“What do you want to know?” Nysys asked.
“Why is he always alone? Why does he push everyone away?”
Nysys sighed. “We don’t know. He was rescued from the lab Gabriel was in. He stayed here for a few days, then he went back home, and we didn’t hear from him again until he came back a month later. His clothes were ruined and he was all wet. He never told anyone what had happened, and Dominic told us to stay out of it.”
“Something happened with his family.”
“Yeah, but he never told anyone what. Maybe he told Dom, I don’t know, but if he did, Dom would never tell anyone.”
“Have you two tried to talk to him?”
“Of course we did,” Keenan said. “It worked with everyone else, even with Nate, and you know how grumpy he is. Benji just pushes us away or runs. We kind of stopped, because it’s obvious he doesn’t want us.”
Blair slowly nodded. “I want to help him.”
“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help.”
“No, but we can be there for him.”
“Yeah, but how?”
“We’ll make sure he knows we’re his friends.”
“We already tried it.”
“Then we try again.”
Nysys and Keenan looked at each other and nodded. Nysys looked at Blair. “So, what did you have in mind?”
Chapter Seven
Delevan crouched behind a bush and waited for Blair to pass. His tail wagged behind him, and he couldn’t have stopped it even if he’d wanted to. He was too excited at the idea of playing with his mate—something he’d never thought could happen to him before.
He hadn’t had the opportunity to play around with his parents as a child, not in his lion form. His dad was surprised Delevan had managed to avoid shifting until he was thirteen, and he thought it was because Delevan hadn’t even known shifters existed. It made sense.
Delevan had felt more than once that there was something more inside him, but he’d started to let it out to play only since he’d arrived in Whitedell. His mom had been terrified, and Delevan didn’t think she’d known what Dominic was when they’d slept together.
And that was something Delevan didn’t want to think about.
He kept his eyes on the path on the other side of the bush he was behind, but he couldn’t hear anything. Had Blair decided he didn’t want to play anymore?
Delevan focused on their bond and grinned. Blair was trying to be sneaky, but Delevan could feel the anticipation.
“Banzai!”
Delevan turned just in time to get a face full of pink, tattooed guy. Nysys landed on his back, kneeing Delevan’s nose in the process. Delevan growled and screwed his eyes shut, because damn, it hurt.
He wanted to know what the fuck Nysys thought he was doing, but apart from the fact that he was in his lion form and obviously couldn’t talk, what Nysys was doing was obvious. He’d turned around to straddle Delevan’s back, and now he was tightening his knees on Delevan’s flanks. Delevan wanted to tell Nysys he wasn’t a horse, but since he couldn’t, he just huffed and tried to dislodge Nysys from his back.
Nysys tightened his hold on Delevan’s mane—of course he did—and tried to make him move forward. “Come on, me and Keenan are racing.”
Delevan didn’t move.
Nysys whined. “Come on! He went to look for someone else to ride.”
That sounded all kinds of wrong, but aside from throwing Nysys to the ground, Delevan couldn’t do much. He didn’t want to hurt Nysys, so he rose from his crouch and started walking. Nysys didn’t weigh a thing, and if it hadn’t been for his hands still holding onto Delevan’s mane as hard as he could and his bony knees in Delevan’s’ flanks, Delevan wouldn’t have known Nysys was there.
He trotted toward the house, and Nysys pulled on his mane to let him know exactly where he wanted to go. Dominic had had a huge pool installed at the beginning of the summer, and of course, that was where Nysys wanted to go.
Delevan didn’t mind. He loved to lie down in the low water and sun himself, both in his lion and in human form.
The pool was half-full, and the first thing Delevan noticed was Blair, laying in the sun, sleeping. Delevan rolled his eyes, but before he could do anything, like throwing water on Blair’s face, someone yelled, “Yeehaa!”
He didn’t have to turn around to see who it was, but he still did, guffawing when he saw Keenan, sitting on another lion. Delevan wasn’t sure who it was, but he could guess. There was no way his dad would let anyone but Ani sit on him, and Sebastian was way too serious to do it. That left Taylor, Sebastian’s brother, and since Delevan could see his mate reclined on a lounging chair, he was ready to bet Taylor had been roped into whatever Nysys and Keenan had cooked up.
Taylor ran toward them, and Delevan ran away. He went around the pool, splashing the people sunning themselves, avoiding legs. Nysys was holding on tight and laughing his ass off while Keenan yelled after him. “Come back here! Nysys! We’re going to catch you!”
Delevan had run the entire length of the pool, and he had to choose whether to continue or to fight.
He screeched to a halt and quickly turned around. Taylor hadn’t expected it, and he went past Delevan. Delevan stuck his front paws in front of Taylor, and Taylor stumbled. Delevan took the opportunity to head butt Taylor’s side and push both him and Keenan into the pool.
The splash they made was huge and covered just about everyone around the pool in water. Most people laughed, and some jumped into the water as Keenan rose to the surface, spluttering and pushing his hair away from his eyes. “That wasn’t fair!”
Nysys squirmed around on Delevan’s back. “Sure it was.”
“We didn’t decide we could push the other into the pool!”
“Kee, what did you think would happen? It’s summer. We have a pool. Of course we pushed you in it.”
Taylor surfaced, now in his human form. He laughed and pushed Keenan down, quickly swimming away while Keenan spluttered and threatened to kill him in his sleep.
Taylor tried to look over his shoulder at Nysys, then tilted his head to the side. Nysys nodded and slid down. He held his hands above his head, his arms raised. “And we have a winner!”
Delevan shifted and quickly grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist. “Two winners, you mean.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“What did we win?”
Nysys looked at him like he was crazy. “The honor of being winners.”
Delevan rolled his eyes. “You have to work on your negotiation skills, Nys.”
A warm arm wrapped around Delevan’s waist and he turned sideways to kiss Blair’s cheek. “I thought you were supposed to play with me?”
Blair smiled lazily. “We can play later, when it’s cooler. Or better yet, in our room.”
Nysys laughed and threw some water at them. Delevan hissed, but it felt good after running around like a crazy lion.
“Behave, or I won’t tell you where we first met,” Blair told Nysys.
Nysys held his hands up in surrender. “You’re going to tell me.”
“Yup. I can’t think of any other clues that wouldn’t give everything away.”
Nysys nodded enthusiastically, his hair flopping on his forehead. “Come on, I’m waiting.”
Blair cleared his throat, and in an incredibly accurate rendition of Nysys, shrieked, “What? He just said he’s venomous. You’re not worried he could jump on the table and start snacking on us?”
Nysys scowled at him. “Is that supposed to be me?”
Blair laughed. “Sure it is. That’s exactly what you said when we met.”
Nysys hummed. “So that day I found out what kind of shifter you were?”
“Yup.”
“Come on, tell me more. I don’t have a super memory.”
“You also got scared of Emery. For some reason you thought both he and I would eat you.”
Nysys’ eyes went wide. “Th
e fuck? We met when you interviewed for an enforcer spot?”
“Yeah, we did.”
Nysys looked around, and Blair seemed to realize too late that it was to find something to throw at him. Nysys grabbed one of Wes’ flip-flops and threw it at Blair’s head. Blair ducked and the sandal ended up in the pool.
“Hey!” Wes protested, but Taylor was still in the water and threw it back, sending a kiss to his mate as he did.
“You couldn’t tell me that from the beginning?” Nysys asked, a smile pulling at his lips.
“I could have, but it wouldn’t have been as fun.” Blair left Delevan’s side after kissing him and wrapped his arm around Nysys’ shoulders. “Come on, you know you loved it. Think about it. You wouldn’t have had so much fun with that doll of yours.”
Nysys crossed his arms on his chest. “And you also wouldn’t have snapped those pictures. They’re still floating around! Some people think it’s funny to send them to me every once in a while.” He scowled at Keenan, who laughed and waved at him.
Blair grinned at Delevan, and Delevan knew what he was about to do. He stepped sideways just as Blair leaned forward and grabbed Nysys behind the knees.
“What are you doing?” Nysys squealed
Blair made to throw Nysys in the pool, but Nysys wrapped himself around Blair, so Blair shrugged and jumped in. Delevan was pretty sure even the people in the house could hear Nysys yell.
He moved closer to the pool and looked in, just in time to notice bright pink hair swimming toward him. He tried to move away, but he was too late. Nysys grabbed his ankle and pulled, and to avoid bashing his head on the edge of the pool, Delevan jumped in.
About the Author
Catherine lives in Italy, country of good food and hot men. She used to write fantasy as a child, but it was reading her first gay erotic romance novel that made her realize that that was what she really wanted to write.
After graduating from college in English language and translation, she divides her day between writing, reading, taking care of her son and reading some more.
You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or on her website: authorcatherinelievens.wordpress.com
Email: [email protected]
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