Touch of Gray 4 - Runaway Moon Page 5

  “Do you know where he is?” I didn’t need to specify for her to know who I meant.

  She smiled sadly then nodded in the direction of the lake before reaching down to squeeze my hand. I gripped hers for a moment then snatched a couple bottles of beer from the cooler next to the grill and walked off toward Agate Beach in search of my brother.

  Bryce looked up as I approached, and I heard him blow out a sigh from fifty yards away.

  “Nice to see you, too,” I told him. “Can I sit down, or will you run away again?”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Brought you a beer,” I answered, handing one over as I settled down next to him.

  “Thanks. Now, go away.”

  “You’re seriously not going to talk to me?”

  “Cole, if I’d wanted to talk to you, I would have called. I would have come home. But I don’t have anything to say to you.” He raised the bottle to take a drink, but I knocked it out of his hand. It hit the rocks and smashed, spraying us with beer and bits of broken glass.

  “Well, I want to talk to you.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he hissed. “Fine. Talk.”

  “Thank you,” I responded sarcastically. “We’ll skip the I miss you and want you to come home bullshit. How about we start at the part where you asked Sebastian to leave me and come out here and marry you?”

  “That’s not how it went down,” he said, finally turning to look at me. “Bastian told me you’d only read part of our conversation.”

  “Maybe, if you’d bothered to have a conversation with me in the last two months, I’d understand what was going on. But you chose to just leave me, leave us, and not speak to me for months. So I’m sorry if you don’t feel like talking, but you at least owe me an explanation.”

  “I don’t actually owe you anything,” he argued. “Contrary to what you believe, the world does not fucking revolve around you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I yelled. “My whole life has been about taking care of you, making sure you’re happy, giving you everything. Fuck, I wanted you happy so much that I shared my lover with you. And it still wasn’t enough.”

  “Cole, I’m not doing this. I can’t. There’s too much going on right now for you and me to play show-and-tell.”

  “Sunset is hours away,” I pointed out. “What the hell else do you have going on?”

  “Typical,” he said. “There was something out in the woods with us last night. Everyone felt the presence, but we couldn’t find it. I was about to go look again when your annoying ass showed up.” He climbed to his feet and glared down at me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go protect my cats.”

  “That’s fucking rich,” I said, getting up, too. “You left them all behind, not caring what happened to any of them. Then you called them up here to you, and suddenly, you’re the big, bad alpha again. There’s got to be over twenty shifters out there. Are you really worried there’s anything in those woods that could get the jump on them? No. You’re just looking for more ways to avoid me.”

  “Actually, dickhead, in case you’ve forgotten, not that long ago, a bunch of witches got the jump on a shit ton of wolves. So yeah, I think there could be something out there endangering my cats. And I didn’t leave them alone. I left Bastian and Darla in charge. And if you’re so fucking keen to talk, come with me. I could use an extra set of eyes.”

  Well, that was unexpected. I’d thought he was just running away again. It had never occurred to me that he’d invite me along. I followed him up the beach toward the woods, bumping him with my shoulder and handing him my beer as we went.

  He raised the bottle to his lips, and I knocked it away again.

  “You’re going to have to come back here, and pick up all that glass,” he said.

  “Worth it.” I shrugged. “You’re an idiot.”

  “And you’re an asshole,” he said.

  “So, what do you think is out here?” I asked softly as we entered the dense forest. “Do you think it’s more Sisters of the White?”

  “Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. Last time, they wanted to harness the power of the full moon to steal the wolves’ souls. Tonight is going to be one hell of a lunar powerhouse. It would make sense that they’d show up here. The perigee is closest to this lake tonight, too. That’s why so many other clans were drawn to the area.”

  “You didn’t see anything last night?”

  “No, but to be honest, I wasn’t looking too hard. It was almost dawn before I realized someone else was out here. By that time, all the cats were tired and looking for places to crash for a few hours before sunrise. I wandered around for a while, but then I had to sleep, too.” He stopped, holding up a hand in warning then pointing east.

  I pulled my gun from the back of my jeans and flicked off the safety, pointing it at the ground, so I didn’t accidentally shoot Bryce or anything else. The bears get so big in this part of Michigan that getting hit by a .45 would just piss them off.

  Bryce nodded to the left as he took point on the right. I struggled to sense anything out of the ordinary, but I didn’t have Bryce’s supernatural senses. All I heard were birds and a breeze through the trees.

  We stood still for a minute, Bryce watching the trees and me watching him. He looked good. Living in the woods for the last couple months had given him a ruggedness he hadn’t possessed before. His five o’clock shadow seemed a little closer to midnight, and I wondered how long it had been since he’d shaved. His brown hair had grown shaggy, bangs hanging down into his eyes in a fashion that made me really want to brush them away. His body had more definition, too. The muscles in his calves and forearms were sharper than they used to be.

  “What?” he asked, startling me from my inspection. Apparently, whatever he’d heard hadn’t been anything because he’d turned back to me and now stood with his hands on his hips and a stony expression on his face.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly, stowing my gun back in my waistband. “Just noticing how much you’ve changed.” I nodded toward the trees. “Nothing out there?”

  “No.” He blew out a sigh and looked up. “These woods are so fucking big. I’d imagine if it’s the witches I’m sensing, they’d want to be close to the lake. Crazy ass bitches.”

  Witches, especially Sisters of the White, drew power from the elements, but I’d also read that if they got swept up in running water, it grounded them out. It was a delicate balance needing to be close to, but not actually touching, the water to get its full benefits. Crazy was right.

  “If it’s not witches, what else could it be?”

  “Fuck, dude, I don’t know. It could be anything. It could be ghosts or wolves or just humans. I. Don’t. Know.”

  “Can’t you smell them or something?”

  “No,” he growled. “Since you got here, all I can fucking smell is you, okay? Maybe, we’ll get some of the other shifters to do a quick sweep before nightfall.”

  “Great,” I said, leaning against a trunk and crossing my arms. “That gives us plenty of time to talk.”

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “No. See, what I don’t understand is why you slipped out in the middle of the night. Why didn’t you just tell me you needed some time away? You disappeared, and I was worried. All I got were random messages telling me you weren’t dead. But Sebastian got whole conversations. Why couldn’t you just talk to me? Whatever’s wrong, we can deal with it.”

  “Not this,” he said, shaking his head to emphasize his point. “Some things can’t just be talked out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Cole, the problem is you. Okay? You’re my problem. I can’t… I don’t know how to… I just needed to be away from you for a while.”

  “What did I do?” I was stunned.

  “Nothing,” he said, his tone exasperated. “You didn’t do anything. And I wanted you to, but why would you? I’m the fucked up one here. I’m the one with the… Please, don’t make me do thi
s.”

  “Do what?” I asked, frustration clear in my tone. “Don’t make you talk to me? I haven’t made you talk to me for months, and that shit isn’t working anymore. You’re such a selfish, arrogant prick. I’ve tried to understand. I’ve tried to cover for you with your clan. But you fucking abandoned all of us, and you don’t think I deserve an explanation for that? Fuck you, Bryce.”

  I saw him swing at me but was still surprised when his fist connected with my jaw. I staggered backward, rubbing the spot where he’d clocked me.

  “Fuck me?” he roared. He swung again, but I sideswiped it. “Fuck you. You don’t own me. I’m not your possession. Hell, I’m not even your little rent boy, begging for attention wherever I can get it—”

  I raised my knee and caught him in the groin, blasting him in his cheek, too, as he went down to the ground.

  “Don’t you dare talk about Sebastian like that,” I growled. “He deserves so much better than you. Hell, he deserves better than me. But I wasn’t the one who left. I didn’t abandon him like you did.”

  “I left because I love you,” he said, struggling to one knee and heaving slightly in apparent pain.

  “I love you, too,” I replied, not understanding what he was trying to tell me.

  “No, Cole.” He stood and looked down at me, his four more inches of height making it feel as if he towered over me. “I’m in love with you. I came out here to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. To understand how it’s possible for me to feel the way I do about you.”

  “And did you figure it out?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper as it tried to form the words around the lump in my throat.

  “Yeah. It’s because you’re not really my brother.”

  Chapter Seven

  I punched him again, this time, knocking him completely onto his back. Glaring down at him, I straddled his legs and sat on his thighs, pinning him to the ground. Granted, he was pretty strong and probably could have knocked me off, but for the moment, he seemed too surprised to react.

  “What. The fuck. Are you talking about?” I ground out between clenched teeth.

  “Cole, please move,” he whispered.

  “No.”

  “Please.” He reached up to push me, but I caught his wrists and rocked forward, slamming them down against the forest floor.

  In an instant, I realized why he’d wanted me to move. His cock had grown hard under me, and leaning forward as I was atop him, my own crotch rubbed against it.

  “Start talking,” I said, fighting my body’s reaction to the friction I’d accidentally caused.

  “You were adopted,” he said. “Before I was born. Mom and Dad found you on a hunt and brought you home with them.”

  “No,” I argued. “Mom and Dad weren’t exterminators. They were dentists. What the fuck is going on with you?”

  “That’s what they told us,” he said. “They didn’t want this life for us, so they lied and pretended to be normals. They even rented that office but kept all their hunting gear in the back. It’s why they never let us run around in there when we visited. Sometimes, they’d get other hunters to pretend to be patients to keep up the ruse. Pops told me everything when I got here. He said you and I had always been too close, and he’d wanted to discourage it, but Mom had always planned to tell us we aren’t really related. They were killed before she got the chance.”

  “Why didn’t Pops tell us? We lived with him for years, and he just kept that from us?” I asked, biting my lip to keep from screaming and keeping my arms extended so I didn’t accidentally rock our lower halves together again.

  “He didn’t see the point,” Bryce said, planting his feet in the earth and shoving upward, knocking me off balance. My knee slid in the damp dirt, and Bryce used the momentum to roll over me, his body now pinning me down. “Until I told him how I feel about you. Until I told him I had to run away because my feelings for you were too much. Too wrong. And he told me everything.”

  “Bryce, I…” I didn’t know how to respond. I stared up into his green eyes, eyes I’d always thought were like mine, but now that I found myself captivated by them, I realized they were much brighter than my own. “Dude, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” he said, shaking his head. “Just listen. You wanted me to talk, fine…I’m talking. Remember when we were kids, and we used to sneak into each other’s beds? All we ever wanted was to be close to one another. Mom thought it was sweet, but Dad and Pops knew it was more than that. We’ve always been part of one another. I’ve always known you were my soul mate, and I think you’ve known it, too. You just didn’t realize the full scope of my feelings for you because I locked them away for so long. I refused to believe I could feel so strongly for my brother. Except that you’re not. Not by blood. You’re just my best friend. My other half. And I don’t want or expect anything out of you. It’s not going to just be okay because we aren’t actually blood. I get that you might always think of me as your brother. And that’s fine. But I can’t go home and listen to you and Sebastian fuck all the time, sleep with him on occasion and never get to touch you. Never know what it’s like to feel your lips on mine. I just… I can’t, Cole. I can’t go back there.”

  “All or nothing then?” I asked, finally understanding what he was trying to tell me.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “Okay,” I said. I steeled myself for what I was about to do then reached up and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulling him toward me and kissing him.

  The world melted away as Bryce parted my lips with his tongue, tentatively swiping at my teeth, his hands fisting into my shirt. Only he and I existed, and the fear, the awkwardness, the anger and confusion were nonexistent. I was home. Home in a way I’d never known before.

  “Oh thank God.” Sebastian’s voice broke the silence, and Bryce and I both jumped.

  Bryce rolled off me, and I sat up quickly, looking around for my boyfriend. Bastian stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his naked chest and a smile playing at his lips.

  “Bast,” I said, looking from him to Bryce and back again, not even sure where to begin explaining.

  “Don’t,” Sebastian said, in a warning tone. “Don’t ruin it. In fact, don’t say anything at all because there’s not a word that could come out of your mouth right now that won’t be the wrong thing. I’ve been waiting for the two of you to get to this point for months, and I won’t have you fucking up whatever it was that got you here.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what had gotten us there. All I knew was that I had to do something, anything, to get the hurt look off Bryce’s face. And if what he needed from me was acceptance, I could do that. If it took some physical contact for him to believe I needed him to come home, that was a small price to pay. I wasn’t sure what more I could promise, but I knew I couldn’t survive another month without him in my life.

  “We should go,” Bryce said. “There’s still something out in the woods, and the sun will set soon. If I can, I’d prefer to figure out what’s out there before we all shift.”

  “No,” Sebastian said, walking between us and putting a hand on each of our chests before running his nails down our fronts. “I’ve waited for this for way too long.”

  “Waited for what?” I asked, my tone deep with need. I was pretty sure I knew what he wanted, and it both excited and scared me.

  “The two of you are going to fuck me,” he said, his own voice raspy in a way I usually only heard this close to the full moon. “Hard and fast and violent. Do you understand me? I’ve suffered for two months, listening to both of you bitch and whine and moan, and now, I get to reap my reward for it.”

  “Sebastian, I don’t think—” Bryce started, but Bastian cut him off.

  “No thinking. Just feeling. Just touching.” He pressed himself against Bryce’s front and kissed him. “Just fucking.”

  I walked up behind Bast, using my body to pin him between Bryce and me. Bryce captured his lips while I reached
between them and wrenched Bastian’s shorts down his legs. He stepped out of them, and I urged his legs apart, running my hands up his thighs and biting his ass cheek hard enough to leave an impression of my teeth in the flesh.

  Bastian moaned into Bryce’s mouth, and I caught my brother’s—not my brother. Not my brother. I had to stop thinking that way or I’d never be able to do what Sebastian needed me to do. What Bryce needed me to do. And I could do this. All I had to do was push aside all thoughts of family and focus on hands and mouths and bodies. Later, when we all got home, we’d worry about our feelings.

  I was done with that shit for now. I just wanted to fuck my boyfriend while my best friend shoved his cock down Sebastian’s throat. The rest would have to wait.

  I stepped back, pulled off my shirt and laid my gun on it on the ground. Sebastian helped Bryce get undressed while I worked on my shoes and jeans. The shifters always wore easy-on-easy-off clothes during the full-moon cycle. If I’d be living with two horny cats again, I might have to invest in some elastic waistbands of my own.

  Both men were completely naked when I finally shucked off my pants, and I stared at them, in awe of their firm, bronzed forms. They’d always had more muscle mass than me, but I’d never felt as scrawny before them as I did now. And pale. So pale. My body never saw sunlight, if I could help it.

  Sebastian came over to me, kissing me deeply as if to remind me what we were all doing out here in the first place. Not that I could have forgotten. My cock was so hard it hurt, and I wanted to bury it in his ass.

  “I want you both to fuck me,” he said against my mouth. “Together.”

  “No,” Bryce said from behind him.

  We both looked over at him and saw his arms were crossed, and he was shaking his head.

  “Why not?” Bastian asked, with a pout.

  “Because we’re not doing that out here, you little masochist,” Bryce said. “It’s bad enough to fuck you without actual lube, but we’re not going to injure you by trying to stretch you that wide with nothing but spit.”