Page 56 of Damien’s Mate

It made him want to fucking kill something.

One day he was on the porch, working on a small carving of a snowy owl, when Jaeda came by and admired it. “That’s really pretty,” she said. “You could paint it, too.”

“Sure,” he grunted, feeling grumpy. “Why not take on another old-guy hobby? Remind me to get some suspenders, and sandals and Bermuda shorts to wear with my black socks.”

Remy came up behind Jaeda and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You should get some of the big stumps from where we cut down firewood and do chainsaw carving. That’s manly. It might at least make your shriveled old-guy balls grow back shiny and new.”

“I could get the chainsaw and carve you up, Lowlpard,” Damien said, but there was no heat behind it. He kind of liked it when Remy fucked with him. It made him feel like part of the crew.

Jaeda said, “He’s not wrong, though.” Damien gave her the side-eye, one eyebrow raised. “About the carvings, not your balls, numbnuts.”

“So you’re saying my balls won’t grow back?”

“And the numbness won’t wear off?” Remy asked.

Jaeda rolled her eyes. “I’m saying you could do bigger carvings. It would be cool.”

Damien shrugged. “Maybe. I’d need a lot of shit, though. Chisels, power tools, planes, sandpaper… And a place to work.”

Brock came trotting up in wolf form, putting his front paws on the porch railing. He Changed, turning into a human with his arms resting on the railing, and his dick at eye-level to Damien.

Remy muttered, “Put your wanger away, dude. My mate doesn’t need to see that.”

Damien didn’t need to see it either. He tossed Brock a pair of jeans that were lying across the chair next to him.

Brock pulled on the jeans, tucked in his junk and zipped up. “Squatch has a ton of tools up in his cabin,” he said to Damien. “He’s mostly a stone carver, but he does some wood, too. I bet he’d let you use his stuff.”

Damien had never been to Titan’s cabin—he just knew it was up the hillside in the woods, beyond the shooting range and axe-throwing targets. The bear had been friendlier since they went to Penile together, but he and Damien weren’t exactly close.

And despite Callie’s claim that he was a teddy bear, those silver eyes were still disturbing.

“You really think I’m going to the serial-killer bear’s den without an invitation? No.”

Brock said, “He’s all right. Come on. I’ll take you up.”

“You should go,” Jaeda said. “Make something big and manly. Your balls will thank you.”

Which was how Damien somehow found himself, still carrying his owl, following Brock up the hillside to Titan’s cabin.

It was nothing at all like he expected. There was a small patch of level ground around it, dotted with stone sculptures.

Animals. Strange, deformed people. A couple of rectangular things resembling gravestones. An angel with horns, and a three-foot-high horse with wings and a snake head, like Damien had seen on Lila’s bracelet. There was one sculpture that was of flames with dozens of faces looking out between them, all screaming.

That one gave Damien chills.

He was pretty sure whatever lurked inside Titan, it wasn’t a teddy bear.

Brock led him up the porch steps and gave a cursory knock on the door before walking in.

One-quarter of the cabin held a sagging couch in front of a fireplace, a wall of bookshelves crammed full, a small TV and a kitchenette with a laptop lying on the counter. Above the living area was a loft that was probably the bedroom.

The other three-quarters of the ground floor was a stone carver’s studio, with a curtain made of long strips of heavy clear plastic hanging between it and the living area. Rows of well-used tools hung on the walls and lay scattered over several tables. Half-completed projects stood around the room—most stone, one wood.

Titan stood in the middle of the studio wearing nothing but a pair of buckskin pants cut off at the knee, his huge muscles bunching as he used a sledgehammer and chisel to break off chunks of the eight-foot-high piece of stone he was working on.

He turned as they pushed through the curtain, which kept dust out of the living area of the cabin.

“Hey, Squatch,” Brock said. “I brought Damien up. He wants to do some bigger wood carvings, and I thought maybe he could use some of your tools. And maybe work up here. I told him you don’t eat humans.”