in the way, war between them would be inevitable. And, unlike lycans, their kind were numerous.
Knowing a war between them would result in an untold number of deaths, the First spat on Quade, then told the vampires to take the garbage out of his sight, and if he ever laid eyes on Quade again, he would kill him. Then the First and Quade’s people, who he’d lived among for eighteen years, turned their backs and walked away.
“I think you’ve angered him.” Alomir chuckled as one of his people bandaged Quade’s most serious wounds.
“Yeah. Dads can be like that,” Quade replied, his heart heavy with the thought of what he’d lost that day.
“My father tells me I can bring you back as my consort, but that I must wed a female.” Alomir frowned. “I have never been with a woman and, to be quite honest, have no idea what to do with one.”
Quade couldn’t help him with that kind of information. He very rarely had bed partners, and those were always other supernatural creatures, ones who could take a mauling. In the end, it didn’t matter. Quade refused to allow Alomir to protect him and put his people at risk. Plus, he had no desire to be a fucking concubine or mancubine or whatever they were calling it. After one last night of sex, Alomir bid Quade farewell. They hadn’t seen each other since, but Quade did hear through the grapevine that Alomir had given in to his father’s demands and married a human wife who bore him a son.
Apparently he figured out what to do with a woman.
“Are you listening to me?”
Quade grinned at the frustration in Caden’s voice. “Should I be?”
“When can I leave? I have friends expecting me, and they’ll be worried.”
Scrubbing a hand over his neck, Quade couldn’t bring himself to meet Caden’s sprite-ring eyes. “Yeah…. About that. I’m afraid you can’t leave.”
The next thing Quade knew, he was on the floor, looking up. He had to admit, Caden threw a pretty mean punch for a human.
