Free Heart of a Cowboy by Missy Lyons

be interested in the man at all, yet he could not deny this attraction. It wasn’t unusual for a Wendigo to take a male lover, but it was usually the lower-class males that did so and it was never a human. It was important for the alpha to take a mate to continue the bloodline from the strongest male. This made this strange attraction hard to wrap his mind around. “Don’t worry. I won’t rape you if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re too fucked up already.”
    Lucas drove to the edge of town, away from the hustle and bustle of town. He pulled into a motel with half the light bulbs out, so the sign read “otel.” He got a room with a king-sized bed, and helped Derek to his room. “I won’t stay. I just want to be sure you are all right and take a look at your head. You got a nasty gash from that fight.”
    “Okay. I don’t mind if you do stay. I like your company. Is it me or is the room spinning?” Derek leaned against the wall and held his head.
    “It’s just you.” Lucas looked at him with concern knotting his brow. He wrapped his arm around Derek’s waist and helped him to the bed dominating the room. “Why don’t you let me help you lie down? I may be able to help you feel slightly better. A Saskatchewan medicine man taught me a few tricks that might work.”
    Derek crawled onto the bed and collapsed, his breath hissing out in pain.
    “I have to get you out of these clothes.”
“Why?”
    “Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you… Unless you ask me to.” Lucas chuckled under his breath at the young man’s modesty. Derek’s fair skin was bruised and battered, but his cheeks grew red with embarrassment. He was actually blushing. How refreshingly sweet! “I need to take a look at how bad your injuries are.”
    He also needed the skin-to-skin contact for the healing to actually work.
    Lucas unbuttoned Derek’s shirt, carefully lifting the other man’s arms out of the sleeves to avoid any additional pain. Derek’s chest was already beginning to turn black and blue, and in the worst places the bruises were green. His irregular, ragged breaths concerned Lucas. He could have internal damage to his lungs or internal bleeding that Lucas couldn’t see. Without some kind of medical care he could drift off to sleep and never wake up. However, Lucas knew the chance for that was minimal. What concerned him most was the man’s leg. He should have stopped limping by now, yet he still favored it. The leg could be anything from bruised to broken and he wouldn’t know what it was until he took a look.
    Lucas reached for the man’s pants, but Derek stopped him with his hand. “You got to let me do this if you want help,” Lucas said.
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “If you were fine you wouldn’t still be limping.”
    “It must have had something to do with being thrown twenty feet across the room. How the fuck did he do that? I know I am not exactly a big guy, but he doesn’t look that strong either.”
    “He might have been doped up on ice, or it could have been the endorphins.”
    “Yeah, that must have been it. I’ve heard stories about mothers being able to do crazy-ass things like lift cars off their kids when they have adrenaline running through their blood.”
    Lucas kept his mouth shut, but the things his people were capable of doing under the pretense of war were legendary. On the battlefield, pumped on adrenaline, they were once called Berserkers, compared to gods. Today they kept their physical abilities hidden so they would not stick out like sore thumbs from the humans they lived among, but if it came down to defending their mates or their families from a human, there would be no question as to the winner.
    “You have to take your pants off. I won’t look. I promise.”
    “I’ve had lots of men do more than look. Just don’t think it’s an open invitation.”
    “Do you really think I would be that easy?” Lucas made a distasteful snort. “I won’t be jumping your bones