“No, I don’t believe I willlet you go,” he said, and tightened his grip. “At least not until you give this nice lady back her tip you took off that table back there.”

Jax felt his face flaming as the waitress, along with pretty much everybody else in the room looked at him like he was something somebody would need to scrape off the bottom of their shoe. Mason stepped closer to him in solidarity, and pulled again on his other arm.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” the man teased. “Here, let me help you out.” He reached into Jax’s jacket pocket and pulled out not only the five-dollar bill, but the load of crackers and jelly packets he’d stuffed in there as well. “Well, what do we have here? You really are a little squirrel, aren’t you?”

Jax tried again to wrench away from the man’s hand, but his grip felt like an iron band around his wrist.

“What else you got, little man?” he said, and moved his hand down to search Jax’s jeans pocket. It was as he was doing this, leaning toward him, that Jax brought his other fist around and punched the older man on the side of his head as hard as he could. The man fell back with a bark of surprise, and Jax turned, jerked Mason by the hand and sprinted toward the door. In despair, he saw two of the guys nearest the door jump to their feet to head them off, but a sharp command behind them made the men stand aside so he and Mason could scramble outside.

The miserably cold drizzle had turned into a hard, steady rain, and the puddles in the parking lot were like an obstacle course they had to splash through to reach the relative safety of the road. The little pools of water sucked at Jax’s boots as he ran, clutching at him and trying to hold him back. Mason was keeping up, but barely, clinging tightly to Jax’s hand. Mason stumbled once and went to his knees, but Jax yanked him to his feet, and they kept running, out of the parking lot and onto the highway.

Stumbling alongside the roadside, Jax kept looking over his shoulder. He ran until his breath was coming in sharp gasps and his legs felt like rubber. He hadn’t eaten anything since the morning before, and it was making him a little weak. Mason was running a few steps ahead of him, and seemed not to be having quite as much trouble as Jax.

It took Jax another minute to realize the steady rumbling he heard behind him wasn’t coming only from the storm. The roar had started out like a distant thunder but was growing louder and louder. Casting a wild glance behind him, he saw at least four or five of the bikers coming after them, spread out in a V formation like a flock of predatory birds, and panic dropped over him like a smothering shroud. Yelling at Mason, he grabbed for his arm and turned off the road. They clawed their way into the underbrush, jumped over a drainage ditch and headed for the pine trees lining the road on either side. He could hear Mason gasping for breath beside him and knew he was terrified.

Jax heard the motorcycles stop on the road behind him, but kept running blindly ahead through the trees, pulling Mason with him. Crashing through the underbrush behind them, the bikers came after them and my God, how could they be so incredibly fast, so relentless? Small pine tree branches hit him in the face as Jax pushed through them, trying to shield Mason from the worst of it, stumbling on the soggy ground. A noise ahead of him made him freeze in place and peer wildly through the trees.

Somehow two of them had circled around in front of him and Mason. Quick, fierce, and muscular, the mendidn’t try to catch them as they careened to a stop, just kept edging closer, their faces wary, as if he and Mason were wild animals they were trying not to panic. Clutching Mason to his chest, frantically panting for breath, Jax slowly backed away, his head pivoting in either direction, looking for a way out, but thick pines and cedars blocked the escape routes on each side of them, hemming them in. The big men in front of him advanced toward him steadily, their arms out to the sides, like they were herding them, and it was only when he backed into the big, solid body behind him that he realized why. Jax wasn’t able to stop the hoarse scream that tore from his throat as he flailed his arms and tried to fight like a wild thing, terrified and hopeless, knowing he didn’t have a chance against them all.

“Calm down, damn it, you’ll hurt yourself,” the deep voice said in his ear, as iron-like arms closed around his waist, but he didn’t, couldn’t listen. Pushing Mason to the side, he tried to fight the big biker, struggling in his arms, even trying to throw his slight body to the ground to escape. It was useless, of course, and the man picked him up bodily and held him against his chest, while he kicked out with his legs and slammed his forehead against a steely chest.

Worn out and hungry as he was, it didn’t take long to exhaust himself, and when he could no longer fight,he sagged hopelessly in the man’s arms. Lowering Jax to the ground, the big man loomed over him, still holding him with an unrelenting grip. Jax twisted his head away and screamed to Mason over and over to run, unable to hear whatever it was the biker kept repeating to him in a slow, steady voice.

Suddenly, the forest fell away and he was in his old room at home, hot breath at his mouth, a heavy body holding him down, crushing his chest and making it hard to breathe. “No, please, please,stop,” he murmured and a sob caught in his throat. Jax looked straight up into a pair of startled brown eyes and moaned. “Don’t do it again.”

Jax was breathing so hard and in such a panic that he began to hyperventilate and little sparkly stars started to flash on and off at the backs of his eyes. Jax crumpled with an odd, choked sound as he lost consciousness.

Cade D’Alisande stared down at the slight figure on the bed of the motel room and crossed his arms over his chest. The boy was still sound asleep, though his breathing had evened out some. He was small and thin, but Cade noticed the lean musculature of his chest and abs when he’d stripped the soaking wet clothes off him earlier. Still, he could have almost counted the ribs on either side, and he cursed again under his breath. He’d also noticed the healed-over cigarette burns on his hips and thighs, not to mention the long welts on his back and buttocks. They were old scars, but ugly and shocking. The boy had been badly abused over a long period of time.

Cade had been totally startled by the kid when he first stepped inside the door of the café, and the scent hit him so strongly he thought he might stagger. He’d known his blood match was inside—he’d sensed it deep inside himself. It was the reason he’d doubled back instead of passing the little roadside café and going on into New Orleans. He’d turned around and brought his pack back here instead, his wolf leaping inside him as he pulled into the lot. The second he stepped in the door, he traced the scent to the boys sitting in a booth near the back, their wet hair plastered to their heads. The older boy’s beautiful blue eyes gazed up at him through a fringe of thick lashes. The second Cade got the full blast from those eyes, he knew that was where the scent was coming from—this beautiful child with the eyes of a frightened angel. It damn near terrified him.

No, he wasn’t a c hild, but surely only a boy, too young for him to have these lustful images tumbling around in his head, too young to be so desirable, so fucking sexy it made his balls ache to look at him. Badly shaken and disgusted with himself for feeling such lust for a young boy, Cade sat down at a table and kept glancing at the kid, trying to calm down, while every instinct he had urged him to go over to the booth where he was sitting, bend him over the table and fuck him into it.

Goddamn blood match. It made beasts of all of them, and he would resist this. The longer he sat there, though, the more he became convinced this was something more than just the blood match, as if that wasn’t bad enough. He was beginning to be very afraid that this was the soif de sang, or the bloodlust, and if it was, then God help them both.

Cade saw other members of his pack noticing the beautiful boy, and it filled him with unreasoning anger. How dare they look at what was his? He would have to make it clear to all of them that the boy was off-limits.

The waitress came over to take their order, and he was distracted for a moment, but when he looked back up, the boy was getting up to leave, slipping a bill of some kind out from under the basket of condiments on the table. He knew it had to be the waitress’ tip, and he was actually glad, because it gave him an excuse to stop him on his way out.

When he’d first touched the startled boy, the bloodlust, the soif de sang, slammed into him so hard that his vision actually dimmed and his heart started racing out of control. He saw everything though a reddish haze. He’d heard the myths about the effects of the bloodlust all his life, but he didn’t even really believe in its existence. His grandparents claimed to have had it, but Cade had thought it was only the stories of half-crazed old people—they were ancient by the time he met them, and didn’t even speak much most of the time.

It was only once at a family gathering that he heard his grandfather speak of it, and he and his grandmother passed away only weeks later. At the time, Cade thought it was highly unusual for them both to go at the exact same time, but they were so old and frail. He’d thought that once his grandmother passed, his grandfather’s heart just hadn’t been able to take the strain. He never connected it to the soif de sang until he heard people whispering about it at the joint funeral. He was beginning now to think that none of the stories had even done the bloodlust justice.

He could sense the surprise of his beta, Rayce, and his brother, Connor, when he grabbed the boy’s wrist, but had no doubt that they and the rest of his pack would back his play, whatever he decided to do. He knew he was scaring the other child who was with his boy, but he couldn’t make himself stop.

This close, the first thing Cade noticed about the boy was that he might be a bit older than he’d first thought, with piercings in his eyebrows and a tiny one on the side of his nose, yet still he knew he was heartbreakingly young. He had a scattering of freckles across his nose that Cade found endearing, and he’d loosened his hold on him just a little.

When the boy showed spunk by hitting him and bounding for the door, dragging the smaller child with him, Cade had been almost relieved. He could breathe again, now the boy was gone, without that damn scent clogging his nose and backing up into his brain. He made sure the men nearest the door didn’t touch the boys as they made their escape, and the second the door closed behind them, Cade was able to think clearly again. His vision slowly went back to normal, and he turned around to face the others at his table.