Jesus Christ, the guy was hot.
Tall and lean with shaggy brown hair, the man had a wicked smile that screamed bad boy. He was wearing a white T-shirt which fitted snugly to his body, accentuating his abs. Tight blue jeans showed off his perfect ass. He looked to be about Joey’s age, but that was where the similarity ended.
Joey’s dick began to harden.
What the hell?
He’d jacked off less than ten minutes ago. He groaned. The guy was probably straight anyway or maybe that was his boyfriend stepping off the bike. It didn’t matter because men like that never went for Joey. Actually, he didn’t have much luck attracting men at all, not that he’d been trying to attract anyone lately.
Joey didn’t like to think of himself as straight-laced, but he’d never been wild or adventurous, never did anything overly exciting or too much out of his comfort zone.
His life was just…ordinary.
And his looks… He knew he wasn’t ugly, although he’d never seen anything special when he looked in the mirror. He had mousy brown hair that never did what he wanted it to. He was of average height, average build, with a decidedly average face.
Everything about him was run-of-the-mill.
He used to wish he was taller and that his nose was more prominent, or manlier maybe, but he’d learned a long time ago not to dwell on the things he couldn’t change. He did have impeccable dress sense, but what the hell good was that? Especially out here in the ass-end of nowhere, in a town that was one step away from the boonies.
He didn’t know a lot about cowboys, but he figured if his clothes didn’t smell of horse shit then he was considered to be well dressed.
When the other guy got off the bike and removed his helmet, Joey noted that he was handsome too—older, but still attractive. Actually, both men had a similar look about them, or maybe it was the way they carried themselves. Confidence seemed to ooze out of them, although it was more than self-assurance—they had an air of invincibility—of power. It wasn’t the kind that came from muscles they’d spent hours at the gym trying to perfect—both men had a kind of inner strength that radiated from them.
Goosebumps rose over Joey’s skin that had nothing to do with the temperature. It was weird, but he had sensed the same sort of strength, the same power coming from Kelan Morgan when he’d questioned him about the arson attack on his ranch—the same power and then some. Joey had felt weird in the man’s presence, like he’d wanted to cower, to submit, to do whatever Kelan had asked him to do. Joey had wanted answers to his questions, but he hadn’t gotten any.
Actually, he hadn’t been able to get away from Kelan fast enough. When he’d got back to the guesthouse, he’d thought he’d imagined the whole thing. However, now he wasn’t so sure. He was getting the same strange vibes from these two men. What the hell was all that about?
Joey stayed hidden behind his Taurus as he watched the two men talk near their motorbike. When the younger guy threw his head back and laughed at something the other had said, Joey’s breath caught in his throat. The guy was stunning when he laughed. His face looked animated, completely full of life. Joey felt like a sleazy voyeur spying on them, but he was powerless to look away and his damn dick throbbed. He ignored it. When the younger man took a step closer to the other, crossing the boundaries of personal space, Joey’s stomach plummeted.
So, they were an item.
Of course they were.
A chill wind blew over Joey and he shivered, rubbing his arms to get warm. He tried to walk away or at least to tear his eyes away from the couple, but his feet felt like they were encased in concrete and he couldn’t shift his gaze even for a second.
While he watched, the strangest thing happened.
The younger guy leaned in to kiss the other—their mouths mere inches apart. Joey was close enough that he could see the guy’s hair getting tousled by the wind. Right before their lips met, the guy froze and Joey’s body likewise stilled, though whether it was in anticipation or in fear, he couldn’t be sure.
The younger guy spun around and began searching the car park as if he sensed someone was there. Joey ducked down behind the trunk of his car and held his breath, terrified at the prospect of being caught. It would be just his luck to get his ass kicked and earn a name as some kind of sick peeping Tom. The men had to be walking towards him because he could hear their voices now and they were getting louder.
“Tristan, what the hell?”
“Can’t you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Shit, I don’t know, it’s…incredible.”
“I don’t smell a thing.”
Joey chanced a look around the side of the trunk. The men were no more than twenty feet away from him. The younger of the two was moving closer still, but the other guy grabbed his arm, pulling him back. The hot guy who was apparently named Tristan wouldn’t relent. He yanked his arm free and closed his eyes. It looked as if he was scenting the air.
It reminded Joey of some kind of animal, like a dog.
“Christ, what is that smell?” he asked again.
When Tristan opened his eyes, Joey gasped then covered his mouth with his hand and ducked back behind the trunk.
What the hell?
Tristan had the strangest eyes he’d ever seen. They too were animalistic. Joey felt compelled to take another look to ensure that his own eyes weren’t deceiving him. He moved slowly, keeping as quiet as he could, and had to stifle another gasp at what he saw. Tristan’s face had grown wild, frenzied as he searched the parking lot.
And his teeth…
Right before Joey’s eyes, Tristan’s teeth seemed to grow out—sharp, pointy fangs that grew longer and longer until they touched his bottom lip. Joey should have been afraid, and he was, partly, but mostly he was excited. His cock ached with the need to come. How could he be turned on at a time like this?
This was monumental.
Joey had been right all along. He knew it! There was something weird going on in Wolf Creek. The people that lived there weren’t human, but then, what were they exactly? Some sort of vampire? Crap. They had to be. Those teeth were exactly like the fangs he’d seen on actors in movies. Joey wished he had his camera with him. His editor at the paper would never believe this shit without some sort of proof.
Who would?
He ducked back behind the car, his heart racing wildly. He couldn’t afford to let the men see him. What if they wanted to kill him for finding out their secret?
“Hey, what the fuck?” Tristan’s boyfriend didn’t sound happy. “We’re outside, in public! Jesus Christ. What the hell is wrong with you? Where’s your room?”
Joey thought it strange that Tristan’s boyfriend didn’t know where his room was, but maybe they weren’t actually dating. Maybe it was just a hookup. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the thought soothed him, but his relief was short-lived when he thought about what men did together when they hooked up.
Jealousy spread through his veins like poison.
“No, I can’t leave,” Tristan argued. “That smell, it’s…”
“If you don’t get your ass inside, right now, I’m calling your brother and I think you have enough shit to deal with from Sheriff Ambrose already, don’t you?”
Tristan growled in frustration and the sound made shivers travel down Joey’s spine. Their voices became quieter and the words were harder to comprehend. When Joey chanced another look, the men were halfway across the lot, heading towards the units that ran adjacent to the guesthouse.
The older man was practically dragging Tristan away.
Sheriff Ambrose?
Holy crap!
Were all the people who lived in town vampires? How could that be? Vampires couldn’t go out in daylight, could they? Although that was fiction and this was real life. Vampires were clearly different from how they were portrayed on TV. Wow. Joey was going to win a Pulitzer for this story! But how could he get close enough to any of them to get the scoop? He’d think of so
mething.
Joey should have been feeling ecstatic about this new development and, partly, he was, but for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, he felt strangely hollow. He put it down to plain old-fashioned jealousy at seeing the beautiful man and his friend. It had been too long since Joey had been with anyone and had had any sort of affection bestowed on him.
It was time to rectify that.
Chapter Five
It had been a long, miserable day.
By the time Tristan said goodbye to Bob and headed home from the garage he was in a foul mood. Aaron had given him a lift out to Jackson’s first thing to pick up his truck, then he’d worked non-stop ever since.
He hadn’t even had time to take a lunch break.
His own fault probably—he’d been distracted, and each job had taken him twice as long as it should have. It was that damn smell in the parking lot the night before that had been the problem. Tristan couldn’t get it out of his head. The scent had been subtle at first, just the faintest trace carried on the wind, but then it had grown stronger until Tristan had been overwhelmed by it. He’d never scented anything like it, but when the wind had changed directions, it had faded until he had hardly been able to smell anything at all.
Brandon had dragged him away from the parking lot and by the time Tristan had got to his room, he’d wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing.
But he couldn’t have.
Tristan would remember that smell for the rest of his days on earth.
Earlier in the night, Tristan had thought he and Brandon might hook up, but after that weird experience in the parking lot, after that smell, he’d lost all interest in the wolf.
Oh, he’d been hard, painfully hard.
He’d had to put his right hand to use all night and hadn’t slept for shit, but even though he’d been excited and desperate for release, he’d known that Brandon wouldn’t be able to scratch his itch. The wolf hadn’t seemed all that bothered that Tristan had changed his mind or, if he had been, he’d hidden it well.
As he pulled his truck into the lot outside the guesthouse, Tristan’s heart started beating faster. Just the memory of the smell was enough to make his pulse race. He killed the engine and gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to get himself under control.
He was hard again.
Jesus, just what was going on?
Why was he acting like this?
When Tristan looked across the lot, he saw his brother talking to Nate and Kelan. Great. The last thing he needed was another run-in with Jared. Oh well, there was no sense in putting off the inevitable. He got out of the truck then strode across the lot to meet them. He was unable to resist sniffing the air as he walked, hoping to catch the scent again, but no trace of it remained.
Unfortunately, whatever it had been was long gone.
“Hey,” Tristan mumbled his greeting as he stepped up next to his brother. “What’s going on?”
Jared drew his eyebrows together and Tristan prepared himself for a lecture, but, to his surprise, it never came.
“There’s a reporter sniffing around again, asking more questions about the fires,” he said in place of a greeting.
“I thought they’d all left town weeks ago,” Tristan mused.
“They had. Another one showed up a couple of days ago,” Kelan supplied. “His name’s Joey Brooks. He came to talk to me yesterday. He left pretty quickly, though.
“I thought I’d better warn you all to be on your guard in case he shows up again.”
“Apparently, he’s staying here at the guesthouse,” Nate added. “So we all need to be careful while he’s still in town.”
Jesus, it was lucky that Brandon had made Tristan go to his room last night after his eyes and teeth had shifted to their wolf form. The last thing they needed was for a reporter to see him looking like that.
He’d had a lucky escape.
When the front door to the guesthouse swung open, Tristan turned on instinct and his heart just about stopped beating. The guy that emerged was stunning—marginally shorter than Tristan, with wispy dark brown hair and a face that was pretty rather than manly, or maybe it was boyish.
Whatever.
He was hot.
Tristan’s dick hardened and he shuffled from side to side, glancing down to make sure that it wasn’t noticeable through his jeans. It wouldn’t matter anyway because Kelan, Nate, and Jared would be able to smell his arousal—sometimes being a wolf really sucked. When Tristan took another look, the attraction hit him as hard as a punch to the gut.
It was a pull he didn’t know how to fight.
It was more than just magnetism or attraction. Tristan felt as if he recognized the man, even though he knew, without doubt, that he’d never seen him before in his life.
He would have remembered someone as incredible.
Kelan’s low groan brought Tristan back to his senses.
“Talk of the devil,” he muttered.
“Huh?” What had they been talking about?
“That’s him,” Kelan replied sotto voce. “The reporter.”
Well, shit.
That wasn’t good.
Tristan had been on the verge of going over and asking the guy out—after he’d kissed him, or maybe rubbed himself all over the dude. It was a totally bizarre urge, but he hadn’t even questioned the desire. He just knew they needed to get up close and personal as quickly as possible.
As the reporter started walking across the lot, he looked up and his steps faltered when he caught them all staring at him. His gaze flicked to Tristan’s and his eyes widened. Tristan stopped breathing. Where had all the air gone? Just as the thought hit him, a breeze wafted over his face carrying the man’s scent and it was all Tristan could do not to run across the lot, grab hold of the guy and sink his canine teeth into his neck.
It was the same scent he’d picked up the night before, although it was stronger now, much stronger—a combination of all his favorite smells in the world. It was like being hit by a thunderbolt of lust. His skin prickled, his dick ached and his heart soared.
Him.
It was him.
“Mine,” Tristan groaned. “Mine.”
Without thought, he reached out and took a step towards the man. Had Kelan called him Joey? Yes, Joey. What a great name. He took another step forward.
“What the hell?” Jared grabbed hold of Tristan’s arm and pulled him back.
Tristan spun around and snarled at his brother.
“Mine!” He was dimly aware of his eyes shifting to their wolf form and of his teeth tearing through his gums. He bared them at Jared and growled low in his throat.
“Let me go!”
“Shit, Kelan, quick, grab him,” Nate said. “Let’s get him in the truck.”
When two strong sets of arms grabbed hold of him, Tristan fought for all he was worth. Why were they taking him away from his mate? He hissed and snarled and growled, but he wasn’t strong enough to fight both his alpha and Nate, who had become like a father to him.
“Please,” he begged. “Let me go to him.”
It was no use.
Tristan barely resisted the urge to scream out his frustration as they dragged him across the lot to his truck.
Chapter Six
Joey froze, his gaze fixed on the commotion in front of him.
What the hell was going on? He’d just stepped outside to get some air only to run into the very men he’d been thinking about.
Well, one man in particular—Tristan.
All-day long he’d been trying to think up a way to see him again. He’d planned on talking to the sheriff because he remembered Tristan’s friend saying that Sheriff Ambrose was his brother and here he was.
When Joey’s gaze fixed on Tristan’s, he became entranced by him. He couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried—not that he wanted to. The weird thing was that Tristan was looking at him like he recognized him—no—it was as if he knew him, yet they’d never met.
Tristan hadn�
�t seen him the night before, Joey was certain of that.
When Tristan took a few steps forward, excitement and anticipation surged in Joey. And Jesus but his dick was hard again, painfully so. What was it about this man that got him so worked up? Tristan mouthed something that Joey couldn’t make out then he was being dragged away, yelling and hissing and…growling? It was all so bizarre, and was that Kelan Morgan that was pulling him away?
The hell?
Joey didn’t like the way they were manhandling Tristan. It brought out some strange protective instinct in him. Without conscious thought, he sprinted across the lot until he reached Sheriff Ambrose.
“Hey! What’s going on? What are you doing to him? Where are they taking him?” he demanded.
“Uh, nothing to worry about, son,” the sheriff replied. “Just a little family dispute is all. Why don’t you go on back inside?”
Joey frowned and folded his arms across his chest.
“No thank you. Not until I get some answers.”
The sheriff scowled. “I assure you, there’s nothing to tell.”
“I think I’ll be the judge of that. What’s wrong with…”
Shit.
Joey had very nearly said Tristan’s name. He needed to be more careful. He couldn’t have these men believing he knew anything about their secret.
“That guy. Where are they taking him?”
Sheriff Ambrose took off his Stetson and scratched the back of his head. “Uh…”
Joey was getting pissed.
He was about to demand answers when movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention away from the sheriff. When he turned to look, all three men were striding back in their direction. Tristan seemed to have calmed down, but the men flanking him didn’t look very happy. He ignored them—there was only one man that held Joey’s interest and it appeared as though Tristan was equally as intrigued by him.
He stared at Joey in wide-eyed wonder, his mouth agape.
Joey thrust out his hand.
“Hi, I’m Joey Brooks, pleased to meet you.”
Tristan’s gaze flicked to Kelan before he held out his hand to Joey. It was trembling. From where Joey stood, it looked like Tristan was getting Kelan’s permission to speak.
Tristan's Despair (2019 Reissue) Page 3