Texas and Tarantulas

by Bailey Bradford

  “Because I’ll be shot?” Mahon asked, both of his eyebrows twitching.

  “Only if you give me reason to shoot you.” Trent stepped to the right, then another movement and he was out of sight. “Come in or get out of here. I won’t say it again.”

  “So I could leave now—”

  “And I’d let you go,” Trent finished. “Wouldn’t even fire a warning shot.”

  For some reason, Mahon believed him. He entered the trailer—

  Only to be tackled by Trent.

  “God—” Mahon panted as he tried to fight the man off. “Damn it!” He didn’t want to kill Trent, not yet, though if the man kicked him one more time that might change.

  Trent didn’t kick him.

  Mahon had a half a second to register the fist coming at his head. Not enough time to move away or use his strength to throw Trent off him.

  Just enough time to realize he’d really and truly fucked up.

  * * * *

  “He smells like a bear,” Diego said a few minutes after Trent had knocked Mahon unconscious.

  “Good thing he’s restrained then,” Joe muttered.

  Trent was stuck on the bear part. “There are bear shifters? For real?” He glanced at Mahon because Diego nodded. “And they’re stereotypical bears?” Because Mahon was. Big, muscular, barrel chested, hairy… “Hirsute.”

  Mahon had brown hair—a rich, mahogany shade of brown. He also had brown eyes—inside. Outside, in the dark, there’d been that weird orange glint to them, and it’d clued Trent in real quick, despite all of Mahon’s claims to just want sex.

  Only weird and dangerous people showed up stalking someone, wanting to get laid.

  But that hadn’t been why Mahon was out there in the first place.

  “They’re sent to do a lot of the dirty work for our kind. Shifters, I mean,” Diego added. “Not just wolf shifters, but all of us.”

  “Because they’re big and strong?” Trent asked. “He could have killed me earlier today.” There was no sense keeping that particular cat in the bag now. “Who puts cats in bags anyway?”

  “Did you hit your head?” Joe reached over like he was going to feel up Trent’s head.

  Trent smacked his hand aside. “No, just wondering about that cats in a bag saying.”

  Joe tucked his chin down close to his chest. “Okay. Then you are going to explain the comment about him killing you earlier today. I don’t remember hearing anything about you meeting a big bear shifter today.”

  Trent shrugged. “Didn’t meet him, just fucked him in Hollis House, over that pretty flower-patterned couch.”

  Joe’s eyes bugged and Diego gasped.

  Diego also grabbed Trent’s arm. “You mean you and him did—”

  “I meant what I said, Diego.” Why was Diego looking like his mind had just been blown? “He followed me through a store, and I wanted to fuck him, so I let him follow me. Lead him to that historical place, slipped in past Mr Cheney, up the stairs, and when Mahon grabbed—”

  “Mahon?” Diego squeaked.

  Joe pulled him in close. “You all right, honey? You look like you’re ready to pass out.”

  “He’s the worst one of all of them,” Diego said.

  Trent thought he was going to vomit. “He hurt you, Diego?” Diego had scars all over his body from a lifetime of abuse—up until he’d fled his pack.

  Diego was shaking his head vehemently. “No, never. Bears and wolves, we don’t mix. I don’t know why. I just meant he’s the meanest one of the bears. I’ve heard stories about him murdering people just because some pack or another didn’t like them. He’s brutal. And he is a complete alpha top.”

  Trent recalled very differently. “I shoved him onto that couch, rolled him over, and stretched him. He was really tight, like nothing I’ve felt, so okay, I can believe he doesn’t bottom—for anyone other than me. I most certainly fucked him, and he loved it.” Trent leaned down and whispered, “Didn’t you, Mahon?”

  Mahon was awake. Trent knew it in his bones, just like he’d known he was being watched.

  “You’re eyes glow in the dark, not nearly as much as Diego’s, but there’s little glints of amber. I probably shouldn’t tell you that, but since you’re restrained, what’s the harm?” Trent also had his shotgun within very easy reach.

  Mahon narrowly opened the one eye Trent could see.

  Trent touched the knot on Mahon’s head. “I didn’t shoot you. Just want you to be aware of that. I am a man who keeps his word.”

  Mahon grunted and that one eye started to roll back. He looked to be struggling to stay conscious, then Mahon jerked and his sudden awareness was unmistakable. “Shit.”

  “That about covers it,” Trent agreed. “So, you’re a big, bad bear assassin. Wait, let’s go with butcher. I like alliteration.”

  “M’not,” Mahon scraped out.

  Diego huffed, putting a lot of disbelief in the slight sound.

  Trent nodded at Diego. “Seems like Diego disagrees. I’m way more inclined to trust him than I am to trust you.”

  Diego sent him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Trent.”

  Trent was going to end up loving Diego like a little brother, damn it all. “You know it. Besides, you’re prettier than this guy any day.”

  Diego giggled.

  Mahon shuddered. “My…my leg.”

  “I didn’t—” Trent looked down the length of Mahon’s body at the same time Joe and Diego did.

  Diego screamed so loud Trent’s ears rang.

  Joe leaped up with Diego in his arms and ran for the kitchen.

  Trent watched the tarantula climb over Mahon’s leg. “We just have some weird spiders in here today. I knew there had to be another one.”

  “I reminded you,” Joe hollered.

  Mahon’s eye was very wide open now, and his face had gone from the nicely tanned color it had been to ashy gray. “S-spider?”

  “Tarantula,” Trent confirmed. “They don’t—”

  He didn’t get any further. Mahon bellowed, and the sound of it blew Diego’s scream away.

  Trent reached for his gun as hair sprouted out all over Mahon’s body. “Bedroom!” he shouted, since that was where the rest of his guns were.

  The handcuffs burst open, as did the rope binding Diego’s ankles.

  Then there was a big-ass brown bear, maybe a grizzly, entirely too close to Trent.

  Trent had the shotgun up and was aiming it when the bear roared again, baring truly frightening teeth.

  And the fucker swatted one huge paw, knocking the gun out of Trent’s hands.

  “Shit!” Trent was dead meat. He didn’t think Mahon would fall for him playing dead, either.

  Trent saw long, sharp claws, those nasty killer teeth, and he felt the hot, acrid waft of bear breath over his face as he was attacked. God, please let Joe and Diego live. Let ’em kill this bastard.

  Trent went down hard. He hoped he died fast.

  The weight of the bear settled on him and Trent knew then he was going to suffer. He tried to curse, but the only sound he could make was like the air being let out of a balloon, a high-pitched noise too close to the nails on chalkboard range of audible hell.

  The weight lifted somewhat but there were sharp teeth at his neck. “Do it,” he got out. Although maybe he should try to get it drawn out so Joe and Diego could escape. “Come on, you weak asshole.” Or not. He couldn’t control his mouth, not when he was so scared he had to fight not to piss himself.

  The odor of the bear, the sheer primal power of the beast, was more terrifying than anything Trent could ever have dreamed up—or have his imagination toss at him in a nightmare. It was like the demonic side of nature was on him, and Trent’s mind was close to fracturing over it.

  “Get the fuck off of him!”

  The shouted demand by Joe was followed by a shotgun blast. Trent couldn’t tell if he was being rolled over before or after the sound of that gun being fired. He just knew the room was spinning, then he was
free of the weight, and Joe was yelling.

  He wasn’t dead. Trent took a few seconds to let that sink in. Then Joe was there, pulling him up.

  “Come on, before he comes back,” Joe ordered.

  Trent couldn’t stand. His legs were still shaking too bad. “Won’t come back right now,” he rasped.

  Joe pointed the gun at the sliding glass door. “Oh yes that fucker will. Diego’s out there with the twelve-gauge, waiting.”

  Sure enough, another loud roar rent the air, followed by a sharp command from Diego for the bear to shift or die.

  Since Trent didn’t hear another gunshot, he wasn’t too surprised when Mahon came back in, hands up, Diego behind him with that shotgun aimed at Mahon’s head.

  Mahon refused to sit on the floor when Diego told him to.

  Trent—though still feeling like he was made out of defective parts, everything was jittery inside, at least—put on his most sarcastic expression. “Scared of a little ol’ tarantula?”

  Mahon shuddered so hard his teeth clacked together.

  Trent frowned, not wanting to be cruel. He didn’t want to be a sucker, either. “Diego, don’t take your aim off of him.”

  “I won’t,” Diego vowed.

  Trent canted his head toward the couch. “Sit down on the couch, Mahon. You squashed that poor spider when you shifted. My trailer’s become an arachnid murder scene twice today.”

  “I don’t like spiders,” Mahon whispered, ducking his head as his face turned red with a blush.

  Trent studied him, noting the trembling, the wary looks at the floor and the dead tarantula in parts there. Mahon was a magnificently built man, but Trent had known that already. He just hadn’t gotten to see the man naked when they’d been fucking, and he hadn’t really checked Mahon out when he’d been unconscious, either.

  But damn. Mahon was sex on two hairy, thickly muscled legs.

  He was also a bear shifter, which was terrifying in Trent’s opinion.

  So why was he still attracted to Mahon? Because he was.

  Mahon sat on the couch after lifting the cushions, to check for spiders, Trent assumed.

  “Why didn’t you kill me?” Trent asked. “Don’t give me any bullshit. We all know what’s what. Diego’s a shifter, his pack wanted to keep him and abuse him. He left, Joe and him found each other, and the alpha of the wolf pack sent a whole herd of betas to come get Diego, whether he wanted to go back or not.”

  Mahon’s gaze was bouncing all over the place as he answered. “I didn’t mean to shift. And you killed most of the betas.”

  “Trent wasn’t the only one that put bullets into those betas,” Joe said. “And he ain’t the only one with the video.”

  Mahon looked confused at that. “What video?” He finally quit looking all over and focused on Trent.

  Trent pulled his cell phone from his pocket and waved it in the air. “The video of Diego shifting back and forth. The video that will hit YouTube if anything happens to any of us—or if I hit upload.” Which wasn’t true. He did have the video on his phone but that was as far as it’d gotten.

  Mahon tensed like he was going to run for it. He didn’t. “Can you play the video?”

  Trent considered being a smartass and saying sure, but will I? He decided not to be that much of a jerk. Yet.

  Trent pulled up the video and hit play, turning his phone so Mahon could see it. The clip wasn’t long, but it was very clear, with Diego dropping to his hands and knees, shifting then turning back to human form.

  Mahon looked stricken. “That can’t get out. That can’t. We’ll all be destroyed, including Diego.”

  “I’d rather die than be taken back,” Diego declared.

  “I won’t let that happen,” Joe promised. “Hand me the gun, honey.”

  Mahon hunched over, moving slowly to cup his head. “They didn’t tell me that. No one mentioned a video.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Well, you just saw it. We have it set up to go in the event that one or all of us gets kidnapped, eaten, et cetera, et cetera.” Trent almost felt bad for Mahon. “So if you had done whatever it was you were supposed to do, would that video have been released?”

  Mahon took a full minute to answer, but when he did, he looked Trent directly in the eyes. “Yes.”

  “Can I shoot him now, Trent?” Joe asked. “At least let me wing him.”

  Trent knew his brother wasn’t the kind of man who could kill without very good reason. “No. No, I want to think about this. Y’all got anything that would keep him from breaking loose if he shifted again?”

  “There’s that heavy chain,” Diego suggested.

  Mahon lowered his head. He sure didn’t look like some alpha, and while he was big, he didn’t come across as a man that had to be in charge—maybe not even one that wanted to be, ever.

  “You’re a pawn,” Trent realized. “Are you really the shifter bogeyman?”

  Mahon had tensed up so much that all of his muscles bulged.

  “The truth,” Trent said in a much gentler tone.

  Mahon averted his gaze. “We’re all Mahon. It means bear. We’re all Morrison.”

  “That’s confusing.” Trent couldn’t even make sense of it at first then Diego gasped at the same time pieces clicked together in Trent’s head. “All? So there are more bear shifters out there, doing the bidding of…of whom? And each of you has the same name?”

  “Yes. We were raised up to be servants for the Cosgi, a few select shifters from varying breeds. They ensure the safety and protection of our kind.”

  Joe cursed.

  Trent laughed. “Well, they sure as shit dropped the ball on it this time.”

  Mahon hunched over, propping his elbows on his knees. “It’s scarier to have shifters believe there’s just the one of us. I’m not the murdering version, either, in case you’re wondering. Though I was sent to kill you,” Mahon added, flicking a very fleeting glance at Trent. “They said you had Diego here—you and Joe—and Diego was being held against his will. That you had murdered several betas.”

  “They were trying to kill us, and Diego—” Trent sent him a hopeful look.

  Diego pulled off his shirt then stood in front of Mahon, but not close enough to be grabbed. “Look at me,” Diego said. “See all of these scars? Why would I want to go back to the pack that did this to me? Do you have any idea how much I was hurt? How often?”

  Mahon clenched his jaw.

  Trent knew how shocking it was to see Diego like that. The scars weren’t just contained to his torso and arms, either. He had them everywhere, even his private parts, his neck and his face.

  “Why would I want to go back?” Diego asked again. “Joe loves me. I don’t ever want to leave him. We just want to be left alone, us and Trent.”

  Mahon looked to be struggling with something. Trent waited, watching him.

  Diego put his shirt back on. “These aren’t all of the scars, not at all.”

  “He’s never going back to that pack,” Joe vowed.

  Mahon folded his fingers together, and sat up straight. He tipped his head up. “I thought I was supposed to bring Diego back. I was told, kill Trent after holding him and making you give me what we needed. I thought that was Diego. Now, I think it was the video, the copies of it, everything to do with it.” He took a deep breath then let it out as he bowed his head again. “Then I was supposed to kill Joe.”

  “And me?”

  Mahon shook his head. “Your pack still wants you back, Diego. I didn’t know about…”

  Diego moved to stand beside Joe. “How is that possible? If you’re from the east coast packs, you had to know how ours treat their omegas.”

  “That’s just it. I haven’t been on the east coast in years. I was in Alaska making sure two of the packs there were protected. I kept the peace for two more packs in Wyoming, then more in Montana and South Dakota. A few other places. That was my job for almost a decade then I was called back.” Mahon rubbed at his eyes. “Then I was yan
ked out of that position and brought into this one.”

  “Because you didn’t know the details,” Trent mused. “And this is all interesting, but I’m not sure I believe it. So what do we do with you?”

  Mahon eyed the gun. “I wanted to live to be older, much older, but if you’re going to kill me, make it clean and quick.”

  “Not much clean about most gunshot wounds,” Trent told him. “Killing… I did it when I had to. And when the tarantula scared me earlier. I don’t like doing it, though. I don’t want to.”

  Mahon finally looked a little hopeful. “You could—those chains Diego mentioned?”

  But Trent didn’t want to keep the man bound up. He waved the idea aside. “No. You tell me, right now, what you’re going to do. You’ll be free to leave here afterwards.”

  “I don’t know, other than not kill you or Joe, or take Diego back.”

  Diego muttered something Trent couldn’t hear then spoke. “You sign your own death warrant then. Not with Trent, or Joe, or me, but with the people who sent you. The Cosgi, right?”

  “Or I go after them, take them all out,” Mahon said. “Their purpose, they say, is to keep shifter kind safe and hidden from human discovery, but it doesn’t seem like that’s all they’re doing.”

  Trent hummed, considering that. “Don’t you think it’d just be easier to take off and hope they never found you?”

  Mahon shook his head. “The next Mahon they sent wouldn’t give you a chance to take him down with a water hose.”

  “There’s a story I gotta hear.” Joe looked at Trent expectantly.

  “It was all I had in my hands when I went outside and spotted him,” Trent explained. “So I used the pressure nozzle and soaked him.”

  “They’ll send others,” Mahon said again.

  “Yeah, I got that, and I think Joe and Diego did, too,” Trent said, as he scratched his chin. “I wonder if they’ll back off if they get it very clearly explained to them what happens if something happens to one or all of us.”

  Joe held the gun steady as he spoke. “We told the surviving betas. They know. They passed the message along.”

  “Maybe not completely.” Mahon shrugged when Trent gave him an inquisitive look. “You didn’t send back the best and the brightest from what I saw, and only one survived the trip home. The other was shot. If the male was the smartest beta, then there’s no hope for wolf shifters in this world.”