Hagen, Lynn - Hunter [Zeus's Pack 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting ManLove) (10 page)

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Lynn Hagen

Hunter cuddled Tristan on his lap as Quinn talked with the men who had come with him. He never wanted a scare like that again.

Rushing from the store, he had worried the whole way that he wouldn’t be in time to save his mate. “Do you want to lie down for a bit, rainbow?”

Tristan nodded, clinging to Hunter as he got up from the couch and walked down the hall. “I saw Xavier yesterday.”

Hunter stopped walking and looked down at his slim mate. “Why didn’t you tell us? When?”

“We were standing outside the deli. I thought I was just seeing things. One minute he was getting into his car, the next, he was gone.”

Hunter took Tristan into the bedroom, placing the trembling shifter on the bed. “Close the curtains, please,” Tristan asked shakily.

Hunter closed them, crawling onto the bed and spooning Tristan.

“The Alpha has offered refuge at his home until Xavier is caught. I think we should take him up on his offer.”

“He asked you and Quinn, too? I won’t go if you two aren’t there as well, sir.” Tristan turned in Hunter’s arms, pressing their chests close together.

“Wouldn’t have it any another way, rainbow.”

“Why do you call me that? Why does Quinn call me jellybean?”

“I don’t know about Quinn, but you are a miracle to me, like a bright rainbow in the sky. It’s not often a shifter finds his mate, and I found both of mine. How much more of a miracle could that be?”

Yeah, it sounded corny, but that was how Hunter felt from the moment he saw Tristan on that dark country road. Okay, maybe not the first moment, but soon after.

“Wow, that’s so…cheesy.” Tristan laughed. “But I like it, thank you.” Tristan tucked his head under Hunter’s chin and sighed. “Why don’t you have a pet name for Quinn?”

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“Do you really think Quinn would let me call him something like that?” Hunter chuckled. “‘Honey buns’ doesn’t seem to fit him.”

“How is he?” Quinn asked as he stepped into the bedroom.

“Getting better.” Hunter held his hand out, Quinn crossing the room to take it. “Come lay with us.”

Quinn walked to the other side of the bed and got in behind Tristan, draping his arm over the both of them. His thumb began to rub back and forth over Hunter’s hip, the contact pleasing to him.

“So when were either of you going to tell me I’m your mate?”

Quinn asked. He didn’t sound angry, nor did he smell like that spicy scent anger gave off. But he did sound hurt. Hunter mentally cursed.

“That’s my fault, sir,” Tristan confessed.

“How is that, jellybean?”

“We were trying to figure out the best way to tell you. Although you know about shifters, being a mate is more significant. I suggested we wait to tell you. So don’t blame Hunter, sir. I take the blame for that.”

“How did you find out?” Hunter asked.

“Torem. He was out there with Dino and Sidney in the front yard, helping to track Xavier.” Quinn rolled to his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Hunter watched him closely. His gut tightening the longer Quinn took to speak. This had been major news, and he kept it from his mate. No matter what Tristan said, he should have been the one to stand up and tell Quinn. He was the older shifter, the stronger one. It was his job, and he’d failed at it. Now all he could do was pray Quinn didn’t turn his back on them.

“Alpha Zeus wanted us to move in until Xavier is caught.” Tristan ran his fingers over Hunter’s collarbone. He could feel the tremble in his fingers. “Will you go with us?”

“Sure, when do we go?”

Hunter didn’t like Quinn’s mood swing. He seemed too cheerful now. Something was going on in Quinn’s head, and the construction

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worker wasn’t sharing. He’d rather Quinn shout, be angry, anything but the avoidance he was showing. How had he fucked this up? Never having been in a relationship before, Hunter was at a loss on how to handle this.

“Whenever you want, sir.” Tristan glanced up at Hunter, his eyes telling him that Tristan felt it, too. He leaned down and kissed Tristan’s fiery red hair, pulling them both closer to him. No matter how long it took, he would fix this.

“Is that everything?” Hunter asked as he walked out of the bedroom with Tristan’s bags.

“I think so.” Tristan glanced around, running back over to his drawing table once more and looking around.

It didn’t escape Hunter’s attention that Tristan was using the word
sir
less and less. He seemed to be getting more comfortable around him and Quinn. It had been a week before they could get things together to move up to the Alpha’s house. But Tristan had spent his days there while he and Quinn worked.

There were some days Tristan spent with him at the hardware store. His rainbow used the time to draw, but he felt bad that Tristan just sat there all day, so he introduced his mate to Sully, asking his friend to take Tristan to Zeus’s and introduce him to everyone.

“Looks like everything.” Tristan grabbed his art bag from the bed and followed Hunter to his truck. There were a few soldiers outside, Zeus’s orders, waiting on them to pack. Quinn had packed the night before, having left this morning to go to work. His construction worker pretended everything was fine, but Hunter could see past that.

Quinn was upset. If only he would talk to them about the situation.

Every time he or Tristan brought it up, Quinn quickly changed the subject. It was frustrating as hell, but he had caused this, so what did he expect?

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“Quinn said he’ll meet you two there after work,” Sully said as he grabbed the bags from Hunter and tossed them in the truck. “He probably told you before he left for work, but asked me to tell you. I told you, we’re good now.” Sully chuckled.

Quinn hadn’t said anything, but Sully didn’t need to know that.

“You guys following us?”

“Right behind you,” Sully said over his shoulder as he walked to his vehicle, Torem and Avanti waiting by the soldier’s truck.

The hairs on the back of Hunter’s neck stood up. He dropped the bag into the bed of the truck, looking around. There was nothing out of the ordinary, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Someone was watching them. “Let’s get moving, rainbow. Someone’s watching us.”

Tristan jumped into Hunter’s truck, his art bag clutched to his chest. Hunter locked the doors, pulling from the drive. He scanned the neighborhood as he drove through it, keeping an eye out for anyone paying too close attention to them.

They made it to Zeus’s house, but Hunter bet his life that they were still being watched. He quickly helped Tristan inside, informing the soldiers of his gut feeling. Avanti and Sully headed out, going to look for his gut instinct. One of the Alpha’s mates, Jasper, showed them to a room. “Let me know if you guys need anything.”

“Thanks.” Hunter set the bags by the dresser, checking out the room they were in.

“This is nice.” Tristan set his art bag on the bed. Hunter was going to have to ask if they had a drawing table in this place. If not, he’d go get Tristan’s from the house.

“I guess this is our hotel until Xavier is caught.” Hunter walked into the bathroom, checking, for what, he wasn’t sure. The look of utter defeat on Tristan’s face was too much for him right now. Hunter didn’t know how to fix it, he didn’t know how to fix Quinn, and he didn’t know how to fix any of this fucking mess. What kind of mated shifter was he if he couldn’t help his mates? He was the Alpha of the three. This should come easily to him. But it didn’t.

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Hunter sat on the toilet seat, wondering what he was going to do to get back to where the three used to be, like that evening in the living room when they danced around, not caring about the world outside. How easy it was to forget the good when you fucked up.

“Hunter?”

Hunter blew out a long breath and stood, running his hand through his hair as he exited the bathroom. “Yeah, rainbow?”

“Is Quinn really going to be here?”

“I wish I knew.” Hunter grabbed his mate in his arms and held him close. “We can’t give up on him. No matter how much he hates us right now.”

“I don’t hate you.”

Hunter and Tristan spun around to see Quinn standing in the doorway. His instincts were to pull Quinn into their arms, but the look on his face stopped him. Quinn wasn’t ready.
Give him space.

“Are you sure? I miss us.” Tristan took a step in Quinn’s direction, but their mate shook his head.

“I’m not sure about anything right now, but I can assure you I don’t hate either of you. I’m just very pissed and hurt right now. If what I’m told is true, then mates are for life, and you start ours off with a lie?”

“We didn’t lie,” Hunter said.

“No, but you omitted the truth. It’s the same thing in my book.

How do I know I can trust you now?”

Tristan stood there shaking. “Trust? I made a bad judgment call. I won’t say it’s the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but it was in good intention. If you want to talk about trust, think about how much I’ve given both of you. Do you know how much courage it took me to give both of you my trust? I fucked up and I’m sorry, but don’t punish us, at least not at a time like this.” Tristan’s voice broke, his scent smelling of fear and anger.

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“Tristan.” Quinn took a step into the room. “That was something major you chose to keep from me. How do I know you won’t do it again?”

“I might. I make bad mistakes. Look at Xavier. But mates forgive each other. Hell, partners, lovers, and friends forgive each other as well. I didn’t withhold the information being malicious. I did it out of fear. Fear that you would leave us if you found out. All I’m asking is that you understand why I did it.”

Quinn twisted his fingers together and laid them on top of his head, staring at the ceiling. “I understand, but both of you need to understand how much of an outsider I feel like.”

“Why?” Hunter closed the distance between them, cupping Quinn’s face. “Talk to us.”

“You’re both shifters. I’m not. How would that make you feel?”

“I never thought of us like that. I don’t see you as human and us as shifters. I see us as mates, friends, a team fighting against an evil after our mate, being there for each other, not shutting anyone out.”

Quinn began to chuckle. “So now we are superheroes?”

“We could be, but you’re wearing the tights.” Hunter loved hearing that laugh once more. He missed it. Having discord between them wasn’t something any of them should go through.

“I need both of you to promise me that you’ll never hide anything from me again,” Quinn stated with conviction, his voice brooking no argument. “If I’m your mate—”

“You are. There is no
if
about it,” Tristan corrected Quinn.

“Fine, since I’m your mate then you are the two people in this world I shouldn’t have to worry about keeping secrets from me.”

All three turned when someone knocked on the door. Zeus stood there with Eagle and Torem. This couldn’t be good.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but the fire department is at your house, Quinn. Someone just burned it to the ground.”

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Quinn watched as the fireman finished putting out the fire. The house was completely ruined. Whoever had done this meant business.

“It was a rental. I’ll have to get in touch with the owner. I hope he had insurance,” Quinn said to Hunter and the fire chief. Thank goodness they had taken all their personal items to Zeus’s.

“They used an accelerant. Gasoline is the predominant scent here.

Whoever did this,” the chief said, looking at the house and then at the pair, “wanted the occupants dead.”

So the chief was a shifter as well. He just used the word scent.

Quinn kicked at a chard piece of wood with the tip of his boot. He hated feeling like the odd man out. It wasn’t so much that Hunter and Tristan had kept the news of being mates from him, it was more of the fact that they automatically knew and Quinn hadn’t. He was already attracted to them and couldn’t imagine being without them, so the revelation of being mates wasn’t what ticked him off.

Dino had said that the way they were acting with each other was the same way he, Torem, and Sidney were, as mates. It was like Hunter and Tristan shared a secret he wasn’t privy to.

“Do you have any idea who may have started this?” the chief asked.

“No.” Quinn wanted to talk this over with his mates and the Alpha before divulging any information. He didn’t want to lie, but he wasn’t ready to divulge his suspicions just yet.

Quinn took one last look at the charred ruins before turning away and walking to the truck. This was no idle threat against Tristan. If

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this was indeed Xavier, then he upped the antes, making this a death threat.

He and Hunter rode back to the house in relative silence. Quinn knew he was being childish and needed to get over his “I want what you guys have” fit. It wasn’t fair to Hunter or his jellybean. Quinn pushed the sunglasses up from his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. This had been one hell of a day.

Quinn walked exhaustedly into the house and up the stairs once they got back to Zeus’s. He dropped his keys on the dresser and noticed Tristan’s drawings. “Hey, Hunter, come look at these.” Quinn picked up a few drawings that were lying on the dresser. It appeared Tristan was using the dresser as his table for now.

“Tristan drew those?” Hunter asked as he looked over Quinn’s shoulder.

Quinn picked up one drawing after the next. Most were of the new house being built. The details and design were exemplary. “When he said he liked to draw, I had no idea he was an artist.” Quinn shuffled through a few more, one sketch catching his attention.

A grin spread across his face as he looked at a rendering of all three of them. Tristan was standing in the middle, wearing one of his outrageous outfits, including his fedora hat. But he had drawn Hunter and Quinn as Roman warriors, complete with studded collars, adjustable waist wraps, and lace-up cuffs. “Is this how he sees us?”