“I know that. I’m trying, but all I can think of is that creature with her filthy hands on him. It makes me…” He dropped his head into his hands, and Larssen nodded sympathetically. Part of the curse put on the Balenescu family so long ago by his greatgrandfather’s concubine was that when it came to their mates, the brothers were almost irrationally possessive and jealous. He’d already seen his cousins Blayde and Nikolai going through it, and neither of them had to experience this much provocation. He was worried about his little brother, who had an uneven temper at best, and had always been the most dominant, controlling member of the family when it came to his lovers.

Clearing his throat, Larssen nodded toward the bed. “Do you want to get him ready to go? I’ll go make the final payment so we can get the fuck out of here.”

Konnor nodded and as he walked toward the bed, Larssen slipped out to go search out the madam. She couldn’t be far away. Walking down the long hallway toward the reception room, he thought of the moment he’d first found her website.

After they got the information they needed out of Doma Helga, they had contacted the authorities and stayed with her to make sure she didn’t get away. Not only did they want to make sure she wasn’t left alone with the children under her care, but they wanted to make sure she didn’t warn her sister.

Konnor had made her give him the website information, and he used his personal comnet device to look it up. They found the graphic pictures of Ethan right away, some of which even made Larssen’s stomach clench in sympathy and fear for the boy. Konnor was holding on by his fingertips.

Larssen contacted Mistress Katya and began the complicated negotiations, demanding that no one else be allowed to sample the boy and promising they would match and exceed any other bid that came in for him. When he’d read her quick reply, he could almost hear the calculations running up in her head.

They’d left the same night, anxious to get to Ethan as quickly as they could. Still Konnor had paced the floor of the comm deck practically all the way.

Larssen came into the parlor as Katya called the reception area and pressed a button on the desk. Within minutes, Katya arrived, her face looking even more swollen and puffy than usual, having been dozing, apparently.

“Well, has your friend decided? Will he take the boy?”

“Yes, he will,” Larssen said shortly. “Do you have the final invoice ready?”

She pulled it from her pocket and pushed it at Larssen. “Here it is. I trust it meets with your approval?”

Larssen glanced down at the exorbitant price that she’d jacked up as high as she could in the past few days they’d been negotiating. He saw the addition of the platinum collar at a price that was truly excessive. It didn’t really matter what price she was asking. They would pay it and get Ethan out of there. The Alliance had already been notified of what was going in her high-end establishment, as Helga had called it, and were set to raid her and shut her down just as soon as the Lycans gave the signal that their people were clear. All of the money would be returned to his family eventually.

Larssen counted out the diamond standards in her hand and she nodded with satisfaction. “He’s all yours, or I should say your friend’s. Are you quite sure I can’t offer you some little distraction? I have a nice selection of love-slaves, even a few humans that are nice. Very tempting…”

“No thank you,” Larssen said firmly. He was happy that the Alliance would be rescuing these tempting humans soon. He had little doubt that Katya had acquired most, if not all of them, nefariously.

He heard a noise behind him and saw Konnor standing in the hallway, his lips set in a grim line. He had Ethan, still wrapped in the madam’s blanket, in his arms, Ethan’s head resting on his shoulder, his big eyes filled with fright as he caught a glimpse of Katya before he nuzzled his face into the hollow between Konnor’s neck and shoulder. Ethan was a big boy, but Konnor didn’t seem to feel any strain as he carried him to the dock. Larssen knew Ethan was still suffering the effects of the venom and must be running a fever by now. It would only last a few hours, but would leave him weak and shaky.

They had to take a small, submarine vehicle to the surface of the moon and once they emerged, the small group walked over the completely enclosed ice bridge, complete with breathable atmosphere, to their waiting ship. Their ship was tethered to the dock by means of a sleeve to protect them from the extreme temperatures and thin atmosphere on Europa as they entered or exited the ship. Once they were safely inside, with the sleeve retracted, Konnor carried Ethan up to his room while Larssen detached from the dock and made preparations to take off. Within a short time, Konnor joined him and they navigated the ship away from the moon and into orbit around Jupiter. Only then did Larssen notify the Alliance they could move in.

A couple of hours later, after setting a course for home, and learning that Katya and her employees were taken into custody with little incidence, Larssen sat back and regarded Konnor carefully. “You have to put this behind you, Konnor, and stop brooding about it. Ethanwasn’t running away from you, so much as he was running from being an omega. That title has come to mean something very degrading to Lycans, and with good reason. Most Lycans believe omegas are second-class citizens. There are Lycan rights groups that have denounced the Ruling Council’s actions toward omegas, but public opinion hasn’t changed. People still consider them to be mental defectives and good only for the most menial jobs. Not to mention using the goodlooking ones for sexual slavery. Who wouldn’t run from that?”

“You think I don’t know that, Larssen?” Konnor said quietly, staring at the screen on the comm deck where the stars were flashing past them. “I’m angry at myself for letting these emotions get the better of me, for blaming him for something that wasn’t really his fault. Once he was in Katya’s hands, there was nothing he could do. I know that, and I want to forgive him. Hell, even that word isn’t right. It wasn’t his fault so there’s nothing to forgive. But how could Ethan run from me? I keep coming back to that.” He turned his head to gaze over at his brother. “He’s Lycan, so he had to feel the mating connection between us, even if he didn’t know exactly what it was he was feeling. Yet he ran from it and never looked back. Hell, he might still be running if this hadn’t happened to him. Sure, he was glad to be rescued from that creature, but was that all it was? Was he even happy to see me?”

Larssen stretched out his legs and shrugged. “You’re sounding a little like a girl, here, bro. A bitchy one at that.”

Konnor gave a surprised bark of laughter. “Yeah, I guess I do. I know what I should do. Put the whole thing behind us. I have no choice in who I feel the mating call for. We’re mated now, and it’s a done deal. I know that. But I feel so damned…wounded. I know it’s stupid, and it’s stemming from this ridiculous jealousy the curse foisted on us. But every time I think of him on his knees to that woman… On her fucking leash! I can’t get the image of her having sex with himout of my head, and I can’t help but think of him as damaged goods.”

A small voice behind them made Larssen jump in surprise. “Is that what I am to you, Konnor? Damaged goods? I can’t imagine why you tied yourself to someone who was both damaged and defective. Is it so you can be thought of as a kind of martyr the rest of your life? Poor Konnor. His mate was an omega, you know. He had to take him on because he had no choice.”

Konnor’s face was a mask of guilt and shock. He stood up and took a step toward Ethan, who wore what looked like some of Konnor’s old clothes. He backed away with his hands raised in front of him. “No, it’s good that I know the truth. You can’t help the way you feel, I suppose. No, please!” he said, as Konnor made another move toward him. “Please let me think about this for a little while. I don’t want to be this weight around your neck, Konnor, but I’m kind of trapped too, so I need a few minutes to work this out in my mind.” He turned to go back below decks. Just before he reached the door he stopped, his back still toward them. “Please give me a little time, Konnor, before you come down. I know this is your ship, and I don’t have any rights, butI’m begging you…it’s all I ask.”

He went out the door and Konnor threw himself back down in his chair, lifting a tortured gaze to Larssen. “What can I do now, Lars? How could I have fucked this up so totally? Basically, he heard me say, yeah, Ethan, you’ve been kidnapped and degraded and forced to have sex with that fat bitch, but hey, you haven’t suffered enough yet to make my ego feel better about it. Let me rub your nose in it for the next thirty or forty years. Let me tell you how worthless you are. Gods, Larssen! I’m a bigger monster than Katya is! He’s going to hate me forever.”

Chapter Five

Ethan lay on his back in the tiny room, staring up at the ceiling. He had awakened earlier from a troubling sleep and felt the strong urge to be with his mate. His fever was gone, and his stomach ached a little. He’d heard the stories about how Lycans trained their mates, and knew the stomach pain usually meant that the less dominant mate—definitely him in this case—felt as if his partner were upset or angry with him. It was a potent side effect of the venom in the mating bite, but he’d always thought he’d have to worry about not hurting his own mate. He never dreamed he would be the one being trained. Ethan knew only too well that Konnor felt anger toward him. He hadn’t hidden the fact, and this was no doubt where these feelings were coming from.

He got up, disentangled himself from the blanket Konnor had wrapped him in, and shuffled over to the closet to see if he could find something to wear. He didn’t think Konnor would mind if he wore some of his clothing until he could get some of his own. The few things he’d had were taken from him when he’d arrived on Europa and he’d never seen them again.

After rummaging around, he found a pair of pants that almost fit and an old, worn sweater, stretched and soft from too many washings and still smelling a little like Konnor. All of Konnor’s shoes were way too large, but he found a pair of thick socks and then made his way out into the corridor to try to find Konnor and Larssen. He figured they would be on the comm deck, and since the ship really wasn’t too large, he thought he’d be able to find it.