Chapter 30 #3
He just stares for a moment, then turns back to me. "I… don’t want to talk about this right now."
With my mouth gaping, I stare.
"Why not? That sounds like good news, something to study…"
Blue closes his eyes for a second.
"Please. It’s a lot, Gabriel. Too much right now. I need time."
I watch him, trying to understand, because this isn’t how he usually reacts to news of this caliber. He should be curious, focused, ready to break it down and analyze it, but instead there’s something else there, something almost like fear.
The truth is that since our conversation on the yacht, we haven’t brought up the topic of his accident and the regeneration of his glands; we’ve been avoiding it, focused on other events.
I struggle with how to react now, whether to push and offer my support or respect his wish.
"Okay," I say quietly, letting go of the idea of turning the conversation into a ‘therapy’ session. I’m aware this concerns a deep wound from his past, and a simple chat may not fix the problem.
But because Blue just stands there, shoulders slightly slumped, I decide to move toward him, pulling him into an embrace. Even if I can’t offer psychological support, I can offer him… a warm hug. Just be there, close to him, creating space for him.
He’s stiff at first, such a typical reaction of his, so I keep it gentle, guiding him back toward the bed and lying down with him, holding him close without saying anything.
If he needs space, not questions, then I give it to him.
I start purring, knowing he likes it, the steady vibration filling the room.
We stay like that for a while, his warmth against me, his scent wrapping around me, and my body reacts to it… but so does his, because after a while he turns his face toward me and says softly,
"Make love to me, Gabriel."
So I do.
Slow, unhurried, with lazy kisses instead of urgency, careful not to touch too close to the places that are changing, easing into him, and as I do I feel like by lowering my pressure on him, he lets me in deeper… his energy, the Bond between us getting stronger, more ready, and…
…something extra opens up.
Before I know it, I’m allowed to reach a dark place inside him, buried deep in his fortress.
A memory.
Blue on a hospital bed, curled in on himself.
Crying, trying to muffle it, pressing his hands against his face, fighting it, like he’s desperately pushing the pain back inside.
The day before… they told him his glands had to be removed.
The doctor explaining that he would only go through a normal human maturation, that the full omega development would never happen, that his senses would never fully form, that he would never carry a child, never go into heat…
All of it taken from him.
I feel as though I'm standing in this hospital room with him, seeing everything.
The pain is overwhelming, tearing through him, reshaping him…
He splits into two people.
One part of him is shrinking, fading, dying, while something harder and colder takes its place, and I feel it so clearly that it makes me shiver, like I’ve stepped into freezing water.
That was the moment the old Blue disappeared.
He became a ghostly shadow of himself, frozen in time as a frightened teenager curled up on this bed.
He was the one who wanted a family, children, a quiet domestic life.
The divide is still there, deep and painfully real.
And now, with this change, with the possibility of his healing… he doesn’t know how to face it.
How to integrate it. How to integrate that shadow into himself.
He built himself on a lack.
Strong despite it.
Successful despite it.
Now, who will he become?
Hope scares him more than loss.
He doesn’t know what will happen when it comes back.
He, the powerful Blue Lowen, CEO of a giant corporation, carries deep inside him a helpless, lost shadow of his former self.
And I’m shocked he let me inside, invited to see this deeply vulnerable side of him.
I brush my fingers along his cheek and whisper softly,
"Thank you for allowing me to see him, to see how you felt…"
He stays silent, so I keep going.
"Please, my love… let yourself have it all. It’s coming back to you. You’ll be healed. And I will always be by your side. You can lean on me, Blue, whenever you need to. No judgment, no criticism."
I hesitate, thinking hard about how to frame it.
"Maybe, if that feels more comfortable for you, try treating it the way you always do: as a new challenge?"
Still nothing.
"Or simply a reality you can accept and let it reshape you. The thing with challenges… hmm, I kind of get it, but I also think it can be a bit performative. Sometimes you can just accept life as it unfolds and let it carry you, without overanalyzing. Take things day by day."
He doesn’t answer, so I wrap it up, allowing the words to quietly settle.
But I keep emitting the purr, and the deeply soothing, vibrating sound fills the bedroom.
This night, the same as the last, we fall asleep in Joining again. I hold him close, knowing those long night hours are healing his body, regenerating it, restoring it to what it used to be.
The True Mate’s magic… is powerful.
I just hope the wound in his mind will heal along the way too.
◆◆◆
The day starts like any other. I wake up next to Blue, pressed into his warm, slight body, then we go for a swim together, and every now and then we trade glances.
Blue is not someone who smiles often, but when he does, it hits me with this unexpected, almost undeserved kind of pleasure, like getting a small gift you did nothing to earn.
We don’t talk about what happened yesterday, but I don’t even feel the need to.
I simply cherish the moment when, for the first time, he let me past his wall.
It was extraordinary, to witness something so intimate, to see him weak and vulnerable, and to know he consciously allowed me to see that side of him, the wounded teen hidden at the center of his fortress.
Even if it lasted only a brief moment, it still feels like a sign that maybe, slowly, we’ll grow even closer in the future.
But for now, even this calm pace makes me genuinely happy.
When we eat, Simon unexpectedly comes in and informs Blue that the meeting with the college chancellor is finally going to happen.
After being pushed back again and again, it’s actually set this time.
Hearing that, I feel this sudden spike of negative emotion, way stronger than it should be, and for a second I wonder where it’s coming from.
Then I remember that asshole alpha professor who snapped at Blue and called him a eunuch, and I tell myself that’s probably why I have zero desire to see that bastard again.
We’re scheduled to leave at 9 pm.
Simon leaves and we finish breakfast.
But right before we’re about to head for the elevator, Blue gets a phone call.
"Adams? What’s up?"
He hesitates, then instead of walking toward the elevator, he stops in the living room and sits on the armrest of one of the chairs.
Adams’s muffled voice carries faintly from Blue’s phone.
"I think we may have our first breakthrough, Mr. Lowen. I was reviewing yesterday’s lab reports, and it looks like your suggestions were correct…"
Blue glances at me, covers the phone with his hand, and says,
"Wait for me in your room for a bit. I need to take this call."
I raise my brows slightly, because usually Blue has no problem talking around me, even about highly confidential matters, but this time there’s clearly something he wants to discuss without involving anyone else, even me.
So I head back to my room. I haven’t used it or slept there in days, so when I sit down on the edge of the bed, the place feels strangely unfamiliar.
My life has become tangled up with Blue’s now. We sleep together, wake up together, eat together, go everywhere together, so maybe it’s ridiculous, but the fact that he suddenly sent me away feels… unsettling somehow.
Dear Fate, what kind of absurdity is this? Have I really gotten so attached to him that I can’t handle a few minutes without him around?
At this rate I’ll start following him into the bathroom too, maybe even holding his dick while he pees.
A dumb laugh slips out of me, because my obsession with Blue seems to be getting stronger every day, and it’s starting to feel unhealthy.
Then my eyes land on my hacking setup, sitting unused in the corner.
Well… there just hasn’t been any need for it lately, since we’re constantly together with Blue.
Out of boredom, on a stupid impulse, I walk over to it.
Maybe I could use it?
Just listen in for a few sentences. Why not. I’m curious about what kind of secret Blue is keeping from me. Maybe it’s childish, because obviously we’re both entitled to our own little secrets, we’re not each other’s slaves. Oh, well.
The minutes pass, and I grow more and more bored.
I stare at the setup with unfocused eyes. Ah, the hell with it. I simply pull out the chair and sit down.
The receiver array comes alive under my hands.
SDR module, antenna tuner, packet monitor.
I load the profile I built for Blue’s glasses weeks ago.
I don’t hunt through frequencies this time, no need for reverse engineering from scratch.
I already know the handshake structure, the timing window, the ugly little quirks buried inside the protocol.
The connection locks in fast.
Blue’s voice reaches me a second later, clear, like I was standing next to him in the living room.
"…the problem is still the carrier," he says. "Impulses that weak degrade too easily. Even when they leave a trace, the signal disperses before you can maintain coherence."
Adams answers with something equally dense about substrate instability and neural persistence.
I listen for maybe thirty seconds before my interest starts leaking away. It wasn’t worth it, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here, just scientific mumbo jumbo that isn’t as fascinating as I expected.