Chapter Five

Earlier

The last thing Kyle remembered before he got clocked in the head with a backpack was seeing Xander go down. So when he woke up tied to a chair, with no Xander nearby and his alpha-detector definitely not tingling, Kyle was pretty damn sure that he was screwed.

Especially since he could see Buffy Summers, queen of all evil, and her redheaded minion. Also, the tied to a chair bit was a clue. Xander's friends didn't approve of him, and it seemed they were a bit more proactive about it than most.

Of course, he couldn't wake up without them noticing, and sure enough, there they were. He growled at them, which, oddly enough, did nothing to convince them to untie him. Funny, that. Buffy ran up and slapped him across the mouth.

Ow. Where the hell did that bitch learn to punch? His jaw smarted, but he took comfort in the thought of how very pissed off his alpha would be if there was even a mark on him. Wonder Woman wouldn't escape his wrath. Kyle took that feeling of safety and wrapped himself up in it. Xander would come for him. Alpha would take care of him. No—more than that—his mate would keep him safe.

Xander was his.

Except Buffy seemed to think otherwise. Bitch. She'd always been weirdly possessive of his Xander, ever since she'd transferred. But Xander was his first. He was Kyle's, all Kyle's. Those lips? Kyle's. That ass? Kyle's too.

Oh right. Buffy was talking. He growled again.

"Seriously! Stop that!" she said. "It's not scary, and it's kinda annoying."

Annoying? He was annoying? Oh he so needed a tape recorder.

"Buffy, he's not going to talk." Thank you for stating the obvious, redheaded limpet.

He really needed to learn her name. He was pretty sure they'd gone to kindergarten together, and he'd been stalking her best friend for years, so he really ought to know.

"I could break bones until he does," said Buffy. Kyle was pretty against this plan. He cuddled his mental Xander for support again.

"Giles said no," said the other one. Kyle blessed the other one. Buffy was kind of scary sometimes.

"But Willow!" Willow, that was it. The weird hippie name. He knew he should stop relying on Tor to know these things.

"Not buts!" said Willow. "See this? Resolve face. No breaking of the demony Kyle-person unless Giles says so."

Aww, the resolve face was kind of adorable. At least it would be adorable and she would be likable if he wasn't pretty sure she had knocked him out, and she weren't plotting to break him up with Xander. All things considered, he snarled.

"Buffy, he's doing it again."

Bitch.

"Okay Mister Growly," man this Buffy chick sounded dumb sometimes, "tell us what you did to Xander so that we can fix him."

Kyle cackled. "What I did to him? Are you crazy?"

"He speaks!"

Oh right. He was being silent. Oops. Nothing for it now.

"Honestly," he said, putting on his best innocent face, "I didn't do anything to Xander. Ask him yourself."

Sure, he knew that something must have happened in the Hyena House to make Xander go all over him, but it wasn't like he was going to tell them that.

"So why are you and he all gay now?" Thank you, Willow.

"Maybe he just really likes my ass," said Kyle, because, one, there was no way he could resist being a smart-alec, and, two, his mate did really like his ass. A lot.

Willow blushed and Buffy scowled. He was half afraid that she was going to slap him again. Fortunately, all she did was pull Willow into the corner for a whispered conference. Kyle was pretty sure he would be able to hear them if he tried, but he didn't care all that much. Instead, he thought of what he would do with his mate when he found him.

They could run and it would be just like running on the Savannah. Hell, they could take the whole pack if he wanted. Just as long as he got the wind in his hair, the smell of alpha and the solid feeling of his mate's presence, Kyle would be happy anywhere.

Buffy gave him one last threatening look, which knocked him out of his reverie pretty effectively, then stormed out.

He wondered briefly where Xander was. He knew his mate would be just fine. Xander was alpha. Xander could take anything.

Willow walked over then, and pulled up a chair. He raised his eyebrows. She raised hers back. Okay.

"Xander's not gay," she said, no preamble needed.

"Seems pretty gay to me," he said.

"Well, yeah, but that's just because you put some kind of spell on him. Poopiehead."

"I'm telling you, I didn't do anything!"

"Like I should believe you, you Liar McLiarface."

"Hey, all I know is that suddenly Xander was stalking me just as much as I stalked him."

"You stalked him?!"

"Um, duh."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Awkward silence reigned for a while as she tried to puzzle it out. It was actually kind of endearing to watch the gears turn.

"So, when you were teasing Xander…"

"It was because I liked him. Yes."

"Oh."

"I mean, I didn't know I liked him, all I knew was that he bugged me, but looking back on it, yeah, I liked him."

"Huh."

Uh-oh. Monosyllabic answers. Would Xander get mad if he broke Willow?

"So we pretty much just kidnapped Xander's boyfriend."

"Yes."

"Oh god."

Okay, this one? So not his fault.

Willow sank heavily into the chair and just looked at him for a while. He looked evenly back.

She wasn't unpretty. Sure, the clothes were eye-blinding bright and not flattering at all, but she had pretty eyes, and if you squinted a bit, she sort of looked like a pixie. A crazy, over-protective book-bag swinging pixie, but nobody's perfect.

He smiled. She tried to smile back. Oh well. She'd get used to him soon enough, because he wasn't giving up his mate.

The door burst open and Buffy was back. This looked like it was going to be the kind of fun that's not.

"Well," she said, hands planted on her hips and blonde hair swinging. She looked a bit like one of Charlie's Angels, which was definitely not something Kyle was going to mention. She slapped hard. "That Xander is totally not my Xander, so I'm gonna ask you one last time…"

Wait, she'd gone to see Xander? They had Xander?

"What did you do to him?"

Xander! MATE!

Kyle flipped his Xander-detector on high and stretched out as far as he could look. He grabbed hold of the gnawing in his stomach and the itching in his bones and ran towards the pull. There! Xander was okay, just a little bit away. He felt different too. He was stronger, but slightly wilder.

Still his Xander though.

Kyle sighed his relief at finding Xander, utterly oblivious to the effect his mental absorption was having on Buffy. She seethed. Few women appreciated being ignored. One who had just made a threat even less so.

She kicked him in the shin.

"Ow! Seriously?" Still, Kyle figured that if all he got was a kick, that wasn't so bad, except that he could feel a bruise forming, and that was just mean. He glared at Buffy, but said nothing further. There was nothing to say. He had, in fact, done absolutely nothing to Xander, but she would never believe him anyway.

The door swung open and the school librarian rushed in. Instead of asking why, pray tell, these two nice girls had a boy tied up, however, he walked quickly up to Buffy and Willow and started polishing his glasses. Huh.

"Xander seems to have escaped," he said, and Kyle didn't know that the librarian was British. He should probably go into the library more often.

Hang on a minute, the British man just said that Xander escaped! Bastards really did have Xander! Except he had escaped and was probably coming to get Kyle. Relief and anger warred to show themselves.

Boo librarian for locking up his Xander.

Yay Xander for escaping.

Boo Kyle for not escaping and helping alpha.

This was all just too confusing. He decided to blame it all on Buffy Summers, judging that to be more productive. And did anyone else think it was weird that the school librarian seemed to be so close to two underage girls? That just screamed lawsuit.

Speaking of screaming, he could hear a voice in his head. A voice that wasn't his. He quickly identified it as his mate's, but there was something odd about it, some added texture. It was pretty creep-tastic.

"Mate," said the Xander-voice.

"Umm…yes?" thought Kyle.

"We are coming for you. Do not interfere."

"Okayyyy…"

Then the voice abruptly pulled out of his head. That was weird. He was about to contemplate the weirdness when he heard shouting outside in the hall. Willow ducked her head out to investigate and ended up on the floor.

So at least the voice wasn't lying.

Only now he was tied to a chair in a classroom with two crossbow wielding maniacs, his alpha, and the rest of the pack. Yay?