Chapter 4 #2
An attractive young male capable of twisting himself into every customer’s fantasy? Add in the fact that it was literally his job to stroke their egos and pretend he enjoyed their company, and that would have been like catnip to assholes with money to burn.
This time, Dominic couldn’t hold back the growl that thundered in his chest.
Decades of violence had earned the Blackrock Pack their ruthless reputation, but they still lived by a strict code. They didn’t deal in weapons or drugs. They never exploited the weak.
And they damn sure didn’t hurt kids.
That last one wasn’t merely a standard they held themselves to either. It was Dominic’s most absolute law.
Anyone caught breaking that law paid for it in blood. As far as he was concerned, a special place of torment in the Underworld awaited those who harmed children and animals.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Sammy hurried to explain when he saw his reaction. “I had to smile and laugh at their jokes. Pour their drinks. Compliment them.” He deflated, folding in on himself, and his voice dropped to a murmur. “I just couldn’t leave.”
He felt a small flicker of relief that Sammy hadn’t been taken advantage of in other ways, but it did little to assuage his anger. Even knowing Sammy had managed to escape that life didn’t change anything.
Dominic wanted to hunt down every person who had played a part in his mate’s suffering and peel them apart piece by piece.
“Elaborate,” he ordered, trying and failing to sound neutral.
The answer didn’t really matter, but Dominic did need him to keep talking.
“You mean why I couldn’t leave?”
He nodded.
“A summoning spell. Technically, I could leave. I even tried it a couple of times.” Sammy looked up at him, an entire world of pain and hopelessness shining in his eyes. “I made it as far as Houston once. I was walking down the street, then the next thing I knew, I was back at the club.”
Instincts, unbidden and uncomfortable, welled up inside him. His hand—the same hand that craved brutality only moments before—now ached with the desire to reach out and soothe, to offer some measure of comfort.
He didn’t.
Curling his fingers into his palm, he slid his hand off the table and rested it in his lap. Things like gentleness and empathy didn’t come naturally to him, but that was only one reason he held back.
Based on Sammy’s behavior, the quickness in which he had settled with him, Dominic suspected he felt their connection on an intrinsic level. He just hadn’t recognized it consciously yet.
Fae, including changelings, interpreted the world through energy. Sometimes, like now, that understanding required touch.
Dominic didn’t take pleasure in withholding information, but he didn’t feel guilty about it either. He saw it as nothing more than a necessary precaution until he had a better read on the guy.
His parents had taught him to respect the natural order, and fate happened to be a part of that order. That didn’t make it infallible or unchangeable, though.
“But you did eventually make it out,” he nudged. “How?”
“The owner of the club died.” Sammy shrugged and reached for his coffee. Clearly no love lost there. “I took the money I had saved up over the years, and here I am.”
His retelling lacked a few of the in-between details, but it didn’t matter to the overall story, so Dominic didn’t push. He didn’t need to know everything. He just needed to keep the conversation moving in the right direction.
“If the contract is void, what’s the problem?”
Sighing, Sammy sank deeper into his chair and began toying with a silvery blue stone held on his wrist by a leather cord. “That contract ended, but the relique still exists. Now, my mother has it again, which means she’s probably looking for a new buyer.”
Even as another growl built in his chest at the idea of his mate being bartered and sold like property, he recognized that something didn’t add up. He didn’t know exactly when Sammy had left Texas, but the Cherry on Top had opened a couple of years ago.
He didn’t know Valerie Halloway personally, but he had known plenty of people like her. Scheming. Greedy. Opportunistic. She didn’t strike him as the type to wait that long to reclaim such a lucrative investment.
“I honestly don’t know,” Sammy said when Dominic posed the question. “Part of me expected her to come sooner as well.”
Dominic arched an eyebrow. “And the other part?”
“Hoped the relique was buried and gone.”
That wasn’t how blood magic worked, not even a little. “Why would you think that?”
“I saw the locket on Chandler’s neck at his funeral. I figured that meant it had been buried with him.”
For a full minute, Dominic remained quiet, trying to decide if the guy could really be that damn naive.
“You saw the locket, and it didn’t cross your mind to take it?”
Sammy jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “What the hell did you want me to do? Take it off his dead body right there in the funeral home?”
He continued to stare at him.
“Are you crazy? I can’t just grave rob someone.”
“He wasn’t in the grave yet.”
Sammy huffed. “You know what I mean.”
He did, and he thought it sounded ludicrous. “Well, someone took it.”
“My mom.”
Maybe, but Dominic didn’t think so. After everything he’d learned, he didn’t put it past the female to desecrate a burial site. He couldn’t, however, reconcile the timing.
Unless something—or someone—had prevented her from retrieving the totem sooner.
Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. The damage had already been done, but he liked being prepared. Knowing who else would be bold enough to steal jewelry off a dead man seemed like information he should have.
Thankfully, it shouldn’t be that hard to find out.
“How do you know she has the relique?”
“Someone I used to work with called me a few nights ago. Kiev said she came to the club, and she had the locket.”
“What did he say exactly?” Dominic pressed. “Did he say she brought it with her?”
Sammy chewed his bottom lip, his eyes soft and unfocused as he thought. “He texted me that she had just left the club. When I called him, all he said was that she had the locket.”
Which could mean anything or nothing at all. She might have shown him the locket. She might have only said she had it. Worse, this Kiev guy could have been the one to give it to her. As it stood, he had no way of knowing which possibility was the truth.
Seemed like he’d be making a trip to Galveston soon.
“Anything else?”
Sammy shook his head. “Only that she left in a cab for the airport.” A small, almost silent sigh puffed from his lips. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not much.”
While he might not know where Valerie was going or what she planned to do with the relique, he’d actually gleaned quite a bit from their conversation.
“Do you see why I need your help?” Sammy leaned forward in his seat, his eyes wide and beseeching. “Like I said on the phone, I can pay you. I have some money saved up, but if—”
“I don’t want your money.”
He had already decided to help the changeling track down his mother, but in the meantime, he had to figure out what to do with him. If Valerie could summon Sammy to her side, she had no reason to come for him, but Dominic didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone.
He could assign a pack member to watch over him for a few days. That would be the most logical and efficient thing to do.
As soon as the thought came to him, his shoulders tightened and his jaw clenched, his body vehemently rejecting the solution.
“If you don’t want money,” Sammy said, hesitation returning. “What do you want?”
Honestly, he didn’t know, but he was already in too deep to turn back now.
“I think it would be best if you came and stayed with me while we figure this out.”
Sammy blinked, his expression an adorable combination of optimism and disbelief. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”
“Yes, but if we do this, we do it my way. Understood?”
Then he steeled himself, leaned forward, and stretched his hand across the table.
Sammy stared at it for a long time before reaching out to take it. The reaction was instant.
The moment their skin touched, he stiffened, and his fingers tightened reflexively, his blunt nails biting into Dominic’s knuckles. His eyes rounded. His nostrils flared. His lips parted, falling open in a soft O.
“You knew,” he accused once he found his voice, but he didn’t pull his hand away.
Dominic nodded.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Because…”
“I’ve decided to trust you,” Dominic answered bluntly. Gripping his mate’s hand, he jerked him forward across the table until he could feel the static electricity crackle between their lips. “Don’t make me regret it.”