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Jesse twisted sideways to face Sam. A gun went off. The sound was loud, and Sam screamed when Jesse slumped over the wheel. The person had shot Jesse through the open passenger door.
Sam was shoved into a nearby SUV, and then it took off, wheels squealing as Sam continued to fight.
“Jesse!” He tried for the door, but something pinched his neck. Seconds later Sam’s head swam. Jesse. He had to get to his mate and find out if Jesse was injured or…or… Sam didn’t want to think about the alternative.
He’d just found his mate. They were just starting their relationship and now Jesse might be— Sam’s head filled with cotton as he struggled to stay upright. The world swam right before his eyes as tears threatened to fall.
“I wasn’t sure about your metabolism since you aren’t human, so I might have given you too much.”
Sam shook his head, trying to focus, but everything around him was blurry. He felt as if he was floating along, his body lax, and his head kept trying to fall backward.
“Or I didn’t give you enough.”
Nausea rolled through Sam. His head started to pound. He reached for the headrest of the front passenger seat but missed. His body slumped sideways, and he felt hands lowering him to the seat.
“Rest, Samuel. You’re going to need it.”
“I-I…n-no.” Sam forced his eyes to stay open, but it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. It was like trying to lift weights with his eyelids. A pleasant buzz hummed through him, and all he wanted to do was sleep, but he couldn’t. If he did, he might be in worse trouble than he already was. “Jesse.”
“Is no longer your concern.”
Sam curled into himself, tears stinging his eyes as the SUV turned corners then accelerated. A freeway? An access road? He tried to listen for other cars, anything that might tell him where they were going, but the cotton in his head grew thicker. He hadn’t even seen who’d taken him. The guy stayed out of Sam’s peripheral vision. He saw the driver, but only his side profile, and the drug made the man look shadowy.
He faded in and out of consciousness and wondered how long he’d been lying there when the SUV came to a stop. Sam kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep as the back door opened and he was pulled out.
Someone carried him, and Sam wanted to fight, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. It was limp and useless.
“Place him in the back room,” someone said. “Get him ready then let him sleep off some of the sedative. We want him awake for the auction but not enough to cause problems.”
The word auction barely registered as Sam was set down onto something soft. He fought not to pass out, but he finally lost the battle and slipped into darkness.
* * * *
Jesse wasn’t sure how long he’d slept in his wolf form. When he woke, he no longer felt as if his chest was on fire. He vaguely recalled coming to behind the wheel long enough to send the distress code to Knox’s phone. Everything after that was a complete blank.
He pushed himself up from the bed and looked around. He was back at the safehouse, so Knox must have found him.
“Easy,” a voice said from behind him. “Another centimeter to the right and you’d be dead. You’re one lucky son of a bitch.”
Jesse scrubbed a hand through his hair, and then he jerked from the bed, his heart hammering. “Sam!”
He rushed toward the bedroom door, and Knox didn’t try to stop him. However, when he raced to the front door, Fletch moved in front of him.
“Get out of my way before I rip your throat out,” Jesse snarled.
“And go where?” Fletch asked. “We have no idea where they took Sam. Where are you going to look, Jesse? We don’t even know who has him. You need to calm the fuck down and focus. Get your head in the game instead of trying to run out of here halfcocked.”
Pain shot through Jesse’s chest, but not from his healed wound. Someone had his mate. Someone had tried to kill him as they snatched Sam right out from under him. He knew going over there had been a bad idea, and Jesse had gone against his instincts because he’d hated how distraught Sam had been over his best friend.
In truth, Jesse had been worried too because he liked Gloria. He wanted to find out who’d attacked her so he could kill the bastard.
It had been a setup. There was no other explanation for the ambush. Was Gloria behind this or Terry or both? Red-hot rage filled him as his wolf howled to get free, determined to hunt those two down and make them pay for touching a hair on Sam’s head.
He was still in his honeymoon period, and Jesse wanted them dead at his feet. His skin felt too tight as he stood there vibrating with rage, and he knew he was close to shifting and going insane.
Jesse looked at his two teammates. “Gloria. Sam got a call from her boyfriend saying she was attacked.”
Fletch nodded. “I hacked into Sam’s phone and saw who’d called him. We traced the name, and I looked up Gloria’s address. No one was there, Jesse. You two were set up.”
