A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2)

  A SHOCK TO YOUR SYSTEM

  Dangerous Creatures Book 2

  Mandy Rosko

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  Chapter One

  Jamie Holland opened his eyes, but had to shut his lids again instantly when a fiery light bulb in front of his retinas stabbed him through the skull. He groaned as he came awake, and he tried the eye-opening thing again, slower this time. The trees were upside down and spinning around him, and he had no memory of how he'd come to be here. Why was he so cold? Damp in some places, too. Not to mention stiff and sore as hell, like he'd been in a fight and totally got his ass handed to him on a plate. Every limb felt like wood.

  He shifted his body, mindful of aching joints that flared with pain, causing him to hiss. The pain sharpened in his back. Like that was the jolt he needed to remember, everything came back to him in one sharp, sudden rush of information to his brain, as though it was being downloaded in high speed. He remembered exactly where he was and why, and it was so damned painful and scary, it was as if the pain completely disappeared.

  He tried to sit up but the heavy net around his body made it impossible for him to get to a comfortable sitting angle. Still, he was up and aware at least. The dart that he'd been shot with was still sticking out of his skin; red where the needle pierced him with a small bruise turning a dark purple color.

  Anger filled him up like liquid being poured into a cup, and Jamie yanked the dart out of his skin and tossed it away. It didn't go very far thanks to the stupid net.

  That fucking bastard had actually shot him. Ethan had netted him like he was some kind of fish, and then shot him.

  That was about when the anger melted away. Panic buzzed inside of Jamie like a swarm of insects were droning and pulsating within him. That was the noise he usually heard whenever his abilities were getting out of control, and he searched around for—

  There he was. Ethan Frost was lying right where Jamie had left him. Still unconscious after Jamie launched a bolt of electricity at his chest.

  He'd been lucky. His aim had been spot on, and Ethan had gone down, but not before he'd fired his tranquilizer gun. Jamie had wondered which of them would wake up first before the drug in the dart pulled him under. Now he had his answer.

  Jamie never thought he'd be on the run from him of all people. Jamie was usually running toward him.

  Ethan didn't give off the “evil hunter who got his rocks off by chasing paranormals” vibe. That was what Jamie got for being taken in by such a pretty face.

  Of course a guy who was that well in shape, that good in bed, that attractive, and supposedly that into Jamie, was a hunter.

  Ethan's chest rose and fell as he lay on the cold, damp leaves in the woods. The man had caught up to Jamie when his car had broken down, and then chased him into the trees when Jamie had run for it. He would've put Jamie in shackles, boxed him inside one of those coffin-like contraptions, and then brought him to a lab.

  Now Ethan almost looked innocent, with the way his long lashes rested against his cheeks as he slept, pink lips slightly parted as he breathed. He was so close that Jamie could still make out these features; he could see the burn mark left behind on the jacket from the electrical charge Jamie had thrown at him.

  Ethan looked as relaxed and casually handsome as he always did. It was beyond not fair that he could be so good looking, even while sweaty and dirty from the chase.

  Jamie's body temperature rose just looking at him. He could almost trick himself into thinking they'd come out here on purpose for a quickie or something.

  He panicked when his cock twitched and his testicles tightened.

  No! Cut that out! Bad! Don't even think about it because it was clearly never going to happen again.

  Then Jamie thought of something else that took his breath away for an entirely different reason. Wait a minute. Was he unconscious? Or was he actually sleeping? If he was just sleeping now, he could wake up any minute. The slightest noise could wake him and have him reaching for his tranq guns and other weapons, and Jamie was still beneath this stupid net.

  He had to be as quiet as possible. But the net was heavy, and it was weighted down with metal balls that each weighed a ton.

  Or, at least seemed to.

  Considering how quickly Ethan had been chasing him, Jamie had no idea how the man had managed to throw this over his head to begin with. Jamie had known the man was strong and had muscle—that was part of what had attracted him to Ethan to begin with—but Jesus.

  Maybe it wasn't so much a strength thing. Maybe Ethan was a robot in disguise.

  Jamie's body was still sluggish, his fingers especially. Probably an effect from the drug inside of the dart, but the more he moved, the better he could control himself.

  Every twig that was beneath him made tiny noises as Jamie shifted and squirmed. Even the cold mud and leaves beneath his body seemed to squish loudly as he worked his way out from under the net. Every breath he took even seemed like it was amplified, and he was kind of stunned that no one heard him all the way back in the city.

  All the while, he watched as Ethan slept. Jamie didn't dare look away from him. The man didn't move, he didn't open his eyes, and he didn't do something that normal sleeping people did, like scratch his nose or twitch or something.

  Jamie had watched Ethan do that once or twice in the times they'd shared a bed. Now that Jamie thought about it, he was always the one who woke up first after they'd been together. Jamie had always taken a minute to admire how unfairly handsome Ethan was, even in the early morning when anyone else would have bags under their eyes and tired skin. Not Ethan. The man was a regular sleeping handsome, whereas Jamie always looked like shit after waking up. Puffy eyes and saggy face, and everything.

  Ethan never seemed to mind, though. The man had always smiled as he stretched himself awake, putting a hand into Jamie's hair and bringing him down for a leisurely good morning kiss that always seemed to lead into something deeper.

  Christ, now look at them.

  Jamie held his breath as he slowly got to his feet. It was as if he was trying not to wake a sleeping dragon, or a flesh eating zombie instead of a man, he was that scared. Right now Ethan was having that effect on him. The guy was taller than Jamie, and broader in the shoulders too. Basically, he could snap Jamie in half if he really wanted to, and Jamie was so drained. He was tired, his muscles felt useless, and he was pretty sure his powers over electricity wouldn't help him now.

  Being unconscious for...however long they'd been there, left him doubting if he could even summon the energy to defend himself if Ethan did jump up and attack him. He probably couldn't even charge a watch battery.

  Instead of turning around and running for the hills, which would have been the smart thing to do, Jamie started walking over to where Ethan was lying on the ground, and he was dragging the heavy-ass net with him.

  It wouldn't stop him, but hopefully waking up beneath it would confuse him enough that it would buy Jamie a little more time to get to the highway, get back to his car so he could pick up his stuff, and then hitch a ride with someone and get far away from here.

  Jamie stopped, holding the net as he stood over Ethan. He stared down at t
he man, at the dirt smudged on his forehead from when he fell, and the way his chest softly rose up and down.

  A sharp lurch in Jamie's chest made itself known to him, as though someone had punched him, and it fucking hurt so damned much that Jamie couldn't bring himself to move for a few seconds. His hands gripped the net so hard and powerfully that his knuckles turned sheet white.

  Ethan was so attractive without even trying. Why did Jamie have to be the kind of guy who only fell in love with a man's face? Ethan had been the perfect one, exactly Jamie's type: dark hair, excellent muscle definition, and a smile to die for. The fact that he'd had a good sense of humor was a bonus.

  He'd also been a damned tiger in bed.

  But it wasn't just that Ethan was charming and good looking. Jamie had liked him. He really had. Then it turned out that he was a fricken' hunter.

  He should've known. He really should have.

  Okay, whatever. He needed to suck it up and take a deep breath. He had no time for this. Jamie was basically risking his life just by standing there and doing nothing, so he needed to do what he was going to do and make like The Flash already.

  He draped the net over Ethan's still body, careful to keep the ropes from touching his face as much as possible, or the metal weights from coming into contact with his hands or legs.

  Jamie almost wanted to lean down and give him a quick kiss goodbye before he turned and walked away. As scary as it had been running away from Ethan, he could still remember how it felt to lie in bed next to him, both of them naked, sweaty and smiling, while chatting to each other and learning all they could about one another.

  Except for what Ethan did for a living, or the fact that Jamie was a paranormal with sometimes-hard-to-control electricity powers.

  How could he have been so wrong? It was like every romantic movie he'd ever watched had lied to him.

  Jamie shook his head. He wasn't going to give the man on the ground a kiss. Aside from being way too melodramatic, that would be just pushing his luck even more, and he had to make like the Roadrunner already and get out of there as fast as if Wile. E. Coyote was after him.

  Jamie sighed, keeping his words soft. "I'll see you around," he said, and then turned and walked briskly away.

  With Ethan, the bastard, working as a hunter, and chasing after Jamie, the odds were pretty good that he would see the other man again. And how fucked up was he that he clung to that fact just to keep his stupid chest from imploding on him?

  Jamie waited until he was several feet away before his resolve to walk with his back straight and his head held high crumbled. Every step away from Ethan hurt like hell, and he wanted to go back. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering going back! His reasoning was sound, sort of. What if Ethan really was hurt and Jamie just hadn’t noticed? He could be cut somewhere or an animal could come along. Ethan would be helpless under that net against a bear or a wolf.

  "Keep going. Don't turn back. Don't even think about it."

  Jamie could see through his own stupidity, and even then it was hard to put one foot in front of the other, like he was chained to a giant anchor.

  The very thought that he was even considering going back scared him as much as the mental image of being stuffed into a metal box, because he knew that was basically what he'd be setting himself up for if he returned. Jamie started running for it.

  He ran for maybe ten seconds before a noise that made his guts quiver and his skin crawl made him skid to a halt, kicking up mud and twigs and leaves. The sound stopped him because it was a scream.

  Not just any scream, either. It was almost a shriek. The sound he heard was the kind that erupted from a man's throat when he was in so much pain that his body didn't know what else to do except for scream. Jamie knew the difference. Normally a sound like that wouldn't be cause for him to stop and listen. It would be a reason for him to feel pity towards whomever was being tortured and run the fuck away, but that was Ethan's voice, and Jamie's blood went so cold that he started to shiver.

  Holy fuck. What was happening to him?

  Didn't matter. Did. Not. Matter. Jamie turned and ran back.

  Chapter Two

  Ethan came awake to his own scream; it was so damned powerful that the inside of his throat vibrated. The pain...holy fuck, the pain! It was the worst sort of burning agony in his leg that just shot mind-numbing pain throughout the rest of his body. He shifted and struggled to get away from it. More like spasmed, but he was at least still moving.

  Only he wasn't. He couldn't. He couldn't move more than a few inches. Something heavy that covered his entire body held him down. A shadow scrambled away from him. Because of the pain and panic, it took him an eternity to figure out what it was that held him even though it was right in front of his face.

  The net.

  He needed a second for that to sink in. When it did, he could still hardly believe it. Then he got pissed.

  Seriously? The fucking net was on him. His own net was on him! How the hell—?

  Jamie. That was the only explanation. He had woken up before Ethan, and now he was here, and something or someone was stabbing him. Jamie was actually cutting him!

  The rage of the thought came out of him in a roar. “Jamie!”

  "He's awake! Knock it off before he brings the whole fucking world down on us!"

  That was not Jamie’s voice. The shock silenced him. He blinked, a lot, trying to clear the dust and dirt from his eyes.

  "We're out in the middle of nowhere. No one's going to hear him.”

  Ethan’s vision cleared, and the shadows turned into people. People who looked ragged and dirty, like a shower and change of clothes hadn’t been in their recent history.

  "There are farm houses not too far away from here. Someone will hear this,” said the boy.

  Ethan gritted his teeth through the pain, but that was about all he could do. He reached down with his hand to find out what was happening to his leg. Something warm and wet met his fingers, even though he knew what it was before he brought his hand back up.

  He could smell the blood before he saw the red on his skin; however, the strange thing about it was that there didn’t seem to be a weapon. There was no knife sticking out of him, and none of the people above him had his blood on them either.

  In spite of all that, something told him Jamie hadn’t been the one to cut him and take off. These three people were responsible for his current state, and that made them pretty damned dangerous.

  "Everyone just calm down. He's awake now so it doesn't matter," said a woman whom Ethan was going to consider the leader. She had bright blond hair that was somewhat darkened by dirt. The shape of her face and lips meant she was likely pretty under all that grime, but the smell of her made that hard to visualize.

  She got down on her haunches, her skirt rising a little as she did so, allowing Ethan to see the brown color of the ballet flats that she wore. Something told him they used to be white. Her position also gave him the uncomfortable sight of her plain panties, and the scrapes on her knees and legs.

  All paranormals that were captured and brought to Head Office wore a certain uniform as a means of identification. Plain white slippers like the ones on this girl's feet were part of that dress code.

  "This belong to you?" she asked, holding up the badge that had been strapped to the side of Ethan's belt: the gold shield with the hawk-in-flight logo on it, along with his number that proved he was licensed to bring in paranormals.

  Fuck my life. This woman was an escaped paranormal, and when she'd found him and noticed his badge, she'd made him bleed. Ethan’s eyes flickered to the two boys with her. It was likely they were all illegal paranormals, though he couldn't be totally sure. The dirty and torn clothing, hints of bruising and more scrapes, though, made it a near certainty.

  He took a calming breath. “Listen to me, you don't want to do this. You don’t—Aaaaaah!"

  The pain was so intense it took over every brain cell in Ethan’s head. His only response
was to scream everything out of him and even that wasn’t enough. He found himself rolling and shaking, trying to get away from the invisible claws that ripped at his skin, tearing him open like his skin was made of Christmas paper. There was no getting away. The invisible claws, knives, whatever they were, stayed with him.

  When she finished, the pain still took time to dull. Cold drops of sweat beaded all over his face, neck, back, and everywhere else on his body, chilling him. Ethan's limbs shook as he attempted to move. He tried to look down to see exactly what was being done to him, but all he could see was more blood on his legs. It soaked through his pants this time on his upper thighs. The blood bloomed across the denim before coming to a stop.

  Holy shit. Maybe she did have claws.

  "A hunter just like you got a check for bringing me in," said the girl. She stared at Ethan with the kind of wild hatred he'd only ever seen in horror movies. "I'm not wearing shackles anymore. I'm in control now. So tell me now, and be honest, does this belong to you?"

  The ripping of his flesh started again before he could answer. He felt the stretch right before the pain flared to a peak. Ethan flailed as he screamed. He wasn't even able to form words, and he was sure as hell trying to, just to get her to stop. It was all just noise coming from his throat. He tried to stop what was happening, to reach down and yank away whatever it was that was doing this to him, but there was nothing there and he was just making it worse. He couldn't help himself.

  Finally, it stopped, and Ethan was panting for breath and pouring sweat as if he'd just finished chasing down Jamie.

  Jamie. Holy shit. If these people were doing this to him, then what had they done to Jamie? Where the hell was he? Ethan looked around himself as best he could, and he didn't see the man anywhere.

  “I promise you that was nothing. I didn’t even cut you that much and it’ll get a lot worse if you don’t start talking.”