Conrad could taste Kylo’s breath on his lips and for a second his fingers tightened with the urge to kiss him. To plunder their fullness. To taste what was teasing his nose. His dragon wanted to give him his dragon breath, to consume Kylo whole. “The kind to get you to consider what you’re feeling and compare that to how Wyatt is feeling about his mate,” he said softly. Then he gave in and brushed his lips over Kylo’s just the merest of touches as he breathed into his mouth before easing back.
Kylo’s face became flushed, his eyes heavy-lidded as his chest heaved. “What was that?”
“My dragon is saying hello. He’s very pushy, more so than the other animals inside me. He’s the dominant one,”—to lighten the tension between them, he winked at Kylo—“just like me.”
Kylo’s throat worked, and his Adam’s apple bobbed repeatedly as he eyed Conrad with a stare that revealed vulnerability. He’d bet his last dollar that Kylo was unaware of what he revealed to him.
Conrad couldn’t resist easing his mates’ concerns by pressing his lips once more against Kylo’s, whispering, “We’ll take it slow, until you’re ready for what I have to offer.”
To resist taking things further, Conrad took a step back and looked at the house. “Want to talk me through what you have found? And the structure of the organization, or what’s left of it? I’m here to help make sure it’s dismantled fully.”
Kylo released a shuddery breath when he met Conrad’s stare. “Your guys made pretty sure that they killed those directly involved in a bloodbath that occurred in the house.”
Conrad gave Kylo a thoughtful look. “What about the Selina person Duron mentioned? Has she been neutralized, too?”
Chapter Six
Kylo
Shock. It was a day for it, it seemed. It was bad enough that Kylo wanted to forget the training of a lifetime, albeit not the sort of training Conrad and his friends had, but training all the same. The type of training that taught him to search for wrong doers, to see them brought to justice, to see that they paid according to the letter of the laws of the land for the crimes they committed.
And now he was being told that wasn’t possible. That the one man who’d kept Kylo awake at night would walk away free from consequence. Kylo couldn’t have been more surprised if someone told him the sky was green. It wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t have been possible. It didn’t make sense along any of the parameters Kylo lived his life by… and yet it did.
Because of ‘mates’.
Because of that one thing the Fates in their infinite wisdom granted paranormals, in an effort to stem the loneliness that came from being so long-lived. And what kicked Kylo in the guts more than anything else, was that if anyone else had told him Devil was untouchable, that he had to give up the hunt he’d devoted months and years to, he would’ve ignored them and kept hunting.
He couldn’t. Because of the cocky man who was currently surveying the site of the deepest horror Kylo had ever faced—the sexy man with knowing eyes and a voice that sent shivers down Kylo’s spine. Becausetheywere mates. In that moment, Kylo felt as though he was the butt of a huge cosmic joke.
“Hey, I asked you about Selina.” Conrad wasn’t being pushy, but Kylo felt shoved all the same.
“I need a damn moment here, can’t you see that?” The words exploded from Kylo’s mouth in a rush. “Is all your fucking training focused on the kill? Is that it? Can’t you see what you’ve done to me right now? You’ve stripped away the foundation of who I fucking am.” He thumped his chest. “The core of me, my heart and soul. I find bad guys and I bring them to justice, and if I don’t have that, then who the hell am I?”
Conrad took a step towards him, and Kylo held up his hand. “Don’t. Don’t practice your fucking dominant voodoo on me. I have a right to be upset. I’m angry! Pissed off with a capital P and a capital O. You haven’t lived here. You haven’t spent the years I have trying to stop the drugs and the exploitation of women and children flooding my territory. You weren’t the one putting your life on the line every fucking day, tracking down the people responsible, knowing they weren’t the brains behind the operation, and being met with utter silence about who that person was every fucking time, because of Devil. The man you callJames.” Kylo snorted.
“You’ll be telling me next your friend Wyatt has a magic dick, and Devil is now a perfect little lap dog, worshipping your friend’s ass.”
“This isn’t easy for Wyatt either,” Conrad said calmly. “He didn’t come into this house of horrors expecting to meet his mate. That pull I feel towards you, that’s what Wyatt feels. I thought you understood that because you feel it, too.”
It was on the tip of Kylo’s tongue to tell the cocky bastard that he didn’t feel anything. Only Kylo had never been cruel, and he would never intentionally hurt his mate that way. “My anger has a place. I have a right to feel the way I do,” he said stubbornly.
“And I’m not taking that away from you. I’m acknowledging your anger and your right to feel it. Those feelings don’t change the facts.” Letting out a long breath, Conrad added, “If you had been anyone else except my mate, I would never have told you. My plan was to come down here, hang out, and lead you on a merry goose chase until you tired of me and sent me back. There is nothing I won’t do to ensure Wyatt is safe—he deserves that after the life he’s led. If that means protecting the whereabouts of the one you call Devil, then I’ll go to my grave doing it.”
“You’d put protecting Wyatt before my needs?” Even as he said the words, Kylo knew that was his biggest fear. That within a mere hour of meeting, he was already second in his mate’s priorities.
Conrad shook his head vehemently. “You will always come first for me, because you wouldn’t put me in that position. As my mate, you won’t hurt me. The men I shared cage space with, they are my brothers—all I have that I can call family—and that includes Wyatt. I will protect them until my dying breath, as I know you would your own brothers. Now you and I are mates, I will protect your brothers as you will protect mine. You know this.”
Kylo was a pragmatist at heart—he knew Conrad was right. It was a hard pill to swallow, to say otherwise, to dispute Conrad’s calm assessment, would be to reject his mating. Kylo couldn’t do that. “I’m not happy about this. Before we exchange bites, you’re already keeping a secret from me. I already suspected Devil was still alive. I just don’t know where.”
“And what would you gain by knowing? It’s not like you ever have to worry about bumping into them in the local food court.” Conrad glanced around and the aura around him changed. “There’s something here. Something I can’t define. Do you feel it?”
“There’s no one here.” Kylo looked around the stark walls and empty floors. “There hasn’t been anyone here except me in at least three weeks.”
“You don’t feel that subtle push, as though something or someone’s telling you to move away?”
“I always feel like that when I’m here.” Kylo moved towards the grand stairs in the far corner of the room, but Conrad’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“It might be an idea to obey that push for now—go with our instincts?” Conrad suggested, and Kylo found himself gently urged in the opposite direction, towards the doors leading outside. “You didn’t answer me about Selina.”
