This way.Duron barely hesitated to gain a nose full of air and process how many people were in the room on the other side of the partially open door where he could hear growling, that was all Wyatt.
There are six of them, the three that smell the same we’ve encountered. The fourth one’s scent we found in the rainforest.Duron didn’t say Beaumont’s son. That was still to be determined.Wyatt and another shifter, who smell similar to Teilo and Nico.
“Aña, what are you doing?” a deep male voice questioned.
Fuck the Devil is…
Beaumont shoved past Duron and was in the room before he could register his intention. He ran after his naked mate. In the room, tension crackled in the air as it bounced off Duron’s skin like whips.
Everyone seemed to freeze at once, then guns aimed at Wyatt, who was bleeding from a gunshot wound to his right shoulder, moved to them.
The three men wore matching expressions as they formed a protective line in front of the man someone had called Aña. This man was the Devil! The one many feared to even say his name.
Duron knew evil. He’d stared into its eyes many times before.
The aura surrounding Aña was powerful, dangerous, and coated with…evil. It was there in the depth of soulless eyes that reminded him of Selina. He could not compare his mate with this unfeeling creature. Blood trickled down Aña’s throat from a bite mark at the junction of his neck, a ripped button-down revealed.
Motherfucker!
No!
No!
When he met Wyatt’s fierce expression, his chest tightened painfully at the battle light, one ready to do whatever it took to protect what he held…his mate. Wyatt’s protective hold spoke to the truth of the situation. Wyatt would never side with evil, except if they were someone… special to him.
“He’s my mate,” Wyatt said aloud, making it real.
Making the situation dire when Duron and Wyatt understood what that meant for them as assassin brothers.
“What is this fucking nonsense?” This came from the shifter, who smelled similar to Teilo and Nico.
Cat’s eyes flashed a warning and as he stepped closer to Wyatt, who didn’t need a gun. His arm shifted, and long lethal claws tore the guy’s throat out before he could do more than flap his lips as his throat gaped open, revealing his spinal cord. He flopped uselessly to the floor, thudding, the ugly sound of blood gurgling following as it gushed over the black marble.
The other three men didn’t appear to know where to aim their guns. Arms moving wildly from them to Wyatt and back while they stared at the dead shifter.
Throughout, Aña remained silent. His eyes narrowed on Beaumont.
Beaumont didn’t move, his gaze transfixed on the couple in front of him.
His thoughts were flying around his head, and the prominent one was…James.The name on repeat while Beaumont didn’t blink, almost appearing afraid to do so. When he finally took a step towards the man who was the image of Beaumont, Duron’s heart rate picked up as he followed, ready to do whatever it took to protect his mate.
Whatever it takes!
Chapter Twenty
Beaumont
“I have spent a lifetime looking for you. A dozen lifetimes.” Beaumont looked around as all the puzzle pieces, the answers he’d been driven to find since he’d buried his wife, all culminated in a sterile show home, and the face of his son. A son he never believed he’d ever see again… “James… what?” Now, the moment he’d never imagined was staring him in the face, he didn’t have a clue what to say. “Why?”
“You’ve aged well.” The sneering tones cut to the core of Beaumont’s heart. James, aka the Devil, shrugged. “You weren’t around to catch me anymore.” He spread his arms. “I don’t think I did too badly for myself, do you?”
“Too badly?” Beaumont couldn’t believe his ears. “Genetic mutation and manipulation, training camps where most of the subjects die, shifter children stolen and abused. Still more, like your creation there, raised in a lab, living in a cage. You call this doing well?”
“I’m still standing. Which is more than can be said for my brother.”
“Beau?” Beaumont huffed out an angry laugh. “I buried him three months after I buried your sister and mother. I spent every waking moment, and more besides, tracking every lead, chasing every possible sighting, year after year, pushing for anything, for any sign you were still alive. It took me eighty years to come to terms with the fact you were dead, too. Eighty fucking years, and all this time, you were here… How? How did it happen?”What happened to my precious wild child?But Beaumont wasn’t about to voice that to a man who reeked of the sins he’d committed.
“I did what I had to do. I showed them I was worthy. While you were busy burying Beau, I was making my first kill.”
