Sage's Mystery (12 page)

He couldn’t blame them. He was pissier than a wildcat with a thorn in its paw, and that was on his good days. “He’s a human. Who cares what he thinks. Raze the place and start over. If he complains, toss him out.”

Sage rounded on Jeremiah, slamming him into a wall. “Don’t ever talk about him like that again. He’s my mate, asshole.” The anger in Sage’s eyes shocked Jeremiah. He had been kidding around, but to Sage, it was a declaration of war.

“Easy, Sage. I was just joking. Now get your paws off of me,”

Jeremiah said calmly with a deadly seriousness.

Sage gave him one last shove before releasing him. “We have work to do. Stop bitching and pitch in or go sleep outside tonight.”

Damn, talk about touchy.
Jeremiah walked away, flipping Sage off over his shoulder as he made his way back downstairs. No one said he had graceful social skills.

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“Where’s Sage?” Isaac asked as Jeremiah cut through the kitchen.

“Upstairs going through PMS,” Jeremiah snapped as he grabbed a few more filled trash bags and took them outside. He was a rotten bastard.
Sue me
.

* * * *

Sage glanced around the downstairs. He walked through the living room, into the dining room, and then circled back around and headed for the kitchen. It had been two weeks since his friends had shown up, and the place was finally starting to look livable.

The treads and risers to the staircase and front steps had been replaced, along with quite a few balusters. Sage was no longer afraid he would fall through them. The missing wall was finally sealed up with plywood, shoes, and wall studs. The drywall was going up today.

The framing had been a bitch since they had to replace the second-floor wall, but the six of them had managed it.

Sage glanced around the kitchen, seeing that William and Patrick had done an immaculate job at replacing the floor tiles, scrubbing down the counters, and killing the mold in the sinks. Sage had even managed to get appliances into the kitchen.

Yep, the house was finally coming together.

“I’ll be checking the electrical work today since you seem to have an MIA electrician,” Isaac said as he walked into the kitchen. “I’ll start with the breaker box and then check the rest of the house out.”

“Thanks,” Sage said as he glanced around the room. “Hopefully we can start cooking in here soon.” Isaac nodded and then left Sage to his inspection. The place was really coming along nicely, but his thoughts were on the werewolves that had invaded his town.

He had to figure that puzzle out or he was never going to get his town up and running. Sage wasn’t interested in a pack-run town. He wanted a place where everyone could be who they wanted to be
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without the hierarchy of packs. Yeah, they needed a mayor and law enforcement, but he could do without the alpha and beta titles.

This was a fresh start, and he planned on making this a quiet town that was slower than the faster pace of life. Not big, but someplace people could feel safe if they forgot to lock their back doors, where pups and kids could play together.

It might be a pipe dream, but that was the goal Sage had in mind.

He just needed to figure out the reason behind the massacre all those years ago and why werewolves were back now. He hadn’t seen any since the night of his shift, but he had no doubt that they were still close by.

His thoughts swung to William. In two weeks, his mate was going to shift for the first time, and there was nothing he could do to prepare him. Sage walked through the house and out onto the front porch, seeing William tossing a ball and Terror running to retrieve it.

God, his mate was one sexy little man. He had put some weight on over the past three weeks, looking healthier. Sage walked down the steps, watching the way William’s body flexed and turned when he twisted his upper torso to throw the ball.

“That was a bet I didn’t mind losing,” Monterey said from the other side of the porch.

“Should I even ask?”

“The usual,” Monterey said as he chuckled and then sobered. “Do you think he’ll survive the shift?”

Sage shoved his hands into his front pockets, leaning against the porch post. That was one of his main worries. The first shift was a difficult process, and some didn’t survive it. This was exactly why he didn’t want to convert William. Well, one of the reasons. It just wasn’t safe in his world.

His fingers played over the rings in his pocket as he watched William and Terror play ball together. He had gone to a jeweler in Mayfield County and purchased two gold wedding bands. He’d been pondering when to present them to his mate for days now. He didn’t
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want to just toss one to William and say, “Here’s your ring.” The thing that had Sage stumped was that he wasn’t a romantic, so he wasn’t sure how to go about giving the ring to his mate.

William seemed to need romance, reassurance, and cuddling, things Sage didn’t mind giving—if he knew how. He could do the reassurance and cuddling, no problem, but romance?

Sage stood straighter when he noticed a car coming down the road, heading in his direction. The cop car pulled into Sage’s driveway and drove up to the house. He walked down the steps, a few of his friends coming out to be nosy as Sage met Samuel when the car stopped.

Sage noticed William stiffen. His eyes were round as dinner plates, and then he quickly looked away, giving the sheriff his back.

Sage wasn’t sure what was going on with William, but he moved his body so that he was blocking Samuel’s sight from seeing his mate.

The sheriff stepped out of his car, eyeing the rest of the men as he nodded his head toward Sage. “Friends?”

“Something like that,” Sage answered, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. Sage’s eyes watched as Samuel’s hands fell to his sides, his fingers relaxing close to his gun. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but he didn’t like it.

“Men, this is Sheriff Samuel Reese from Mayfield County,” Sage introduced the sheriff, hoping to put him a little at ease.

The men walked down the steps, introducing themselves. Patrick walked over to William, walking back inside the house with him as the other men blocked his view. Sage wasn’t sure if Patrick was a mind reader, but he was grateful the werewolf got William out of sight.

He’d ask his mate later what that was all about.

“Something I can help you with, Sheriff?” Sage asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

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“I’m hoping so,” Samuel said as he watched the men standing around him, eyeing each and every one of them. “That electrician you hired has gone missing.”

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Samuel watched the expression on Sage’s face closely. He was pretty good at reading body language, and Sage’s was telling him that he was surprised.

“He never showed up as you can see,” Sage said as he waved a hand back at the darkened house. “I’ve called him several times, but only got his voice mail.”

“His logbook has you down for his last appointment, and his wife says he left to come out here, but no one has heard from him in two weeks.”

“And you’re just now looking for him?” Sage asked

incredulously. “Mighty long time to let a missing person go missing before searching for him.”

Samuel wanted to curse. What Sage didn’t know and what Mayfield County failed to remember was that Bobby liked to disappear for long periods of time. Most of it was spent on drunken binges, but he had to do his job and investigate.

“Well, the electrician has been known to wander off. I had to come ask, Sage.” It didn’t escape Samuel’s notice that the man who had been in the front yard playing with the dog had disappeared when all the other men were introducing themselves.

Samuel was torn between keeping the peace with Sage so Mystery could be rebuilt and doing his duty and figuring out why the guy ran into the house. “Let me know if he comes by,” Samuel said as he climbed in his car.

“Will do.” Sage waved as he pulled away. He could investigate the man at a later date. Right now Samuel had a drunk to find.

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* * * *

William watched the car pull away and sighed in relief. He wasn’t into getting his ass hung out to dry, and he wasn’t going back. No one was going to make him.

“Mind telling me what that was all about?” Sage asked as he stepped into the house.

“No,” William answered honestly. He really didn’t want a house full of tough and gruff men to know he had checked himself out of a loony bin…when no one was looking.
I escaped from the crazy house
wasn’t a topic he cared to discuss over dinner. Maybe while drinking a shot of whiskey to forget it ever happened, but definitely not dinner.

Sage growled and tossed William over his shoulder, carrying him up the steps two at a time. William was getting dizzy as he watched the first floor quickly move away from him. “What are you doing?”

he shouted as he held on to Sage’s shirt for dear life.

“I’m about to teach my mate about keeping secrets from me.”

“It’s not a secret!” Okay, it was, but Sage didn’t need to know that.

“Now he adds lying to it.”

William wasn’t sure what Sage was going to do, but he didn’t sound like a happy camper. The man had a growl vibrating in his chest as he deposited William on the blankets. “Now tell me why you ran from that cop.”

“He smelled funny?”

“Try again,” Sage said as he yanked William’s pants down and smacked him on his ass. William wasn’t sure if he should yell at the indignity of the smack or moan from the pleasure it brought him.

“He had a gun?”

Smack.
“Try again.” If Sage kept smacking his ass, he just might lie all night. He had no idea that being spanked felt so damn good.

“I had to pee?”

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Smack.
“I can keep this up all night if you keep lying to me.”

That was what William was hoping for. His ass burned, sending thrilling spikes all through his body. Had he known being spanked felt this good, he would have lied to Sage the first night.

“Patrick broke a nail?”

Sage’s hand stopped midair as he cocked his head at William. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were enjoying this.”

“Not in the least!” William protested with a snap.

A wry grin spread across Sage’s face as his hand came barreling down toward William’s ass then stopped at the last second, but not before William jutted his ass in the air to receive the pleasure.

“I knew it!” Sage accused as he rolled William to his back, seeing his cock hard as hell. “You do like it.”

William shook his head as he rolled back over, sticking his ass high into the air again. “No I don’t. I lied to you. I’m a very bad man.

Now spank me, damn it!”

Sage ran his hands over William’s ass, his nails scraping his stinging flesh. William groaned. He gasped when Sage leaned forward and licked a long path over each cheek and then kissed each mound. “Tell me why you ran,” Sage said as his voice dipped to a husky whisper.

William was putty in Sage’s hands as his mate rimmed his puckered hole with his fingers. It was a feeling that had William whimpering for more. “I
may
have a warrant out for me.”

“May?” Sage asked as he inserted a finger into William’s ass.

William was a goner. He’d confess the national secrets right now if Sage kept torturing him for information like this.

“Yes,
may
.” He panted. “I may have walked away from the nuthouse. Now fuck me!”

Sage’s hand stilled, which drove William to the brink. “Don’t you dare stop. You started this, now fuck me.”

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Sage leaned close, nipping William’s ear as he spoke so low that William had to strain to hear him. “I’ll fuck you, mate. But afterward, you’re going to tell all to me.”

“Deal, anything,” William begged, pushing his ass harder onto Sage’s embedded finger. William forgot about their conversation, forgot the world existed outside of his pleasure. He ground his forehead into his arms as he rocked back and forth, fucking his ass on the large finger buried deep inside of him. He swiveled his hips, trying to get the finger to graze his prostate.

Sage placed his free hand on the small of William’s back while he inserted a second finger. That was fucking perfect. That was the extra push William needed as he thrust his ass back, crying out as his cum shot from his cock.

“That’s it, William,” Sage crooned from behind him, his deep and hypnotic voice carrying William’s orgasm a little farther, a little higher as he groaned.

William jerked when he felt Sage pull his fingers free. All William wanted to do was sleep now. He sagged to the floor, sighing heavily as he closed his eyes.

“Now tell me what’s going on, slim.”

Damn.

William knew he couldn’t stall any longer. He wished the sheriff had never shown up today. Everything was going good, sailing along fine, and then his life tanked out. He should have known bad luck would be there to steer him in the wrong direction.

He slowly turned over, expecting to see a scowl on Sage’s face from his confession of escaping from the nuthouse, but his mate just watched him curiously. William pushed up from where he thought he was going to crash peacefully and pulled his knees to his chest, wondering how Sage was going to take the news. He scratched at his chin, trying to buy some time as he composed his thoughts.

“I told you that when I was a baby the massacre took place?”

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Sage nodded as he took a seat on the floor, stretching out next to William.

“Well, when the cops found me huddled in the closet, they asked what happened.”

“And you told them werewolves attacked the town,” Sage finished for him. William nodded as he rested his chin on his knees, focusing nowhere in particular, but definitely not on Sage.