“They disowned you?” Kort hazarded.
“Uh, yeah,” Mace murmured. “I got clocked upside the head by my brother before he left,” he told him. “Then, less than an hour after he left, I got a phone call from my father.” He pressed harder into Kort’s side. “He didn’t even offer me an ultimatum. He just said never contact anyone in my family ever again and hung up.”
“I-I’m so sorry,” Kort whispered, knowing how trite it sounded. He couldn’t imagine his clutch abandoning him. Not knowing what else to say, Kort turned and wrapped his other arm around him. “I will never leave you.”
Mace peered up at him, a tremulous smile on his lips. “Thanks. It was hard at first. I miss my younger brother the most. Andre. I always thought he was such a pain growing up, you know? Mom always made him tag along with me when I did stuff with my friends.” He scowled. “She was always too busy with charities and stuff for Dad’s work. He’s a lawyer for a couple of politicians,” he added, glancing up at Kort.
Just as quickly, Mace returned his focus to the pictures. “When I was in college, Andre was in high school and started struggling with science. I tutored him here at my place.” His focus moved to the small dining room table, and he smiled faintly as if he could see him and his brother sitting there. “We grew close. We talked about everything.” He grimaced. “Well, everything but me being gay,” he admitted.
Returning his gaze to Kort, tears shown in Mace’s eyes. “After Parson found out about me and I got that call from my father, I never heard from Andre again. I waited a couple of weeks, then went to his school after classes to watch him play football. I wanted to explain, to see if at least he would give me a chance, maybe accept me.” Gritting his teeth, he growled, “After him not being at practice for several days, I asked the coach and found out he’d switched schools.” Glaring at the floor, he snarled, “Andre switched to a damn private school. Gated with security and shit. Even his cell phone had been disconnected.” He scoffed. “I know who did all that. My parents didn’t want me to see him.”
Unable to see his lover in such pain, Kort wrapped him in his arms and pulled him close again. He rubbed his hand up and down his back. Trilling softly, he tried to soothe the lines of tension he felt stiffening his lover’s spine.
“How long ago did this happen?” Kort asked, unable to contain his curiosity.
Mace sighed. “A little over two years ago,” he told him. “After my parents stopped helping with college tuition, I had to get a job.” He scoffed. “I lived on Ramen noodles most of the year, but I finished my degree in biochemistry.” Rolling his eyes, he tried to cross his arms over his chest, then heaved a sigh when his casted arm made it impossible. “Unfortunately, my father has contacts in the places I’d planned to work at, so unless I leave the city, I can’t get a job in my chosen field.” He shrugged. “So I stayed at the diner. All in all, I feel pretty grateful to Wren and the folks at the diner. They’ve been great. They’re my new family. I’m glad I got hired there.” He wrapped his arms around Kort and rested his cheek against his chest, giving him a squeezing hug with one arm. “I’m glad I found you, too.”
Kort cupped Mace’s jaw, urging him to tilt his head back. Grinning down at him, affection filled him for the sweet human in his arms. He could so easily see himself falling for his mate and actually looked forward to it. He also wanted to slay all his demons and make him happy.
“Let’s get your stuff,” Kort urged. “We’ll get out of here and follow up with Collin,” he said. Seeing Mace’s confused expression, he grinned and whispered, “I bet he can find out if Andre has a new cell phone number.” When Mace gaped and paled, Kort thought maybe he’d made a mistake. “I, uh, I thought it’d be nice to at least have the choice of calling him, uh, even if you never choose to.”
Mace squealed and, going on tiptoes, threw his arms around Kort’s neck. “Thank you,” he cried excitedly. Lowering back to his heels, he stared up at him with wide eyes, “Do you think he’d really do that for me?”
Kort grinned, pleased his idea seemed to be a good one. “Absolutely,” he confirmed. He’d convince Collin to look into it regardless of the cost.
Humming excitedly, Mace stood on tiptoes again and pecked a kiss to his lips. He bounced away and headed back toward the hall where he’d left his satchel. “I just need to get—”
“It’s about bloody time you came back, sweetie,” Jessup snapped as he stepped through the sliding door. He wore blue jeans with dirt stains on his knees. His hair was mussed and had a twig sticking out of it. His long-sleeved, green and brown flannel shirt had clearly seen better days, judging by the dirt smudged on the sleeves and the torn pocket. “Grab your suitcase and get over here, Mace,” he ordered. “It’s time to go.”
“J-Jessup,” Mace gasped. “What are you doing here?”
Instead of doing as Jessup had ordered, Mace backed up a step. Unfortunately, it took him deeper into the hallway instead of closer to Kort.
The move evidently didn’t please Jessup, for the human pulled a gun from the back of his pants. He pointed it at Mace. “Pick up your suitcase and get over here,” he snarled. “Now!”
Kort growled softly in his throat. He took a step toward Jessup.
“Ah, ah, ah, lover boy,” Jessup snapped, swinging his arm so the gun was trained on him. “If you value your life, you stay right over there.” His lip curled as he eyed Kort with cold disdain. “Don’t think I don’t remember you dressing up in that stupid demon costume to try to scare me,” he snapped. “I should shoot you just for being near my Mace’s bedroom.”
“Wh-Where have you been?” Mace asked as his slinked toward the suitcase, drawing his ex-boyfriend’s attention. His gaze flicked from Jessup to Kort to Jessup’s gun. “W-We’ve been looking for you.”
Jessup scoffed, turning his focus back to Mace. “What? Did you forget all the camping I told you I did as a kid?” He smirked and pointed over his shoulder with the thumb of his free hand. “All I had to do was camp out and wait for you to come back.”
Kort watched everything, from Jessup’s body language—aggressive, belligerent, and angry—to Mace’s response to it—submissive and fearful. His lover once again had his broken wrist tucked against his chest. Jessup kept more of an eye on Mace than Kort... and he hoped to use that to his advantage.
He just had to figure out when.
“O-Oh,” Mace mumbled. “Right,” he whispered as he bent over and reached for the handle of the small case with his right hand. “I, um, should have thought of that, I guess.” As he spoke, he glanced over his shoulder at Kort. He grimaced and refocused on the satchel, quickly switching hands to lift it.
“Hurry up,” Jessup snapped, glancing around. “I’m tired of waiting. I want a shower.”
Mace nodded as he lifted his suitcase. Somehow though, as he picked up the handle, the lid of the case flopped open, spilling his clothes all over the floor. Crying in surprise, Mace instantly went to his knees and started trying to pile everything back into the satchel.
“Damn it, Mace,” Jessup roared. “Why do you have to be such a klutz?”
As soon as Jessup took his first step toward Mace, Kort lunged at him. He watched as the human registered his move, swinging the gun back to face him. As the discharge of the weapon sounded through the small space, Kort slammed into the male.
While Jessup was only slightly smaller than Kort, he still barreled through him. He might be in human form, but he still had paranormal strength, and he used every bit of it to take Jessup down. Hearing the snap of bone and the scream from the other man, Kort couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad.
This fucker held a gun on my mate.
Kort eased off the now-screaming man, gaining his feet. He ignored the pain searing through his left side and kicked the gun, sending it skidding across the floor to disappear into the kitchen. Instead of checking on the man now curled up in a ball on the floor, Kort took a couple of steps to Mace’s side and
knelt beside him.
Reaching out, Kort wrapped his large hand around the back of Mace’s neck. He crooked the fingers of his other hand and placed them under his lover’s chin. Urging his sweet human’s gaze to his own, Kort searched Mace’s eyes, seeing that they were wide and overly-dilated.
“You are safe,” Kort reassured. “Are you injured at all?”
Mace gaped at him for a couple of seconds, then he blinked and actually focused on him. “N-No, I’m good,” he whispered. Then, his eyes tracked down Kort’s body, similar to what Kort was doing to him. His eyes widened and he brought up his hand to grip both of Kort’s biceps, his one somewhat awkwardly. “You’re hurt!” Mace cried. “Jessup shot you!”
Kort glanced down, finally registering that the pain radiating through the left side of his abdominals was from a gunshot wound. “I’ll be fine,” he assured, not because he knew anything about getting shot, but because he didn’t want his lover to worry. “Get your cell phone out and call Detective DeSoto and Doc Perseus,” he ordered. “I’m going to make certain Jessup can’t go anywhere.”
“Jessup shot you!”
Massaging Mace’s neck lightly, Kort tried to get his lover to relax. “Yes,” he confirmed. “But I’ll be fine.” Leaning over, he pressed his mouth to his lover’s and took a few seconds to kiss him. Once he broke the kiss, he murmured, “And now, we can have Jessup charged not only with breaking your restraining order, twice, but attempted kidnapping and attempted murder. You won’t have to worry about him for a long, long time.”
Evidently, that wasn’t the best thing to say. It took longer to calm Mace down than it had to take out Jessup.
Over two hours later, Kort stood on the small cottage’s porch with his arm around Mace. He watched Detective DeSoto help lift the gurney containing a still-cursing Jessup into the back of an ambulance. Another deputy climbed into the ambulance next to him to keep an eye on the prisoner.
Perseus had already wrapped Kort’s side. The doc had told him it was a through-and-through. When he’d asked what that was, Mace had rolled his eyes and glared at him.
Chuckling, Perseus had stated, “It means the bullet passed through the flesh of your side.” He’d then turned to Mace and patted him on the shoulder as he softly told him, “Try to understand, Mace, that we will do anything to keep our mates safe.”
Mace had sighed, then had muttered, “And that means taking a bullet, huh?”
Perseus had nodded. “Yup.” He winked. “He’ll be fine to fuck into submission in a couple of days.”
While Mace had turned bright red, Kort had grinned broadly.
Now, Perseus walked down the front patio’s single step. “See you at the estate, gentlemen,” he called over his shoulder as he waved.
At that moment, Detective DeSoto stopped at the bottom of the step. Tristan stood under a tree in the front yard, leaning against it. His arms were crossed over his chest as he surveyed the area, looking relaxed even as he watched everything.
“We’ll need you both to testify,” Collin reminded them.
“We’ll be there,” Kort assured.
“Definitely,” Mace growled vehemently. “No way I want that asshole to get the chance to do anything to someone else. He deserves to be locked in a cage.”
After the detective nodded, he stated, “I’ll let you know dates when I hear about them.” After that, he walked away.
As Kort watched the detective and his mate climb into his truck and drive away, he turned to face Mace. Holding his mate in his arms, he frowned at his lover. “I should be just as angry as you for putting your life in danger, Mace.”
Mace’s brows drew together. “What are you talking about?” he asked as he rested his hand and cast on Kort’s chest.
Kort gave Mace a knowing look. “You made your suitcase open on purpose to cause a distraction,” he stated. “Don’t think I didn’t see you fiddling with it before picking it up.”
His face flushing, Mace blushed as he smiled. “Saw that, did you?”
“I did,” Kort confirmed. He softened his expression even though he wanted to paddle his mate’s behind for doing something so dangerous. “I’m proud of you,” he admitted. “Even though it completely freaked me out.”
Mace’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he returned his gaze. “I couldn’t let him shoot the best thing to ever happen to me.”
Kort’s heart swelled at his mate’s admission. He lifted one hand to cradle his jaw as he lowered his head. Just before he captured Mace’s lips, he whispered against his mouth, “You’re the best thing to happen to me, too, Mace. You’re my treasure.”
About the Author
Charlie started writing fantasy when she was eight, and after stumbling onto her first erotic romance at age nineteen, she realized her true calling. She now focuses on writing gay erotic romance, normally of the paranormal variety, with heroes of all kinds. With the help and support of her husband, Charlie finally fulfilled one of her life-long goals... move to acreage with her horses. You can often find her curled up with her laptop and a cup of tea or glass of wine, creating her next adventure. Charlie enjoys exploring the mountains of her new Oregon home on horseback, 4-wheeler, or motorcycle.
She can be reached at [email protected]
Or visit her at www.charlie-richards.com
Kort’s Treasure Page 10