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“No, you’re exactly where you need to be,
mate
.” Panahasi laughed as ten men surrounded the group.
“O h, shit, Maverick is going to kill me for this one.”
* * * *
“Where exactly did they take Taylor?” Dagon asked when he couldn’t find a mate anywhere.
Law and Loco sat forward on the leather sofa in Maverick’s office. “Why?” Law stretched the word out, his face changing from curiosity to rage. “Where’s Carter?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” He had been sniffing the air as he searched for Taylor but hadn’t smelled anything resembling mothballs. “I can’t find any of them.” Maverick stood so fast his chair clattered to the floor. “Find them.” He growled low. “With that demon bitch after Taylor, none of them are safe.”
The hunt was on. Every warrior searched the Den but came up empty.
“Could your mate have taken them out again?” Hawk asked.
“Not likely. Cecil knows the dangers. Besides, no vehicles are missing, and Carter wouldn’t dare pop them anywhere. Something’s wrong.”
Dagon’s gut was twisting with worry. If Taylor’s mom had gotten to him, there was no telling where she would take him. His chest constricted at the thought of never seeing Taylor again.
He
had
to find him.
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Chapter Six
Now that Taylor knew why he acted flip- floppy around Dagon, he wanted to be with him. He sat there watching the performers on the stage, not really interested in what they were doing. His mind was on his mate as he picked up his glass of water and took a sip.
Taylor played with the condensation that was running down the sides of the glass, seeing some of the mates jumping around and enjoying themselves and others looking around as curiously as he was.
The place had some strange-looking people in here, and he used the word
strange
loosely. The place seemed to house all sorts of mystical creatures. Panahasi had reassured them that the Shadow Elves wouldn’t bother them, but after Ahm’s performance back at the Den, he kept one eye on them.
There were Wood Elves there as well as other demons and some shifters. Panahasi pointed them out because they looked very human to the mates. “How you holding up?”
Taylor gave a tight smile to one of the Demon Warriors, as Panahasi had referred to them, and took another sip. If he remembered correctly, this one’s name was Hondo.
“I don’t think that woman up there is getting it for me.” Hondo snorted and shook his head. “That’s no woman. That’s Roxy.
He
performs here regularly.” Taylor looked back up at the stage with the new knowledge. A guy? He was pretty for a guy. He tried to make out a bulge in the front but saw none. “Where is he hiding his parts?”
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Hondo laughed. “Don’t know, and I’m not going to ask. Roxy is a bit of a drama queen and gets pissy over the smallest shit.” Taylor nodded and then looked back up at Roxy. He was drawing the crowd in as the men in the club were whooping and whistling, waving money around for some of the performer’s attention.
“You look troubled,” Hondo observed.
Taylor eyed the massive warrior as he took another sip. He didn’t know this guy from Adam, so why did he want to spill his guts?
Maybe it was the easy way Hondo spoke to him, made him feel comfortable, which was odd as hell considering he was a demon.
Weren’t they supposed to be inherently evil?
“Working out the mating thing.” He gave the demon a small part of his problem.
“Why? Does Dagon treat you badly?” Hondo’s brows pulled together, his voice growing rough and threatening.
Taylor wanted to laugh. He didn’t ask if it was because they were men. He asked about how he was treated. It seemed everyone around him thought nothing of two men being together. So why was he always getting so worked up about it?
“No, he’s actually very nice to me.”
Hondo’s features relaxed. Taylor knew they were there to protect him, but would Hondo have defended him if his mate were treating him badly?
“That’s good, so then why are you looking so lost?”
“I’m not sure I get the whole man- love thing. I was raised to believe it was wrong. Despite my brother Josh.” Hondo tilted his beer bottle back, taking a long draft before lowering it and wiping his mouth. “What’s to get? Girl and girl, guy and guy, or guy and girl, doesn’t really matter. Gender shouldn’t be a factor in it.”
“That’s what I’ve been told. But, I keep hearing her voice in my head screaming at me for letting Dagon touch me.” Taylor blushed at
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giving out the little intimate detail. He was basically telling Hondo that he and Dagon had fucked.
“Nah, don’t let her bother you. That’s one opinion, and the only one that counts is yours. Do you not want to be mated to Dagon? If not, I can make him disappear.” Hondo winked at him before taking another drink from the dark bottle.
“Don’t even think about it. I may be questioning things, but I
do
want to keep him.” There, he had said it out loud. It felt like a small weight was lifted from him with that statement.
“He is hot.”
“
Mine
.” The word rolled up and out of Taylor without conscious thought. Where did that come from?
“Seems your demon is very territorial.” Hondo laughed. “Stop fighting it, fighting the mating and fighting your demon. It will be a lot easier if you just accept it.”
Taylor was still trying to accept the idea he had something inside of him. He picked up the napkin that came with his water, pulling pieces of it apart and dropping them to the table. “What exactly is
my
demon?”
“Almost like the shifters. It’s an actual entity in you, there to protect you from harm. Although you aren’t fully developed at such a young age, you’ll eventually shift when he’s needed. Most half demons mature at around one hundred in human years.” Well, that cleared things up. “How old are you?” Hondo’s mouth pulled back in a smile. “I stopped counting when I reached three thousand. Demons don’t age and die like other mysticals. We age like fine wine.”
“Am I immortal?” Another thing to wrap his head around. Here he thought he took things in stride, had told Josh to lighten up when his brother wanted to freak out that Law was a werewolf. Man, had he known that his words would come back to bite him, he would have helped Josh pack.
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“You’re only half, so it all depends on how strong your demon becomes. With half demons, it’s all about what sort of demon they have in them. And before you ask, Dagon will live as long as you do.
It’s a mating thing.” Hondo clapped him on the shoulder before standing, Taylor jerking forward from the large hand.
So he
may
be immortal, mated to a were-creature, a
male
were-creature, his mom was a demon out to snatch him away from his mate, and his brother was a vampire.
Dr. Phil, here I come.
“Stop fighting it,” Hondo said before leaving the table. Taylor watched him walk away, wondering if he could embrace who he was, now that he knew.
“Having fun?” Cecil asked as he fell into the booth Taylor was seated at. “That’s a guy up there.” The mate pointed to the stage and laughed. “He sure as shit fooled me.”
“Me, too.”
Cecil cocked his head and stared at Taylor. “You know, George was a closet case when he first came to town, wouldn’t step out to save his life. Nobody cares that you’re gay. We all are. Hell, I’m more curious about your demon than your bed partner.”
“That makes two of us. Hondo said it will develop and may make me immortal.”
“Makes being a human suck. Everyone has all these weird and cool tricks up their sleeve, and all I can do is burp out the alphabet.” Taylor hadn’t thought of his demon as being cool. Maybe having it in him wasn’t so bad after all. “I’m gay,” he blurted out.
Cecil fell over to his side laughing. “I know. You’ll be fine.” The laughter was contagious. Taylor grinned and then started chuckling. “I’m gay,” he repeated.
“And proud of it.” Cecil reached across the worn table and tapped Taylor’s knuckles. “Cock for life.”
This time Taylor burst out laughing. “
One
cock for life.”
“As long as it’s good.”
“And big.”
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“And he knows what to do with it.”
“And big.”
“You said that.”
Taylor laughed. “It’s the most important part.” The weight of him agonizing over being with a man seemed to lift right off of his shoulders. He did have to admit that it felt good as hell when Dagon fucked him. More than good, it was fucking fantastic.
Some of the other mates scooted into the booth, looking from Cecil to Taylor. “What’s so funny?” Kyoshi asked.
Cecil pointed at Taylor. “He’s gay.”
Kyoshi raised one brow. “And that’s news because?”
“He’s admitting it.”
Kyoshi smiled over at Taylor. “Congratulations on coming out.”
“Thanks.” He was excited now to get back to his mate and be claimed again. Would he freak out afterward? God, he hoped not.
With the feeling of being accepted by everyone and the thrill of having such a hot-ass mate, he hoped the euphoria didn’t fade into hysterics. That would be a mood killer…again.
“O h, shit.” Taylor spotted his mom at the bar. She looked odd as hell standing there in a one-piece leather outfit considering he thought of her as a dollies and bric-a-brac kind of woman.
“We need to go,” O liver whispered across the table at him.
“Ya think?” Taylor’s eyes scanned the crowd for his bodyguards, trying to get their attention when he spotted a few of them. There was no need. They were already descending on his mom. As much as he hated the idea of what she was trying to do, he still loved her.
She was his mom.
“Let’s go,” Panahasi said as he appeared at Taylor’s side. “My men will take care of her. You guys need to get back to the Den.” Nobody argued. They all flocked to the large man and then were led to the side of the bar, stepping back through what Taylor assumed to be some sort of portal. He breathed a sigh of relief when they were once again in the library.
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“Later.” Panahasi walked backward and threw up a peace sign as he faded into the shadows.
“That was…interesting,” Drew said as he looked away from the corner Panahasi had just disappeared into and stared at them. “Thank god I kicked the drugs. That was mind-blowing enough.”
“I had fun.” Johnny and Keata smiled.
“Roxy was hot.” Johnny giggled.
“And who is Roxy?”
They all jumped and spun around, seeing the entire Sentry unit standing there glaring at them.
“Uh, a cross-dresser?” Tangee answered hesitantly.
Taylor inwardly groaned. Even he knew that Tangee had given the wrong answer.
* * * *
Dagon paced back and forth in their bedroom, unsure of how to handle this situation. His mate had disappeared for hours and now seemed to be a different man. Was this one of his hot and cold mood swings?
He was running hot right now, and Dagon wasn’t sure if he should allow any sex until he was sure his mate wasn’t going to freak out.
Besides, he was pissed as hell right now at the mates for running off when danger was all around them.
“Do you know how much you had me worried?” he snarled. He paced some more, not waiting for Taylor to answer him. “A note would have been nice, a quick ‘I’ll be back’ or anything to indicate you were taking off.”
“I—”
“No, there’s no excuse. It’s my job to protect you, and that’s hard as hell to do when there isn’t a
body
to protect.”
“I—”
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“I tore this house up looking for you, going out of my mind thinking something horrible had happened.”
“I—”
“You what?” Dagon stopped pacing and looked at his mate, waiting for a plausible reason for him dipping out. He couldn’t come up with one, so maybe Taylor could enlighten him. “Well?”
“I came out.”
Dagon furrowed his brows, wondering what in the hell his mate was talking about. “Came out of where?”
“The closet.”
It took a second for his brain to catch up to his mate’s words. Did he mean it, or was this a momentary thing? He wanted to believe it, wanted it with everything in him, but Taylor’s meltdowns after sex made him hesitate. “I’m glad.”
“I’m sorry for the way I acted. But you have to understand that I was struggling with all of this. It wasn’t easy.”
“I know.” Dagon pulled Taylor into his arms, praying his mate meant his declaration. It would make life a whole lot easier if he did, aside from the demon after him that is.
Dagon put all of his eggs in one basket and trusted his mate at his word. If Taylor wasn’t going to freak out, then he was going to fuck him through the mattress and into the floor.
Dagon had taken stock of himself while searching for Taylor. His mate was working through who he was and what was happening to him, and Dagon had acted like a selfish prick. This wasn’t about him.
This was about Taylor finding himself and accepting or rejecting what he discovered.
He felt like a total heel. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Taylor, but seeing him go through the changes had made Dagon question everything around him. This was something he wasn’t used to, and it had unsettled him. With Taylor being the only one around, he had come into Dagon’s direct line of fire when the uneasiness
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settled inside of him, taking it out on the one man fate had chosen for him.
His brothers had been correct when they confronted him earlier, but Dagon would never tell them that.
There was one more thing that occurred to him while on the hunt, and he needed to let Taylor know this. “I love you.” Taylor looked up at him in shock, his eyes rounding as he bit his bottom lip. “You don’t have to say it back.” He stroked a thumb over Taylor’s cheek. “I just wanted you to know this.” His mate shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t want to say it back.