Chasing Shadows (Daemons of San DeLain, #1)

by M.A. Church

There was a monster under his bed! And it knew his name! He wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream or throw up. Maybe both. His chest hurt, and he couldn’t swallow. He whimpered. Monsters were real. They were real, and one was in his room with him. What was it going to do to him? Was it… was it going to— “Oh, hey, no. None of that! I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe.” Nowhere was safe. Never had been. “I promise.”

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.

If Kage wanted, he could do anything he pleased with Austin. Anything. At. All. There was no one or no thing that could stop Kage. What the hell had he been thinking coming here alone? Or coming here at all? In all the time he’d known about the monster under his bed, he’d never been afraid of him—until now.

Looking back, he understood why Kage had been standoffish. Austin still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that Kage was five hundred years old. Kage’s hesitancy back then made sense. But Austin was grown up now. Maybe not so much by a paranormal’s standard, but Austin was human. There were only so many years of life he was allotted, and he was done wasting them. He was ready to get to know Kage as a man.

“He’s not a boy anymore. He’s grown.” Hudson laughed. Loudly. “He’s a babe in the woods.” “Thanks for making me felt like a dirty old man.” Kage collapsed in the chair across from Hudson.

It would be so, so easy to fall in love with his monster. Austin closed his eyes and inhaled that familiar vanilla almondy scent that was Kage. He had depended on and trusted Kage in some form or fashion almost his entire life. The monster under his bed was there for him when the other adults in his life couldn’t be bothered or simply didn’t care. Easy to fall in love with him? Who was Austin kidding? He was already halfway there.

Okay, he needed to get a grip. Just because he couldn’t whip up a magic spell, sport some neat looking scales, or disappear into a shadow, didn’t mean he was inadequate. Maybe if he told himself that a few hundred more times, he’d believe it.

The surge of emotions nearly knocked Austin off his feet. It was a tangle of happiness, contentment, desire, and… love. Yeah. If he had any doubts before, they were gone. This feeling wasn’t something he had ever felt before. Love was certainly not shown in his family, so he didn’t have a lot of experience with it. He also didn’t have a doubt in his mind that was what it was. His feelings for Kage had grown over the years into something he knew could last a lifetime. And he wanted that—a lifetime. Several of them, in fact.

Kage debated on whether he should tell Austin what was going on. Austin might be human, but he had a right to know if the situation he was involved in could be dangerous. He laughed silently at his word choice. Situation. He was the situation, and there was no getting around the fact that being involved with Kage could be considered hazardous.

Austin lightly thumped Kage on the shoulder. “Just so you know? That’s only a little bit stalkerish.” “Just a little bit? I was going for full on.”

“So long. I’ve waited so long. I wait no longer. You are my everything. My only.”