Page 37 of Bear the Burden

“How on earth did he hear you?” Wesley asked in confusion. His brother shouldn’t have been able to hear him.

Hyett tapped his ear. “Heightened senses. He only yelled for your benefit.”

The more Wesley learned, the more he wondered whether he was fascinated with Hyett’s world or afraid of it.

“I’ll go grab it.” Hyett headed for the door. “Gather what you’ll need. I’ll be right back.”

Wesley pulled open dresser drawers as Hyett walked left the room. He wasn’t sure what to take, so he pulled his entire stack of underwear out. A guy could never have enough clean pairs. Now he wished he’d mated his socks instead of throwing them into a drawer and matching them when needed.

He stilled as the closest door to his left slowly opened. Wesley’s heart pounded hard as he watched Seth walk out of it. He couldn’t have been hiding in there. Wesley just checked his closet, and it had been demon free.

“We must hurry, Wesley. I’m risking being away from my signal jammer.” Seth slapped a hand over Wesley’s mouth and yanked him into the closet before he could scream.

* * * *

As he stepped into the living room, Hyett surveyed the chaos he’d caused in his desperate attempt to reach Wesley. The image of his mate lying unconscious on the closet floor was seared into his mind.

Closing his eyes, Hyett took a deep breath. It seemed Wesley wasn’t the only one who’d been traumatized by what happened in this room. Hyett fought against the urge to turn and walk out, but he needed to grab Wesley’s backpack.

Kicking aside plastic storage bins, he pushed away thoughts of how frantically he had yanked them out of the closet to find his mate hiding behind them.

Hyett kept trying to take deep breaths to calm himself down and still his spinning thoughts when he suddenly heard a stranger’s voice.

“We must hurry, Wesley. I’m risking being away from my signal jammer.”

Heart pounding, Hyett sprinted toward Wesley’s bedroom just as the closet door clicked shut. He wasted no time in flinging it open, but there were no people inside. “Wesley!”

As Hyett began to hyperventilate, Killian burst into the bedroom. The demon had used the shadows, taking advantage of the darkness in Wesley’s closet to sneak into his mate’s room.

Why hadn’t Hyett considered that possibility?

And where had the demon taken Wesley?

“Calm your breathing,” Killian instructed. “We’ll find him.”

“It was my responsibility to protect him.” Hyett turned to Killian as his father and Ryker entered the room. “I never should have brought him here. I practically handed my mate over to that demon.”

Quinton quickly placed a call while Hyett struggled to catch his breath. The room began to spin, leaving him disoriented.

“Stay focused.” Killian grasped his face. “You’re having a panic attack, little brother. Focus and calm your breathing.”

He couldn’t breathe. Why was Killian telling him to do the impossible? His chest was tight, and it felt like it was being crushed.

“Hyett, concentrate on me,” Killian urged, his voice laced with worry. “Look at me and take deep breaths in through your nose then slowly release them through your mouth.”

“I-I can’t.” Wesley was such a brave, beautiful man, but he had been through so much already. Seth and Morton had threatened to kill his mate, and now they actually had him.

You have to calm down. Wesley needs you.

Hyett did his best to listen to Killian’s voice and mirror his breathing. Gradually, his racing heart began to slow down and the room came back into focus.

“I have a location,” Quinton announced. “A guy I know is familiar with the drug dealer named Seth. He gave me an address. Let’s go get your mate, Hyett. I want my son-in-law back where he belongs.”

Hyett felt his bear rise to the surface with a deadly growl. He had no idea who Seth was, but the demon was about to learn that messing with his family was a deadly mistake.

Chapter Ten

Wesley stumbled out of a door and into a hallway. Feeling queasy, he dropped to his hands and knees on the cold floor, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

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