Bowen leapt toward Dare, grabbed him by the elbow and twirled him close to the toilet, at which point, Dare dropped to his knees and was ill.
Shit! Shit! Bowen wanted to deck himself. Hadn’t he said he knew Dare wouldn’t like pain? And yet Bowen had lost control again, had bitten Chiz in a way that certainly didn’t look like a human bite. And he suspected Dare had seen the deep punctures, the holes that no human canines would have made.
Chiz’s wound looked raw and nasty.
And it wouldn’t look that way for long.
There was no way to explain a quick-healing injury to Dare without telling him the truth.
Bowen noticed how Dare trembled and seemed to pull away from his touch when Bowen tried to comfort him by touching his back. It hurt, and it shouldn’t have. Bowen felt the sting in his chest, the burn of rejection, but he forced himself to back up, to give Dare space.
“What’s wrong?” Chiz asked, rubbing at his eyes. Then his mouth rounded, lips forming an O as he glanced down at the blood streaking from his shoulder to his chest. “Oh fuck,” he whispered, returning his gaze to Bowen’s.
Bowen didn’t know what to do. He felt unwanted, and ashamed, and stupid and weak. Nothing helpful at all.
“Bowen—” Chiz began, but Bowen shook his head. He gestured at Chiz’s wound then tossed him a towel. “Take care of him.”
Bowen left the room, guilt a tight band around his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. He’d really fucked up, and he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for it.
After cleaning up in the kitchen, Bowen put on a pot of coffee, set out some bread and peanut butter, added honey and jelly to the little offering then left the house.
Everything that had happened in the past couple of hours seemed surreal, to put it mildly. He wasn’t even certain he’d actually been awake and functioning at some points while he’d done his chores. He felt disconnected from himself, and that he didn’t like himself much at all.
When the moon shone in the sky before the sun even set, his wolf tugged at him. And Bowen got part of his problem then. He’d never hated being a shifter. He’d been lonely, and yeah, confused, but he’d actually been proud of what he was.
Now he wasn’t. If he hadn’t been a shifter, he wouldn’t have turned Chiz. He wouldn’t have scared the puke out of Dare. He wouldn’t be so…so…
You wouldn’t have them, his wolf snarled, and Bowen snarled right back. “Shut the fuck up!”
“Bowen?”
Bowen spun around, his heart pounding. He hadn’t heard Chiz enter the barn at all.
Chiz stood just inside the doorway, gnawing on his bottom lip. He was freshly showered and dressed, and looking so uncertain that it just made Bowen angrier at himself.
He ignored his wolf. That damned thing wasn’t any help at all. Look what I did to Chiz.
“I convinced Dare he didn’t see as bad a bite as he thought he did,” Chiz said, taking a few steps closer. “With the way the bite is healing, by the time he calmed down and got cleaned up, it didn’t look like—”
“Like a wild animal got you,” Bowen said gruffly. “Like I couldn’t control myself again.”
“I begged you,” Chiz argued, rushing forward. He grabbed Bowen’s shirt sleeve. “Don’t you turn away from me, goddamn it!”
Bowen had been doing just that. He stopped and canted his head so he could give Chiz a sideways glare. “So if you begged me to put a bullet through your brain, that’d make it okay if I did it?”
Chiz gasped and let go of him. “That’s not—”
“If you begged me, like you begged me to bite you,” Bowen pressed, not sure why he was doing this, why he was trying to scare Chiz, to make him leave. “What’s the difference, Chiz? What if I bite too deep next time, huh? Puncture an artery? What then?”
Chiz shook his head, but he didn’t speak. His eyes were huge, and the fear Bowen saw there made him feel ill. He turned away, went back to mucking the last stall. “You should go. Take Dare and go. I don’t want either of you here.”
“You don’t mean that,” Chiz said in a shaky voice. “You’re just angry and scared.”
Bowen turned again, roaring as that anger and fear consumed him. “Go!”
Chiz’s features morphed into an angry expression that matched Bowen’s own. “Dare left half an hour ago. Guess you didn’t hear me taking your truck to drop him at his car. You were too busy brooding and feeling sorry for yourself. Well guess what? You need to stop being an asshole. Call me when that happens.”
Chiz pivoted and walked out, never once looking back.
Chapter Sixteen
The sketch wasn’t right. Hell, he wasn’t right. Dare cursed and crumpled up the piece of paper he’d been drawing on and tossed it toward the trash can. Ever since he’d done the walk of shame from the ranch three days ago, Dare had tried to…well, he didn’t know what, exactly. It’d been clear to him that neither Chiz nor Bowen wanted him for more than that one hook-up despite anything else that might have been said.
Heck, Bowen hadn’t even been able to stand the sight of him. It’d been Chiz who’d talked to him, fed him then sent him on his merry way.
Okay, yeah, the biting thing had weirded Dare out. He’d been sure there was something unnatural about the injury itself.
But when he’d sneaked a peek at it before Chiz had escorted him off the property, it’d just looked like a bite, not the bloody, nasty injury Dare could have sworn he’d seen right after all the spectacular sex had happened.
He rubbed at his temples. He’d had a head injury, too. Maybe he’d hallucinated the blood and deep puncture marks. He must have, because people didn’t have the kind of teeth necessary to make such a bite.
Dare closed his eyes. His insides felt like hot lava. No, like butterflies made out of hot lava and Brussel sprouts, his least favorite food in the world. His gut was hot, heaving, queasy.
His usual method for dealing with shit, or escaping from it, wasn’t working. Every time he tried to draw, his brain couldn’t or wouldn’t cooperate with is hand. Dare was so frustrated that he could have screamed.
His cell phone rang. Dare grunted and ignored it. He’d thought he’d turned the damn thing off after the last call from his mama.
Not that he’d answered. Or checked the voice mail she’d left. In fact, he’d avoided his family, because, frankly, he was sick of them all. They’d never let him be anything or anyone other than what they wanted him to be—which was no better than them. Dare wasn’t conceited by any means, but a life of crime and lack of morals weren’t things he aspired to.
When the cell stopped ringing, Dare picked it up. He didn’t check the caller ID. No need to since his mama had her own ring tone. He pressed the button to power the phone off, and almost leapt out of his skin when someone banged on the front door.
Dare dropped the phone on the table and started sweating. That sounded like angry knocking, and that almost certainly meant family.
He didn’t have anything on the table to use to cover up his sketch pad and pencils, so he called out, “Just a sec!” before taking his art supplies and rushing to his bedroom. He shoved everything under his bed then ran his hands over his unkempt hair. He didn’t bother checking himself in the mirror—Dare was pretty sure he looked as messy as he felt.
Despite his request or announcement, someone kept pounding on the door the entire time Dare had been moving about. His temper escalated with each thud of that fist on the wood. When he finally grabbed the knob and yanked it open, Dare was spoiling for a fight.
And since it was his brother Earl on the other side of the door, Dare knew he was going to get one.
Sure enough, Earl swung without warning. Dare managed to turn his head enough that Earl only grazed his cheek, but he didn’t expect the left to the stomach.
“Umph!” Dare fought not to hunch over as the breath left his lungs. Earl would have slammed his knee into Dare’s face had Dare given him the chance.
Rather th
an risk a broken nose, Dare remained upright. He tried to shut the door, but Earl kicked and shoved.
“You ain’t getting away from me, asshole!” Earl bellowed. “Fucking think you can ignore mama and your family? Think again!”
Earl got past Dare and into the room. Dare spun around and blocked a punch with his forearm. “Cut it out, fucker,” he demanded.
Earl’s beady eyes held an unholy gleam. “Fuck you, pussy boy.”
Dare wondered what that even meant. He blocked another punch and kicked Earl’s left knee.
Earl yelped and went down hard. Dare hopped back out of range of legs or arms. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“Think you broke my knee!”
Dare felt bad, but he wasn’t getting closer to Earl. “Yeah? Well, maybe you shouldn’t show up here trying to kill me.”
“Beat some fuckin’ sense into you,” Earl snapped as he started to get up. His knee was obviously not broken, and his ploy to get Dare close enough to hurt, failing. “You think you’re better’n us, but you ain’t. Blood tells.”
“Tells what?” Dare asked, and damned if he didn’t sound a little snotty there. “Doesn’t seem to be saying much between you and me except that you want to spill mine.”
“Teach you you ain’t any better,” Earl said. “Too good to talk to your family?”
“No.” Maybe? Or not too good, but not…enough like them to get along. Dare wasn’t going to say as much. “I’ve just been sick and didn’t want anyone to fuss, which I guess gets a psycho sicced on me.”
Earl sneered at him. “You look shitty, and fuck you. I hope you got something that’ll kill your ass. You can fight, you can answer the phone.”
Dare’s anger burst out of him before he knew it. “What the fuck is wrong with my family? Y’all ain’t going to be happy until I’m a criminal? Why is that? Why can’t I just live like I want to without all this stupid violence and bullshit? Huh? Why can’t I just be me?” He surged toward Earl. “And fuck you for showing up at my home, starting shit ’cause you’re bored or insecure or—”
This time, Dare expected the punch, and he ducked it easily. He was so mad, and he wasn’t sure it all had to do with family. There was the lack of a job, the frustration of his attempts at drawing, the being ditched like a piece of used ass—
It felt good when his fist connected with Earl’s jaw. Felt better to hear him grunt, to see spit and blood fly out of his hateful mouth.
The violence felt too good, in fact. That scared Dare and he grabbed Earl by the collar, spun him around and shoved him toward the door. “Get out, and don’t come back here again.”
Dare expected more argue, more fighting, but Earl went out of the door, stumbling, not looking too steady as he left.
Dare watched him, worrying that he’d done some serious injury. Earl stopped at the end of the sidewalk and turned around long enough to flip Dare off and call out, “Better watch your back, bitch.”
Well, that was likely accurate. Dare doubted he’d see Earl coming next time. Earl was a skeeze, and he’d try to hurt Dare without risking harm to himself, so a dagger in the back—literally—wasn’t unlikely.
Dare couldn’t find it in himself to worry too much. The anger he’d felt left him and all he had was a sense of emptiness. He couldn’t draw, couldn’t find a job, couldn’t stop having a pity party for himself. He rolled his eyes and closed the front door. Dare locked it, then strolled over to the small living room window.
Is this what it’s like to be depressed? Because if so, I might have been depressed for a long time. No, no, I’m not mentally ill. That’s… He stopped himself from ending that thought with ‘crazy’.
The truth was, the hopelessness, the apathy wasn’t completely unfamiliar. He’d had some rough days here and there.
The sensation that he was dogpaddling in wet cement, and sinking fast? That was new, and harder than the periods of time where he’d slogged through life. This was different. He could feel the hope seeping out of his pores one tiny particle at a time.
Dare pressed his head against the glass pane and closed his eyes. Was it a mood, a set of circumstances that had him feeling so low?
He wasn’t sure. Dare tried to examine his feelings, but there was a big ache deep inside of him, a hollowness that he didn’t understand. The need to sketch it made his fingers it, but he was afraid he’d fail and simply frustrate himself again.
So he let his mind do the drawing, and the mix of darkness, shades of black that he had no names for, swirled in his mind.
He felt cleaved in half, emptied out.
And he was being a melodramatic idiot. There was no reason for him to be missing two men he didn’t know—which was, he concluded, the root to his immediate problem.
God, he was a clingy jerk, wasn’t he? Having sex with Chiz and Bowen—sort of—didn’t give him a claim them. They weren’t even his friends.
Dare opened his eyes and pushed away from the window. “Stop being a pathetic idiot,” he said to his reflection there. “Seriously. Grow. Up. It was just sex.”
Maybe if he said it often enough, his stupid brain and, more importantly, his heart, would actually believe him.
Chapter Seventeen
Chiz banged on the door.
“I swear to God, Earl, I’m gonna beat your—” The door opened and Dare appeared, his face red and pinched with anger. “Ass…uh. Um? Wait, I didn’t mean you’re an ass. I didn’t—I—”
Chiz would have been charmed by Dare’s befuddlement had he not been in such a foul mood. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let me in.” He nudged past Dare without waiting for him to move. “I’m going stir-crazy at my place.” He heard the door close. Chiz looked around the small living room and kitchen. They were both rundown but clean, cleaner, in fact, than Chiz’s home had ever been. “You’re a neat-nick.”
Dare cleared his throat. “Er, I don’t like messes.”
Chiz turned to him and arched an eyebrow. “Really? Because you were good with messy sex, and I think we’re in a fucking mess now. Not the fun kind, but a mess, yeah.” Now that he’d said it, things began to click into place for Chiz.
Dare flapped a hand toward the kitchen. “You want a drink? I have water or beer.”
“Earl been bothering you?” Chiz asked instead of answering. He was working through things with one half his brain and listening to Dare with the other half.
“My family bothers me, period,” Dare muttered. “Have a seat. I’m sorry it’s not a nicer couch, but—”
“Sit down so I can sit with you.” Chiz wanted contact and comfort, and he was only going to get it if he demanded it. Dare was too nervous to see what Chiz needed.
“With me?” Dare gulped. “But Bowen will get mad, won’t he?”
Chiz grabbed Dare’s right hand and tugged him over to the lumpy brown recliner. He pushed Dare down, then plopped on his lap.
Dare squeaked. Chiz smirked.
“No, Bowen won’t get jealous, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Chiz replied. “We aren’t together, and we had a shitty fight after you left the ranch, anyway.”
“Because of me?” Dare whispered.
“Because of him, because of me, but not because of what we all did.” Chiz wasn’t lying. It hadn’t been the sex that had been the problem. He knew that. “He’s afraid he’ll hurt you, and me. Maybe I should be afraid I’ll hurt you.” Which he supposed was possible, except his wolf sure didn’t feel all bitey and bloodthirsty like Bowen’s must have.
“Hurt us?” Dare rested his hands on Chiz’s hips. “He bit you. You were bleeding.”
Chiz nodded. “Yup, and I’d beg him to bite me like that again. Hurts, but in a way that makes me come so hard I pass out.”
“Er, that’s a good thing? Because you scared the shit out of me,” Dare said.
“It’s a fanfuckingtabulous thing,” Chiz clarified. “Why would I not want to come like that? So good that my body overloads from ecstasy? I mean, come on! That’s amazing.”
“I guess so. Hey.” Dare frowned. “How did you know where I live?”
“Because I can use Google,” Chiz replied dryly.
Dare shook his head. “Yeah, but I rent this place, and I don’t have a listed phone number.”
Was he really so naïve? Yes, Dare was, and he was adorable. Precious, but in a sexy, not weird way. There was an innocence to Dare that Chiz hadn’t encountered in a long, long time.
Chiz silently vowed to help protect him from himself and anyone else, meaning, for the most part, Dare’s family. “I still found you online. I have mad stalking skills.”
Dare blinked rapidly. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Not in your case.” And Chiz couldn’t help it—he had to kiss Dare. He moved slowly, giving Dare time to protest, turn his head, show any sign he didn’t want a kiss.
But Dare’s eyes closed and he licked his lips, then left them parted. His hands clenched on Chiz’s hips.
And Chiz pressed his mouth to Dare’s, moaned, leaned closer, needing to feel as much of Dare as he could. Their chests met, and Chiz licked his way into Dare, tongue flicking and pushing. He suckled Dare’s tongue when he could, and ran his hands up and down Dare’s muscular arms.
Chiz’s cock was hard and aching. He felt the heat coming from Dare’s groin, smelled his need, heard it, tasted it—
The thin, worn fabric of Chiz’s sweats provided little barrier between his dick and Dare’s jeans—and the bulge pushing against the denim. Chiz hadn’t bothered with underwear. A part of him had been hoping to do more than talk.
But Dare turned his head just a little, enough to break the kiss, and Chiz leaned back to look at him. “What’s wrong?”
Dare sighed. “Did you just come here for sex? I’m just wondering, ’cause that didn’t end so well last time.” He took a stuttering breath, then exhaled steadily. “I didn’t even see Bowen after.”
Chiz crawled off Dare’s lap and sat on the edge of the coffee table instead. He braced his elbows on his knees, then rested his forehead in his palms. “I don’t know why I came over, exactly. There were lots of reasons, I mean, but not…not this, not for sex specifically. I’m just…” A mess, and my wolf is not happy with me at all, but I can’t tell you that. The only person he could discuss being a shifter with was Bowen, and Bowen had made it clear he didn’t want Chiz around.
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