Seducing His Brother's Best Friend

by E. A. Reynolds

  Pan stomped into his home, the demon in a rage. He was worried about his offspring more so than the woman carrying it. At four and a half months, the child was already sentient inside her. It would protect its mother from danger even if it had to work through her. Not that his wife would mind. She would enjoy the power.

  “What are we going to do?”

  He snarled and poured himself a drink before turning to face the big tanned man in the living room where the lights were too bright in room. “We need to make sure the information goes away,” he snapped. “Contact Logan and get it taken care of even if her partner has to be killed. Next we go after Wayfaire.”

  “The thing he loves is hidden from us,” Donna reminded. “Going after his men, his agency, won’t have the same effect as killing his mate and that could be dangerous.”

  “He’s not that dangerous,” he said coldly.

  “I think you should hold back,” Donna advised as she watched him swallow a gulp of amber liquid. “We don’t know enough about him as a protector. He’s never been tested here, but he has a good record as a cleaner and a hunter in four other cities and two countries.”

  “Good but not great,” Pan muttered. “Besides that was a hundred years ago. He’s gotten lazy, and he has no ambition.”

  “His record proves he knows how to get death stalkers out of a city as well as any other unwanted elements,” Donna said. “We have to assume he’s putting together a plan even as we speak.”

  “You give him too much credit.” He balked. “I’ll have the manpower to wipe him out in seven days. In the meantime, we’ll go after the photographer’s brother. I’m sure he knows where his brother is being hidden.”

  “It’ll at least give you leverage for getting Tonya out of jail, but I think you should use one of the sleepers to infiltrate his agency. We get Tonya out on bail and make her disappear. You can get her some plastic surgery after the baby is born.”

  “You’re implying that I’m going to hide, and I’m not going to hide from that bastard!” he snapped. “We’ll meet in the morning to discuss plans for putting a sleeper in place. We can begin dismantling his organization from the inside out. I want the top five assassins there as well.”

  * * * *

  Ennis picked his cell phone up from the coffee table and glanced at the display. “What do you have?”

  “Everything is in place for tomorrow morning,” Bale told him. “Pan has two explosives and weapons experts on his payroll. They’re also two of his top death stalker assassins.”

  “Death stalkers’ sense of smell isn’t the best, so they won’t detect the explosives we’ve used until it’s too late,” Ennis answered.

  “And I’m sure you know Pan is all fired up about you fucking with him,” Bale told him. “He’s planning to kidnap Jarrett to find out where your mate is. He also mentioned something about doing what he had to do to make the evidence against his wife go away even if that means killing Rey.”

  “Have you contacted them with the warning?”

  “Jarrett’s on a date, and Rey hasn’t called me back, but I put someone on them both,” Bale informed him.

  “Let’s just hope we can protect him,” Ennis murmured. “Call Merc and Trin to take out the explosives experts tonight. I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”

  “Done.”

  “And I want two snipers on-site,” Ennis said. “This has to be a surgical strike. No prisoners, but I don’t want this to be so big it alerts the other death stalkers in Simmer’s house.”

  “Leah will be taken out in an hour. She’s with a redhead,” Bale said.

  “Get them both. If I show weakness, this will never be over. I said no prisoners. Anything else?”

  “No. Everything is on track,” Bale replied coolly.

  “Five, Bale. Don’t be late.”

  “Is everything okay?” Jase asked. “You feel different.”

  “Sorry, sweetness.” Ennis stroked Jase’s hair.

  “What’s not right?” He sat up and turned so they were facing each other.

  “Your brother might be in danger,” Ennis confessed. “Bale’s already taken steps to protect him, but we can’t rule out the possibility that he might get taken.”

  “You have to protect him,” Jase insisted.

  “We’re doing all we can for the moment, sweetness.”

  “I don’t want him hurt because of me,” he snapped.

  “I don’t want either one of you hurt but if it comes down to you or him…” Ennis shook his head.

  “You’ll save him,” Jase insisted.

  “I won’t,” Ennis told him and sighed deeply. “Jase, you’re my mate and the dictates of my breed’s nature is to save you above all else. You can’t bear children, but your death will break me.” He grimaced as he shook his head. “I’ll kill for you, I’ll kill because of you, and I will die for you, but I will never sacrifice you for another.”

  “It’s not fair,” he said softly. “Jarrett is my brother. When we talked today, I could tell he was going to try to work through his issues with me being gay. I want a chance to have a relationship with him without that between us.”

  “Sweetness, if you’re going to stay with me, you have to understand what you will be to me,” Ennis said gently. “Everything I am is about you now. The dark, selfish, coldness of my demon nature will shine if anyone tries to get between us.”

  Jase’s face screwed into a mask of pain. “If there is any way you can save him and you let him die, I’ll never forgive you.” Jase leaped up and ran from the room.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ennis woke to the soft purr of his phone’s alarm at four a.m. Jase was snuggled against his back. Ennis didn’t want to wake him so he climbed out of bed as gingerly as he could and padded into the bathroom to dress and brush his teeth. This might be the morning that turned his life into a nightmare, but he was going to rid his city and Bossier of Michael Pan and his crew. Even if it took all day.

  Jase was still sleeping when he left the bedroom and headed downstairs. The light in the kitchen was on and the scent of coffee wafted out to meet him. Ennis trudged to the kitchen where he found Trinity waiting for him.

  “Hey.” Trinity gave him a nod as he sipped coffee at the round table.

  “Report,” Ennis said, pouring himself a cup of coffee and adding cream until it turned nearly white.

  “Explosives experts are dead, Leah and her sister are dead, and snipers are moving into position along with our explosives experts.”

  “Good.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Jarrett and Rey?”

  “Rey is fine, but Jarrett’s watchman hasn’t reported in,” Trinity said.

  “I hope it’s because he has his ass at the barkeep’s place,” he said tightly.

  “Me, too. Your boy’s going to go berserk if you lose his brother,” Trinity muttered.

  “I know.” He took another sip of coffee. “He needs a tutor. I can’t teach him all he needs to know.”

  “You’re not going to,” Trinity said. “Too big a risk for him to know you really are a monster now that he’s accepted you.”

  He grimaced. “He’ll leave me if knows the lengths I’ll go to, starting with killing every threat in his vicinity.”

  Trinity snorted out a laugh. “I guess Jarrett is a dead man either way.”

  Ennis grinned. “I am going to kick his ass if he gets in my face too many times.” He turned as he scented Jase and the door opened. “Jase, you’re up early.”

  “Don’t let my brother die,” he said coldly as he crossed the room to get a cup of coffee. “I mean it.”

  “I know you do, and I mean this.”

  “What?” Jase turned to look at him, a hand propped on his hip.

  “I love you.”

  * * * *

  Ennis met Bale down the street from the Brown Building where Pan’s new agency was located. The four-story was wired with explosives, three snipers were now watching the building, and his two explosiv
es experts were on hand in case anything went wrong. The dark edges of night were starting to fade away as light intruded on its space, but Ennis paid little attention to it as he watched cars arrive in the parking lot from the safety of tree cover.

  “What’s the watchman saying?”

  “Jarrett never came home,” Bale said. “We have to assume he’s been taken. Does he have any clue about where you’re keeping Jase?”

  “Of course not,” Ennis murmured. “I couldn’t take that chance. Jase doesn’t even have a real idea how to get to the house.”

  “What are you going to do if they have him inside?”

  “We haven’t seen him go in,” Ennis answered at the same moment his cell phone vibrated. He yanked it from its holster and glanced at the display. “It’s Pan.” Ennis connected. “Yeah?”

  “This is Pan. I think it’s time we talked terms of my wife’s release.”

  “Why might this be?” Ennis asked.

  “Look at your screen,” Pan commanded.

  Ennis did and saw Jarrett’s bruised face. He grimaced. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to do two things,” Pan said. “Turn over the evidence you have on my wife and me, and I want you to bring it to me within the hour.”

  “Or?”

  “Or your mate’s brother is dead,” Pan said and disconnected.

  “What are we going to do?” Bale demanded.

  “The same thing we planned to do,” Ennis told him coolly.

  “You can’t just blow Jarrett up,” he exclaimed. “He’s our friend and Jase’s brother.”

  “Prepare to go in,” Ennis said coldly. He’d do what he could to save Jarrett. Giving in to Pan would be dangerous to Jase as well as the rest of this city later. “I’m not going to wait around for morning commuters to get hurt.”

  “Are you that cold?” Bale demanded.

  “Are you that ignorant of who I am?” he demanded. When Bale continued to stare at him he said, “I guess you are. Now, tell the men we’re ready to go in.” Ennis’s long legs ate up the short distance to his truck. Bale climbed in a moment later, and he stared the engine and drove down the street.

  Three guards were in the parking lot when he and the other two men he was taking in with him arrived. Ennis did what looked like a cursory glance around, taking in four other men. Two of which were on the roof. His snipers were in the trees dotted along the landscape of the street and sleepy little neighborhood pushed back from the building.

  He lifted his wrist and gestured as if he were simply wiping his mouth on his hand while he alerted his men of the opposition’s position.

  “He had more men than we thought,” Bale muttered.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Ennis said. He’d expected at least a team of twenty to outnumber his team of six, but out here there were only six. He didn’t expect to find more than five inside. He’d killed men like this more times than one in South America. They showed up with a small posse and thought they were the shit.

  Pan didn’t have his big guns in yet. He’d have gotten word from his night stalker demons working the travel and tourism industry in the city. They weren’t actually on his payroll, but they’d been leftovers from his father’s reign that he’d allowed to stay under the conditions they didn’t kill or rape.

  They were more or less allies that kept to themselves. They worked by night and hunted by night. Like death stalkers they did have a tendency to kill their prey, just not all the time.

  “Let’s move in.” He signaled to the other two men following up the rear and headed for the front steps.

  “Check for weapons,” a cold-eyed man said at the door.

  Ennis let him check. He never brought a weapon to a demon fight.

  “Clear,” the cold-eyed man spoke to a man inside. “Go.”

  They stepped inside. They were shown up a flight of stairs to a spacious office with the shades pulled down against impending sunrise. Sitting behind his desk was Pan with Donna Wright to his left and two hulking men behind him. Two men, one on each side of a kneeling Jarrett, stared at them and two more were now at the door.

  “How’d you get your ass caught?” Ennis asked Jarrett, who gave him a disgruntled glare.

  “Just get me the hell out of this,” Jarrett muttered.

  “Where are the files?” Pan got to his feet and walked to stand behind Jarrett.

  “I didn’t bring ’em.” Ennis shrugged. “Your wife is going to jail.”

  “Not if I can help it.” Pan sneered at him.

  “You can’t,” Ennis told him in a hard tone. “In fact, I only showed up at all because I had a message to deliver.”

  “We’ve got movement behind,” Bale murmured.

  Ennis started forward and the men next to Jarrett moved to stop him. Ennis fired a bolt of electricity that hit the heart of the first man and Bale fired a flare of light at Jarrett to knock him out just as Ennis took a fireball to the shoulder.

  Ennis moved quickly engaging the second man in a fist fight. He broke his arm and slammed his fist into his chest, electrocuting him.

  Pan fired a fireball and Ennis batted it away from Jarrett’s head before moving to backhand Pan. The two men who’d been standing behind Pan moved in for a fight.

  “Bale. Protect Jarrett.”

  “What about you?” Bale demanded.

  “Just follow orders.” He nodded as one of his men moved in behind him to take one of the hulks on. Ennis quickly knocked the other on his ass with a bolt of electricity as Pan headed for the door.

  He ducked a punch and was knocked to the floor. Ennis rolled, avoiding a pyro energy ball in time to see Bale throw a flash of light at Pan’s back.

  “Switch,” Ennis cried and Bale quickly turned. Ennis went after Pan, who’d fallen to his knees and was getting up with Donna’s help.

  Ennis threw a bolt of electricity and Donna blocked it before sending back a bevy of red light. He blocked the laser light that was common to black hearts with a bolt of electricity.

  Pan threw fire-tipped spikes at him, and he grimaced as a trio penetrated his shoulder.

  “You won’t win this!” Pan snarled as he moved around Donna, who was still shooting light.

  Ennis feinted left and she fired. He threw a jagged bolt of blue electricity at her that she blocked with red light. He jerked his hand and the stream of power bounced into the ceiling.

  Pan fired at him again. This time Ennis sent a stream of electricity into the fire. Donna fired a blocking light that sent the electricity up to the ceiling again and shards of ceiling began to rain down into the room.

  “Damn it,” Pan snapped. “Donna. Let’s go.”

  Ennis was on their heels. “Move!” Ennis called to his team. He tackled Pan and they rolled on the ground throwing punches.

  Donna fired and Ennis rolled, shifting into shadow. The light hit Pan’s arm. Ennis materialized in demon form. His power was stronger, more deadly. Donna fired at him to block his fire on Pan, and he took the burning light to the arm even as he fired at her with his other hand.

  She screamed as the electricity cut through her body and fried her as she jerked violently from the powerful voltage.

  Then, Ennis turned his attention to Pan, firing and missing. The other man shifted and faced him. With fists balled, Pan sent a stream of red-black fire at him laced with spikes.

  Both arms up, palms facing Pan, he fired back. The electromagnetic energy of both demons was powerful enough to shield them from the other’s fire.

  Pan let out a frustrated scream and fired on Bale, who was coming up behind Ennis. Ennis sent out a stream of electricity that thumped into Pan’s electromagnetic energy.

  Bale drew his fire again as the other two men carried Jarrett out. Bale fired back and Ennis fired on Pan as well, forcing him to work even harder to maintain the level of energy. He knew he’d never hold it with two powers coming at him. He shifted and Pan turned his full attention on Bale.

  “Your boss is a cocksucking coward!
” he snarled.

  “Bale, move!” Ennis shouted after rematerializing behind Pan.

  Pan jerked around and Ennis backhanded him before punching him in the throat. His claws elongated and electricity pumped into Pan. The other demon howled as he shook viciously and disintegrated.

  The explosion threw Ennis down the hallway. He grunted after hitting the floor hard and shifted. The next explosion would bring the building down in flames. He floated back out the way they’d come in as smoke and fire licked at his shadowy heels.

  Ennis stumbled out of his shift at the entrance and Bale rushed to lead him to safety.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ennis watched the building burn and made sure the bodies of the guards outside made it onto the funeral pyre.

  “I guess you sent a message,” Bale said. “Don’t fuck with your mate.”

  “My intentions,” he said. “The assassins coming in will be executed on sight.”

  “Damn you’re cold,” Bale muttered. “You could just tell them to leave.”

  “I could, but any one of them could be loyal to Pan,” he answered.

  Bale shook his head. “What about Simmer?”

  “If his people don’t get him, I will in time,” Ennis assured him as one of the snipers came up to them. “Rio?”

  “The baby’s dead,” he said. “The wife’s in the hospital,” the darkly tanned man told him. “Rain just left word.”

  Ennis nodded. Rain was a very efficient black heart. He’d trained her in covert operations that included assassinations as well as running the company if he wasn’t able to.

  “Thank you. Move out,” he said as sirens blared. Tonya was a mortal problem for now, but the child would have grown up to be his problem.

  * * * *

  Jase was pacing the floor when he heard the phone ring. He stopped and glanced at Trinity, who was half asleep on the couch. He waited through the brief conversation holding his breath.

  “Jarrett is alive, and safely in the hospital. He’s being treated for a minor burn and some smoke inhalation.”