Isaiah (17 page)

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

104

Isaiah choked down a whimper. God knew he did. He wanted to feel Bae’s hand coming down on his butt over and over until he felt like his entire backside was on fire. That was a kink he’d never known about before.

Bae cleared his throat. “When I’m not sore, so I can do it properly, make sure you feel it the next day.”

“Hey, food’s here,” Tim hollered, from, it sounded like, the bedroom doorway.

“Later, then,” Isaiah said as goose bumps pebbled his skin. He was going to be thinking about it, often, until Bae did it. Judging by Bae’s smug look, that had been part of the evil man’s plan. No wonder Isaiah loved him.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

105

“I have some people checking into shifters from South Korea, since that’s where Isaiah said they’re from.” Otto took a drink of his beer and set the glass back on the table. “Since you say they aren’t from your lepe, and I believe you about that, then we need to know why they’ve targeted you. And it’d be helpful to know what kind of shifters they are. Usually I can tell from the scent, but lots of things can throw that off, from cologne to terrible hygiene.”

“They stink pretty badly.” Bae’s nose burned just thinking about it. “Kind of remind me of how an animal with mange smells.”

Otto nodded. “So maybe they’re diseased. You said before you didn’t think they were feline, but I do. There’s something there but I can’t put my finger on it just yet. Maybe it’ll come to me soon.”

“Let’s hope.” Bae thought of something. “If they have some kind of illness, maybe they just want me to help them?”

“Then they could ask,” Isaiah muttered. “Fucking assault and attempted kidnapping or whatever they were trying to do is not the way to get help.”

“Sure it is. They take you, you help them or die,” Tim said.

“I don’t buy it.”

“Me either, actually.” Otto drained his glass and shook his head when Isaiah gestured to the fridge. “No, I’m good, thanks. Anyway, if they’d just been looking for someone to play doctor for them, why would they have stalked Bae for days, maybe even weeks?”

Bae arched a brow. “Uh, maybe because I’m a shifter and a veterinarian? It’s not like I’d freak out if they turned into another creature instead of being human.”

“Bae has a point,” Isaiah conceded. “But I still…I dunno. I just don’t get why they wouldn’t simply ask.”

Tim tapped the table with his fingers, drumming a hard, fast beat. “Because not everyone is as honest and trusting as you are, Isaiah, and I don’t mean that bad at all. There www.total-e-bound.com

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Bailey Bradford

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are just plenty of people who’d rather steal something than be given it, and dishonest people tend to see the same in most everyone else except their marks.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Otto grunted and Bae, along with Isaiah and Tim, looked at him. Otto appeared distracted, chewing on half his bottom lip. He took out his phone and tapped on the screen.

Bae and the other two exchanged curious glances, then Tim huffed and sat back in his chair.

Otto’s smile was huge, and Tim’s moan wasn’t quite muffled. Otto held up his phone.

“It occurred to me that I’d read an article in a medical journal a few years back on the different types of wildlife in South Korea. It mentioned there having been reports of hybrids over a hundred years ago, something called pumapards, I shit you not.”

“So you think these fuckwits from earlier might be pumapards?” Isaiah asked, then snickered. “Jeez, I can’t even say that without laughing. Pumapards.”

“Think about it,” Bae said. “Seriously, my lepe is all uptight about introducing any new species into their bloodlines. This is the kind of thing they fear, some different breed of shifter. If they were a mixed breed, what might they have gone through?”

“I’m an asshole for laughing,” Isaiah muttered. “Shit.”

“It’s just a supposition. We don’t have any facts other than that they’ve been following Bae, they are shifters and smell bad, and they tried to either hurt or nab Bae today.” Otto snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, and Bae hurt both of them. I’m going to go check those slides if that’s okay with you, Bae?”

“Sure is.” Bae pointed at the keys hanging on the key holder and immediately felt like a dumbass. Otto and Tim had been the last ones in the van, so they’d hung the keys up. Isaiah had been with him.

Tim went with Otto and Bae and Isaiah took care of the dishes. They’d inhaled three pizzas between the four of them, so there were no leftovers. Bae checked the time, startled to find it wasn’t even five yet. Somehow the events from earlier seemed like they’d happened days ago. He checked his hand and Isaiah did too.

“That must have been one mad cat,” Isaiah observed as he brushed his thumb over the puncture wounds on the back of Bae’s hand.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

107

“No, just scared and hurting. It was my fault. I thought he was a nice little kitty so I was holding him when I gave him his vaccination.” Bae still wondered why he’d done that. “I knew better. You just don’t put yourself at risk. I didn’t know that cat or his temperament.”

“What about the dog?”

Bae wiggled his fingers on the same hand. “Bessy just nipped me, really. She didn’t break the skin, just startled me.”

“Hmm. Well, I think there’s a little swelling.” Isaiah brought Bae’s hand up to his lips, and with his gaze locked to Bae’s, he began dropping feather-light kisses over Bae’s fingers.

“Just trying to kiss it better.”

Every kiss made Bae’s stomach tingle, and the look in Isaiah’s eyes made other parts of him tingle and harden. When Isaiah licked between his fingers, Bae almost whimpered. The only reason he didn’t was because he clamped his teeth down until his jaw hurt. Then he wondered why he was fighting it. Isaiah knew what Bae was feeling, but besides that, why would he want to deny Isaiah hearing the sounds he brought up in Bae?

So Bae unclenched his teeth and let his eyelids fall almost completely shut with the next swipe of Isaiah’s tongue. “Oh, God,” he whimpered, scooting closer, seeking more touches.

Isaiah sucked two fingers into his mouth and scraped his teeth down them. Bae wasn’t sore from the dog bite, not really. The forceful suckling Isaiah was doing was arousing, not painful.

Isaiah herded him back a few steps until Bae was pressed against the wall. He hitched up a leg, standing on his toes of his left foot and catching his right around Isaiah’s hips.

Isaiah, smart man that he was, hefted Bae up so he could wind both legs around Isaiah’s waist.

More teeth on his skin as Isaiah gently nibbled his fingers. Isaiah’s hands were on his ass, kneading and massaging Bae’s cheeks. Bae started a slow grind, his arms around Isaiah’s neck as he undulated, finding the perfect amount of pressure on his cock. Isaiah seemed happy with it too, considering the long moan that rippled up from his chest. His dick was hard and when Bae rocked up and down, he rubbed Isaiah’s length too.

“Hey, we’re…” Tim coughed. “Done.”

Bae jerked so hard the back of his head made a hollow thud sound as it hit the wall.

Isaiah rumbled and kept right on, blowing Bae’s fingers, rutting against him for several www.total-e-bound.com

ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

108

seconds more before letting Bae’s fingers slip from his mouth. Isaiah was panting softly as he rested his forehead on Bae’s shoulder.

“You have shitty timing, Tim.” Isaiah didn’t sound mad though. In fact, Bae was sure he was amused—and horny, very very horny. “A few minutes later and you would have gotten an eyeful.”

“Er, I love you and everything, but just no.” Tim shuddered and Otto looked thoughtful for a minute until Tim elbowed him in the ribs and mock-glared. “No. Perv.”

“I was just thinking it’d be like a live porno—” Otto began, his grin barely held back.

“Starring my brother!” Tim smacked Otto’s shoulder. “That’s all kinds of wrong, and if I didn’t know you were teasing me just to ruffle my fur, I’d tap your balls hard enough to make your eyes roll back in your head.”

Otto blanched and dropped his hands in front of his groin. “Good thing I didn’t mean it then,” he said, his voice higher pitched than his normal rumbling baritone. “I’m lucky to have a mate who has a great sense of humour.”

Tim snorted but his cheeks darkened and a pleased look flitted over his expression.

“Flatterer. Tell them about the slides.”

“Why don’t you and Bae join us in the living room?” Otto suggested. “Take a few minutes to, you know. Calm down.”

“Calm down.” Bae almost held back his laugh, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Okay, we’ll do that.”

Isaiah helped Bae get his feet under him before sliding an arm around Bae’s shoulders.

“Are you calm now?”

Instead of answering, Bae ran the back of his hand over Isaiah’s softening cock, bringing it back to full erectness. “I’m calmer than you are.”

Of course he wasn’t for long because making Isaiah hard made him the same way.

“Damn it,” Bae grumbled. “We can’t keep them waiting long enough to do what I want, which is strip you and fuck you until you scream my name.”

Isaiah groaned and closed his eyes as he squeezed his dick. “God, you’re not helping.”

He lightly thumped his length, and winced—and Bae winced as well. Just seeing Isaiah do that to himself was painful. Effective, too. Both of them were presentable in moments, no www.total-e-bound.com

ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

109

longer sporting hard-ons. They walked into the living room and sat on the couch. Bae tipped his chin in Otto’s direction. “So, the slides? What exactly were you looking at?”

Otto gestured at Tim. “We both looked at the blood samples under the slides. It’s not possible to tell if someone is a shifter that way, but other things are evident if one knows how to read the slides.” Otto nodded at Tim, who took over, eyes bright and eager as he leant forward.

“Right. So, there was an excess of white blood cells. I really wish we could have done a complete work-up on the blood, but we didn’t have enough of it that wasn’t a smear or whatever. And, it wasn’t like the stuff was in a vial with some heparin. We’re lucky we got to read anything at all useful.”

Bae mentally ran through numerous disorders that could cause a high white blood cell count. “It could mean anything from a mild infection to cancer or leukemia.”

“We’re talking something more than a mild infection,” Tim said. “The increase was significant enough to make us wonder if your attackers weren’t already dead. Something bad was happening in their bodies at the time they bled.”

“So maybe they are desperate for help, then.” Bae felt bad for tearing into them now.

“But like Isaiah said earlier, why not just come to me?”

It was Otto who answered when Tim tossed him a ‘tag you’re it’ look. “Think of how you were raised, Bae. Isolated for the most part. That isn’t unusual for shifters. There’s so much danger if we’re found out. But, in cases of severe isolation, anyone can be warped by it.

Also, there are abusive people who use fear and seclusion to control others. We don’t know what kind of shifters those two were, or are, or what their life was like up until now.”

“Also, whatever might be wrong with them health-wise, it almost certainly has nothing to do with them being shifters, I would think.” Tim scrunched his brow as he stared at the floor. “I mean, what’s inside us is spiritual.”

“Yet it keeps us safe from most human diseases,” Isaiah pointed out before Bae could.

“And I know we are whatever we are when we die—cat, human, wolf, whatever. But there has to be something in our DNA. Maybe it can’t survive without our bodies being alive or…or I don’t know, I’m just a mechanic, but it seems to me there’d be more to it.” He shrugged as Bae sat, impressed and stunned—because he agreed with Isaiah’s assumption and Bae had never questioned what he’d been told, more fool he—as Isaiah continued. “I www.total-e-bound.com

ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

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mean, has there been DNA tests and stuff like that, whatever profiling they can do, has it been done?”

Otto and Tim looked a little bug-eyed as they shook their heads. “No, no it hasn’t because we don’t really have the equipment or facilities or skills to do in depth examinations of our DNA.”

Tim leant forward, placing a hand on Otto’s knee as he interrupted. “Not to mention, to have evidence like that, indisputable proof of our existence, that’d be so dangerous. But—”

Tim frowned and turned to Otto. “If there is more to us, then how does one’s shifter abandon them?”

“All I can do is postulate that there has to be some combination then of spiritual and genetic?” Otto asked, clearly uncertain of his supposition. “Damn it, there’s just so much we don’t know about shifters, and there’s no way to find out without revealing ourselves to the world.”

They sat there contemplating a paradox Bae knew they might—no, almost certainly would—never solve. “I hate to think we just have to accept that we may never understand what makes us the creatures we are.”

“Maybe it’s a matter of faith.”

Bae, along with Otto and Tim, looked at Isaiah, who turned a pretty shade of pink.

“What? Is it so hard to believe? We have a spirit shifter in us. Why can’t we just accept what we are instead of questioning it?” Isaiah leaned away from Bae slightly. “I’m not trying to sound stupid or anything—”

“You’re not!” Bae snapped at the same time Tim and Otto protested at Isaiah’s statement. “Don’t ever think that! I surely hadn’t put as much thought into this as you have. I just accepted it and figured, whatever.”

Bae twisted around on the couch and took Isaiah’s hands in his, making sure Isaiah could feel every bit of emotion Bae felt, including his pride in Isaiah. “You’ve apparently spent time thinking about what we are, and have ideas on it. How could that ever, ever make you sound stupid? I feel like a total dumbass for just keeping the blinders on and never caring about us being shifters, beyond the fact that we are.”