Chapter Five #3
Xavier, seated next to Ren, looked distinctly less pleased.
I’d seen that expression on others’ faces in the past. If Ren wasn’t Xavier’s mate, he was someone to whom Xavier was very attracted.
I couldn’t tell which. That bothered me a little.
When mates were together, there was a certain sense, something undefinable that told everyone around them that they were destined for each other.
As if we could see the bonds connecting them and feel the joining of their souls, as sappy as that sounded.
Unless someone was as closed down as Chal Torres had been.
With Xavier and Ren, there was something in the air that said they belonged together, but it wasn’t as strong as the mate bonds I’d encountered before.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter if I could detect it.
The important thing was whether they recognized it, and what they intended to do about it.
Mates were put together by fate, but they still had a choice in the matter.
They could choose not to stay with each other, though once mates met, being apart caused a physical pain like something had been ripped out of you.
Literally. I’d experienced it a couple of times when Kyle and I were apart.
However it turned out, Xavier was clearly interested in Ren. The interest, judging from the way Ren occasionally leaned toward Xavier and smiled at the rare instances when Xavier spoke, was mutual, but then sometimes Ren cringed away from Xavier and stared down at his plate.
Understandably, Ren would need time to trust Xavier.
After what Ren had been through, he would need time to trust anyone.
Hopefully he would take me up on the offer of connecting with Carlos or Suzannah so he could begin to work toward healing from his change and the beating, and from whatever had occurred in his life before his change that had left him in shelters and on the street.
After we finished eating, all of us except the night guards stayed around the table, chatting and drinking tea, coffee, or the sparkling cider that someone had brought into the house without my realizing.
I appreciated the gesture. Alcohol didn’t do a whole hell of a lot for most werewolves.
We metabolized it too fast to be able to get drunk.
Some werewolves drank anyway, because they liked the taste.
I didn’t, but I did enjoy celebratory drinks in champagne glasses, so the sparkling cider was a perfect compromise.
I excused myself from the group earlier than I usually would have, saying that I wanted to get a good night’s sleep before the gathering.
It wasn’t entirely untrue, but I didn’t need much sleep.
Most werewolves didn’t. Really, I just needed a break from being around people before I had no choice but to be around hundreds of people, all of whom would be looking to me for direction, guidance, and maybe a fight.
Kyle, knowing that sometimes solitude was best for me, stayed downstairs while I went up to our room and sat cross-legged on the bed.
Meditation, or visualization, had been a tool in my calm-down-Tobias toolbox since I was fifteen, when the NH-Mass healer, recognizing how deep my anger ran, taught me to imagine the ocean when I was angry.
I’d gone through months of temper and rage before I finally got the hang of the visualizing.
After that, it was how I kept myself in check.
At least it had been until December. The ocean wasn’t really my friend anymore since Jed Howe used it to end his life when he realized his senility was endangering his mate and their pack.
Jed had walked into the sea in wolf form and allowed himself to sink.
To drown. His death had caused something in me to snap.
That was when the Anax power had thoroughly taken hold as a separate entity, something that wanted to rule me so it could rule the rest of the country.
I was better now. Grief fucked mightily with me, but after I finally accepted and integrated the Anax power, I went to Suzannah and asked her to help me process Jed’s death.
I still grieved him. I probably always would.
Even though I’d been a member of NH-Mass Pack for less than three years before I took over Boston North, and despite his claiming over and over to know nothing about children or teens, Jed had been a better father than the man who contributed genetic material to me.
But I handled my grief a lot better now than I had during those first few months after his death.
I couldn’t find peace in the ocean anymore, though.
Not the physical ocean that lapped against a concrete wall at the back of Kyle’s and my Winthrop property, and not the ocean I’d been visualizing for the past several decades.
So instead of picturing the ocean to calm myself as I sat on the bed, I pictured trees.
Hundreds upon hundreds of trees that stretched toward the sun in a bright blue sky.
It didn’t have nearly the same effect that the ocean had once had. But it at least shut off my mind enough that I was able to sleep.