“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then he turned, pointed his gun at Stan’s chest and pulled the trigger.
“Ashton, no!” Nate shouted.
The scene seemed to play out as if in slow motion.
A second after Ashton shot Stan, Dean fired his own gun and Ashton fell forward onto the ground. Gregory roared and rushed at Dean, punching him in the face, hard. Dean’s head snapped back and Gregory was on him again, tackling the giant of a man to the ground.
“Jesus Christ, help me separate them!” Kelan shouted.
Nate ran forward and grabbed Gregory’s shoulders, dragging him back, while Kelan got a hold of Dean and pulled him in the opposite direction.
Nate wrapped his arms around Gregory’s torso and whispered in his ear. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Gregory struggled at first, kicking and shouting, trying to free himself from Nate’s grip, but after a few moments all the fight went out of him and his body went limp in Nate’s arms.
Jared check for a pulse in Stan’s neck then cross to Ashton and checked him, too.
He shook his head, his face solemn. “Both dead,” he mouthed.
Nate sighed and lowered his head.
What a goddamn mess.
Epilogue
Nate put the plate holding his sandwich on the coffee table and took a seat on the sofa, stretching out his long legs. He sighed contentedly and unfolded the daily newspaper on his lap. He was just about to reach for his sandwich when the front door opened.
“I’m home!” Tristan breezed into the room, his entire body covered in grease.
It was smeared over his hands and face and even looked to be in his hair.
“Hi, Nate!”
“Hey, kid,” Nate replied, unable to keep the grin from his face. “How was work?”
Tristan groaned dramatically. “That place would go out of business if it wasn’t for me, I’m telling you. I do everything there. I think I might ask Bob for a raise.”
“Uh, you might want to wait until you’ve been working there for longer than two weeks.”
“You think? Hmm, maybe you’re right. I guess I’ll leave it until next week.” Tristan made to sit down beside Nate.
“Don’t you dare!” Nate shouted. “Your brother will kill you if you get grease on his new sofa and then he’ll kill me for allowing it.”
Tristan shrugged, grabbed Nate’s sandwich and stuffed half of it into his mouth.
“Mmm, good.” His mouth was so full the words were barely audible.
Nate looked down at his empty plate and growled. Tristan practically ran from the room, his laughter carrying all the way up the stairs.
“Was that Tristan?” Jared walked in from the kitchen.
“Yeah, that was the little toad.” Nate frowned.
Jared’s face broke out into a wide grin.
He sat down next to Nate and planted a big kiss on his lips.
“What did he do this time?”
“He—”
“Hey! Did you eat that sandwich already? What did you do, swallow it whole?”
Nate rolled his eyes and grabbed the plate from the coffee table. “It went so quick I didn’t even taste it.”
Nate made it halfway to the kitchen when the phone started ringing. “You expecting a call?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Nope.”
Jared got up, crossed the room and slid his arms around Nate’s waist.
He snaked his tongue out and licked a path up Nate’s neck, making him shudder. “Probably just a sales call. Let the machine get it, if it’s important they’ll leave a message.”
Nate would have replied but his mouth was busy. Jared kissed him hungrily, sliding his tongue into Nate’s mouth. When he reached down and palmed Nate’s suddenly very interested cock through his jeans, Nate gasped, breaking the kiss.
The answering machine kicked on.
“Hello, Nate?”
Nate froze.
The female voice on the machine was hesitant.
“This is Lucy. Uh…I called Kelan and he told me you’re living with Jared now. He gave me your number, I hope you don’t mind, I…”
Nate tore himself from Jared’s embrace and raced across the room to pick up the handset.
“Hello?”
“Nate, is that you?”
Nate’s heart was suddenly pounding furiously in his chest. He swallowed hard before he could choke out a reply, “Yeah, Lucy, it’s me.”
“Oh, um… I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home.”
“Of course not, it’s good to hear your voice.”
There was a long pause on the other end before Lucy replied. “It’s good to hear yours too, Nate. Look, I did some thinking after I spoke to your gentleman friend and—”
“My mate,” Nate corrected.
More silence.
Nate had no idea what his sister was calling for, but Jared was Nate’s mate, plain and simple. If she couldn’t accept that fact then he had nothing more to say to her.
“Yes, your mate,” Lucy said at last. “He seems like a nice man.”
“He is,” Nate replied. He turned to look at Jared and a warm smile spread across his face. Jared was grinning triumphantly. “He’s one of the best.”
Lucy let out a shaky sigh. “I did some thinking after I spoke with him at the nursing home. I know it’s been a long time and I’ll understand if you don’t think it’s a good idea, but I wondered if you’d like to meet up, talk. Maybe get to know each other again?”
“I’d like that, Lucy,” Nate said sincerely. “I’d like that a lot.”
Nate chatted with his sister for a few more moments then made a date to meet up with her before hanging up the call. He stared down at the empty plate in his hand, overcome with emotion.
“She wants to meet up.” Nate raised his head to meet his mate’s eyes. “She wants to talk.”
“I knew she’d come around.” Jared crossed the room and gave Nate a small peck on the lips. “I’m so happy for you.”
“It’s your doing,” Nate replied. “She said she got to thinking after she spoke with you and realized what she’d been missing out on all these years.”
“Well, then I’m happy to have been of service.” Jared grinned and checked his watch. “We’ve got an hour before Gregory gets here, what do you say we go and celebrate?”
Nate’s breath came faster when he noticed the lustful glint in his mate’s eyes. “I like the way you think. Let me just take this to the kitchen and—”
Jared shook his head. “Leave it. I can’t wait.”
Nate groaned when Jared grabbed his hand and placed it on the bulge in his jeans. He dumped the plate on the table that held the phone.
“Lead the way.”
Jared’s mouth curved up and he lifted his eyebrows suggestively. He leaned in and pressed their lips together, slipping his tongue into Nate’s mouth. Nate groaned when Jared pressed a hand against his cock squeezed.
Christ, but he was hard and Jared’s hand sliding up and down his length and gripping him through his jeans was only making the situation worse. He held the back of Jared’s head and deepened the kiss, his fingers tangling in his hair, holding him in place while he devoured his mouth.
He couldn’t get enough of this man.
He was the air Nate needed to breathe.
Their combined moans sounded loud to Nate’s ears—almost loud enough to drown out the sound of his zipper sliding open…almost. Nate gasped when Jared reached into his briefs and made a tight fist around his cock. He broke the kiss and looked down just in time to catch the visual of Jared running his thumb over the head of his cock, spreading the pre-cum around.
Nate threw his head back and moaned.
“Jared…”
Jared chuckled. Before Nate even realized what was happening, Jared had sunk to his knees and swallowed Nate’s cock down to the base. Eyes closed, Jared moaned around him and the vibrations caused Nate’s hips to jerk for
ward, shoving him deeper into his mate’s mouth. Nate gave himself over to the sensations of his mate sucking him—the delicious slide, the tongue swirling around the head, the slight graze of teeth on every other pass.
He watched in awe as his cock slid in and out his mate’s hot, wet mouth. Jared opened his eyes and smiled around his cock. He winked then swallowed and Nate’s cock slipped into the back of his throat.
“Oh fuck!” Nate shouted desperately.
Jared sucked harder.
Nate couldn’t last.
He was about to come into Jared’s throat when it occurred to him that they were still in the living room, not in the privacy of their bedroom. Reluctantly, he pulled out of Jared’s mouth and tried to calm his breathing while he tucked himself back into his jeans.
“We’d better finish this in our room,” he rasped. “Tristan might come down.”
Jared’s eyes widened.
He’d clearly forgotten about his brother, too.
He quickly got to his feet.
“Shit.”
Nate chuckled. “Come on, I’ll repay the favor.”
Jared’s smile was bright. “I like the way you think.”
They’d made it as far as the hall when there was a knock on the front door.
“Son of a bitch!” Jared fumed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Nate groaned.
Why the hell had he made Jared stop?
His dick was like a lead pipe in his jeans. He needed release. He tried to will his erection away.
“I told you we should consider moving to Alaska where nobody knows us.”
“That idea is looking more and more promising.” Jared crossed to the front door and swung it open. “Hey, Gregory, come on in.”
“Jared, Nate.” Gregory nodded, stepping into the hall. “I’m sorry I’m early but the council just called. I have to leave for Las Vegas right away to pick up a cat shifter.”
“Trouble?” Nate asked, his cock deflating rapidly with the other man’s presence.
Gregory shrugged. “Nah, don’t think it’s anything I can’t handle. He’s only twenty-one—should be an easy in-and-out. The council is even letting me go alone.”
At that Gregory sighed and lowered his head when he was evidently reminded of the reason for that.
Nate met Jared’s gaze and frowned. “How are you doing, Gregory?”
Gregory shrugged. “Ashton and I were partners for eight years. He was more than a work colleague—he was a friend…a close friend. I miss him.”
“And there’s not going to be an investigation into his death?” Jared asked. “I mean, Dean killed him for no good reason. Ashton wasn’t a threat to any of us. How can he get away with that?”
Gregory snorted. “He already has. The council has closed the case, ruled his actions justifiable. But I swear to God I’m not going to let it drop.”
“I think there’s more to Dean than meets the eye,” Nate said. “If he was the one that gave you the information about Stan’s whereabouts, how did Ashton find out he was going to be at Joe’s? It had to have come from Dean.”
“I agree,” Gregory said. “I think Dean has his own agenda. It stands to reason that if he wanted Stan out of the way, what better way to do it than to feed information about him to Ashton.
“He knew Ashton was grieving for his mate and wanted revenge for her death. I don’t believe Stan was responsible for killing her.
“Neither do I,” Nate said. “But there’s something else that’s been bothering me. At the meeting at the Crazy Horse, Ashton said that you and he knew of Stan, that you’d been investigating something and his name had come up. Was there someone else at the council giving you information about Stan?”
Gregory nodded. “There was. There’s a wolf shifter named Deveraux working at the council that had been helping us. I thought he could be trusted at the time, so I believed the information he gave us was true.”
Jared frowned. “And now you don’t trust him?”
Gregory shook his head. “I’ve recently found out that Deveraux and Dean are thick as thieves. Which means all the info he gave us could have been coming from Dean all along.
“I’ve got to say, the more I find out, the more it looks as if Dean could be the one responsible for having Tania killed. That’s actually the reason I wanted to come by today, I’ve been doing some snooping around at the council.
“It seems that Ashton was not the only one whose mate was killed recently.”
Jared’s expression became taut. “You mean other council members’ mates have been killed in the same way as Tania?”
Gregory sighed. “Yeah. All torn apart. I always knew the council discouraged mating but it looks as if someone there has taken that a step too far.”
“Why would they discourage mating?” Nate couldn’t see the logic in that.
“They don’t want their representatives to have any ties. You both know how fiercely a shifter will fight to protect their mate. I imagine they see mates as a weakness or a liability, someone that could be used as leverage against the council.”
“And you think Dean is involved in the killing of these mates?” Jared asked.
Gregory shrugged. “I don’t know if Dean is involved directly but after everything that happened with Ashton, I’m beginning to think he is.
“I just need to find proof. Which is what I wanted to talk to you both about today. With Ashton gone, I can’t do it alone. Kelan said he’d help, too, but I wanted to know if I can count on you both for support if I need it.”
“You don’t even need to ask,” Jared said. “We’ll help you in any way we can.”
“Of course,” Nate agreed. “Call us right away if there is anything we can do.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Well, I guess I’d better go pick up that cat. Although I’ve got to say I’m nervous about handing him over to the council. It’s getting to the point where I have no idea who to trust there anymore.”
“Why don’t you quit?” Nate asked.
“Actually, that is something I’ve been thinking about. But for now, I think I can do more good while I’m still working there. There are too many corrupt members, too many antiquated laws that need to be changed.
“And I can’t leave until I find out who is responsible for killing council members’ mates. I owe it to Ashton. I have to do that for him. He would have done the same thing for me. Anyway, I’d better get going. Thanks again.”
Gregory was halfway done the porch steps when Nate remembered what he’d wanted to ask. “Hey, Gregory! Have you had any news on Joe Walker? What’s happening to him?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Joe got sentenced this morning. It looks like he’s going to be keeping his son company in prison.”
“How long did he get?”
“Three years. Neil Rafferty and his friends are being sentenced later this week, but from what I heard, it doesn’t look good for them. Neil was the one that killed Paul, so it’s likely he’ll be sentenced to life.
“His friends won’t get off lightly, either. They’re looking at ten years minimum.”
“It’s nothing more than they deserve,” Jared said.
“You got that right. See you both later.”
“Yeah, see you.”
They waited until Gregory got in his car and pulled out of the yard before closing the front door.
“Wow,” Jared said. “I think Gregory’s got his work cut out.”
“Yeah, I don’t envy him one little bit. I’d rather be a rancher any day than have to deal with the things he does on a daily basis.”
“You and me both. I thought I had it tough at the sheriff’s department, but jeez.”
“Isn’t Sheriff Ferguson up for retirement soon?”
“Yeah, in another couple of months.”
“You still gonna go for the position?”
Jared nodded. “I don’t see why not. I might not get it, but at least I will have tried.”
“I thin
k you’d make a great sheriff,” Nate said. “Kinda makes me want to get in trouble, just so’s you can arrest me.”
Jared chuckled. “You just want me to put you in handcuffs.”
Nate growled, grabbed hold of Jared and kissed him hard. “You can do that anyway,” he rasped when he pulled back.
Gregory’s eyes darkened with lust. “You done anything bad today I should know about, Nate? Anything you need to be punished for?”
Nate’s heart started beating faster. “I’m sure I can think of something.”
Jared grabbed Nate’s hand and dragged him down the hall to their room.
“Hey, Jared!” Tristan called. “Is dinner nearly ready?”
Jared’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he groaned dramatically.
It reminded Nate of Tristan.
They were so much alike.
Jared met Nate’s gaze and raised an eyebrow in query.
“Alaska?” he asked hopefully.
Nate chuckled and gave Jared a quick kiss. “I’ll start packing.”
The End
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About the Author
Lavinia Lewis is the M/M pen name of British romance author Tammy Thomas.
She also writes contemporary romance as Ava Grace and paranormal romance as Amy Armstrong.
She is a full-time writer and lives in Wales, UK.
She discovered reading at an early age and could always be found with her nose in a book. She loved getting lost in a fantasy world even then. When her parents bought her a typewriter for Christmas at age eleven, her fate was sealed. She spent hours dreaming up characters and creating stories. Not a lot has changed. Now, when she is not writing you can find her with her kindle in hand, reading a romance novel, or binge-watching her favorite shows on Netflix.
She has lived all over the UK but currently resides back home in the little village in Wales where she grew up. She has traveled extensively to places as far and wide Africa, Asia, Australia, America and most of Europe. Although some of her books are set in Texas she has never visited the state but plans to spend time there in the near future.
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