His bedroom door burst open. Maverick, Evan, Tank, and Tryck shifted and surrounded his bed, snapping and snarling their warning to stay back or be attacked by Timber wolves.
Maverick was the largest of their breed. From floor to head, he stood four feet tall. From snout to the tip of his tail he was six feet long, and the monster weighed over three hundred pounds, a beast of his own right.
“We are not here to harm anyone, but if you don’t shift back, we
will
defend ourselves,” Panahasi warned.
Maverick was the first to return to his human form. “Who the fuck are you, and why the hell do I keep getting wackos popping into my damn house?”
One of the demon men pointed to Maverick. “You’re the one who is naked. I wouldn’t exactly call us wackos.”
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Maverick growled and grabbed Dagon’s jeans from the floor, shoving his enormous legs into them. Dagon mentally laughed as they rose past the Alpha’s ankles.
The man was too damn tall to put on someone else’s pants. It was hard to take him seriously seeing him like this.
“Now tell me,” Maverick commanded.
Panahasi was having a hard time keeping the smile from his face, Dagon could see the sides of his mouth tugging and pulling. “I’ll wait while you fetch your own clothes.” He chuckled.
“Cody!” Maverick yelled. Seconds later the Sentry appeared, immediately curled his lips in, and bowed at the Alpha’s command, and then ran to get him some jeans.
Maverick snatched them from Cody when he returned moments later, pulling Dagon’s off and then putting his own on, glaring at Panahasi the whole time.
Dagon looked down to see Taylor staring at him. Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in his eyes. He leaned down and licked the side of Taylor’s face, nuzzling his neck before looking back up at the intruders.
“My name is Panahasi. I am the leader of the Demon Warriors. He has mated, alerting us to his presence.” Panahasi pointed at Taylor.
Dagon growled, hunching down to gently lay over his mate.
“And why would his mating alert you?” Maverick asked.
“Because he is half demon.”
Dagon’s Ride
45
Chapter Four
Maverick was stunned but hid it from the men standing in Dagon’s bedroom. The Sentries surrounded him, all cocking their heads to the side as Panahasi continued.
“The woman, or demon as she is, that is hunting him is his true mother.”
Maverick glanced over at Taylor as the young man cried out,
“No!”
“She wants him back and will stop at nothing to obtain him. It is our job to stop her.” A brown-skinned man stepped forward. “I am Donnchadh, but call me Donny.”
“Well,
Donny
, we can take care of our own.” Maverick pointed at the demons. “We don’t need any outside help.”
“You may reconsider once she appears and your mates start disappearing. She will pose as one of your warriors and take them one at a time,” Panahasi warned. “Think about it before your ego leaves you without.”
“You remind me of someone I really don’t like.” Maverick looked over at Tryck.
“And here I thought we were bonding,” Tryck said as a brow rose and he rolled his shoulders. “So how do we kill her?”
* * * *
Okay, he was not going to panic. His brother was now a vampire and his mom was a demon? What the fuck was going on in this crazy world he lived in? He wasn’t a demon, not even half.
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Taylor grabbed Dagon’s fur, needing an anchor as he felt his vision blurring and he became light-headed. This was just too damn much to take in.
What about their oldest brother Brad? He was human, and Josh was as well, before whatever happened to him—that, Taylor still needed to question his brother about. How was he demon and they weren’t? They were all raised by the same woman.
Taylor watched as Josh crept into the room, slid behind the Sentries, and ran to his bed. He pulled the sheet up his chest.
He was naked for crying out loud. Did no one care about this but him?
He hadn’t even begun to process the fact that he just slept with a man when all this was laid at his feet.
Talk about a sedative day.
No one paid any attention to the fact that a wolf lay over him, only a sheet covering his naked form. They must all know that he slept with a man, yet no one said anything.
It was as if they saw this kind of thing all of the time. Well, he didn’t, and it was unnerving. He wanted his
me
time to freak out, and no one was giving it to him.
“They say I’m a demon,” he told Josh, ignoring everyone else in the room. If he focused on his brother, he may make it through this ordeal.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“No.” Josh shook his head. “I know because I heard them.”
“How?” That was the biggest question he had. How the hell did they not know? His fingers dug deeper into Dagon’s fur, feeling hysterics growing closer as he thought about all of this.
“Hell if I know.” Josh shrugged.
“If I may?” Panahasi took one step toward Taylor, and the wolves growled. Dagon’s was the loudest, deepest, and most frightening.
Dagon’s Ride
47
“I would advise against that.” Maverick pointed to Dagon. “His mate would die to protect him, and we would do the same to protect them both.”
Panahasi nodded and stepped back. “I respect the bond.” He turned back toward Taylor. “You and your brothers are too young to remember. Your father was a single parent with only Brad and Josh.
He met your mother and laid seed with her.”
Laid seed?
Could he sound any more gross? Taylor shuddered.
Thinking of his parents having sex was disgusting. Thinking of that thing as his mother was even more disgusting.
“She will not stop until her offspring is returned to her. As evil as she is, her maternal side is forcing her to hunt you.” Taylor struggled with the fact that she was his mother. The mom he grew up with wasn’t always mean. She did love him, and he loved her. “I can’t let you kill her.”
“Then she will be contained.” Panahasi looked at him with sympathetic eyes, making Taylor wonder how a demon could be understanding.
“I need to be alone, leave,” Taylor said angrily.
“My office.” Maverick led the tribe of demons from his bedroom, Josh kissing his cheek before leaving him as well.
Dagon shifted back once the room was clear and the door closed behind everyone. “Are you okay?”
“Do I
look
okay? I just had sex with a man, my brother is a vampire, my mom is an evil demon, and I’m lying naked under a sheet while everyone discusses the weather.
No
, I’m not okay.”
* * * *
Shit, his mate was on the verge of freaking out on him. He should have taken this slower, not given in to Taylor. He knew Taylor was still hesitant, but with his mate displayed in front of him, pleasuring himself, it was more than Dagon could stand.
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Too late now, all he could do was deal with the fallout. Dagon pulled Taylor into his arms, his mate struggling to get free. It wasn’t only the sex. Given the news that he was half demon, that his mother was out to get him back had to weigh heavy on Taylor.
“Calm down,
cachorro
.” Dagon held on tight as Taylor stopped struggling and began to cry in his arms. “We’ll deal with this together.” His mate’s tears were nearly his undoing. It hurt his heart to see his mate in pain.
Taylor grabbed onto Dagon with a death grip. His slim body was racked with sobs as Taylor purged what he was feeling inside.
Dagon wrapped the sheet tighter around his mate, rocking him back and forth, wishing he could erase all of this and take them back to an hour ago when Taylor welcomed his touch, welcomed a man loving him, freely giving himself in return.
He wasn’t giving up on his mate. If Taylor needed time, he would give it to him.
Although, after knowing his mate’s body the way he did now, it would be agonizing to see him and not touch him. Taylor’s body welcomed him and gave him the purest pleasure. If only Taylor’s mind would do the same.
Dagon laid his lips on the top of his mate’s head, inhaling the scent of an ocean breeze and jasmine, his cock threatening to come back to life.
This is not the time for
that.
Dagon fought the urge, knowing Taylor was too distressed to go for another round of twisting the sheets up. This was about Taylor and what he needed right now.
His needs would take a back burner position until his mate was in the right frame of mind.
Dagon’s heart broke when his mate spoke, a hint of tears lacing his voice. “I can’t stop wanting you.” He sounded so hopeless.
“Do you think it is wrong for men to love each other,
cachorro
? It is love. What could be wrong with that? The gender should not matter, only how the people involved feel about each other.”
Dagon’s Ride
49
“I was taught that it’s wrong. My mom, that thing, drilled it into me.”
Dagon pulled back, staring down at Taylor. “And what of Josh?” Taylor lowered his eyes as he spoke. “He’s different. I’d love him no matter who he wants to be.”
“Then why can you not love yourself no matter who you want to be?” It was a valid point, one he hoped his mate would consider.
Taylor chewed on his bottom lip, glancing up at Dagon and then back down as his features took on a concentrated look.
“I can want you?”
Dagon chuckled. “Yes, you can want me.”
You can want me day
and night and I’d never tire of it.
“Can we…”
Dagon rolled Taylor under him, not waiting for his mate’s mind to flip back to uncertainty. He slicked his cock again, Taylor still loose from the claiming. His mate’s body accepted him, taking him in greedily.
If Taylor was accepting of this, of them, then he would show his mate what love between two people, gender be damned, could be like.
“Dagon, make me fly,” Taylor begged.
Dagon tossed the sheet the rest of the way off of his mate’s body and threw Taylor’s legs over his arms, grabbing his hips and pulling his mate down onto his cock.
He panted with every stroke, Taylor reaching up and grabbing hold of his hair. Dagon dipped down and smothered his mate’s mouth with his. He reached between them, fisting the erection and matching the strokes with his body’s own.
He released Taylor’s right leg, pushing the left one up and over his mate’s head. He couldn’t seem to get deep enough, far enough into that tight hole to stop the boiling of his Latino blood. Taylor was driving him mad, and he loved every minute of the ride.
Dagon drove hard into Taylor’s ass, his mate pulling at his hair like reins in his hands. Taylor tilted his ass higher, begging Dagon to
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fuck him. Dagon’s hands flew up, grabbing the headboard for leverage as he fucked Taylor to the point his mate was scooting up the bed.
The skin surrounding his cock expanded with every thrust, taking what Dagon was giving. Dagon watched in utter fascination as Taylor’s fingers parted and reached down, sliding over Dagon’s cock and jacking him off as he pounded into Taylor’s hole.
His eyes were locked onto those lithe fingers, unable to tear them away, and not wanting to either. The tingling in his spine signaled his impending orgasm, but Dagon didn’t want to come, not yet.
Not when his mate was fully open to him. He fought for control, a fight he might lose if he kept watching the wicked erotic play between their legs. His eyes closed, feeling instead of seeing. Dagon wasn’t sure that was a better option. His senses heightened once the sight was gone.
“I’m coming.” Taylor shouted to the heavens, his hand pulled away, and Dagon opened his eyes. Taylor laced his fingers with Dagon’s, pulling hard as seed began to erupt between them, painting them both with white ribbons.
Dagon released his hold, allowing control to slip away as he came hard into his mate’s ass. He roared as his body shook.
Taylor’s arms fell to the bed, a big grin on his beautiful face. “I think I like man- love.”
Dagon smiled, falling to his side and spooning behind his mate.
“I’m happy to hear that.”
* * * *
Taylor slowly walked down the winding staircase, his bottom protesting any move he made right now. The sex was off the hook, but the afterward part sucked.
You’re an abomination!
Taylor pushed his mother’s
condescending remark from his mind. He wasn’t going to go there.
Dagon’s Ride
51
With his mom drilling homophobia into his head about gay people for years, he couldn’t get her belittlements out of his head.
They were coming more frequently now, blasting through his mind like a freight train every time he looked at Dagon and felt the deep want inside of him.
The den was lively, the other mates jumping around playing video games or shooting pool. Some of the warriors were in there as well.
Probably guarding them and using the pool table as an excuse.
He hated the fact that these kind people had to be on guard in their own home because of him and his mother. It was fucked up all the way around. Guilt ate at him because of this.
Taylor looked around, wondering why it was dark in here. He could have sworn it was morning and then he saw the blackout curtains. His brother Josh sitting on one of two suede sofas engaged in a conversation with a few mates explained it all.
He walked over, scooting Murphy aside as he took a seat. “So spill.” He pointed to his brother’s mouth.
“After I dropped you off at Mom’s,” he said, and they both shuddered simultaneously, “I went home. I was attacked but still don’t know by who. The prince of vampires saved my life by turning me. So now I suck blood.” Josh made a slurping sound in Taylor’s ear, grossing him out.
“So because that demon woman made me come home, you almost died?” Taylor asked angrily.
He worshipped Josh. Nobody could ask for a cooler older brother, and he almost died?