Tuesday Teaser

 

~excerpt from Chasing Shadows

Austin blinked some more, but Tom didn’t miraculously reappear.

“Don’t frighten him, Hudson,” the black-headed one said as he drew nearer.

Hudson? That was the red-headed man’s name? That wasn’t a name he heard often these days. “I’m not really—”

“His heart rate just spiked cause of you,” his monster said.

Wait. They could hear his heart beating?

“Right. It had nothing to do with the human falling into a shadow and disappearing.”

Austin glanced back at the red-headed man, or whatever he was, standing beside him. He blinked again. At this rate he was going to sprain his eyelids.

“Most likely it was due to your slitted pupils. Or possibly the yellow eyes.”

Austin’s attention returned to the black-headed man.

“I’m thinking it’s the black veins all over you. And have you seen your eyes?”

“Guys! Can I get a word in here?” Austin said, jumping in. “I’m not really frightened.”

His monster stopped in front of him. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I tried so hard through the years for you not to witness such. My name is Kage. Kage Dargan.”

“My monster,” Austin whispered.

Kage inclined his head slightly. “Your monster. The being next to you is Hudson Redmond. He’s a very good friend of mine.”

Austin raised an eyebrow.

Hudson snickered. “That’s not an euphemism for anything. We truly are only friends.”

Heat raced up Austin’s face. Had he been that obvious? Okay, so what if he had? That was his monster. Hudson could go get his own damn monster.

Actually, what was Hudson? What supernatural creature had scales besides the obvious one? For that matter, what exactly was a shadow demon? That was what Tom called Kage. And speaking of Tom, what the hell kind of shadows made folks vanish? Questions. He had them.

“Cat got your tongue?” Hudson asked.

Austin scowled at the man next to him. Could the dude give him a moment to get his thoughts in order?

Kage cleared his throat, drawing Austin’s attention back to him. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Well, crap. He really, really didn’t want to explain how he’d gotten himself in trouble. Then again, if his monster hadn’t been so insistent on not being seen, they probably wouldn’t have ended up in this predicament. Honestly, it was his monster’s fault.

Kage. Got to remember to call him Kage. That was going to take some getting used to. For as long as he could remember, he’d referred to the creature under his bed as his monster or Mr. Monster.

“Austin?”

“Really, I’m blaming you for all this.” Nodding, Austin folded his arms across his chest. Best to establish that up front.

Hudson snorted.

“Oh?” Kage asked, leaning against some random battered truck in the parking lot. “Do tell?”

That was a nonchalant pose if he’d ever seen one. Too bad Austin wasn’t buying it. “Okay, see, if you would’ve just shown yourself like I’ve been asking for all these years—”

Kage groaned. “Please tell me you weren’t trying to get information on me.”

“Okay. I won’t tell you I was trying to get information on you.” Austin slapped his most innocent look on his face.

Hudson outright laughed. “Damn, I wish I would’ve thought to video this.”

“Do it, and I promise that cell phone will disappear,” Kage snapped.

“Yeah, speaking of disappearing, what the hell happened to Tom?” Austin asked. “How does somebody fall into a shadow and vanish?”

Hudson laughed again.

“And you!” Austin swung around and pointed his finger at Hudson. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

“I can’t wait,” Hudson said, grinning from ear to ear.

Kage pinched the bridge of his nose. “Austin? What happened here?”

“It’s like I said. You wouldn’t tell me what you are—hell, you wouldn’t even let me see you—so I took matters into my own hands. I started trying to research what you could be. There’s this thing called the Internet—”

Hudson shook his head. “Good gods.”

“Hey! No comments from the peanut gallery.” Hands on hips, Austin glared at Hudson.

“I like your human, Kage. I think he’s going to be great fun.”

“As I was saying, I was looking for information. I found some message boards and chat rooms”—Austin shot a warning look at Hudson who was groaning again—“and struck up conversations with some people. Tom was one of those conversations.”

“Of course he was.” Kage pushed off the truck and prowled toward Austin. “Let me see if I have this right. You met a complete stranger—”

“He wasn’t a complete stranger! I’d spoken to him a few times.” Holy shit, he’d written characters who prowled toward their love interest before, but whoa. He had no idea it was so damn sexy.

“Forgive me,” Kage said, voice deepening. “I’m sure speaking to him a few times made a world of difference.”

That voice tugged on something in the pit of Austin’s stomach, making his belly tight. The tone could use some work, though.

“And then you met this stranger in one of the less desirable sections of this city. By yourself.” Kage stopped in front of Austin. “You, a well-known author, who just happens to be rich.”

Austin gulped. That voice, the black eyes, those black veins… how was that sexy? Kage was so close he could smell Kage’s cologne. It reminded him of… vanilla? Almonds too. His cock twitched. It turned him on, just like the man standing in front of him.

Only this wasn’t a man.

“Whatever could go wrong with that?” Kage asked softly.

Austin swore he felt Kage’s breath against his skin. They were practically nose to nose. “And if you had just shown me yourself, none of this would have ever happened.”

“Gods!” Kage’s eyes dropped to Austin’s lips then snapped back up. “You’re as stubborn as you were when you were a little boy!”

“Pot? Meet kettle.” Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.

Hudson cleared his throat. “If I could interject for a—”

“No!” Both Kage and Austin yelled. Startled, they moved back a few steps from each other, breaking the spell.

“I swear by all the dead gods, you two need to fuck and get it over with. You both stink of arousal.”

Austin spluttered. There was no way Hudson knew Austin was horny. He couldn’t. Shit. Could he?     

“Austin? Kage is a daemon.”

“What? A… what? A demon?”

“No, no, it’s pronounced day-mon. He’s a supernatural being who can shift into a humanoid form,” Hudson said. “Their skin tone in daemon form ranges from gray, to dark gray, to black. He’s partially shifted right now.”

Kage glowered at Hudson. “I am more than capable of explaining who and what—”

“Really? Because I’m still not sure if you two are going to fight or fuck.”

“Hey!” Austin exclaimed.                                    

“Anyway, as I was saying, some of his kind have wings. Others don’t. Some have tails. Others don’t. Some have fangs. Others don’t. But they are not demons.”

“No, we most definitely are not,” Kage said.

“The confusion comes from the spelling for daemon and demon. Both words are often used interchangeably,” Hudson continued. “Thank the Medieval monks for confusing the subject.”

“I never thought he was a demon,” Austin said, gazing at Kage. “Even as a kid.”

“I know.” Affection tinged Hudson’s voice. “He was your monster.”

“Yeah.” Austin stared steadily at Kage. “My monster.”

The stiffness in Kage’s body left. He lifted his hand and ran a knuckle down Austin’s cheek. “And yet you never feared me.”

“The real monster in my life back then was not you. It was never you.”