“What?” The look of utter shock on Lucas’ face might have been comical if not for the seriousness of the situation.“But you can’t do that! It would drive you insane to be away from your mate! A prisoner!What the hell is he charged with?”

“Murder,” Kyle said bleakly, counting off the charges on his fingers. “Theft, blackmail…have I got them all?”

“Oh, shut up,” Blayde said. “Okay, so he has some pretty bad charges on him. I still don’t care.I’m not taking him in.”

Lucas sank down on the sofa, his face pale.“Then you’ll become an outlaw too, Blayde. The punishment for aiding and abetting an escaped convict is life imprisonment.”

“Yeah, well, so long as I can share his cell…”

Kyle touchedBlayde’s knee. “Don’t even joke about that, Blayde. You can’t be locked up. You wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

“And I can’t stand not to be with my mate, either!If I have to, I’ll take him to Lycanus. The Alliance and their court system are irrelevant there.”

The three men fell silent, their minds racing. Blayde was right, once a member of the wolf pack found his mate, he had no choice but to be with that mate. For life. Anything else was unthinkable. Then, too, there was that ancient curse put on the family by his greatgrandfather’s mate. Little did his ancestor know when he took the man for his mate that he was a powerful warlock.

Lucas stood up and began to pace around the room. This was his problem, too, as family alpha, not to mention the facthe couldn’t stand to see his little brother in so much pain. Blayde was the first of the alpha males on Lycanus to find his mate, and the whole issue of mates was a very big deal for them, due to the curse. They had to find a solution, and quick, before Blayde did something thoughtless and irrational like running back to Lycanus with the human. Certainly Blayde could go back to the home planet, and he was correct in saying that the Alliance laws meant less than nothing on Lycanus. But Lycanus 3 was his home, and they were a closely knit pack. Besides that, Blayde had made his life as a voyager and a bounty hunter. If he had to flee to Lycanus, he’d have to make a totally new life for himself and would have to stay on Lycanus. It would probably kill him to be so tied down.

Lucas forced himself to sit back down and take a deep breath.“All right, so you say he’s a murderer. Any chance it was self-defense? Is there some way we might be able to get a good Alliancelawyer and get this thing overturned?”

“I doubt it.I don’t know the details of the crime, but Judge Partland himself, you know, the former Supreme Court judge who’s running for the presidency of the Alliance? He’s the one who was instrumental in bringing these charges against the boy. His office is the one who contacted me about the bounty in the first place.”

“Why? Was the victim some kind of relative of his?”

“I don’t know. At the time, I didn’t give a damn, and they weren’t overly informative. The human I spoke with, some kind of aide, just said the judge was very interested in Ryan’s capture. Apparently, he ran away right after the crime and then tried to blackmail the judge in some way. Stole the victim’s money after he killed him too. They offered fifty thousand diamond standards for his capture. Not because the judge is guilty of doing anything illegal, of course, but to keep down the bad publicity.”

“Fifty thousand!” Lucas looked up at Blayde sharply. “Didn’t that strike you as a little odd for a human bounty?”

Blayde shrugged.“What did I care? I mean, I know it’s a large amount, but the judge is rich. I just figured the human had really angered him over the blackmail.”

“Unless the victim was a close relative, or a lover. Do you know if Partland likes male humans?”

“No idea. The victim was a young man, though, only twenty-one.”

“We need to talk to the prisoner.I’m sorry, Blayde, to your mate, I mean. Can we…uh…is it all rightif I question him?”

Lucas was right to be cautious, Blayde thought. He was feeling pretty damn protective right now, and hereally couldn’t think straight with his mate’s scent still in his nostrils. His sharp hearing had caught the sounds of Ryan moving around in the back room, and he was painfully hard thinking of him possibly naked, getting a shower in the en suite bathroom. All Lycans were notoriously protective of their mates, anyway, and it was an unbreakable tradition to never touch another Lycan’s mate unless absolutely necessary. Even then you might get your hand bitten off.

Blayde glanced up at Lucas moodily.“All right, but let me go get him. I don’t want you scaring him half to death.”

Kyle and Lucas’ eyebrows both went up at the same time.Kyle’s eyes even rolled, but both wisely kept their peace.Blayde thought about what he’d just said ruefully. If anybody was in danger of scaring the human to death, Blayde knew it would probably be him. He took a deep breath and tried hard to control his emotions. Blayde glanced in the mirror on the wall and caught his own reflection. He was scowling and looked a little wild-eyed. His hair was standing on end from where he’d been running his hands through it. He sighed and tried to smooth down his hair as he left the room.

Heknew he’d been hard on his mate, but he was having trouble getting his emotions under control. Besides it was difficult to think with his big head when his little one was causing him so much grief. His balls were drawn up tight against his body, and his rock-hard erection was epic. He walked with some difficulty down the hall to rap his knuckles on the door before unlocking it and swinging it open.

Ryan was wrapped in a towel, standing by the side of the bed. Though he’d shaved, he still had his little patch of hair below his lip. Ryan narrowed his eyes as he saw Blayde notice the patch and actually squared off his body to him, as if to get ready to fight. Defiance, baby? I need to show you how to follow instructions.Blayde’s gaze dropped down to his gorgeous body, small by Lycan standards, but absolutely perfect, the washboard abs still glistening with droplets of water from his shower, and Blayde’s brain went tilt. He crossed the room in about three steps, lifted the human and bent him back across his arm.

“You’re mine!” he growled at him and lowered his mouth to cover Ryan’s. Ryan struggled only briefly before sagging against him,and he felt Ryan’s sweet arms going around his neck to hold on tight. Blayde put his hands under his mate’s hips and hitched him up higher so Ryan’s legs could wrap around his waist, then he carried him the few steps over to the bed. Blayde lowered him gently to the bed and lay between his legs, his hands cupping his mate’s sweet ass. Ryan was breathing hard, but he didn’t seem frightened, more like surprised at the interesting turn of events. He lifted his hips up to grind his naked cock against Blayde’s trousers and Blayde almost lost his mind. He drove histongue deeply into Ryan’s mouth, sweeping across the inside of it, tasting him and claiming him as his own. He brought one hand around to clench his sweet cock, pulling at it frantically, wanting to pleasure his mate. Ryan groaned beneath him and arched his back.

“Yes, please,” he murmured against Blayde’s mouth.

“Please what, baby?Do this?” he asked as his hand moved more and more rapidly up and down Ryan’s thick cock.“Or maybe this?” He bent down and nipped at Ryan’s neck, breaking the skin and bringing the blood to the surface. Blayde lapped at it hungrily and nuzzled his nose into Ryan’s neck.

A slight sound at the door caused him to whirl around to see Lucas and Kyle staring in at him. He moved his body to completely cover his mate and made a snarling sound as he turned to face them. He could feel extra hairs sprout out on his body, his claws extend, and his long incisors drop.

Lucas stood at the door and averted his face, probably because he could see the only thing keeping Blayde from attacking the other males was his need to cover and protect his mate.

“Sorry Blayde. It’s me, Lucas.” He was speaking very slowly and carefully, talking to the wolf and not the man.“No one wants to hurt your mate, but we need to talk to him. I know how you must be feeling, but Blayde, you have to control yourself.”

Blayde shook his head to clear some of the red haze from his eyes and felt his claws and incisors retract.He’d had his head turned away from Ryan, who also had his eyes closed tightly in embarrassment, so he was pretty sure Ryan hadn’t seen the partial shift. Trying to breathe only through his mouth, he nodded, letting his head sag down.“Yes,” he said, his voice still rough with passion.“Give me a minute, and I’ll bring him out.”

The two men retreated, and Blayde took a deep breath, again through his mouth only. This close, his mate’s scent was driving him wild, and would continue to do so, he knew, until they had mated properly. He dropped one more kiss on Ryan’s sweet lips and levered himself off him. He stood by the side of the bed, looking down at Ryan sprawled out on the bed for him, his gorgeous cock riding his stomach, his bright green eyes looking up at him trustingly and almost attacked him again. He pulled himself together with great effort and put out a hand.“Come on, Ryan.Come with me, and I’ll try to explain everything.”

He pulled him up and grabbed the sheet off the bed to wrap around his body, covering him from the armpits down. He looked down at his handsome face, and saw that he was bewildered at this turn of events and nervously biting the insides of his cheeks.“Don’t be scared.No one’s going to hurt you.I’m sorry if I scared you. We just need to talk to you, all right?I’ll be right beside you the whole time.”

Blayde didn’t know why that should reassure Ryan, but he felt like it was an important point to make. For some reason, it seemed to comfort his mate, who stopped biting his cheeks and gave him a little smile.“Okay,” he said, and took Blayde’s hand.

Blayde’s insides felt suddenly soft and tender, and he cleared his throat gruffly, but didn’t pull his hand away. He turned before he could change his mind and pulled Ryan behind him to the living room. He sat back down on the chair, and moved to the side to make a small space beside him. He pulled Ryan down into that tight space and put a protective arm around the back of the chair.