by Lynn Hagen
Zeus’s Pack 4
Torem
Dino Triziano is the foreman in charge of building the new home for Zeus’s pack. When he discovers there are more than humans inhabiting the planet, he runs in panic.
Sidney Porter is a shifter from another pack. He’s addicted to Red Bull and Bingo, and he is upset when he thinks his mate, Torem, is cheating on him with the foreman of the construction crew—until he gets a whiff of Dino.
Torem takes a journey to cleanse the betrayal and pain Jackson has left behind while trying to keep his mate safe from the wolves coming after him from Sidney’s pack.
Can Torem, Beta of the pack, keep his mates safe while fighting for his sanity? Will Dino come to terms with the fact that there are shifters in the world, and can Sidney find his bingo hall while trying to kick the sugar drink?
Note: Each book in Lynn Hagen’s Zeus’s Pack collection features a different romantic trio. Each title stands alone and can be read in any order. However, we recommend reading the series in sequential order.
Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 34,698 words
TOREM
Zeus’s Pack 4
Lynn Hagen
MENAGE EVERLASTING
MANLOVE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting ManLove
TOREM
Copyright © 2011 by Lynn Hagen
E-book ISBN: 1-61034-561-4
First E-book Publication: August 2011
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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TOREM
Zeus’s Pack 4
LYNN HAGEN
Copyright © 2011
Chapter One
“Why do I get the feeling you really don’t want to be here?” Bryck asked Torem as he sipped his beer. “You really haven’t spoken a word all night.”
Torem rubbed his five o’clock shadow as he thought about the question the soldier asked and how best to answer it. “I’m contemplating life.”
“Yeah, and I’m Gandhi.” Bryck looked over his shoulder and grinned. “There’s your hot foreman.”
Torem’s fingers gripped the beer cap hard. He could feel the ridges around the circular disc biting into his skin. “Why do you call him mine?”
Bryck snorted and shook his head. “Deny it all you want, bro. You got the hots for him.”
It was more than the hots. Dino, foreman of the new house being built for Zeus’s pack, was his mate. Torem had tried to approach him once already, but Dino wasn’t too receptive. Oh, he had been polite when first introduced, but after that the foreman was aloof.
“You’ve been sniffing that model glue of yours again.” Torem nonchalantly looked around Theo’s Bar and Grill. It was the only place for people to kick back in this town. His gaze avoided the foreman as he scanned the place. He knew one look at Dino and his cock would come fully to life. That wasn’t something he wanted when he knew it was one-sided.
“Say what you want, the eyes don’t lie.” Bryck wiggled his fingers in front of his own eyes. “I see what is unseen,” he said in a simulated mad scientist sort of way.
“Vent your room when you put those toy cars together. I think half your brain is dead.”
“They aren’t toys, and besides, it relaxes me.” Bryck turned back around and raised his hand for Theo to bring him another drink.
The Alpha had suggested they all try to find hobbies to help with their issues. Torem didn’t think drag racing was acceptable. Not after borrowing Deputy Craig’s GTO and racing it through the back roads over one hundred miles an hour. Craig’s mate, and town sheriff, Jesse, had given him a heavy fine for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be immune if he lived in the same damn house?
“I wasn’t picking on your choice of relaxation time. I’m just noting the dead cells in your brain from closed windows,” Torem said.
He took a small sip of his beer and noticed Dino was watching him from the pool table. Damn it, why did he have to make eye contact? Torem could feel his cock filling in.
“I think he wants you to play with his pool balls.” Bryck snorted with laughter.
“I think you shouldn’t be watching him.” Torem growled.
Brick grabbed a handful of salty nuts from the bowl and popped a few in his mouth. “Go see, you might get lucky.”
Torem laid the beer cap on the bar and glanced once more at his mate from under his eyelashes, trying his best to be inconspicuous. Dino was still staring at him. The foreman gestured with a nod at the pool table.
“Told ya.” Brick tossed a few more nuts in his mouth.
“Stop watching him,” Torem’s annoyed voice hissed.
“What the fuck else is there to do around here? Either go over to him so I can watch both of you, or sit here and listen to my commentary.”
Torem mulled it over and decided he didn’t want to listen to Bryck’s play-by-play. He grabbed his Corona and sli
d from the bar stool, pushing through the crowd as he made his way over to his mate. “You wanted something?”
“A round of pool?” Dino asked casually.
Torem studied him for a moment and then a grin pulled at the side of his mouth. “We can do that.”
He set his beer on the small table by the pool table and grabbed two pool sticks, tossing one to Dino. “You break.”
The human snagged it in midair. “Mighty kind of you.” Dino chuckled, and Torem was lost in those straight, pearly white teeth.
The smile was a little crooked, as if Dino wasn’t giving him the full tour of paradise, just yet.
He watched the confident strides of his mate and the self-assured posture as he bent over to take his shot, his ass displayed nicely for Torem’s perusal.
Torem missed the bottle, his hand grabbing air as he looked at Dino’s ass. He tried again and managed to grab his beer this time. Shoving the neck to his mouth, he looked around to see if anyone noticed how inept he was acting.
Dino lined up and took his shot, making the array of pool balls fly across the table. They made a cracking sound as they knocked into one another, with a few dropping into various pockets. That was a sweet-ass move. Was Dino hustling him?
“I guess I have solids.” He grinned, and this time it was paradise. “Don’t look at me like that. It was a lucky shot.”
“Sure it was.” Torem moved around the table very slowly, not wanting to seem obvious that he was checking out Dino’s ass again. He watched with saliva building up in his mouth as Dino stretched over to take another shot, his arms flexing and his sculpted back twisting as his right arm came back.
“I have next game.” Two of Dino’s workers joined them at the table.
“I’m not sure if I’ll be playing another round, Mickey.” Dino glanced at Torem and then back at the pool table.
Torem wasn’t sure if that was a signal or not. He leaned against the wall and watched Dino take his next shot. He wanted to ask his mate, but he wasn’t too sure about the men standing there joking with each other. Would Dino talk in front of them?
He grinned and tilted his bottle at Dino when he missed his shot and growled, looking up at Torem as if he somehow made it happen. “Guess your lucky streak is gone.”
“I hope not,” Dino teased, and Torem knew this time it was a come-on. What had happened to change Dino’s mind?
Torem grabbed his pool stick that he had laid against the wall and took his shot, sinking the nine ball.
“Fuck, that was your first shot,” Dino said in amazement.
“You invited me over here, so you can’t say I was hustling you.” Torem chuckled at the slack-jawed Dino.
He laid his stick on the table and took a step toward Dino. If his mate was being receptive, then maybe… “Fuck.” He groaned. Torem spotted Zeus coming through the door. That could only mean one thing, pack business. Why did fate show him Dino and then do everything in its powers to keep them apart?
Zeus jerked his head, telling Torem without words to get his ass over there. “Excuse me,” he told his mate and then sidestepped around the people in the tavern to see what Zeus wanted.
“I got a letter for you.” Zeus handed him a plain white envelope.
Who the hell would be writing him? There was no address on it, and that made Torem very suspicious. He took a seat on one of the empty bar stools and tore the end off, fishing out the single piece of notebook paper.
The letter was handwritten. Torem read through it, and his chest tightened with disbelief. It couldn’t be. Not after all these years. He was just a baby. How could he remember Torem?
“Bad news?” Zeus asked.
Torem turned his head up and to his left, staring at his Alpha. “This letter says my younger brother is trying to find me. He’s in serious trouble and needs me to come get him.” How did he even know where to find Torem?
“You know we’ll do whatever it takes to get him here.”
Torem dropped his head and reread the letter. He folded the piece of paper and shoved it into his front pocket, tossing the envelope onto the bar. “This is my responsibility. I’ll go get him.”
Zeus nodded. “I’ll send Bryck with you.”
“I don’t need—”
Zeus’s fist pounded the bar, glasses and bottles jumping at the action. “Damn it, Torem. I know you have this thing about not needing anyone’s help, but you said it yourself, you haven’t seen him since he was a baby. You have no idea what you’re walking into. Take backup.”
Torem knew it wasn’t a request but an order from his Alpha. “Tell him I’m leaving right away.”
“You can tell him. He’s sitting right over there.” Zeus pointed to the right of the horseshoe-shaped bar. “Call if you need more help.”
Torem watched his Alpha walked out of the tavern. He stood there for a moment, hands on hips, thoughts in a whirl. The last time he saw Cheyenne was in the crib.
He had thought his entire family was wiped out when Jackson came and took him from his home. To hear his brother had survived was shocking to say the least. Torem walked over to Bryck in a daze, tapping him on his shoulder. “Come on, man, you gotta ride with me.”
Bryck dusted the salt from his hands and turned with a smile. “And where, might I ask, are we going? I’m always up for fun and adventure.”
“I’m afraid this trip is nothing fun or adventurous. It’s a rescue mission. Are you with me?” Torem turned and walked toward the door, not waiting for an answer. He pushed from the tavern and headed for his truck, digging his keys from his pocket. His fingers touched the letter, and Torem had an overwhelming need to find his brother, the last of his family.
Bryck joined him and slid into the passenger side. Torem pulled from the spot and headed out of town with the small map drawn on the piece of paper as the only clue to where he was going.
Torem’s eyes burned from driving for so long as the sign ahead read “Welcome to Fisher Valley.” This was the town Cheyenne had written on the map as his location.
He pulled off of the road into the one-island gas station, needing to fuel up for the long trip home. There was no way he would stop with Cheyenne in the truck if trouble was on their heels.
Bryck yawned and stretched, blinking his eyes open as he looked around. “Are we here already?”
“Almost, we’re just stopping for gas.”
Torem fueled his truck up, topping it off, and then pulled back onto the highway. He finally entered the town, noticing how eerily quiet it was. The fact that it was close to ten p.m. might have been the reason, but something just didn’t feel right. His gut was telling him to keep both eyes open and to watch his back.
He stopped at a red light and pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket, checking the hand-drawn map one more time before making a left when the light turned green.
Torem pulled in front of the house that Cheyenne had written as the address. He and Bryck got out of the truck, both quietly closing the door. So Bryck could feel it, too.
Torem’s eyes scanned the neighborhood, looking for what, he wasn’t sure. But that niggling in the back of his mind wouldn’t cease. The only thing Torem could hear at the moment was the crickets, but that did not mean someone couldn’t be watching them.
His gut had never steered him wrong before, and it was telling him to get his brother and get out.
They walked up the stone pathway, stepping onto the porch. Bryck turned his back to the door as he watched the darkness while Torem gently knocked.
He was beginning to think no one was home when he saw the curtain pull an inch away from the window. Someone was looking out. Torem took a step back to reveal himself and pulled the letter from his pocket, holding it up.
The curtains fell back into place, and in the next moment he could hear the rattling of a chain hitting the wooden door and the lock disengaging. The door inched open.
Torem tapped Bryck’s shoulder, nodding for the soldier to follow him. He opened the screen d
oor and pushed the heavy wooden one away from his body. Bryck quickly closed it behind them.
Torem looked down at the man he assumed was his brother. “Are you Cheyenne?” he asked.
“That’s me, little ole Cheyenne.” His brother laughed nervously. His eyes darted over to Bryck, his brows pulling together.
“I’m Torem, and that’s a friend, not a danger to you.” Torem nodded at Bryck.
“Let me get my things then.”
“Make it quick.” Torem watched as his short brother walked to the back room. He followed Cheyenne into the bedroom, making sure that his brother was alone. Technically, he didn’t know the man from Adam. All he knew was that he had a brother named Cheyenne when he was younger and this man claimed to be him. Torem didn’t know this man’s character, and he was taking every precaution.
Cheyenne pointed to a bag on the floor by the closet and then one on his bed. “I only have two. As you can see, I haven’t lived the life of luxury.”
Torem walked over and snatched the one bag from the floor, tossing it over his shoulder. “Let’s go.” He pointed towards the door.
Cheyenne grabbed the other bag from the bed and ran back into the living room.
“We’re ready,” Torem said to Bryck.
Bryck turned and opened the door.
Torem pushed Cheyenne back when he spotted a man standing on the front porch. His canines emerged and his eyes shifted, ready to defend the man claiming to be his brother.
“No, no, no. Don’t hurt him. That’s my best friend, Sidney. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Torem open the door and pulled Sidney inside the house.
Every muscle in Torem locked into place. His heart hammered behind his ribs and his palms became sweaty.
Cheyenne’s best friend was Torem’s second mate. As the realization hit him, all hell broke loose.
Two large men emerged from the kitchen as one came down the hall. Torem acted on instinct. He grabbed Cheyenne and Sidney, shoving them toward Bryck as he turned and snarled. When the three cleared the door, Torem took off through it as well.
They raced across the lawn, running for his truck. Torem glanced to his side to make sure his brother and his mate were right next to him.