“I did. You are my kin. I expected nothing less. I’m okay. We are adapting to this new world.” A look came and went that fired Conrad’s blood. “I’m taking a few leaves out of your book and enjoying exploring what you talked about… a lot.”
Conrad’s rich laughter caused a couple of birds to cry above them. “Hey, how else was I supposed to kill time when we were waiting around? At least it’s helpful now.” He got closer and lowered his voice. “And I’d say you’re a quick learner and your mate has no issue with you being in charge.”
Wyatt winked and chuckled. “You can say that. I had to contain him, and the stash of stuff in one of your spare packs came in very handy.”
Conrad rolled his eyes. “You took my off-grid pack… thanks for letting me know!”
“I am. Now you better go before you get a show I know you’d enjoy.” Wyatt nudged him back to the boat.
Conrad instead gave him a hard hug. “I’m gonna miss you,” he whispered. “If you need me ever, you know how to find me. Nothing will change that, nothing.”
“I know, and I do.”
“Be happy.” Conrad stepped back, his vision blurry as he leaped onto the boat.
His last view was of Wyatt walking back up the beach towards the waiting man, who wore a smile that revealed more humanity than Conrad expected. Yet, deep down, he wasn’t surprised that Wyatt had brought it out of the other man. Wyatt’s soul was a bright fucking light, and Conrad had firsthand experience of how it could defeat the darkness.
For the first time since Conrad received the message from Duron, his shoulders relaxed enough that they no longer felt like they were hugging his ears, and his animals took a chill pill.
He started the engine as his cell phone alerted him to a message. He reached for it and his gaze narrowed on the screen when he saw the name: Duron.
His heart rate kicked up a notch when he opened the message, his gaze scanning the screen. His hand was steady as his nostrils flared.
Kylo needs an assassin to go to Paraguay to help search for Devil. The job is yours. You know what to do…
Conrad looked up at the empty beach, his jaw firming with resolve. He would keep James safe for Wyatt. His cage brother deserved whatever happiness he found with James, whatever that was. And Conrad would use every skill he’d learned from the fuckheads to ensure Wyatt got it.
No one argued with the Fates, and they had decided that Wyatt and James were perfect for each other. Conrad trusted they knew what they were doing. After what he’d witnessed with all the other fated mates, how could they be wrong this time?
He shook his head. No! Wyatt was entitled to his happy ever after.
Firing the engine, Conrad shoved the cell into his shorts pocket and took hold of the throttle. Waves splashed up as he chased them, his mind already working out how to take Kylo on a ride that kept him occupied and distracted. Nothing on planet Earth would make him give up his cage brother,nothing.
Chapter Two
Kylo
They lied to me. Everyone fucking lied to me.Kylo was back at the mausoleum—his name for the house that plagued his nightmares. Devil’s house. The place the man who’d evaded Kylo’s reach for decades had been hiding, thumbing his nose at law enforcement while weaving his spell of fear and compliance among locals and the criminal element.
The place stank of blood. Despite the scrubbed tiled floors, Kylo doubted the place would ever smell clean. Even if every trace of blood and guts were removed from the grouting, the place would still stink of the evil that was the very soul of the man who’d lived there. The fact that none of the blood that filled Kylo’s nostrils was Devil’s, ate at Kylo’s insides like a cancer.
There has to be something!But even as Kylo paced the floors, his eyes scanning every inch of the marble that was becoming as familiar as the back of his hand, Kylo knew he wouldn’t find anything. Someone had helped the Devil escape. Someone who was unaffected during the carnage Duron and Beaumont had clearly caused—that someone had spirited Devil away to safety.
Realistically, it could’ve been anybody. Devil’s reach had thwarted Kylo so many fucking times over the decades, ever since he’d first heard that name whispered. Kylo wasn’t stupid—his instincts were telling him that someone close to Duron and Beaumont was responsible. He just didn’t know the why, how, or who, and that kept him awake every fucking night.
Beaumont—two-faced alligator shifter and head of the Shifter Council—yes, clearly, he still had some fighting mojo, as evidenced by the scene he and Duron had left for Kylo and his team to find. Kylo had never seen as many bodies in one place outside of a cemetery before. With the air ripening in the growing heat, there were times when it was all Kylo could do to keep his stomach from hurling the remains of lunch into the messy remains. But he’d persisted, searched, determined to find the one man who’d eluded him among all others… and came up short.
Had Beaumont stuck around for a debrief? Even given any explanation of what had gone down in the house of horrors? No. The bastard. The only thing Beaumont and his mate left behind was smashed furniture in the bedroom and a cheque to cover the replacement costs. By the time Kylo had gone to look for him, the council lead was on a plane with his mate, probably laughing at the mess he’d left behind.
Finding out, not that long afterward, that Beaumont’s mate Duron had been made a leader for the hybrid shifter community just increased Kylo’s anger.
Kylo hadn’t had an issue with the council while his brother Ben was in charge. Sure, he used to tease his younger brother at times for his fancy clothes and the way he didn’t like to get his hands dirty. When Ben tracked his mates to Kylo’s neighborhood, that’s when Kylo’s life turned into a shit sandwich. The level of depravity, the state Teilo and Nico had been in when they were found… Kylo could see Devil’s calling cards all over the place, and his need to find the elusive man increased and hardened.
Kylo’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he grabbed at it, angry that he was being disturbed. “Selina’s at the house,” his brother Nori said shortly. “She wants an update on her father.”
“She’s the fucking all-seeing-eye with her woo-woo magic—she should tell us.” Kylo ended the call. His brother didn’t deserve his anger, but Selina added another layer of hurt to his anger and frustration. She had been a trusted friend of the family for years.
There had been a short time two years earlier when Kylo fancied Selina might welcome his courtship. He was tired of living in his family home, surrounded by the constant noise and intrusion into his personal life, and longed for a place to call his own. He was constantly on edge, with no one to hold him at the end of a long day. So it was relatively easy to imagine things differently.
