“He’s a hell what?” Kade said a little too loudly. “You have got to be shitting me.”
Curious, Keaton moved a little closer until he was standing right behind Kade—as if the man could shield him—and glanced out of the window.
Oh, why did he do that? Keaton should have kept his ass where he was. There was a guy across the street, dressed entirely in black—including his damn hair—and staring directly at Keaton. The guy pressed his index finger to his forehead and then bowed his head slightly, as if greeting Keaton. He wore a mocking grin on his face, but his eyes, god, they were so lifeless. He reminded Keaton of some deeply enmeshed Goth. His fingernails and lips were the same color as his hair, the color of black ink. He also had chains draping from the loops on his pants, in every direction.
How freaking creepy.
He hurried away from the window, terrified. Keaton wasn’t sure what the stranger wanted, but he knew it wasn’t anything good. He turned when he heard Kade clear his throat. The man was finally off of the phone. “Are we in deep trouble?”
Kade’s expression wasn’t promising. His mate ran his hand over his short-cropped hair, his teal eyes flickering over Keaton’s face. “And then some.”
“Can you repeat that?” Keaton said as he stared at Kade, his mind not quite grasping what the guy was saying. “Did you just say that this man…person…creature thing escaped from hell?”
Keaton considered himself a very open-minded person, but what Kade was telling was even more far-fetched than when the guy told him about shifters and vampires. “You’re saying that the guy outside”—Keaton pointed toward the window—“isn’t human and can kill me if he bites me? Why would he bite me? I haven’t done anything wrong to him. How did he get out of hell? Who let him out?” He was hyperventilating. Just the thought of the word
hell
and Keaton wanted to move to the other side of the country.
But would that be far enough?
“Calm down.” Kade paced up and down the book aisle. “At least I found out that I’m not losing my mind. This thing, hell hound, sucks all the joy out of a person. That is why I have been feeling so damn depressed since I got back.”
Keaton snorted as he yanked his hands through his hair. “I’m glad you figured that out. Now all we need to do is find out how to get rid of that thing. Can’t we just toss a bucket of holy water over his head?”
It sounded like a perfect plan to him. The hound thingy should shriek and shrivel. No, wait, that was
The Wizard of Oz
. Wrong evil being. But it was the same concept.
“It isn’t that easy.” It was a simple statement, one that should’ve had Keaton exploring other possibilities. But he was so far out of his depth that the only thing that came to mind was calling a priest.
He began to pace right along with Kade, feeling trapped and lacking air. God help him, he actually wanted to find a way to defeat that horrible thing outside, to stop it from mentally torturing Kade.
“Don’t look so worried, Keaton.” Kade blocked Keaton’s pacing, placing his hands on Keaton’s upper arms and holding him still. “Help is on the way. I guess for every evil entity there is a warrior. The timber wolves are getting in contact with someone who is an expert at killing those things.”
Keaton leaned into Kade’s embrace, needing desperately to grab hold of something solid and strong. His mate’s hands caressed Keaton’s arms, his touch so tender, so warm. Keaton nestled into Kade, laying his head on the strong shoulder, and hoped that his mate was right. If that thing out there was the cause of Kade’s moodiness, Keaton would gladly go out there and shove a spike through the son of a bitch’s skull.
He had taken the news of shifters and vampires existing in a semi-calm state. Kade was a shifter and he hadn’t attacked Keaton. The town was full of shifters, people he knew and liked. But that hound outside was pure, unadulterated evil. There would be nothing about him to like. There would be nothing about him that made Keaton feel at ease.
Keaton clung to Kade, balancing on the edge of an emotional chasm that he felt like he was falling into. His mind began to open, truly understanding that nature balanced everything out. There weren’t just humans in the world. Nature balanced that out with paranormal creatures. But within those nonhuman creatures was good and evil—just like with humans.
But the paranormal evil was a hell of a lot scarier.
“I swear to you, Keaton. I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll get through this.” Kade’s thickly chiseled body moved until he had Keaton’s back against the bookcase. “And when that evil bastard is defeated, and these unwelcome emotions are gone,”—Kade leaned in, pressing his lips to Keaton’s ear—“I’m going to claim you and truly make you mine.”
The growled promise made his blood feel alive, as if it were burning through him. Keaton momentarily forgot about the danger they were in as he tilted his head back, gazing up into a handsomely stubbled face. He wanted Kade to take him right here, right now. But a saner part of him leashed a collar around that thought and dragged it back.
They were in a public place, and he was pretty sure having sex in a book aisle would be frowned upon by the people visiting the bookstore. Instead, he curled into the warm circle of Kade’s arms, drawing from the man’s steady, solid strength.
He looked up when Kade nudged him. “I think our help has arrived.”
Keaton turned his head toward the front entrance and inhaled a sharp breath. Two of the roughest-looking men he had ever seen came through the door, their eyes scanning until they landed directly on Keaton. He forced himself not to cringe from the penetrating stare. Why did he have a feeling that tangling with these two would end any man’s life?
They approached as if they owned the place, their strides sure and confident, paying absolutely no attention to the small audience of customers glancing their way.
“You spotted one?” a man with caramel-colored skin and long, thick braids asked Kade. He wasn’t heavy with muscles as Keaton would’ve thought a man fighting a hell escapee would be. His body was tight, lean, and his expression made up for any musculature he lacked. “Name’s Dog.”
What a very strange name.
Kade nodded toward the entrance. “I wasn’t sure what he was until I called the timber wolves. It was like this black, oily feeling came over me, whispering all kinds of pessimistic things in my head.”
The other man asked, “How long have you been hearing this?”
Kade glanced at Keaton. “A few weeks. Ever since I got to town. It was like, as soon as I drove through Brac Village, a heavy blanket settled over me.”
“I need to know,” Dog said, “what would make a hell hound latch on to you. Because once one of them comes after you, you’re their target, period, until we kill him. Provided he hasn’t called in his buddies, you just might be safe once he is sent back to hell.”
Kade’s hands tightened on Keaton’s arms. “I served a long term in prison.”
“That’ll do it,” the other man said. “The hound has zeroed in on your anger and resentment.”
“But I don’t have any anger or resentment,” Kade argued. “I’ve put my past behind me.”
“You lying to yourself doesn’t concern me,” Dog said so matter-of-factly that Keaton was offended. “Now that I know why he is fixated on you, I can go after him.”
“So we can leave?” Keaton asked in hopefulness.
“Yeah, go enjoy the art festival. Don’t let the sweat drip off your balls about having a hell hound after your mate,” the second man said sarcastically.
“What the hell is your problem?” Keaton asked furiously. “Kade didn’t ask that thing to fixate on him. Why are you acting as if this is all our fault?”
“Don’t mind Renato. He has been a sour little puss of late. Go do whatever it is that you two were doing. We’ll follow at a distance and see if we can’t flush out your hound,” Dog said as he and Renato headed toward the door.
Keaton turned toward Kade. “
Our
hound?”
Kade grabbed Keaton’s hand and pulled him toward the exit. “His bedside manner doesn’t concern us. I wouldn’t have cared if those two had sneered every word, just as long as they do their job.”
Keaton still didn’t like them. They were brisk and curt. But Kade was right. It wasn’t like Keaton was trying to be their pal. Just as long as they got that evil little bastard off of Kade’s back, then he would deal with their sarcasm.
“Well, you heard the man. Let’s get to the art festival.” Keaton pulled on Kade’s hand as they left the bookstore and headed toward the rec center.
“You are very bossy,” Kade said, repeating the same thing he had said the night before. Keaton didn’t think so. Maybe he was. No one had ever told him that before. The only thing he knew was that someone was after Kade and he wasn’t going to allow anything to happen to his mate.
If that was bossy, then so be it.
Kade seemed amused by Keaton dragging him along. The man didn’t complain. He just wore a sexy grin as they finally made it to the art festival that was being held in the parking lot of the rec center. Keaton wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was surprised to see so many people, so many renderings, and wow, there were food tables, games, and a few people had vendor tables set up to sell small trinkets.
Keaton went straight to the drawings, getting a kick out of all the pictures and paintings being displayed on the tables. There was even a clothesline hung up, drawings pinned to it with clips.
“These are refrigerator drawings,” Kade leaned in and whispered into his ear.
“They are works of art,” Keaton corrected as he touched a picture that had been hand drawn of the forest bordering Brac Village. In the drawing, the rec center was sketched, but what caught Keaton’s interest was the wolf on the side of the building.
Why would a child draw one of the shifters?
He had a feeling that more of the residents knew what was going on in their small town than they let on. From the looks of this drawing, Maverick’s little secret wasn’t so secret around here.
And there sure seemed to be a lot of secrets around this place. Keaton had always acted like the goofy surfer dude around others, but little did everyone know, that was just an act. He was extremely intelligent. Since first arriving here he had thought something odd. Most small towns did
not
have howling at night or weird, unexplainable things happening.
But never in his wildest dreams would he have thought the weirdness was shifters and vampires…and creatures from hell. Again—although a mind trip—Keaton had accepted what was going on, even if the thing from hell scared him senseless.
According to this drawing, he wasn’t the only one who had known something strange was in Brac Village, and Keaton hadn’t been here that long. He wondered how many longtime residents knew what truly walked the streets.
“You like that one?” Kade asked. “You’ve been staring at it an awful long time.” Kade waved at a youth and then pointed at the picture. “How much for this drawing?”
“Twenty dollars,” the youth answered. Keaton had been to the rec center a few times but didn’t remember ever seeing this young adult before.
“Twenty dollars!” was Kade’s reply. “For a refr—” Keaton elbowed his mate, scowling at him.
“It’s art,” he once again reminded the man.
“You get a frame with it,” the young teenager said quickly, as if scrambling to explain why the drawings were priced so high. Keaton wanted to knock Kade over the head. It seemed his mate had forgotten how to act around children. Of course, he hadn’t been around them in so long, he probably just saw them as little people.
Keaton plucked the drawing from the clothesline and handed it to the young man. “I’ll take this one.”
“I drew that one,” he stated proudly. “You like it?”
“It’s very interesting,” Keaton said as his finger landed on the wolf. “Very imaginative.”
The guy gave a halfhearted shrug. “I draw what I see, ya know?”
It was as if they were speaking in code. Keaton could see the intelligence behind the kid’s bright green eyes.
“But what do I know,” the youth finished. “I’m just a teenager with a really good imagination. That’s what Thomas says about my drawings.”
The youth sounded wounded, as if hurt that no one would tell him the truth. It wasn’t Keaton’s place to let the guy know what he saw, or had been seeing was real. Once again he found himself keeping someone else’s secret. Keaton was starting to hate that shit. But there was nothing he could do about it.
“Do you have any more drawings?”
The teenager nodded as he walked down to a table filled with art. Keaton followed, his eyes widening slightly when he saw more of the same drawings. They were filled with either wolves or men hiding in the shadows. For such a young man, the teenager had a wealth of talent. Keaton didn’t know the first thing about drawing, but the shading and effects the young man used were masterful.
“You make me want to buy the whole table,” he commented as he picked one up and studied the vampire hiding by the side of a building.
Wow. This is good.
“I could give you a discount.”
Keaton laughed. “You are the little hustler, aren’t you?” He held out his hand. “My name is Keaton.”