Seduced by Him

by Jacey Holbrand

  “Hold me again, Tex.”

  Once more, Tex wrapped his arms around Jarrod, bringing the man’s back against his chest. They fit like two spoons in a kitchen drawer. Suddenly, he became aware of every part of himself and the human in his arms. It gave him a feeling of completeness he’d never experienced before. He didn’t know what he’d do if he were to lose Jarrod. Probably go crazy and become a rabid wolf. The image of him doing so made him shudder inwardly.

  The only thing he could think of to keep the both of them safe was to leave the Helldorado Mongrels and the canyon for good. He just hoped Jarrod, once he learned the whole story and that they were linked for eternity, wouldn’t hate him and would be up for the adventure and leaving his own family behind.

  Chapter Six

  Thumbs followed Inferno, Preach and several other men out of the pyramid-shaped casino hotel. The president, the enforcer, he and the rest had headed up to the city to find their missing members, Sloth and Tex, and to continue the search for Emma. Out on the sidewalk as Inferno split them up into groups and gave them assignments, they headed in the direction of the main drag. To his dismay, he was stuck with the president and the enforcer.

  Serves me right. After so many years of playing dumb no one trusts me to do much else but turn a wrench.

  Just by looking at him and his linebacker size, people wouldn’t know he’d been born the runt of the litter, and once was “slow” when he was young. Over the years, though, he’d actually become quite smart. Yet since everyone had grown so accustomed to him being stupid, it was hard to show the old dogs the new him, except when it came to mechanical items. There he could express his intelligence and for some reason the Mongrels never questioned it.

  It was hard work playing the king’s fool, acting the part of simpleton, all the time, but it sure helped him to know a lot of what was going on in the pack. Amazing what people were apt to say and do when they thought a guy couldn’t grasp the concepts.

  “You listenin’, boy?” Inferno smacked the back of Thumbs’s head. “I asked you if you smell that.”

  Gathering every ounce of willpower Thumbs had, he fought the urge to rise up against his alpha and tear out his throat. Every cell of him hated the abuse he and some of his friends had to suffer at the hands of Inferno, but now was definitely not the time to declare a challenge. Keeping a neutral expression and hunching his shoulders in the act of submission he’d perfected over the years, he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, blew his nose and sniffed the air. Nothing came to him. Again, he breathed in the warm, desert air tinged with the smell of the city, and in the afternotes, he picked up two faint scents. Having a feeling it was the first one Inferno was focused on, he answered, “The Tabu’s pup but not.”

  “Yeah.” Inferno grinned, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression. Mania filled his dark-eyed gaze which took away any true happiness that might have been there. “You know what that means, right?”

  Sure he did. A relative of Cameron’s was in town, and through the family member, Inferno and his loyalists could get at Cameron and Gabe again, and most likely Emma in the process as well. Too bad he couldn’t voice his guess to Inferno. “No, boss.”

  Inferno gleefully went over the details Thumbs had just been thinking of, while Thumbs stared at a point beyond the president’s head. Great spirit, he wanted to plant a fist right in the smug man’s face.

  “Come on, Simp. We have a third person to find now.” Inferno clapped then rubbed his hands. “Soon all our pack members will be together again, and we’ll be on our way to ridding ourselves of those thorns in our sides.”

  Thumbs followed, biting his tongue so as not to growl for two reasons. The first being that he hated the nickname Simp, Inferno’s shortened version of simpleton. He’d show the alpha how simple he was when he felt he had a good chance to best Inferno. The second reason happened to be over the other scent he’d noticed.

  Tex.

  His friend was with Cameron’s relative. That wasn’t good. If Inferno found them first, Tex would probably spend the rest of eternity in the Mongrels’ dungeon. Somehow he’d have to help Tex, even if that meant putting his own hide on the line.

  * * * *

  “You’re right,” Jarrod mewled, rolling off of Tex and flopping down onto the bed beside him. “Sex is always great when you’re with the right person.”

  Morning sunlight streamed through the space between the curtains into the room. Smiling, Tex stretched and sat up. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride that he’d been the one to bring Jarrod such pleasure, nor could he believe how insatiable Jarrod happened to be. After the first round the night prior, they’d rested, ordered some room service, then proceeded to fuck each other three more times before exhaustion overcame them. Now he had to recoup from round two after only a few hours of sleep. He didn’t mind in the least.

  Jarrod turned to his side and propped himself up on an elbow. “I still think it’s incredible.”

  Tex had a feeling Jarrod was no longer talking about getting laid. “What’s that?” He gazed at the cute man in his bed with the beautiful gray-blue eyes, wishing they could stay holed up in the room forever and keep the outer world from intervening.

  “That you haven’t been back to see your family in years. I guess I’m close enough to mine in geographical and emotional ways that I have trouble understanding people who aren’t with theirs.”

  He swung himself off the comfortable bed, went to the window and tossed open the curtains. The interstate, homes and businesses stretched along the western side of the valley. Such a different view compared to the desert landscaping he was so used to seeing from the compound and when he’d lived in Mexico, and a totally different sight than his family’s home in Texas’s hill country. Ever since he’d started thinking about them, he found himself missing the green countryside and his pack back there.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he replied without turning from the window. “When I lived in Texas, I was very close to my family.” Hanging his head, he sighed.

  How much can I tell him without spilling the whole story? I’m not ready for him to leave me yet.

  He wanted to tell Jarrod the truth. That he’d left Texas and his family before the civil war to be a part of the gold and silver rushes in Nevada. That he’d happened to be mining in the southern part of the state when a curse came down. But how could he tell him all that without sounding like he was loco?

  Deciding that he’d share bits of the truth and wait to reveal the rest about himself, Tex continued, “Times were tough for us, though, and I left home to find a better opportunity elsewhere so I could help take care of them. I ended up in Nevada and then got caught up in being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Circumstances kept me from being able to reach out to my family or going back to see them.”

  “The Mongrels?” Jarrod asked, pointing over at the leather vest draped on a chair.

  “Yeah.” Tex returned to the bed and sat on the edge of it, his back to the man.

  Jarrod slid up behind him and draped his arms over Tex’s shoulders. “But isn’t riding with a club a voluntary thing? Can’t you just leave and go home?”

  Settling back against Jarrod, Tex shrugged. He loved feeling Jarrod’s comforting touch and warm body and didn’t look forward to the moment he’d have to tell him that he was not only a shifter and immortal, but he was cursed like the rest of the Mongrels. Cursed to be rotten and evil and stuck with the bastards because of the common denominator. “Yes and no.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Jarrod released Tex and moved away. “Sounds like you don’t really want to talk about it.”

  Repositioning himself, Tex shook his head, then combed his fingers through his hair, sweeping it back from his face. He sat facing Jarrod. “No, it’s not that. Inferno, our president, is a real ass and has us all on what you’d say is a very short leash. Technically, I shouldn’t be here right now. He doesn’t like the members to be out on their own for long, if at all.”

 
; “Maybe it’s time you leave the group and reunite with your family?”

  “Believe me, there’ve been times I’ve seriously considered it. I don’t even know who’s still around, though, or if they’ve moved or what. So I wouldn’t even know where to look. Besides, the Mongrels, as much as Inferno’s a dick, are my family, too. My life’s here.” As are you.

  “I get it.” Jarrod scrunched his brow, seeming to be in deep thought. He bobbed a finger as if checking off ideas. “I think I know how to help you.”

  Tex watched as Jarrod hopped off the bed, went to a bag and pulled out a laptop.

  Jarrod switched it on, and once he was able, he opened a browser and typed in an address. “Here,” he said, bringing the computer over. “This is a site to look up your ancestry. It could help you find out if anyone’s gone and get a starting point to track down those who are still alive.” He put it in Tex’s lap. “I’m going to go take a shower. While I’m in there, open up a free account, enter the information it asks for and start poking around. You might be surprised what you find.”

  Tex ran his fingers over the top edge of the laptop. What luck. No one in the compound except the top dogs, and Thumbs on a limited basis for his job, were allowed to be on computers. All members had cell phones, but even they were bought and distributed by Inferno, closely regulated and locked down to where the pack could do little but call or text only each other and set an alarm.

  Doing an anonymous search, he entered information about his father and began a search. Seeing all the information flashing from screen to screen on the computer, a wealth of knowledge about his lineage at his fingertips, amazed him. Nestled in the green and white screens were his ancestors’ names, and those of more current family members. There were a handful of surnames he recognized—Valentin, Costanza, Bautista, Garcia and Perez—all in different combinations of apellidos. It seemed as if many marriages had taken place and babies had been born then named after other family members. It also looked like his grandfather, dad and brothers had kept their names like he had, even though he was born before eighteen forty. But there was something odd about all the names.

  No other Dantes.

  Just as he noticed that particular glitch in the Valentin line, Jarrod hurried out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and cell phone at his ear.

  “Can’t I just come down and take care of it when I check-out?” Jarrod looked over at Tex and rolled his eyes. “Why are you calling me on my cell anyway?” He glanced at the phone. “Oh. Sorry about that.”

  Tex followed the line of Jarrod’s gaze and figured Jarrod was speaking to a hotel representative. Jarrod had unplugged the phone at some point the night before on the off chance someone were to call while they didn’t want to be disturbed.

  Jarrod clicked off the call and tossed the phone on the bed. “That was the front desk. Seems they’re concerned about some weird charge on my account that they don’t want to discuss on the phone. They want me to come down now and resolve it instead of waiting for check-out. They were pretty adamant.” He yanked on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then grabbed his phone and wallet. “I need to go downstairs for a few minutes. I’ll try to make it quick.”

  “Okay. Go and get back soon.”

  Tex continued to focus on the screen. He wanted to register and put his personal information into the system so badly that he clicked on the word Register at the top of the screen and a page with input fields came up. All he had to do was type, give the site what it wanted, then he’d be able to give his family an opportunity to track him down like he’d been doing with them.

  He scrolled through the names and made note of their locations. The last known address for his older brother, Santiago Valentin, was in Albuquerque, NM and for his grandfather, Diego Valentin, in El Paso, TX. His younger sister, Kiara Valentin, looked to live in Juarez, Mexico, while his father, Lorenzo Valentin, and other older brother, Cristóbal Valentin, lived up in Cheyenne, WY and Rapid City, SD respectively. His mother and grandmother still lived as well and appeared to be with their husbands.

  Assorted cousins appeared to live around the same areas, and for a brief moment he wondered if any of the banished relatives, like his cousin Rafe, were amongst them.

  Probably not. The Nagul tribes were usually pretty particular when it came to the rules of exile.

  But still, it was good to know there was a family network out there.

  For the most part, along a major corridor.

  He had a good idea what that meant and hoped to hell Inferno didn’t know and wouldn’t find out. The best thing he could do was not contact his family and subject them to Inferno’s power hungry ways.

  The cursor flashed in the first block on the registration page asking for his last name.

  He hovered his fingers over the keys then placed his hands on the bed.

  No. He couldn’t register. Not yet. To do so might lead danger their way, and he couldn’t be the one to bring harm to su familia. Tex closed the program, then reopened a browser.

  Since he had a chance to be on a computer, he wanted to check some things. On a search page, he entered “El Dorado Hellhounds.” A list of websites appeared. Some had snippets showing information about Nelson, the canyon, the mining days and the hounds, but most only talked about the paranormal aspects of the El Dorado Hellhounds—ghost dogs, haunted mines … the curse. He queued up a blog post and read about the spectral hounds and Queho’s curse.

  Huh. Interesting that people think we’re ghosts. If they only knew. He chuckled and continued flipping through sites and reading all he could about the legends and myths that were actually describing the Mongrels reality.

  Shutting the lid, he glanced around. The light streaming into the room had changed considerably, and he realized Jarrod had been gone for some time.

  At the thought of his mate, his cock jumped. Though they’d satiated their desires, it seemed he still wanted more. And why wouldn’t he? His cock had felt so good in Jarrod’s virgin ass that he craved feeling the snug heat, the way the inexperienced muscles spasmed up and down his length, again. He wanted to get Jarrod back into bed.

  The front desk better wrap up their business with my man soon. Or else I’ll have to go down and bash some heads.

  Once his lover returned, he’d order room service. This way they could feast on food before feasting on each other. Maybe they’d luck out and the kitchen would be able to supply them with some whipped cream. They could make their cocks into sweet treats for each other.

  Then when the timing was right, he’d approach the subject of running away together. Go to Texas. They could find his family, make their own, and live happily ever after.

  Having a plan in place, he picked up his jeans from the floor, fished his phone out of a pocket, and turned the cell on. The moment it finished loading, it began chiming and vibrating, alerting him to all the missed calls and voice mails. The unit rang.

  “Tex. Speak.”

  “About time you answered,” Preach’s cold voice thundered. “Inferno wants you back at the ’pound pronto.”

  “I’ll get back when I’m good and ready.”

  “Not the right answer, Tex.”

  “I don’t give a fuck. I don’t care about Inferno’s tyrannical rules and am taking a few days R and R.”

  Preach chuckled, and the sound morphed into a cackle. “I’ll be sure to relay the message.”

  The call ended. Tex tossed the phone on bed and strode over to the window.

  Where the hell is Jarrod?

  He paced for a couple more minutes, then grabbed his phone again to check the messages. All the calls had been from Inferno and Preach, wondering where the fuck he was and ordering him home.

  Damn it. Where the fuck are you dude?

  Figuring the best he could do was head down to the front desk, he dressed and left the room.

  Downstairs he searched the reception area and looked for his man at the desk. Jarrod was nowhere to be seen. The moment a represe
ntative became available, he cut in line to the dismay of the people who’d been waiting. He barely paid them any mind and held up a hand, silently telling them to wait a moment. “My friend was called and told to come down about some bill or something. Is it possible he’s in a back office or some place?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t give out that information regardless if he’s here or not. Feel free to wait over there on the couches. If he is in the back, you’ll see him come out. Next!”

  Frustrated, Tex growled low in his throat, but gave way to the people walking up to the rep’s station and went over to a couch. With each passing second that he didn’t see Jarrod, he became increasingly uneasy. After five minutes, he stood and went to scout the casino floor, looking for him.

  The uneasiness changed to anger and fear. How could Jarrod leave him? Was he all right or had he befallen some kind of danger? Snippets from mobster movies in which thugs cut off the fingers of gamblers flashed in his mind. Did that kind of thing still happen? He hoped not for Jarrod’s sake.

  Needing to leave the situation before he tore the building apart, he stormed past the throng of tourists and headed outside onto the boardwalk where the pirate show took place in the evenings. Once again his cell phone rang. “What?” he answered.

  “Preach tells me that you got an attitude and don’t want to get back. Well, I think you should.”

  “I’m busy. Lost something. Tryin’ to track it down.” Tex didn’t need Inferno barking at him and was about to disconnect the call when the president’s next words stopped him in his tracks.

  “You mean that human pup of yours?”

  He growled again, low and quiet, then clenched his teeth together, trying to fight the burning in his jaw and limbs. His sharp teeth wanted to break through, and his body wanted to shift. God, his wolf wanted to butcher someone so bad.

  He’d sank his fangs into Jarrod to claim him, not able to wait until the full moon in a few days to sample his blood and make him his mate for all time.