Texas and Tarantulas (17 page)

Nothing moved in the area. No one else shot at Trent or tried to firebomb him.

His house exploded, which shook the ground and sent debris flying everywhere. Trent threw himself on the ground and covered his head. Pieces of the remains landed on him and around him. He wasn’t hurt. Trent jumped up and kept his gun in hand as he approached Mahon and the dead bear shifter.

Despite his best effort not to, Trent vomited when he saw the body. He’d hit his target in the head, and the mess was indescribable. It would haunt his nightmares for a long time, possibly forever.

He turned away from it and raced to Mahon. “Wake up, Mahon. Come on, sweetheart.” Oh hell, he was turning into a mush ball. “Mahon, wake up! I need…I need you. I need you and I need your help.” Trent pulled the darts out of his chest.

That was when he saw the other body. At least it wasn’t in human form. Trent glanced at the bear. He wasn’t certain it he’d killed it or if Mahon had.
Could have been the other guy
.

Trent didn’t care at that point. He wanted Mahon to wake up. “Please, Mahon. I’m begging you, don’t do this. You said you wouldn’t scare me like this again.” He shook Mahon by the shoulders. “I’ll do that slapping thing, I swear it.” Trent did, patting Mahon on the cheeks.

Mahon’s eyelids fluttered open and he groaned.

“Fuck!” Mahon shouted and sat bolt upright.

Trent yelped and fell on his ass. His left hand landed in something wet. He turned and lost what little bile he had left in his stomach.

Mahon was there, holding him, pulling Trent back into his arms. “It’s okay.”

Trent was hyperventilating. He knew it, couldn’t stop it. He was too close to that shattered skull and spilled brains.

“Don’t look at him,” Mahon barked.

He must have been weak from the darts because Trent squirmed free and stumbled away from the body.

Mahon joined him. “You left your gun.” He pushed Trent’s head down. “Slow down and breathe. We have to go check on Joe and Diego.”

That snapped Trent out of his head and back to reality. “The older guy—”

“One of the clan who trained me. That leaves one more—and another like me. At least I managed to kill one of them this time.”

“I thought one of them was Bill’s boyfriend,” Trent admitted.

Mahon stood and pulled Trent to his feet as well. “It’s possible. They’ll do anything to complete their task.”

Trent looked up into Mahon’s eyes. “I shot him. It’s harder when they look like me.”

Mahon smiled sadly. “I’m sorry you had to do that. It’s not…hard for me, no matter the body that houses the soul. As stupid as it may sound, I’m glad it isn’t easy for you.”

Trent swallowed twice before he could make himself move. He noticed then that Mahon wasn’t fully recovered from the tranquilizer. He moved slower, and his speech slurred at times.

“Where’s your shotgun?” Trent asked him.

“I set it in the camper before I shifted.” Mahon grumbled wordlessly.

“What’s that?” Trent steered him the long way around to the camper.

Mahon stopped suddenly and gasped. “Your home!”

“You’re my home,” Trent informed him.

Mahon shook his head.

Trent cupped his chin and tugged until Mahon actually looked at him. “Before I went looking for you, I realized I’d been a fool. I’ve loved you for— I don’t know. I don’t know when it started. It just
is
and I never said it. Now I am. I love you. You’re my home. You, Joe, Diego. I need y’all, not that trailer. Not my truck or guns. Okay, the guns are handy here lately, but they are still just things. They can be replaced. You can’t. And we have to go, Mahon. We have to help Diego and Joe.”

With that, he took off at a trot, holding onto Mahon’s hand. “Well, fuck,” he said, upon finding Mahon’s camper on its side. “I guess the explosion took it out. And it would have to land on the door! Why didn’t it fall the other way?” There was no use worrying about it now. “Your truck wouldn’t start. We’ll take my truck. Ain’t any way to sneak up to the house fast from here. Maybe they’ll think it’s the bad guys after that explosion and all.”

Mahon stopped him then. “Let me shift and go. They won’t know which bear I am until I’m right there. I’ll smell like smoke.”

Trent slapped himself on the forehead. “Goddamn! Someone’s bound to call the fire department and there’s a dead person—”

“Who tried to kill you first,” Mahon pointed out. “I’m shifting and doing this. We’ll hope no one else shows up before we can at least get rid of the other bear carcass.”

“Yeah, because one more animal that ain’t supposed to be here is going to look more suspicious than a dead body.” Trent told himself to rein in the twang and temper. “Be careful. I won’t be far behind you in the truck.”

Mahon handed him the shotgun. Just as he began to shift, he spoke. “I love you, too.”

“Goddamn it, you say that then run off,” Trent muttered, because that was exactly what Mahon did.

Trent jogged to the truck. The glass had been vacuumed out but he hadn’t bothered calling to see how much a new window would cost. Something thumped against his belly and he stopped to take the ammo box out of his shirt. He was tender there. “Must have done it when I went belly-down.” At least he hadn’t gone belly-out and all over kingdom come.

Trent got in the truck. It wouldn’t start either. “Fuck!”

He grabbed the ammo and shoved it back down his shirt, took his gun, then got out and started running.

Chapter Thirteen

Mahon could smell the other bear shifter, the other him, except the other wasn’t him at all. He hoped Joe wasn’t dead. Hoped Diego wasn’t either, though he wasn’t likely to be. Diego’s pack had wanted him back alive. Joe they’d not had a need for at all.

Trent they’d wanted dead. They’d almost managed that today. If Trent hadn’t been smart and fast—and a damned good aim—he wouldn’t have survived.

He was almost to the big house when he saw the other bear. A roar greeted him, and Mahon knew he was found out. Of course he was—the bear on the porch was one of his littermates, as some of the others had been. It made no difference in their world. A bear was a bear was a bear unless it came to breeding and sometimes even then, some shifters didn’t care about crossing levels and morals like they should.

Which probably explained why bear shifters as a whole were a fucked up bunch. How different his life could have been had any of his littermates and him been raised as brothers instead of as what they were? It didn’t matter. There was no turning back time.

Mahon roared back, letting the other know he meant business. He stood on his hind legs and snarled, clawing at the air.
I’ve killed you before. Trent has killed you before. You won’t win.

A second, larger bear came out of the house. Streaks of silver stood out in his dark coat.

Mahon kept roaring, even though he understood that he might be in serious trouble now. He could take out the younger bear. The older one was stronger than them both. Combined.

This was going to be a problem.

Especially since both bears charged at him together.

Mahon sent up an apology to Trent. It looked like he was going to leave the man after all. He hoped Trent would forgive him.

He went in like he intended to win. The best of intentions could amount to nothing, but trying counted in his book. He wouldn’t be an easy victory for either of his enemies.

Victor, the elder bear, who had delivered many painful lessons to Mahon in the past, let the younger bear take the lead.

Mahon swung at him, just missing his target. He dodged a return swipe and followed it up with a shove that involved his whole body. The other two bears scrambled back, the younger one stumbling.

Mahon took advantage, letting the anger take him over. These shifters had turned him into something almost irredeemable. Worse, much, much worse, they’d come here with the intention of killing Trent and Joe, and forcing Diego back into a horrible situation.

It pissed Mahon off. He struck out with that fury and ripped into the bear he’d been trained with. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but it was a painful one.

Mahon roared at him. “
Stop this and help me kill the other. You don’t have to live this way.”

He could sense the younger one’s hesitation. “
You don’t want to die,”
Mahon vocalized. They didn’t have a language, but certain sounds held meaning. He was getting the gist of his point across.

Unfortunately, the older shifter saw that Mahon was succeeding.

Mahon pushed past the wounded one and went after the elder. He hoped turning his back on the younger one wasn’t a mistake. Mahon met the elder in the air, both of them on their hind legs bellowing, promising death.

Only one of them would deliver it.

* * * *

Trent ran faster than he ever had in his life. Every strike of his boots on the ground jarred him and spurred him to move, move,
move.

He never should have let Mahon go alone. They should have stayed together. His hands were sweaty, his grip on the shotgun not the best. It was stupid to run like he was with a loaded gun. The ground was uneven, panic was fueling his race. It’d be easy to fall and shoot himself when he did. Shit like that happened to people all the time.

It wasn’t going to happen to him. Fuck that. He had a lover to save, a brother and friend to save.

Trent put more effort into his running. It wasn’t long before he saw the bears—three of them. He blinked to get the sweat out of his eyes as he skidded to a stop. Trent brought the shotgun up.

The gray and brown bear roared at him and shoved another bear into the sights.

Trent didn’t fire.

Which one is Mahon? My Mahon?

Time slowed, his heart did the same. Trent followed the fight, three big bears tangling into a knot of frenzied beasts. Blood and spit flew, claws and teeth slashed. One of the younger bears tore open the other’s flank.

The older bear ripped the wounded one’s throat out.

Trent’s heart broke.

Something didn’t feel right.

That wasn’t his Mahon lying there bleeding out.

It wasn’t. If it was, why did the old bear and the other one still fight?

The old one had tried to fuck with his head.

Trent would fuck with the geezer bear’s in return. In a permanent way.

He waited for the shot he wanted then pulled the trigger—and nothing.

“No,” Trent rasped, trying to squeeze the trigger again to no avail. The shotgun had never jammed on him, not in all the many years he’d had it. He didn’t shout or cuss. If the older bear knew the gun didn’t work—well, it would be best that he didn’t know.

Trent held the gun steady and walked toward the duo. “Listen up, fucker,” he called out. “Yeah you, elder bear-y.” Well, he thought it was funny. “I’ll put a bullet in your goddamn brain on the count of three. You got one chance, because I am tired of killing. Just one. Take it—or die.” He paused to give the words more leverage.

“One.”

The bears continued to fight.

“Two.” Trent tried not to gulp. He was so fucked now.

“Three—” He ran into the fray, swinging the butt of the shotgun as hard as he could at the old bear’s head. He bashed in the right eye socket. Nasty goop spurted out.

Trent pulled the gun back and hit him again, even as the thing roared and swiped at him.

Mahon caught the paw in his mouth and crunched it.

Trent hit the bear a third time.

A gunshot rang out—not from his shotgun. The old bear didn’t go out loudly. He whined and went down like his bones melted inside him.

Joe stood on the porch, Diego behind him. “They couldn’t get us in the attic. We had the ladder up.”

“And the attic door covered with a big chest.” Diego stepped around Joe. “We have to—” He put a hand on his brow and looked out. “What’s on fire?”

“More like what exploded. My place.” Trent looked Mahon over. He didn’t see any obvious injuries. “Come on and let me look at you. I can’t tell if you have cuts or what with all that fur.”

For one heart-stopping second, Trent feared he might have been wrong.

Then Mahon shifted and reached for him. “Beating a bear with a gun? Bad idea. I should—”

“Why did your house explode?” Joe demanded to know.

Trent hadn’t even noticed his brother moving. Now Joe was close to being in his face. “Calm down, badass bear killer. We were attacked this morning, too. There’s a… I had to kill one of them while he was in human form. It’s— We have to call Sheriff Kenzie. I don’t want another body buried out here.”

“But the bears,” Joe said.

Mahon nudged one with his toe. “I’d offer to shift and drag them off, but that’s not going to get rid of all the blood.”

“We’re going to have to tough this one out.” Trent was almost relieved at that. He didn’t want to lie about anything if he could avoid it. Except… “Obviously we don’t mention the shifter thing. Hey.” He looked toward the house. “Where’s Bill?”

“I haven’t seen him after that boyfriend of his got out of the car. Diego scented him as a bear right away. That would be the old guy, I guess,” Joe said.

“We need to find him and to call the sheriff. We’ll have to stick with the ‘I don’t know what the fuck these crazy people were doing’ line, but if we take out the whole shifter part of it, it should hold up.” Trent shrugged. “I think.”

Joe looked around. “Unless Bill screws it up for us.”

“Okay, we need to find him. If he’s in the trunk of his own car, he could be dead from the heat.” Trent ran over to it. The trunk was open. “Eh, never mind. He’s got a dart in him.” Trent pulled it out then felt for a pulse. “He’s alive. Go on and call Kenzie. It’s going to be a long, long day.”

* * * *

Sheriff Kenzie closed her eyes and rubbed them. “Jesus, y’all—this is the weirdest crap I’ve ever heard, which means it’s true. No one can make up this stuff.” She left off messing with her eyes and opened them. “Plus, we all know y’all. Everyone in town knows Bill’s been here looking for critters, and they knew he’s on the slutty side, no offense to him. To each their own and all of that. He’s told everyone who’d listen that his boyfriend was coming out to teach y’all a lesson about turning him down. That was only about two people, by the way. No one wanted to talk to him.”