“I’ve visited the center quite a few times. I like helping out there,” Keaton was saying as he walked beside Kade. “Thomas is awesome with the kids. His boyfriend Tyler is great with the older teens. I’m told they have a few basketball competitions around here—nothing major, just the local kids.”
The man was surprising Kade at every turn. Keaton volunteered at the local rec center? He wasn’t sure how—Kade slowed when he noticed a man paying a little too much attention to them. He knew evil when he saw it. He had been immersed with evilness for over a decade. The truly wicked always had a certain look about them, a cunning expression or a deceptive smile.
“What’s wrong?” Keaton asked when Kade moved his mate to the other side of him, placing himself in harm’s way.
Kade gave Keaton a tight-lipped smile. “Nothing. What were you saying about art?”
His mate gave him a droll stare and then began to talk.
But Kade wasn’t listening. He could hear the voice inside his head again, the voice that was telling him he wasn’t good enough for Keaton, that he was a failure, a loser, and a joke. Kade had never been the type to whip himself over the back. It just wasn’t his style. So who in the hell—Kade glanced at the stranger again who was now on the other side of the street, his long hank of raven hair not quite concealing the wintery chill of his coal-black eyes. The strands were only half covering his face, his grin holding nothing but wicked intent.
He knew in the moment that it was the guy staring at him who was whispering the disparaging words. It was the stranger who was making Kade doubt everything about himself, Keaton, and his business venture. The guy was even making Kade regret coming home.
If he could do all that, then he wasn’t human. Kade’s senses went on full alert as he steered Keaton into the local bookstore.
“Why are we stopping in here?” Keaton asked as he walked inside, Kade’s hand on his back, encouraging his mate to go further.
“Because we have a big problem,” he said as he pulled out his phone.
* * * *
Keaton stood there in disbelief as he listened to Kade tell someone about a stranger following them and putting bad thoughts in his head. Well, those weren’t his words verbatim, but that was the gist of the conversation. Who in the hell could push their thoughts into someone else’s mind?
Then again, Keaton had learned some astonishing things over the past week. He wasn’t sure why learning that evil truly existed shocked him. Weren’t there murders, rapists, and abusers out there in the world? He just never thought that evil was a living entity.
“I’m at the bookstore,” Kade said into the phone. “He was right across the street.”
Keaton watched Kade stroll to the window and glance outside. He wanted to run and see who Kade was talking about, but call him a chicken because he feared that if evil saw him, he would target Keaton.
“He’s a hell what?” Kade said a little too loudly. “You have got to be shitting me.”
Curious, Keaton moved a little closer until he was standing right behind Kade—as if the man could shield him—and glanced out of the window.
Oh, why did he do that? Keaton should have kept his ass where he was. There was a guy across the street, dressed entirely in black—including his damn hair—and staring directly at Keaton. The guy pressed his index finger to his forehead and then bowed his head slightly, as if greeting Keaton. He wore a mocking grin on his face, but his eyes, god, they were so lifeless. He reminded Keaton of some deeply enmeshed Goth. His fingernails and lips were the same color as his hair, the color of black ink. He also had chains draping from the loops on his pants, in every direction.
How freaking creepy.
He hurried away from the window, terrified. Keaton wasn’t sure what the stranger wanted, but he knew it wasn’t anything good. He turned when he heard Kade clear his throat. The man was finally off of the phone. “Are we in deep trouble?”
Kade’s expression wasn’t promising. His mate ran his hand over his short-cropped hair, his teal eyes flickering over Keaton’s face. “And then some.”
Chapter Seven
“Can you repeat that?” Keaton said as he stared at Kade, his mind not quite grasping what the guy was saying. “Did you just say that this man…person…creature thing escaped from hell?”
Keaton considered himself a very open-minded person, but what Kade was telling was even more far-fetched than when the guy told him about shifters and vampires. “You’re saying that the guy outside”—Keaton pointed toward the window—“isn’t human and can kill me if he bites me? Why would he bite me? I haven’t done anything wrong to him. How did he get out of hell? Who let him out?” He was hyperventilating. Just the thought of the word hell and Keaton wanted to move to the other side of the country.
But would that be far enough?
“Calm down.” Kade paced up and down the book aisle. “At least I found out that I’m not losing my mind. This thing, hell hound, sucks all the joy out of a person. That is why I have been feeling so damn depressed since I got back.”
Keaton snorted as he yanked his hands through his hair. “I’m glad you figured that out. Now all we need to do is find out how to get rid of that thing. Can’t we just toss a bucket of holy water over his head?”
It sounded like a perfect plan to him. The hound thingy should shriek and shrivel. No, wait, that was The Wizard of Oz. Wrong evil being. But it was the same concept.
“It isn’t that easy.” It was a simple statement, one that should’ve had Keaton exploring other possibilities. But he was so far out of his depth that the only thing that came to
