“Nice to see you too,” he muttered, stepping back into the studio to face the other man’s sturdy form. Stripes and spots tattooed on Terje’s skin climbed from under his outfit, as bold as the man’s ruggedly masculine features
Terje was a good fuck, though infinitely more interested in his compatriot, Lars, who was no longer there, due to unfortunate circumstances.
Terje snorted and walked up to them, already in his costume made of tiger skin, which only covered one of his pecs and left his muscular thighs on show. “I meant no disrespect. So where’s the bastard hiding?”
A part of Cole wanted to tell him the truth, but there hadn’t been anything serious between the two, so perhaps it was better to spare Terje the painful details. And if one was to lie, better to do it in style. “He left for Argentina some time ago.”
Terje spread his arms and scowled. “What?”
Gavin blinked theatrically. “That sounds like him. Always out to find the next grand adventure.”
Yes. Yes, he was.
Cole made himself smile. “Don’t think we’ll ever hear from him again. Sorry, Terje,” he said, leading the way out. “That why you’re in your costume already?”
The man’s boulder-sized shoulders sagged, but he nodded. “No underwear,” he added and lifted the skirts of the pelt tunic to show off his privates. He had the decency to wear tight pants for the shows, but Cole rather liked him indecent.
Terje was an all-around good egg. Handsome, friendly, and just as delightfully frank about things he did not like as he was about the things he did enjoy. No man was honest or trustworthy, but this one came damn close, even by Cole’s standards.
“I’m here with a different friend,” Cole said, letting his words hang in the air like tempting perfume.
Terje cocked his head, and the disappointed frown turned into a smile. “Good-looking?”
Cole’s stomach turned into a heavy rock, but he nodded, because this was the decent thing to do. He was certain of it now—if he was to leave Ned, he needed to make sure Ned had someone to keep him sane. Away from booze and all the Wolfman horseshit. And who’d be a better candidate than good-natured Terje? Maybe they could even work together, since Ned bonded with animals with such ease.
“He is a bit lost though. And got attached to me. It would do him good to spend time with someone else.”
The bright green eyes drilled into him. “What do you mean ‘lost’? Speak frankly.”
“As in, I’m the only man he ever fucked.”
“I get it, a bit feral. I’m good with those.” Terje nodded with a grin that had Cole itching to punch him. Still, he went with it and walked with Terje, circling the main tent at an easy pace. He had no right to Ned if he didn’t plan to keep him.
“So you’re up for the challenge?”
Terje rubbed his massive hands together. “Always.”
The sun shone from behind a wispy cloud, the smell of popcorn hung in the air, and Adam had promised Cole a shower. So why the hell was he miserable like a baby crying that it was being denied mother’s milk when it was high time to stop hanging at her breast?
A shriek tore through the air and ripped Cole out of his thoughts. Moments later, a loud bang followed, and then voices. Voices Cole did not recognize. They were coming from the large tent at the very back of the enclosed grounds.
Chapter 20
Terje ducked out of the encampment’s main alley and into a back area where some of the more unsavory entertainments were relegated to, so the women, children, and moralists wouldn’t have to face the reality of how popular they were. Cole followed him at top speed. The folk traveling with Jan Dudek’s show weren’t strangers to brawling, but one of the voices belonged to a woman, and it didn’t sound like a battle cry.
Cole took a deep breath when he stopped in the middle of the back alley, only to move when something fell over in the tent where an exotic dance show was featured on a nightly basis. The silhouette of a naked woman painted on the entryway rocked her body with every blow of the breeze, but even if the cries couldn’t have convinced him to run in without thinking, Ned’s voice did. He stormed past the flap of heavy fabric without waiting for Terje to catch up with him.
The exotic dancer, Parita, kneeled on stage and bawled, shaking her husband’s unconscious body while fresh blood glistened on the side of the wooden podium, but the immediate threat wasn’t to her.
Ned writhed in a man’s hold so ferociously he lifted the bastard off the floor, but a harsh punch to the face from another stranger made his head wobble. Cole felt the impact of the hit as a phantom pain in his own jaw, and let out an inhuman growl he didn’t recognize as his own voice.
Terje grabbed a chair from in front of the podium and rushed at the guy holding Ned’s arms back.
Cole’s instinct was to pull out his revolver and blow the bastard’s brains all over the canvas behind him, but in such close quarters the lead might end up in Ned’s flesh instead, so he ran up to the bear-like sonofabitch who’d split Ned’s lip, and hooked his arm under the thick neck, pulling with all the strength he had.
Most folk would have tried to force the intruding arm away from their throat, but this bully did no such thing, and within the blink of an eye, Cole found himself falling back, as if the big bastard’s strategy was to crush him.
Squashed between the heavy body and the dirt floor, Cole saw stars when a dull pain radiated in his ribs. By the time he managed to breathe again and opened his eyes, a bloodshot gaze stared down at him from a flushed face, and something sharp dug into the flesh of his throat.
“Don’t you fucking dare move!” the man yelled, spraying spittle on Cole’s face. Cole’s brain was still spinning, but the features above promised more violence, teeth grinding as if they were about to break.
Just as he was considering his chances, two big hands he knew intimately grabbed the sides of the thug’s head and pulled it back, away from Cole. The knife in the man’s hand nipped Cole’s skin, but Ned roared his fury as if he were the Wolfman again, and with one twist of his arms, snapped the man’s neck so fast, the victim didn’t get to utter a final scream.
The body on top of Cole sagged, bloodshot eyes wide open and bulging, but Cole rolled from under it as fast as he could, his gaze meeting the other thug’s behind Ned’s back. Fear shone back at him from the unshaven face. The lowlife had realized they weren’t the vulnerable sheep he and his companion had thought them to be, and opened his mouth, about to beg for his life.
But there could be no witnesses to what Ned had done, so Cole put a bullet in the other stranger’s forehead in a single, clean shot.
He dropped like a sack of potatoes, leaving Parita’s sobs and Terje’s panting as the only noise.
Ned hunched over, wild eyed searching for more threats, but when he saw none, there wasn’t a force that could have kept him from Cole’s side.
“You’re bleeding!” He kneeled next to Cole to inspect his neck despite his own nose dripping with blood.
“So are you,” Cole said, drunk on the heat of violence and threat. He wiped the red sheen from Ned’s face and smiled, feeling like in the old days, when moments like this were an integral part of friendship.