Healed by Hope [Marked 6] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Read online

  Marked 6

  Healed by Hope

  Steve has been damaged. After being kidnapped, tortured, and then turned, Steve hasn't had the most stable introduction into the world of the pack or wolf shifters in general. Unable to retain his shape and unable to find a way to fix his problem, he tries to end his own life. Luckily, his friends are able to save him, though the only real way out of the darkness is for Steve to move out of it himself and into the light.

  Hope has been burned in the past and is on a break from lovers. Little does he know that his first encounter with his new pack member ends up revealing his mate. But Steve comes with a lot of scars and a lot of baggage for someone with enough baggage of his own. Can he convince Steve that love really does conquer all and, more importantly, will Steve allow himself to be truly Healed by Hope?

  Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Contemporary, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 35,472 words

  HEALED BY HOPE

  Marked 6

  Jana Downs

  EVERLASTING CLASSIC

  MANLOVE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic ManLove

  HEALED BY HOPE

  Copyright © 2014 by Jana Downs

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-690-2

  First E-book Publication: December 2014

  Cover design by Cover Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  Dear Readers,

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  HEALED BY HOPE

  Marked 6

  JANA DOWNS

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  “Hi there, little guy,” Hope said, kneeling beside the little Havanese puppy he was looking at.

  “It’s a girl, actually,” Tanner St. James corrected, smiling down at the litter like he’d pupped the dogs himself. He might work hard at his job as a bartender at Riders, but the gamma’s true passion lay in dog breeding.

  Hope had been wanting one of his puppies since he’d first seen them at one of the pack meetings five years ago. Unfortunately, his partner at the time hadn’t liked dogs, and the feeling was mutual with most of them as well. He sighed. He never should’ve wasted a second on Danny freaking Dawson.

  The little girl he was looking at raised her head and lapped at the pad of his thumb. “I think I have to take her home,” he said, unable to keep the silly grin he’d been trying valiantly not to display back anymore.

  Tanner nodded. “Definitely looks that way. She’s already stolen your heart.”

  “Ain’t that the way it happens?” Hope straightened, leaving his new little angel to chew on his shoestrings. “How much do I owe you?”

  “With the pack discount it’s five hundred bucks,” Tanner said.

  That was impressive. Hope knew for a fact that his website had the pups listed at three times that much. “I appreciate that.” He opened up his wallet and got out five crisp hundred-dollar bills he’d just taken out of the ATM. He handed over his money, and Tanner took it without checking the amount.

  “Awesome. I’ll get you a receipt and her records so you’ll be able to give them to your vet.” He paused as he said the last word, chuckled. “Well, I suppose you already have the records at your office, huh?”

  Hope nodded. “Yep. You have been coming to my clinic for how many years now? I probably know more about the conditions your dogs have than you do.”

  “Truth. All right, I’ll just get you that bill of sale then. You want to load her up?”

  Like it would take long. The four pounds of mostly fur wasn’t even as long as his forearm. He could almost hold the puppy in the palm of his hand. “I’ll put the new collar on her and meet you over at my truck.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Hope bent down and grabbed up the little girl and cradled her to his chest. At least she was used to the smell of wolf-shifters. Some dogs, especially small ones, had really bad anxiety around his kind. It was one of the reasons he had at least two availables as technicians on his staff. The humans didn’t freak out the animals nearly as badly as he did.

  After walking the twenty feet over to his truck where it was parked in Tanner’s driveway, he grabbed the pretty purple rhinestone collar he’d bought at PetSmart earlier and looped it gracefully around her neck. “There, Princess. Now you’re decked out in some bling.”

  He didn’t care that he was pampering a tiny designer dog like some Hollywood starlet. He liked spoiling animals and he didn’t care if people thought he was unmanly because of it. The dog was so dainty that if he tried to put her in anything short of rhinestones, it would look ridiculous. />
  “Here you go,” Tanner said, walking up to Hope as he put his new puppy into a shiny new carrier. He extended the receipt, and Hope took it before sliding it easily into his pocket.

  “So where’s the last one going?” Hope asked. Out of the litter of five that Tanner’s bitch had pupped, there was one little boy that hadn’t been claimed.

  “I think I’ll give him as a present to the Alpha mate. That should really give Mustang fits.” Tanner grinned at the thought. He’d been teasing Mustang since they were kids, and despite the fact that Mustang grew up to run their entire pack, that hadn’t changed much. The only real difference was now Tanner knew not to take it too far and get Mustang too angry with him. The poor kid had more than a few ass whippings before he’d learned that particular lesson.

  “You sure they want a dog?”

  Tanner nodded. “The Alpha mate mentioned it at the last get-together when I mentioned my Kimi was about to have another litter. Mustang grumbled about not needing a dog or at least not a tiny one, so I just can’t resist.”

  Hope shook his head. Tanner just loved to stir up trouble. “Whatever floats your boat, man.” He paused. “Have you heard anything about the new addition?”

  It was no secret that the Alpha and his mate were trying to rehabilitate a human who had been forced into the change, but they weren’t exactly afforded details about said werewolf. Hope had caught a glimpse at him in one of the downstairs bedrooms at Mustang’s house, but then the man had shut the curtains and he hadn’t seen a hint of him since. Needless to say, the rumor mill was churning out all sorts of details, some true, most likely untrue about their new guest.

  “I heard he’s broken,” Tanner said, shrugging. “Other than that, not too many details coming out of the Alpha’s house. Dr. Carrigan is as tight lipped as ever about patients, and you know Grayson isn’t going to say anything unless Mustang wants him to.”

  Hope understood that perfectly. Despite the fact that being in a pack was the equivalent to living in a very tight-knit neighborhood where everyone knew your business, some things were still off-limits. “Have they brought in any potential Dominants to try to make him feel more secure?” It had been done in other packs with turned wolves.

  “I have no idea.” Tanner winked. “You interested in the position? You’ve always had a soft spot for hard-luck cases.”

  Hope shook his head. “God, no. I swore off broken men after me and Claude broke up.” The reminder started a fire in his belly all over again. He resented that Claude still had the ability to invoke that kneejerk reaction.

  Tanner patted his back. “Claude was a bad egg. He wasn’t broken. He was a manipulative twat. Good riddance to him and his new mate.”

  He knew what the standard response should be to that statement but he was fresh out of I’m-aloof-man-hear-me-roar juice. “Yeah.” It was the easiest nonresponse he could give. He might have broken up with Claude, but Claude had made sure Hope knew under no uncertain terms that he was to blame for their romance being ripped apart from all the drama. Hope was just too insert-whatever-adjective-Claude-could-think-of.

  “Enjoy your new roommate,” Tanner said, changing the subject. “She’s going to be a handful.”

  Hope smiled. “I think I like her brand of trouble.”

  Tanner chuckled. “You say that now. If you have any trouble, just let me know.”

  “Will do, man. I’ll see you later.”

  “Pack meeting on Saturday. You going to bring her?”

  Hope shrugged. “I might. The pups might like to play with her while we shift.”

  “Cool. See you then.”

  “See you.”

  Tanner headed back toward his house, and Hope climbed up in the truck with his new pal and started the engine.

  Today was a new beginning. He’d moved into a new house closer to his office with a nice fenced-in backyard near the center of town, and now he had a new dog to start his new single life with. Things were definitely looking up.

  * * * *

  Steve paced the length of his room, agitated. “You can’t make me go on a run with you all. What if I hurt someone?”

  Mustang rolled his eyes and seemed to be slowly counting backward from ten as he looked at the clock situated above Steve’s window. “There is nothing my pack can’t handle. Trust me when I say if you get aggressive, the dominants will have no problem in grinding your face into the dirt until you learn to behave.”

  That was just what Steve was afraid of. “I’m. Not. Going.”

  “You. Have. Zero. Choice,” Mustang rumbled, mimicking his speech pattern.

  The hell he didn’t. As long as he had air in his lungs, he had a choice. If he’d learned anything from this hellish experience, it was that free will trumped anything this fucked-up world could dish out at him.

  “Steve, he’s just trying to help you,” Grayson said. His former frat brother was now the Alpha mate, which pretty much meant that he was number two in this seemingly never-ending wolf pack. Steve was in an uncomfortable emotional position on that particular point of fucked up. On one hand, he was very glad Grayson wasn’t actually dead like he’d thought. On the other, he was pissed that his little brother hadn’t let him in on the fact. In combination with being kidnapped, mind raped, beaten half to death, and then turned into a freaking werewolf, it was no wonder he wasn’t hospitable toward either one of them.

  “Yeah? How’s he trying to help me exactly? I don’t trust them.” He would never trust anyone ever again. What had been done to him… He could write a horror novel the length of Stephen King’s The Stand and make it four times as terrifying.

  “Not all wolves are like the ones that kidnapped you, Steven.”

  “My name is fucking Steve, Mustang,” he snapped. The animal inside him that was always close to the surface growled in warning. As hurt as they’d been, no one’s authority, not even an Alpha’s, held much weight.

  Mustang growled, and Grayson made a noise clearly meant to soothe the angry Alpha. Steve didn’t care one way or another if he made Mustang mad. He was tired of living a half-life where he couldn’t even control which form he was in. He’d hurt innocent people and made Grayson’s new life a nightmare. He didn’t even have control over whether he lived or died. He had once judged people who chose suicide but now he thought maybe they just wanted some damn say over what happened to themselves.

  When he’d swallowed the silver bullets a month ago, he’d been perfectly logical in his decision. He couldn’t live like this anymore. This feral, half-man beast was a danger to both himself and to others. Being put down was the only logical option. Unfortunately, Mustang and Grayson hadn’t seen it that way. They’d rushed him to the hospital and forced him to undergo a lifesaving surgery. He’d never been so infuriated over anything in his entire life.

  “If you just let me die—”

  “Shut the fuck up about that, Steve,” Grayson snapped. It was the first time he ever remembered being screamed at by his gentle best friend. “You don’t want to die. Life is hard. It’s fucking really, really hard, but you don’t just roll over and welcome the reaper!”

  Steve raised his chin, stubbornness invading every cell of his body.

  Mustang hadn’t stuck his nose in it for once. Instead he stared at Steve, his head tilted to the side like he was pondering something. “Steve, sit down,” he said, his voice taking on that tone it usually did when he wanted the rest of the pack to heel.

  Steve snarled and it came out half-animal. “No.”

  Mustang nodded like he’d expected as much. “I get it.”

  The nonresponse was so unexpected that it deflated some of Steve’s resolve to be an asshole. “What? What do you get?”

  “Lone wolf. It’s a status only given to those who have broken all ties with pack. They don’t trust other wolves. I thought you were just having trouble adjusting, but I can’t make you feel better as an Alpha. I can only be an Alpha to my wolves. You’re not mine, and I can’t hold you here.”
Mustang pushed off the corner of the wall where he’d been reclining. “As long as you’re in my pack, you will follow my rules. That means a hunt tomorrow.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “I send you to the Circle on a plane first thing tomorrow.”

  “Mustang, no,” Grayson cut in. “Please, he doesn’t understand.”

  Mustang’s gaze was unflinching as he met Steve’s. “He knows exactly what that means. If he really wants to die, he’s going to do it away from you. I won’t have you hurt any more by his stubbornness. You want to be without pack? Fine. You want to give up because something shitty happened to you? Fine. I’m done fighting it. This is your once chance, Steve. I can’t undo what’s been done to you but I can offer you a new start with people who will genuinely care for you the rest of your life. If you reject that, I can’t do anything else for you.”

  With that, he turned and left the room, head held at an infuriatingly high angle. He really was an arrogant bastard. It pissed Steve off that he actually found the quality admirable. Grayson had always needed someone strong like that, someone who wouldn’t take shit. However, Steve didn’t want that in a partner.

  He’d always been bisexual but had never really felt like he wanted to be either the dominant or submissive partner in the relationship. He wanted someone to treat him like he was the best thing that had ever happened to them and for the two of them to have a wonderful, equally committed relationship. Of course he’d never expected to find that in college. College was playtime as far as he was concerned. He wanted to drink too much, laugh too much, and generally have far too much fun until he graduated and headed back to nowhere Iowa to live out his life being boring. Now all that had changed.