Learning to Love [Half-Demon Mates 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour ManLove)
Page 1
Half-Demon Mates 2
Learning to Love
Shea never wanted to be a wolf shifter. After an attack, he’s turned into one and is forced to live with a wolf inside of him. Ignoring the wolf leaves him on the verge of losing control.
Viktor, a half-demon, has lived alone for three hundred years, searching for his mates. When he meets Shea, he’s stunned by the numerous insults directed at him. When Viktor takes a step closer, he discovers that the man with the crude tongue is one of his two mates.
Gunner was created in a lab. He’s a hunter that kills nonhumans. A few years ago, he freed a wolf shifter. That wolf shifter awakened a protective need within in. Ever since then, he’s longed to hold him, but Gunner won’t dirty him with his bloodstained hands.
Can these three men find common ground and make their relationship work or will their self-hatred keep them from letting love into their lives?
Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Shape-shifter
Length: 34,591 words
LEARNING TO LOVE
Half-Demon Mates 2
Sydney Lain
MENAGE AMOUR
MANLOVE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour ManLove
LEARNING TO LOVE
Copyright © 2015 by Sydney Lain
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-019-0
First E-book Publication: March 2015
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
About the Author
LEARNING TO LOVE
Half-Demon Mates 2
SYDNEY LAIN
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
Viktor Devin strolled through the darkness, letting it caress him like a mother’s touch. Nothing beat a starless night just before midnight. He relished and bathed in the black.
High-pitched screams and police sirens echoed down the dark alley. He maneuvered over the garbage littering his path, kicking a used syringe against the wall. Life sucked, but no one deserved a chemically induced way out of it.
His mother had done that. Drugs got her through the nightmare of giving birth to him. She hadn’t been evil, but his demon father left her on the verge of insanity and drugs kept her in a haze that didn’t numb the pain but left her an empty shell.
Demons left people broken. When they latched onto a human, they didn’t stop until they destroyed.
An inner voice taunted him. You’re half-demon. Like he needed to be reminded of that.
Half-demons were born from human mothers and the vilest darkness known, demons. Viktor didn’t know which half was worse, the weak human side that kept him from slaughtering annoying people, or the demon side the cried out for blood. Stuck in the middle of being weak and born of evil left him empty. Maybe his inability to love pushed his mother to insanity. If he’d been able to give hugs and read her need, she might’ve been different, but Viktor was born when women didn’t have babies without husbands and society labeled unwed mothers as sinners.
Demons were once full of life and love. Angels. They were called that before the fall. Some demons slaughtered and manipulated the innocent, choosing to destroy what they could never be again, while others screwed females hoping to find a small part of what they lost. The children born from such a union rarely survived, either killed by their mothers, or their bodies couldn’t survive with demon blood coursing through mostly human veins. An unlucky few, like him, grew into cold-hearted adults.
Viktor turned. Streetlights illuminated the area as he prowled down the sidewalk. Rather than waste money on electricity, city officials should hired people to paint over the graffiti or pick up the trash, but humans preferred to hide from the darkness and not embrace it. While it hid vile beings like him from sight, they were still there. A light didn’t change that. Seeing the nightmares that roamed the cities didn’t make the world safer. Humans still screamed when a hand reached out to feed on bones and blood.
A group of four men crouched in the corner, hugging the brick wall. Their arrogance drew his attention. They tucked their bodies into the shadows and tilted their heads down and peeked at him with cold, hate-filled eyes. Humans were so transparent. The “let me conceal my identity so I can rob and beat you” trick didn’t work on someone that saw better than nocturnal creatures. The thugs watched him like an eagle stalking a rat, but Viktor wasn’t prey. He was the monster in children’s dreams, the animal that terrorized the living, and the predator that tortured the weak all in one. Something these thugs would never forget. He didn’t look like prey, and these
men treating him as such pissed him off, something that was almost impossible to do.
His eyes glowed. The eerie blue sent chills through all that saw them. These men were no exception. They backed up, one, two, three steps. He sent a command ordering them to stop. They froze. Eyes widened and dilated.
Viktor smelled their fear. After he’d made his point, he blinked and like a pin smashed into a balloon the spell broke. Two of the men fell to the ground, but soon all four went running down the road, screaming like terrified girls in a horror film.
The bustle of activity disturbed the quiet night. People turned to stare at the man that sent four thugs running away. A woman clutched a bag to her side and stepped closer to her companion, a prostitute walked away with high heels clanking against the sidewalk, and a man stiffened, too masculine to run away, but smart enough to head into the street, putting parked cars between them as he demonstrated his speed walking skills.
Most humans foolishly faced the unknown, not willing to listen to the voice inside screaming danger, but these people weren’t stupid. They lived where humans fed off each other in the worst way. Stealing, manipulating, and hurting came as easy as breathing. This part of the city felt like home much more than the large empty mansion, where neighbors competed over the number of holiday lights and decorations.
Still, those vile thugs wanted to turn him into prey. Was he losing his touch? These people were prey, not him. After a few seconds, the anger faded like everything else. Not even that lasted.
Time was his worst enemy, not humans. Years had turned into decades that had passed into centuries, and as time slipped by, he became numb as the blackness filled his heart. His kind didn’t feel as much as humans and after two hundred years of apathy, Viktor Devin was tired and cold-hearted down to his core.
“Hey, want to buy a phone?” Someone asked from behind him with a casual tone heard between friends, not strangers on the street.
Viktor blinked. Very few people talked to him and never without fear. Maybe he’d heard something he wanted, not something that was real. Did he want casual conversations instead of fear-laced nods and complete obedience? It didn’t matter. Soon, he’d feel nothing. Not bothering to turn around, Viktor kept walking.
“Hey,” the voice now sounded irritated like Viktor crashed into his car or stole his puppy.
He shook his head at the man’s stupidity. This stranger acted like a hopping bunny in a tiger’s cage.
“Hey shithead. Don’t ignore me.”
Did this human call him shithead? No, that wasn’t possible. Humans had self-preservation instincts that kept them from sticking their hands in fire, so unless he was suicidal, Viktor was hearing things.
“I’m talking to you, asshole.”
Asshole? That time he couldn’t ignore the insult. Viktor turned, expecting to see someone close to his six-foot-five inch frame. Maybe even a taller man with large monstrous muscles that foolishly allowed him to misjudge his ability to fight a half-demon, but no one was there.
“Yo, buy a phone,” the irritated voice said.
This time Viktor looked down. A man with a runner’s build, a head shorter, and with a cocky smile plastered on his face, leaned against the brick wall. He glared at Viktor with enough venom to kill an elephant. Dark blue eyes dared the half-demon to do something about his obnoxious behavior, but he was as threatening as a fencer wielding a lollypop. His handsome face looked like it had been chiseled out of stone, but not in a hard masculine way. The stranger was all male, but far too attractive to be alone on the rough streets after dark. A part of him wanted, no needed, to protect him, but Viktor squashed that impulse. It was so alien that he didn’t fully understand it.
The anger fizzled out as he sized up the self-proclaimed salesman hustling stolen phones. Only criminals sold phones after midnight in the middle of one of the worse areas in the city. At any moment, a gang scuffle could send stray bullets through him or one push with Viktor’s pinky and this man would be kissing the pavement.
As if he had the ability to read Viktor’s mind, his eyes changed from bright blue to golden yellow. He tilted his chin up and sniffed the air. He scrunched up his nose as if he’d just smelled week old milk left out in a one hundred degree heat wave. That should’ve enraged him. Viktor hadn’t stunk in over a century. During that time, baths were considered a luxury, not a necessity. After showers became a household staple, he took at least one a day. The small act of defiance intrigued him. No one treated him like this and Viktor liked it.
“You need to work on your sales pitch. I don’t know who taught you that technique, but, little wolf, you need to go back to school.”
The man balled his fist trying to contain the anger bubbling inside, confirming to Viktor that he had guessed right. This man was a wolf shifter with a short fuse close to short-circuiting. Most shifters got angry very quickly, but they respected stronger men.
“My technique is fine.”
“Your customers like to be called ‘shithead’ and ‘asshole’?” Viktor waved a finger in a way a teacher did to reprimand a student. “Don’t think so. People want to hear words like ‘sir, excuse me’. You know, common courtesy.”
He shrugged like Viktor’s useful advice was nothing more than a waste of time. “I call it like I see it, dick.”
Viktor laughed. Something he hadn’t done in a long time. Out of all the names, dick was the least offensive. “Oh, little wolf, who let you out of your crib to play with the big wolves?”
“I’m a man, not a child.” He pouted like a kid. “You’re just an uptight snob, who thinks he’s too good for my phones. Arrogant jerkweed.”
Jerkweed? Was that a new insult? Viktor doubted it. “Fine, little wolf,” he said, deciding to reward the guy for his stupidity and creative name creation skills. “Show me these phones that I’m too good to own.”
Hurt flashed through golden eyes. They changed back to the dark blue that reminded Viktor of an afternoon sky. He should’ve moved on. Why did he care if this shifter felt bad? But he did. Viktor couldn’t deny it. He cared about someone else.
The man straightened his back. He opened his long, thin brown coat that hung to his knees. Inside pockets were sewn in, covering every inch of fabric. In each pocket, a different phone was tucked inside. His eyes shifted to the man’s dirt-covered clothes that didn’t know about washing machines, let alone had taken a soak in one. A dirty hand pushed back his brownish blond hair that stayed in place from lack of cleaning, not some kind of hair product that he couldn’t afford. Anger surged through Viktor. He’d seen poverty far worse than this. During the Great Depression and the Civil War, he witnessed a lot of suffering and this man didn’t know the meaning of pain, but just knowing that he’d suffered was far worse. It enraged him. The alien intensity washed over him and Viktor relished it. For the first time in centuries, he wasn’t served little drops but an entire glass full of feelings.
“Too cheap to buy a phone, or are you too good for my products?” His eyes narrowed as they moved down from his head to his toes, but there was interest when he took in Viktor’s body. Then the look was gone. The shifter shook his head in a dismissive gesture that added gas to the flames burning inside of the half-demon.
The little wolf backed up and pressed his body against the wall as if just noticing the looming figure he’d invited closer might take a step toward him. Then he stiffened and lifted his chin in that adorable defiant gesture that was meant to show strength.
As Viktor closed the distance, something stirred, a fierce need to protect this man from harm. He wanted to take him home, bathe him, and put him to bed. Thoughts of the wolf shifter lounging on his king-sized bed made his cock stir. His skin tingled. This had never happened before. A dam opened up and something unfamiliar flooded into him.
The stranger closed his jacket, wrapping it tightly around his body as if a thin layer of cotton would keep him safe. But this man would be safe, because Viktor would protect him.
“I don�
�t buy stolen merchandise,” Viktor’s said. That had to change. He wouldn’t allow him to continue his illegal activities. Bad luck fell on everyone, but he’d pull this man back onto the right path.
The shifter’s eyes narrowed. If he had the power to kill with a lethal glare, then even he, a half-demon, would be dead.
“Tell me, little wolf, do you have somewhere to go?”
He stiffened and tried to move away, but Viktor stepped closer. He left enough space so the shifter didn’t panic. The man needed to breathe and not hyperventilate like the men he usually confronted.
“You shouldn’t be on the streets. It’s past your bedtime.”
His little wolf flashed him sharp teeth as if they shielded him from evil. Not weak human teeth, but molars and fangs that belonged to a wolf.
“I’m not a child. I don’t have a bedtime.” He flicked his tongue over the sharp points. “And I can take care of myself just fine.” He swallowed before throwing on a blanket of forced strength. “Forget the phones. Just go back to your mansion and close the door, draw the shades and forget people like me exist.”
That wasn’t going to happen. This defiant young man needed him and he’d be there for him. But why? Then the answer came to him in a single word—mine. Then he knew. This man wasn’t some street imp that had fallen on hard times. He was Viktor’s mate. He belonged to him and Viktor cherished what was his.
“Little wolf, let me see the merchandise again.” Their gazes locked.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why? I like it. It suits you,” Viktor said with a soft lull that would sooth a baby.