Chapter 26 Belonging
BELONGING
EVAN
The apartment felt smaller with Nate in it, like his presence expanded to fill every corner with restless energy and that particular brand of stubborn determination that had gotten us both into trouble since we were teenagers.
He kicked off his boots by the door with the casual familiarity of someone who belonged here, who had every right to make himself at home in the space I'd built around the careful architecture of solitude.
Except tonight, that familiarity felt like a lie.
Tonight, everything felt like a lie.
I hung my keys on the hook by the door, buying myself a few seconds to figure out how to have a conversation I didn't want to have with the one person I couldn't bear to hurt.
The pack meeting was over, the immediate crisis contained, but the weight of what was coming pressed against my shoulders like a physical thing.
War. Actual fucking war, with casualties that would be measured in more than bruises and hurt feelings.
And Nate—Nate who'd looked Daniel in the eye and declared himself ready to fight, who'd stood in that room full of predators and claimed his place like he had any right to it—Nate was going to get himself killed.
“Beer?” I asked, already heading for the kitchen because movement was better than standing still, better than looking at him and seeing everything I was about to lose written in the determined set of his jaw.
“Yeah.” His voice carried that careful note that meant he'd already figured out this wasn't a social visit. “Thanks.”
I pulled two bottles from the fridge, hands steady despite the way my wolf was pacing beneath my skin, agitated and protective and wanting to grab Nate and never let him go.
The cold glass grounded me, gave me something to focus on besides the way he was watching me with those sharp photographer's eyes that missed nothing.
When I turned around, he was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, already braced for battle.
Smart man. Because I was about to start one.
“So,” he said when the silence stretched too long, when the air between us grew thick with the weight of things that needed saying. “You're going to try to talk me out of it, aren't you?”
The question hit exactly like I'd expected it to, but that didn't make it any easier to field. I set his beer on the counter with more care than necessary, buying myself another few seconds to find words that wouldn't sound like the cowardice they were.
“You volunteered for a war tonight,” I said finally, voice rough with everything I was trying not to feel. “Without asking. Without thinking about what you're actually signing up for.”
“I thought plenty.” He crossed his arms, already braced for the fight he knew was coming. “I thought about Calder's rogues tearing through everything I care about while I sit on the sidelines taking pictures.”
“This isn't about taking pictures, Nate. This is about keeping you alive.”
“Keeping me alive.” He repeated the words like they left a bitter taste, like they were condescension wrapped in concern. “Right. Because the fragile human needs the big strong werewolf to protect him from the scary monsters.”
The sarcasm in his voice made my wolf bristle, made something defensive and possessive rise in my chest like a tide I couldn't hold back. But underneath the irritation was raw terror—the kind that tasted like copper and felt like drowning.
“You are human,” I said, the words coming out harder than I'd intended. “You don't heal from claws like we do. You don't have enhanced senses or supernatural strength or any of the things that might keep you breathing when everything goes to hell.”
“And?”
The single word carried more weight than a full argument, challenge and hurt and something that might have been disappointment all rolled into two letters that made my chest ache.
“And I just got you back,” I said, the admission ripping itself free from the places I'd tried to keep it buried. “I just got you back, and I'm not losing you to a fight you have no business being part of.”
There. The truth, raw and selfish and absolutely non-negotiable. I'd lost him once to distance and time and my own inability to ask him to stay. I wouldn't lose him again to supernatural politics and the kind of violence that left bodies instead of memories.
Something dangerous flickered in Nate's eyes, and when he pushed off the counter, there was a predator's grace in the movement that reminded me he might be human but he wasn't prey.
“No business being part of?” His voice dropped to something low and dangerous, the kind of quiet that preceded storms. “This pack that's taken me in, this town that's become more home than anywhere I've ever lived, this—” He gestured between us, words catching on something too raw to name.
“Whatever this is we're building—none of that gives me the right to stand and fight?”
“You don't understand,” I said, desperation making me cruel.
“This isn't some adventure you can photograph and walk away from.
People are going to die, Nate. Probably a lot of people.
And I can't—” My voice cracked, betraying the careful control I'd been trying to maintain.
“I can't be worrying about you when I need to be focused on keeping everyone else alive.”
“So your solution is to lock me away somewhere safe while you go off and play hero?”
“My solution is to keep you from getting torn apart by monsters that could snap his spine like kindling.”
“So that's it?” His voice was quiet now, but there was steel underneath the softness. “You get to decide what risks I'm allowed to take because you're afraid of losing me?”
The way he said it made something twist in my chest, sharp and uncomfortable because it was true. Because underneath all my careful reasoning about supernatural warfare and human limitations, I was just a man terrified of losing the best thing that had happened to him in years.
“I can't do this if I'm worried about you,” I said, the admission scraping raw from my throat. “I can't focus on keeping the pack alive if part of me is always watching for threats to you.”
“Then don't.” He stepped closer, close enough that I could see the determination blazing in his eyes. “Don't treat me like something fragile that needs protecting. Trust me to make my own choices about what I'm willing to risk.”
The simple logic of it should have been comforting. Instead, it made my wolf pace restlessly under my skin, every instinct screaming that humans were breakable, that Nate was mine to protect whether he wanted it or not.
“That's different,” I said, but the words sounded hollow even to me.
“How?” He was close enough now that I could smell determination and coffee on his skin, could see the flecks of gold in eyes that had never backed down from a fight. “How is your need to protect me any different from my need to stand beside you?”
“Because you're—”
“Human.” The word came out flat, tired. “Yeah, you've mentioned that. What you haven't explained is why that means I don't get a choice.”
“I can't lose you again,” I whispered instead, the confession scraping raw from somewhere deep and desperate. “Not when I just found you.”
Something shifted in his expression then, anger softening into something that looked dangerously like understanding. He reached up, fingers brushing against my jaw with devastating gentleness.
“Then don't push me away,” he said quietly. “Don't make this about protecting me from choices that are mine to make. Because that's not love, Evan. That's fear wearing a noble mask.”
He was right. This wasn't about his safety—it was about my terror of losing him again, dressed up in pretty arguments about human fragility and pack dynamics.
“I'm scared,” I admitted, the words barely above a whisper.
“Good,” he said, and there was fierce satisfaction in his voice. “That means you know what you're fighting for.”
Before I could respond, before I could find words for the way his honesty was rewriting everything I thought I knew about courage, he kissed me. Soft and desperate and tasting like promises I wasn't sure I knew how to keep.
I kissed him back because I couldn't not, because his mouth was home and sanctuary and the only place I'd ever found peace.
But underneath the sweetness was the bitter knowledge that this might be borrowed time, that tomorrow might take him away in ways that had nothing to do with distance or choice.
“Stay with me tonight,” I said against his lips, the request carrying more weight than it should have. “Just tonight. Let me have this before everything gets complicated.”
“Everything's already complicated,” he pointed out, but his hands were already working at the buttons of my shirt, fingers steady and sure and absolutely devastating in their intent. “But yeah. I'll stay.”
He tugged me toward the bedroom, not rough but with a purpose, and I followed. The world outside the apartment narrowed to his touch on my wrist, his hand on the small of my back as we passed the kitchen table, my boots abandoned in the entryway, the half-drunk beers forgotten on the counter.
In the quiet darkness of my bedroom, everything felt magnified.
Nate let go of my hand only to cup my jaw, tipping my face up to his, searching for something he must have found because he leaned in and kissed me again.
Not gentle—this time there was nothing soft about it.
He kissed me like he was starving, like he wanted to take something from my mouth and keep it for himself, like he was desperate for the taste of me.
I let him. I let myself be held, kissed, touched in a way that didn’t demand anything but surrender.
He pushed me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed, then climbed into my lap, hands braced on my shoulders, straddling me with the same authority he’d shown in every argument, every time he’d stood up to me, every moment he’d refused to be fragile.