Learning to Love [Half-Demon Mates 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour ManLove)

by Sydney Lain

  “Hey, Gunner. Let’s talk,” a friendly voice said, trying to lull him into a relaxed state.

  Gunner might not have friends, but he was pretty sure they didn’t pin each other against the wall. The heat from the firm hand that pressed against his back still lingered. The power and strength within this man’s attractive body stirred a need he didn’t understand. Having someone stronger lean into him and rub up against his body felt good, but he couldn’t let these feelings in. Hunters were stone cold. He needed time alone to fully process the situation, so ignoring the gorgeous pest trying to get his attention, Gunner continued to walk away. He hoped he’d get the point and leave him alone, but no such luck.

  “That’s not very friendly. We need to talk.”

  The voice demanded obedience. He wanted to obey but managed to keep walking.

  “We’re mates. Shea needs both of us.”

  Damn him. The wolf shifter stirred an irrational need to protect and cherish him. Gunner turned to face the man he wanted to call an enemy, but that word didn’t fit. It would’ve been easier if it did.

  “Talk,” Gunner ordered, trying to mimic Viktor’s commanding tone but failing.

  “Man of few words. I like that. At least you didn’t call me a shithead or asshole.”

  “The day’s not over,” Gunner said.

  “True. But I don’t like those pet names. How about ‘stud’ or ‘earth shaker’?”

  “’Stud’? I don’t think so. As for ‘earth shaker’, never.” Oh, he got the hidden meaning behind earth shaker. Was this flirting? But successful flirting didn’t include words like “shithead” or “asshole.” If he’d tried this technique with Shea, then the other man’s anger was justified.

  “How about we go someplace private to talk?”

  They wouldn’t just talk. “Do you fuck everything in your path? My idea of talking is a lot different than yours. I want my clothes on. I don’t want to be pressed against a hard surface while you thrust into me.” Gunner never danced with the enemy, but went straight for the truth.

  “Now that’s cruel. I want you on your back so you can watch me pound into you.” He reached out and grabbed Gunner’s chin. “You want it rough, but I’d start out gentle. We can work up to the harder stuff.”

  Gunner pushed his attacker away. Okay, he wasn’t attacking, but Gunner wasn’t going to give him that chance. Distance was better.

  “Who are you?” Gunner asked.

  “Viktor Devin, your mate, and a half-demon.”

  “Half-demon?” He’d seen vampires, fairies, shifters, wizards, and read about rare nonhumans like angels and demons, but he didn’t believe they existed. “What the hell is a half-demon?”

  “Well, hunter.” He let the word “hunter” roll on his tongue. “It’s a man born to a human mother and a demon father.”

  “Demons exist.” He sounded stupid. As a nonhuman hunter, it was his job to know these things. Gunner had heard of demons, but nothing concrete. They were immortal like vampires, but deadlier. The stories passed down through time were about fallen angels that lacked a soul. Then he pictured one of the men that killed the members of his last cell. He controlled the cold and probably other elements. “Can you make it cold?”

  “Hunter, you know nothing. A demon was once good, but they lost faith and fell to earth. They turned into vile creatures that lost the ability to love. Some demons seek out human females to impregnate and about six months later, we are born.”

  “What about the cold?” That was what he really wanted to know.

  “Half-demons have different abilities. That one isn’t mine. Some can control elements, but they specialize in one element, like cold. Does it bother you that I’m part demon?” Viktor asked.

  “No.” Truthfully, he was a little envious. Being part demon didn’t sound good, but at least Viktor had parents and an identity. Gunner didn’t. He was born in a lab and raised by scientists. Viktor knew what he was. “What do you want from me?”

  Viktor wrapped an arm around his shoulder. The warmth filled him. He needed to get away. This man left him uncertain. Before he could push Viktor away, his back was against the wall. Rough lips silenced any protest. Hard, demanding, and hot, the kiss forced his complete surrender. Viktor’s tongue pushed at his lips, which parted in surprise. He relished the feel of the moist tongue stroking the inside of his mouth. He leaned into the wall for support. Gunner was lost to the desire bubbling inside. All questions and uncertainty disappeared behind a thick fog of passion. He wanted to be held. A hand squeezed his erection and then reality hit. He was a hunter, a warrior that protected humans. He pushed the half-demon away.

  Gunner straightened his arm while his hand rested on Viktor’s hard chest. He continued to lean against the wall unsure if he could stand on his own. “Don’t do that again,” he warned in an ineffective breathless tone.

  “What? Kiss you, or try to feel you up?” Viktor licked his lips. “You liked that. You want me to continue. Next time we’ll do it naked.” Then, as if to taunt him, Viktor invaded his personal space. “Mate, you’re mine to hold. Neither you nor Shea can resist the truth.”

  “Mate? What does that mean?” Gunner needed the word explained.

  “Half-demons have two mates. The universe creates life. It made us. We lack substance and live each day filled with nothing. Our mates balance that out. Through them, we feel and become alive. Gunner, we’re made for each other. You’re mine and I’m yours. The same goes for Shea. He is ours and we are his. Our little wolf understands this. That’s why he ran away. Are you scared of the truth, too? Does wanting me frighten you away?”

  “Impossible. Scientist created me. I’m not something that is born, but mixed together.”

  “Anything that lives is born and created by the universe. Your scientists aren’t god. You have a soul. You are as alive as Shea and I.”

  For so long, Gunner had wanted to believe that. But did he have a soul? Nothing frightened him. A lot confused him. Maybe it didn’t matter if he wasn’t born but created.

  “Viktor,” Gunner said and blinked. The half-demon was gone. The night got a little colder and a lot lonelier. Footsteps pounded through the silence as Craig approached. This was his life. He was a hunter being called back to duty.

  Then he froze. Shea. They were after the shifters and he wanted to warn Shea, but he didn’t. Never before had he hated himself more than at that moment.

  “We captured a wolf shifter,” Craig said.

  Gunner found it difficult to breath, but he forced air in and then out. Somehow he knew. Shea was in trouble.

  Chapter Four

  Shea couldn’t stop shaking. Every few minutes, he turned back and looked behind him. No one was there. A pang of hurt fluttered inside. He didn’t want to be chased down, but Viktor or Gunner could’ve tried a little bit. Maybe they felt the wolf and decided he was nothing more than an animal. That was probably true. Still, they gave up too easily. He wanted one of them to follow behind him so he could yell, scream, and get it all out. Letting the anger stew inside, he felt like a teakettle waiting to burst. He needed to lash out. His chest ached. Probably indigestion. But a person probably needed to eat within eight hours for that to happen. The emptiness wasn’t contained within his stomach. It ate away at his soul.

  He let out a frustrated scream. The few people on the street stopped to stare at him like he sprouted horns and a tail. He turned to make sure a tail hadn’t sprouted from his ass. Nope, still human.

  His extra-sensitive wolf hearing listened to the passersby’s comments—garbage, worthless, and deranged. A spindly man had called him deranged. Screaming in the middle of the street was nothing. The old man should’ve been there the first time the wolf crawled around inside of him. That was deranged. Then he’d been half-crazed and mad. His older brother’s wolf radiated power and that had kept Shea from tearing people apart.

  Shea had never thanked Henry for preventing him from committing mass murder. He wouldn’t have survived
that. If Shea had woken up with a bone between his teeth and blood on his hands, he would’ve ended it or sought out a trigger-happy police officer to put him down. No, he didn’t want to die like that. He might want a quick and easy end, but pride wouldn’t let him be killed like an animal.

  For four years, he’d lived with disgusting urges like licking his lips at the sight of bloody meat or howling at the moon. And to think, when he’d turned eighteen, his only worry was finding a job. On his nineteenth birthday, it was keeping the animal locked up inside.

  After high school, he’d looked for a job. After a few months, he’d considered enrolling in community college. Then his life changed. He found a job, as a night clerk at a convenient store. It wasn’t a career starter. The only benefit was the Smith and Wesson resting under the counter. The gun wasn’t loaded, but it felt good in his hand. The possibility of needing it to scare off robbers made the job exciting. On his first day of work, his life changed. By the following morning, he’d no longer be human. It took a month for him to realize that, but what he’d thought was the beginning of independence was really the end of his human life.

  When he’d left the store at five a.m., he’d patted the gun. Maybe he saw it as a good luck charm. The long walk back to his apartment had been uneventful. The streets were quiet.

  The five-floor climb to the apartment sapped his energy and he’d wanted to curl up on the couch and sleep. When he’d opened the door, the wolf was waiting. Before he’d gotten the door closed, the animal sprang into action. It had pushed him down and his mind couldn’t process what was happening. A wolf in the middle of the city had seemed as real as a tornado dragging him to Oz.

  Nails had ripped at his back, tearing his new work shirt. The ruined cotton polo stained with his blood. Teeth had bitten into his shoulder. The bone had cracked and then blackness enveloped him.

  When he woke up on the floor in a puddle of blood, he knew the wolf attack hadn’t been a dream. He reached for his shoulder. Blood covered his hand, but there was no wound. He tried to sit up and slipped on his blood. He threw up next to it and started to shake. That was how Henry found him. His brother hadn’t asked any questions. He’d just helped Shea clean up the mess. When the blood was gone, he had tried to forget that night.

  That had been a naïve objective. He’d really tried to get on with his life. The night shift bored him, but he still went to work. As the days passed, anger gnawed away at him like an animal trying to break free of a cage. He’d felt too raw and ready to burst. Then, an elderly man had stopped by for cigarettes and changed his life forever.

  His skin was wrinkled and he wore thick glasses. Shea had barely noticed him. He’d rung up the cigarettes and gum and handed the man the change. The old man went from harmless to angry. He started to argue about twenty-five cents. Shea lost control over a fucking quarter. But the old man demanded it and Shea hadn’t miscounted. Instead of giving in, he reached out and grabbed the customer by the throat. His neck, thin and frail, would’ve easily snapped. Shea’s nails sharpened and cut into the thin layer of skin. He dropped the man and he gasped for breath. When he’d gone to his knees and offered to call an ambulance, the old man turned to face him. The anger had quickly turned to fear and he fumbled for the door, apologizing.

  The glass window caught his reflection and Shea had stared into golden yellow eyes. That night he’d quit. For two weeks, he’d locked himself away. Henry had just watched and never told him about the wolf. Maybe it would’ve been better finding out before that night. He might have been able to plan and deal with it, but instead, he became an outsider no longer able to control the growing urges. He withdrew from people. It took a while, but eventfully he stopped hiding.

  Gunner and Viktor made him feel like a man out of control. This time it wasn’t anger, but lust. Something was very wrong with him. Wolf shifters didn’t have two mates. They didn’t crave threesomes.

  Both men were irresistible, but he wasn’t crawling into bed with them. Not after Viktor had treated him like a piece of ass. Henry already forced him to live a life as a nonhuman. No one was ever doing that to him again. No matter how fast his heartbeat, Shea wasn’t going to be forced into a mating. No, Viktor and Gunner could kiss his ass. He cringed at that mental image. No, not kiss his ass. That might lead to something more.

  The wolf inside growled. It poked at the cage, wanting out to run back and rip at their clothes. He pushed the urges deeper inside. The animal wasn’t in control. When it came to sex and mating, Shea made those decisions, not some horny animal.

  He headed deeper into the slums toward his rundown apartment. Hopefully the water was fixed. Two weeks was too long. Running water was a requirement for decent living standards. He complained, but no one cared.

  A feeling of déjà vu forced his muscles to stiffen. He sniffed the air and smelled them just when a large man reached out to grab him from behind. He struggled, but his captor was strong and held him in a steel grip. Two more men approached from the sides and surrounded him.

  “Hunters,” Shea hissed. These men hadn’t been gentle the last time they’d taken him, and it looked like that hadn’t changed.

  One of men pulled out a needle. Shea hissed and bucked his body like a wild stallion trying to throw off its rider, but it didn’t work. The needle came closer. He screamed, but there were so many high-pitched cries that echoed in the night that no one bothered to investigate anymore. Death and murder was so common that no one tried to stop it. He couldn’t pull free. The needle pierced his skin and he turned to bite the man holding him, but he couldn’t reach.

  What happened to being in control? The drug hit him hard. His body relaxed and the grip finally loosened, but he couldn’t move. This was it. His eyes closed. Viktor’s arrogant smirk and Gunner’s intense brown eyes flashed through his mind. The wolf howled inside. He should’ve kissed them. Now, he’d never know the feel of their lips. The images faded, blackness took over, and he slipped into a deep drug induced sleep.

  * * * *

  Gunner entered the warehouse expecting the worst, but nothing had changed. A heavy tension lingered in the air and he knew the other hunters were there. He went into the hallway leading to the doctor’s rooms.

  The first room had a large exam table with steel restraints attached to it. The instruments were untouched and scattered around the room. He opened the next door that led to the doctor’s private office. No one was there. His hand lingered over the third door, the one leading to the cages and possible captives. He pushed it open.

  Dr. Fox’s eyes gleamed with joy like he’d just won the lottery. There was no doubt. A shifter had been caught. His eyes lacked warmth as he envisioned all the fun he planned to have with his prisoner. All of the doctors hated nonhumans, but their need to understand the differences and the reason behind those adaptations made them cruel. He clenched his fist. This man and others like him loathed and hunted men like Viktor and Shea. For the first time in his life, he understood hate.

  “Pour water on him.” The sinister tone was colder than an arctic winter night.

  The doctor stared at the cage mesmerized by the contents. He barked orders, believing they would be followed. He didn’t see the other hunters engaged in a silent conversation. He didn’t see Craig shrug as he headed for the bucket and filled it with the warm water spigot before carrying it to the cage.

  Gunner knew he had to look, but couldn’t. The same string that tugged him toward Shea in the alley pulled him toward the cage. What if Shea had been beaten, or worse? Craig paused by the cage. Hunters weren’t supposed to sympathize with a prisoner, Gunner knew that but did Craig? Craig gripped the bucket. He felt the rage bubbling under the surface.

  “Dump it on him,” the doctor barked.

  Gunner looked inside of the cage. Shea curled on his side in a tight ball. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing, with no bruises.

  Gunner watched Craig approach and took a step forward. Tom’s hand landed on his shoulder and held him bac
k.

  Craig lifted the bucket and threw the water over Shea. The water slapped against him. Shea squealed and jumped up. Eyes blazed a golden yellow and were full of fear and anger. He slid against the back of the cage and glared at Craig. He growled and sharp wolf teeth threatened to tear the man apart. It might have looked scary, but with Shea’s trembling body, he wasn’t the least bit scary. His clothes clung to him and the wolf shifter threw off his jacket. The shirt didn’t look that wet, but the jacket hadn’t been a good shield.

  He turned from them and slammed into the back bars. The metal never budged. Gunner stepped closer to stop the wolf shifter before he ended up hurt.

  Then Dr. Fox laughed.

  Shea turned back around and glared at the doctor with such hate that even Gunner took a step back.

  “Those bars are reinforced metal. You can’t break them.”

  Shea stuck up his middle finger.

  Dr. Fox’s face turned almost as red as his hair. “The water will help with the smell. You stink like an animal.”

  “Rather smell like an animal than be like you.” Shea never cowered or backed down. His tone promised a slow, painful death.

  Dr. Fox smiled, too stupid to be scared. He was so sure of his superior skill and intelligence. His gaze lingered over Shea’s body. That attention forced Gunner closer. There was something unhealthy about that look.

  “You’re a cute one. Most wolf shifters are larger, with a lot more hair. Do you shave it off?” The doctor glanced down at Shea’s groin. “Are you thorough about it?”

  “You’re a butt-ugly asshole that asks stupid questions.” Shea’s golden yellow glowed with an eerily light. His nails turned into claws. His eyes met Gunner’s and for a moment the hunter thought Shea would call out to him, but the shifter quickly turned away. Shea kicked his jacket. “You ruined my property.” He pulled out three phones. “They’re wet and ruined.”