Zeus's Pack 9: Rave (8 page)

“Mates,” Rave said as he waved his hand between them. “We’re mates.”

“I’m not sleeping with you guys.” Logan scowled at Rave and then Tony. “I don’t even know you, Rave, and that prick over there just tried to shoot me.”

“I told you not to call me a prick until after I’ve fucked you,” Tony said, enjoying the blush of embarrassment on Logan’s face. It was cute.

“Not happening,” Logan snapped.

“Fine, no sex,” Rave said, “but I need to know why in the hell you pointed a gun at Logan.”

Tony knew he shouldn’t tell civilians about the case, but nothing was making real sense to him any longer. If Rave and Logan were truly his mates as Rave claimed, then a lot of things were about to change in his life. Tony wasn’t even sure how he was going to do his job any longer. How would he travel and have two men at home?

This was too much for him to think about right now, so he just pushed the mess aside like a utility broom after a party.

“Have you heard of Aba?” he inquired.

“Yeah, he tried to kidnap me,” Logan said. His eyes held surprise. “Why?”

“Is that why your door was busted?” Tony asked.

“You’ve been to my house?” Logan didn’t sound too happy about that, so Tony ignored his indignation.

“Aba has been on FBI radar for some time. He’s killed at least a dozen people, robbed three banks, and is wanted for blackmail.”

Rave whistled low. “Damn.”

“The problem is, we don’t have any proof that he killed those people. They all look like suicide cases. We have the tape from the banks, showing the teller smiling as she handed over the money to Aba, no note, no gun in sight. She doesn’t even remember doing it.

And the tellers from the other two banks are saying the same thing.”

“Who did he blackmail?” Logan asked, leaning closer to the bar so he could see Tony more clearly. His eyes were wide, listening intently as if Tony was telling a ghost story.

“The director of the FBI. Director Simone isn’t too happy about having his mind screwed with. Aba made Simone believe that he had slept with a few prostitutes, the chief of police, and the mayor. Aba was blackmailing him for ten thousand dollars.”

“That’s a pretty low amount for the director of the FBI,” Rave commented.

The man was sharp. “That’s the part we’re still trying to figure out.”

“And what do I have to do with all of this?” Logan asked.

“Aba came to my motel around three this morning.”

Rave’s jaw clenched as he stared at the bruise mark on Tony’s neck. He could see the animal behind Rave’s eyes, as if it wanted to come out and have vengeance for Tony being hurt. The brown in Rave’s eyes slid around, as if someone were behind them, looking directly at Tony. It was a bit creepy in his opinion. “He told me to forget about the case and go home. He choked me to show that he could do it. The man was pretty persuasive, but I don’t scare off that easily.” Tony was still omitting the part about almost shooting himself. No way, no how was he telling anyone about that.

“No offense, Tony, but why didn’t he just kill you? Why did he just warn you?” Rave asked. “If he has killed so many people, what’s another body to him?”

“Good question.” And one Tony hadn’t thought about. Why hadn’t Aba just killed him? The man had the power to make Tony do whatever he wanted.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Logan reminded Tony.

“You are on the FBI wanted list as well,” Tony stated flatly. He wasn’t so sure he could just haul Logan in now. Ever since Rave had said they were mates, Tony could feel something deep stirring inside of him. Power of suggestion? Maybe. But Tony knew it was more.

His parents refused to teach him about shifters since he couldn’t shift or even sense things like shifters could. Hell, he had average hearing and smell, like a human. They had called him a freak and pretty much treated him as if he had been a leper.

But he felt that deep stirring down in his gut, for both men. He had felt it the first time he had left Rave, but Tony had chalked it up to lust. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Logan looked stunned. He even gasped. It was dramatic and Tony wanted to reach out and comfort the man, but he kept his distance.

“But I haven’t done anything wrong,” Logan damn near whispered, his voice small, as if he were a child begging for someone to believe he hadn’t stolen the cookie from the cookie jar.

“Yes, you did,” Rave said softly. “You were born a
styre mente
. That’s all they care about.”

“We care about catching a man who has killed innocent people, who has robbed banks using his mind controlling technique, and who felt he was above the law for anyone to stop him. That’s what
we
care about,” Tony said. “I was told there was another like Aba. Of course I wanted to catch him as well. I just didn’t know it was Logan.”

“It’s not a technique,” Logan corrected him. “It’s who I am, not some magician’s parlor tricks.”

Tony once again brushed aside Logan’s snap reply. “Have you seen flying men around here?” he asked. It was an abrupt change of subject, but Tony was tired of not having answers. He felt as though he was getting nowhere fast.

“You saw one?” Rave asked, but didn’t look surprised. So the man knew about them. Maybe he would finally catch a damn clue to what was going on in Pride Pack Valley. This place seemed to hold more secrets than Area 51.

“They’re called winged beasts from what I’m told, but no one can see their wings.”

Hence Tony seeing a flying man. He hadn’t seen wings, but the man had flown straight up into the sky as if he had a large span of them. “He was leaning over a dead body, a dead body that got up and ran from me.”

“That would be a hound of hell.”

Tony waited.

“Some dark being that looks human, but is more dangerous than one hundred nuclear bombs going off inside of you. They’re lethal and so is their bite. Do not let anyone around here bite you.” The warning was clear in not only Rave’s tone, but his eyes were hard, glittering stones. Rave turned toward Logan who threw up his hands, shaking his head.

“I don’t want anyone biting me.”

“Good.”

Tony was taken by surprise when Rave leaned closer, his lips brushing close to Tony’s mouth. “And just so you know, I’m going to mate you, Agent Monroe. I’m going to make you mine.”

For the first time in years, Tony swallowed nervously. He saw Rave’s eyes shift and his canines extend a little longer than what they already were. They looked sharp and threatening in the dense lighting of the bar, but Tony knew they would only bring him plenty of pleasure if Rave bit him. “I thought you said no biting?” His voice didn’t hold the usual confidence Tony carried with him. It was low, filled with desire and hesitation that blended together.

“I’m not a hound from hell,” he said before pulling back.

“If you two are about to have sex, I can wait outside,” Logan complained. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Tony could hear the small snap of jealousy in Logan’s voice. “I thought you weren’t going to have sex with us?”

“I’m not.”

“Liar, I can see lust written all over your darling face, honey.”

Tony grinned and then laughed. “I’ll have you in my bed yet, my little pretty.”

“What are you, the Wicked Witch of the West?” Logan asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, and I’m Toto.” Rave chuckled.

“I sure as shit ain’t Dorothy,” Logan complained, only making Rave and Tony laugh harder.

“Come on,” Rave said as he slid from the stool. “We need to let Taz have his tavern back.”

“Do you know anything about Aba?” Tony asked as he turned from Rave to Logan.

“Only that he tried to kill me, possibly, yesterday. I left the hospital, and he attacked the car I was in. Later he came to my house and tried to force me to go with him, stating that he was only trying to protect me.” Logan shivered. “If that’s protection, no thanks.”

“He’s strong,” Rave added as he stared at Tony’s bruise, the anger flickering in his eyes. “Mentally at least.”

Tony absently rubbed his neck, agreeing with Rave. Aba’s mind powers had been strong. Strong enough to make Tony try and shoot himself. He wanted that bastard dead yesterday.

They stepped outside into the bright, sunny morning, the warmth spilling over Tony as he glanced around. The streets looked deserted, like a ghost town, not even a car was in sight. “Where in the hell is everyone?”

* * * *

Dorm stood in the hallway, swallowing a few times as he stared at the carnage. He was not going to be sick. There was no way he was throwing up on the white carpet. He had seen dead bodies before, but nothing like this. It looked as if the husband had cut the wife apart with a kitchen knife. He knew they were married. He could still see the shiny ring on her finger, the stones glistening clean, untouched by the horrific scene.

The call had come in, neighbors hearing screams coming from this house. Dorm hadn’t wanted to leave the tavern, to leave Tony, but Jesse had invited him to ride along. Dorm wasn’t one to stand around twiddling his thumbs, so he had accepted the invitation.

Dorm stared at the wife. Her arm lay a few feet away from her body, her leg cut so raggedly that it looked like the guy had tried to saw it off. The limb was hanging on by a thin layer of skin. He swallowed a few more times, tasting the bile in the back of his throat.

He was not going to throw up.

The husband lay in a pool of his own cooling blood, the knife sticking out of his neck. He had bled to death. No person in his right mind would kill himself that way. It looked painful as hell.

“I knew this couple,” Jesse said as he leaned an arm against the wall, looking just as green as Dorm felt. “They were high school sweethearts. Rick would have never killed Sarah.”

That left only one explanation.

“Aba is taunting us, telling us with these bodies that we can’t catch him, stop him,” Jesse said through gritted teeth. He kept looking at the husband, as if by sheer will the man could make his friend stand up and be alive again.

“We have to catch him. I have a feeling the body count is going to rise if we don’t.” The smell of death was thick in the air as Dorm found himself swallowing again. He needed fresh air. “I have to call this in.”

Jesse shook his head as his deputies began to fill the home. He spotted Rave, Logan, and Tony coming through the front door, looking a little sick as they spotted the bodies on display for all to see the gruesome details. “Can it wait? We have a lot more going on here than I care for the FBI to know about.”

“Like?” Dorm asked as he moved aside for the crime scene photos to be taken. The click of the camera somehow made everything around him sharper, more focused, and a hell of a lot bloodier.

Dorm really did need some fresh air.

“I’ll leave that up to Agent Monroe to explain things to you,”

Jesse said before leaving his side.

* * * *

Logan ran back outside after spotting the dead bodies cut up like a bloody roast at Sunday dinner. He bent over the bushes under the front window and threw up. Never in his life had he seen a dead body, so why did the first one have to be so damn gruesome?

His eyes watered and his stomach clenched as he spit out the last of his stomach contents and then wiped his mouth. Logan held his stomach, feeling anger and rage building inside of him. Those people did not deserve to die, and for what, to taunt the cops? For Aba to prove he could do it? Logan felt ripples of power racing through his veins, pushing out toward everyone around him as his anger mounted, boiling like hot lava down the side of a mountain. He kept envisioning the couple inside, probably begging for their lives, begging for each other’s lives.

His vision blurred as power he’d never felt before began to take shape, mold around him, and push itself out like an exploding lightbulb. Logan gritted his teeth as he willed Aba to die, to suffer the way the couple had.

He heard someone cry out, then another, but Logan was consumed with rage. It ate at his gut like a starving monster inside of him.

“No!”

Logan was tackled, his head hitting the grass underneath him as the feelings growing inside of him began to unravel, dissipate. His world swam out in front of him, taking Logan to a place he had never seen before, gripping him in its tight embrace.

“Come back to me, Logan.”

Logan fought against the darkness, fought against the need to right everything, everyone, to make them into what he thought they should be.

“Logan, come back to me.”

Logan felt the gentle caress of the dark, begging him to stay, begging him to make the ugly pretty, the wrong right. He cried out, fighting the dark grip that pulled at him, surrounding him with a false sense of comfort and warmth.

It was a lie. The darkness wanted to use him, to claim him for its own bestial needs. Logan wasn’t going willingly. Not today.

“Logan!”

Logan struggled to breathe, fought to come back to Rave, to Tony.

He wasn’t sure why those two were his main focus, but he clung to them, pressed against their images as the dark curtain gradually began to lift, slowly allowed him to leave.

His eyes sprung open as he took a long breath into his lungs. His eyes burning and his heart racing, Logan saw Rave and Tony beside him, clinging to him.

“This side,” Rave said as his brown eyes peered down at Logan. “You will always walk on this side, with me, with us.”

Logan whimpered when Tony’s hand caressed the side of his face, bringing him warmth that wasn’t false, wasn’t a lie. He was lying on the ground, his eyes to the brightly lit sky as Rave and Tony lay on either side of him, keeping him grounded.

“What happened?” Logan asked as he swallowed, the sound audible as the tears rolled down the sides of his face. They were hot, wet, and welcome. It meant he was no longer in the dark, no longer fighting the alluring call.

“You took out half the police force,” Tony said. “You made the shifters drop to their knees, grabbing their heads. What did you do to them, Logan?”

The question wasn’t accusing. It was gentle, but firm.

“I don’t know,” Logan confessed. “I saw those bodies, and anger just took over.”