Chapter Nineteen
Brodie
I was so fucking worried about Rian. I knew my best friend inside and out, but this was something new to me. Sure, the pain and the blood had eased whatever was going on with him some, but the underlying current I felt from him was still there.
When I’d told him to tell me what was wrong, he’d looked at me, tears in his eyes and whispered, “Don’t make it an order.”
I’d left him resting in bed, coming down from the mini-scene alone because he’d told me he wanted that here. He felt safe here and besides, he hadn’t flown this time. The respite from whatever was bothering him had helped, though, if less than I would’ve wanted.
After telling him to apologize to everyone, I let him be.
Staring at the closed bathroom door, knowing my mate was upset felt like almost too much to bear.
I could be worried about my best friend or my mate, but both? Seemed a bit excessive.
Unable to hear anything that would’ve told me how Kye was feeling, I sat next to the bathroom door and pulled my knees up. I let my head thunk against the wall and sighed.
“I don’t know what has you upset. Give me a moment to figure it out, baby, okay?” I said loudly enough that I hoped he’d hear me. “I’m fucking worried about Rian. He’s not… something is going on with him. He’s not telling me, and I can’t force him.”
Nothing. There was only silence behind the door.
Sighing, I crossed my arms over my knees and rested my forehead on top.
What had happened? I’d come out of Rian’s room. I’d told Kye what we’d done, which he would’ve known already anyway. He knew my deeper tone that brooked no argument. I’d told him I’d given Rian some blood before if the situation called for it.
Kye knew there was nothing but deep friendship between us, so he couldn’t be jealous. Except…. My mind raced back, trying to see the situation from his point of view.
I’d been flushed, probably. Letting a vampire feed from you did things to your body. It was an aphrodisiac if you let or wanted it to be. It turned people on even when you didn’t want it, and… hell.
“Is this about letting Rian bite me?” I asked, hoping I was right, because there was absolutely nothing else that came to my mind. “Baby, you know I’m not interested in him like that. If my body reacts to the feeding, I can’t help that. It doesn’t mean I want to do anything about it, especially with him.”
I heard the barely there sound of the toilet seat creaking, then Kye’s steps as he approached the door. He sat down on the other side.
“You looked turned on,” he murmured.
I wanted to fist pump because at least I was right about this, which meant I could solve this. Easily. Hopefully.
“You haven’t had a vampire feed from you, right?”
“No.”
“It’s a rush. It’s part fight or flight, but it turns into something sensual in an instant. That’s not something the vampire can control, it’s part of the biting process. I don’t know how it works, exactly, but there is a reason why those other apps exist, baby.”
His sigh was audible through the door. I smiled despite myself.
“I guess I don’t know how it feels so I shouldn’t judge it or… or get jealous.” After a beat, he added, “I just wasn’t prepared to see you look like you did, knowing someone else made you feel that way.”
I made a quick decision. “I won’t feed him again. Or any vampire. Unless it’s an emergency situation.”
Another short stretch of silence, then I heard the lock disengage, and the door opened.
Kye sat on the tiled floor and glanced at me, gnawing on his bottom lip.
I straightened my legs and pulled the door more open, then held out my arms. “Come here, baby.”
He hesitated for two heartbreaking seconds, then crawled over and settled on my lap. He hid his face against my neck, and I wrapped my arms around him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Hey, no. Sometimes we don’t actually know what will happen until it does. It’s like some kink things. We might think we’ll like something or hate something before we try it, and the opposite happens, right?”
He nodded, but said nothing.
“I love you and I never want to do anything that hurts you. So keep telling me if I do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I can be a big, oblivious idiot.”
He snorted softly against my neck. “But you’re my big, oblivious idiot.”
“That I am.” I smiled, knowing we’d be fine.
“I love you too, Brodie. Alpha.”
I squeezed him tighter and kissed his head.
Before I had time to say anything, he sighed.
“I think it’s something about Holden, maybe,” he murmured.
I frowned. “What is?”
“Whatever’s going on with Rian.”
That made no sense. “I don’t think they know each other.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so either. At least Holden doesn’t know Rian.”
“Huh.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it. Support Rian however he needs. He just can’t go being mean and loud, especially not to the boys and Carys.”
I smiled. He sounded like a parent. “He won’t. He got overwhelmed. He promised he’d apologize as soon as he feels good enough to talk to anyone.”
“He better.”
“I could’ve made him tell me what’s wrong, but he asked that I wouldn’t. I’ve made him talk before, years ago, when something was troubling him. It felt like abusing our D/s dynamic, though.”
“Yeah, that’s… I wouldn’t go that far unless it was something dangerous he’s hiding.”
“Yeah. This time he asked me not to make him tell, so I won’t. The trust between us is too important to me.”
“To me, too.” He sighed and kissed my neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Again, baby, no need to be. We’re still new. We’re still learning about each other and how we are as people in a very serious relationship.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said quietly, but I could hear the smile in his voice.
“What?”
“That we’re very serious. Because we are.” He lifted his head to look me in the eye. “I’m happy with you. I didn’t know it could be like this, that I could be this… fulfilled, I suppose, in a relationship, because every attempt at more than casual dating in my past never worked.”
I rumbled. “That’s because fate had called dibs on my behalf.”
He laughed, the sound light and happy. “I guess.”
W e went downstairs and continued the afternoon movie marathon. There were snacks and drinks, and everyone tried their best to relax a little. I’d told Max to come cuddle to my side, and Ben and I sandwiched him between us. He relaxed very gradually, clearly on alert for any sounds from upstairs.
I loved my best friend, but hurting someone like Max was out of the question. Luckily he knew that and would apologize once he felt ready.
After the second movie, we moved the party into the kitchen. Carys started on dinner prep, shooed us to the table when we asked if we could help, and tossed the pack of UNO cards at us.
It all got surprisingly competitive, with Ben being extremely sneaky about his choices, Max pulling surprise moves, and Kye knowing exactly when to change direction or color for maximum damage.
No, I didn’t win even one game, damn it. I didn’t mind in the least, though, because they were having fun at my expense, as a pack, a family.
At one point, Carys wanted to join the game while she waited for something to cook, so I gave my spot to her and went to check up on Rian. I jogged up the stairs and knocked on his door. At his quiet acknowledgement, I opened the door and stepped inside. He was still curled up in bed, but his color was better due to my blood.
I sat on the edge and reached a hand to push his curls off his face. “How are you feeling, sweetness?”
He made a small “eh” sound and burrowed deeper into his blankets.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
He shook his head.
“Okay. Well, know we all love you and you’re very important to us. Whatever’s going on, you’ll find someone to talk with.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, still not making eye contact.
I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I love you, sweetness. You’re my best friend. My platonic as fuck soulmate, right?” That made the corner of his mouth curl up a little. “I mean sure, there’s now a definitely not at all platonic actual mate, but you and I? We’ll never change, right?”
He nodded rapidly, then kissed the back of my hand and closed his eyes.
“See you tomorrow, okay?”
He nodded again, and I left him be.
A fter dinner, we all retreated to our own corners of the house. Carys went to her room to read, Ben and Max went to theirs, and since I felt too lazy to go upstairs yet, I settled on the couch with Kye soon joining me.
He crawled on top of me and then settled against my side, so he wasn’t pressing against my pleasantly full stomach.
“Do you want kids?” he asked suddenly.
“What?” I turned my head to see his face, but he wasn’t looking at me.
He fiddled with the front of my T-shirt. “It just came to me, that wolf packs are supposed to have kids. Like the Ramirez pack has several, right?”
I hummed. “They do, but that’s probably because they’re mostly a straight pack. They have couples that can produce those kids themselves.”
“Yeah, but there are options. Like adoption and surrogates and hell, aren’t there even like people who volunteer to join packs temporarily for that?”
“There are. A friend back in Seattle had a guy join their pack for a few months. He was a good match genetics-wise, but it was a sperm donor kind of thing, because the mother-to-be was asexual and aromantic.”
“So down the line, do you think you want kids? Maybe if we find a suitable woman from a service like that?” His fingers were picking at a hole in my shirt, making it slightly bigger.
I gave his question some thought. Not in a way of “does he have an agenda” or “what is he really asking” because Kye wasn’t like that.
Eventually, I replied, “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it, because I never saw myself in a situation where I had a pack to lead. At best, I thought maybe I’d find a guy and we’d be happy together, but I wasn’t even expecting that, if I’m honest.” I took his hand off my shirt and threaded our fingers together. “What about you?”
“You know what kind of a family we come from. I don’t doubt my capacity to love at all, but I’m not sure I’m father material. If someone else in the pack had a kid or even more than one, I’d be all for that, but I don’t have any inherent need to be a parent.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I can understand that. Now that you said it, I’m pretty sure that’s how I think, too. Kids are cool, but I don’t think I necessarily need my own to be fulfilled.”
“Good. We can talk about this more if we change our minds at some point. We have a lot of time left together and on this earth now that I also age more slowly, so who knows.” He lifted his head and smiled at me. “I also think that we’re already parenting a band of misfit kids as it is so….”
Chuckling, I kissed him. “You’re not wrong about that.”
“Wanna have a shower with me?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows goofily.
“Yes, definitely.”
G etting under the streaming water with my gorgeous mate was a luxury I had never dreamed of before I had it. It was so outside of my experiences, that I wondered how I’d gotten this far without it.
“What’s got your thinky face on?” he asked as he pushed me to sit down on the shower bench.
I smiled as he rubbed shampoo into my scalp with his fingertips and closed my eyes. “The fact that I’ve never done this before you.”
“What? Shower with a lover?”
“Yeah. I mean I’ve showered with Rian a few times, once because we forgot we were supposed to go to a thing and time was of the essence”—Kye chuckled at that—“and twice after a heavy pain session and blood play where we wanted to use the shower to clean up and come down from the scene.”
“But it’s not the same,” he murmured as he tilted my head just so to get the suds out of my hair.
“No, it’s not.” I pulled him between my thighs and nipped at his flat stomach.
I might’ve been muscular and tattooed from neck to toes, but he was the opposite. Kye had miles of milky white skin, some muscle definition, but he was softer and in so many ways, more perfect than I could ever be.
“What?” he asked, smiling.
“I love you.”
He dipped his head to kiss me softly. “Love you too. Wanna wash my hair?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
We switched places, and I used the fancy shampoo and conditioner Rian had bought him. Apparently long hair needed different stuff and it was really good but also I was not to ask how much the bottles cost. So, I hadn’t.
The scent of something vaguely fruity and herbal clung to him just enough to be nice and not irritating to my senses.
“It’s funny how much more I smell fragrances now,” he said as I guided his head to rinse the conditioner out. “You definitely did something to my everything when you gave me this.”
He tilted his hand so that I could see the scar on his wrist.
I took his hand and pressed my mouth over the scar. It meant so much more now than it had that night. It had been a big moment, of course, but now the more human emotions had caught up.
I mouthed his wrist and reached my other hand to wrap around his half hard cock. I jerked him off slowly, gently sucking on the scar.
His head fell back against the wall, and he let out a broken little whimper. “That has no right to feel so good.”
I hadn’t expected him to react like that, so I smirked around his skin. I sucked harder, gnawed with my blunt teeth like I was trying to leave a hickey, and suddenly, with a long, almost startled sounding moan, he erupted in my hand.
“What the fuck?” he whined, then let out a confused little laugh.
I let go of his wrist, but kept pumping his cock until he stilled my hand.
“Well, I guess we now know that’s a new erogenous zone?” I felt very pleased with myself.
“I’d say….” His lazy, satiated smile was everything.
I grabbed my shower gel and washed myself while he recuperated a little.
He got up and chuckled. “I’m surprised my knees aren’t wobbly.”
Yeah, I definitely felt smug. He noticed and smacked my hip with the back of his hand. Then he groaned.
“Holy shit, that’s gonna stay for a couple of days.” He turned his hand so I could see the dark bruising that now decorated the area of his scar.
He hugged me from behind, sliding his hands over my skin, following the path of the washcloth I was using as if chasing the suds.
“Want a hand?” he asked, running a finger along my shaft.
I wasn’t fully hard and felt no urgency, so I shook my head. “Nah. I’m good. This was more of a mental thing for me.”
“Okay. Let me know if you want some later.” He kissed my shoulder, then reached for his shower gel and stole my washcloth.