Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
How Do You Like Your Eggs?
GABE
Bacon sizzled on the pan as I transferred some onto a plate.
Admittedly, I wasn’t the best cook in the world and could only really handle breakfast, but thankfully, Eli didn’t seem like a very picky customer.
I grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and poured us both full cups of coffee.
The smell alone was enough to give me a little boost of much-needed energy.
“Smells great,” Eli said as he shuffled into the kitchen.
He was shirtless still, only wearing a pair of red and white boxers I’d given him since his underwear still sat somewhere out in my yard.
He ran a hand through his messy, wavy hair.
He had put on deodorant—I could smell the piney, perfumey brand—but his natural (and intoxicating) scent pushed through, past the bacon grease and cheesy and peppery omelettes.
“And you look great,” I said, my dick twitching awake in my shorts. I had to control myself. I’d already gotten a taste of him and wanted another bite.
And if I had any doubt before about Eli being my fated mate, I had zero questions this morning.
Not after that visceral, almost out-of-body experience I had last night when I pushed inside him for the first time.
I’d never felt anything like it. And I’d been with men before.
I wasn’t a virgin—I had fucked guys and then sent them on their way with an ironclad NDA and without a second thought about them.
Last night was different. It was what I imagined a religious experience to be like. I’d been converted to the Church of Eli Sager and was ready to chug whatever flavored Kool-Aid he wanted to hand me.
It started first as an intense wave of pleasure.
I thought I was going to come from just burying myself inside him.
But the pleasure morphed; it cocooned me.
My vision shimmered as if I were looking through a magic portal.
It felt as if an invisible hand had wrapped itself around us, picked us up, and launched us through eons of space and time.
I flew past the dinosaurs, past the Roman Empire, past the Britney Spears and Madonna kiss at the VMAs, experiencing everything and anything all at once.
Then he said my name and yanked me right back to the present.
Yeah, I remembered thinking as I regained control of my body. This is fate.
He smiled as he grabbed one of the plates. “Thank you for making breakfast.”
“Least I could do after you scrambled my eggs last night.”
Eli snorted at that. “You’re a pro hockey player, a passionate photographer, and you’re a talented poet. What can’t you do?”
“I can’t fly a plane. But I am considering taking classes.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think that would be allowed. It would make you way too attractive. Like fucked-up levels of attractive.”
“Then I’m going to sign up right when you leave.”
Eli shrugged as he walked over to the small dining room table, sitting in front of a window that looked out to my yard.
The morning sunlight filled the room, soaked in by the large, round pot full of white and blue and purple orchids.
Eli took a sip of his coffee and looked around, his eyes settling on the camera I had left out on the credenza.
It was one of my classic cameras, a Fujifilm X100F, with its silver and black frame.
“I thought you only liked to shoot with Nikons?” Eli said. He set the coffee down and reached over for the camera behind him, gently picking it up.
He had remembered that fact from the first time we ever really hung out. That warmed my heart. “Nikons are definitely my top choice, but if I had to choose my second, it’d be the Fuji. There’s just something about the way it takes photographs that always impresses me.”
“Is this digital?” He grabbed the camera and examined it.
“It is. I like using that one for more on-the-go kind of photos.”
He turned it on, lifted the viewfinder up to his eye, and aimed the lens at me.
I smiled as the shutter clicked. He checked out the image on the display, nodding. “Colors look perfect. And the way it plays with the light is interesting. Huh, I may have to rent one of these and give it a trial run.”
“Take that one,” I said. “I haven’t used it in a bit. Probably better off with you.”
“Really? Shit, thanks. Yeah, I’d love to borrow it for a bit.”
“Go for it,” I said. Eli chewed his bottom lip. I could tell he’d been hit with some kind of idea. “What is it?”
“Would you mind if maybe I could test it on you?”
I arched a brow, taking a bite of the eggs. “Do you want to do a naked boudoir shoot?”
His eyes lit up. “Yes, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. Do you think I’d be able to photograph you in your wolf form? Out in the woods?”
Now, why did that suddenly feel like more intimate of an idea than a naked photoshoot?
I liked the idea, though. I realized I didn’t have any actual photos of me in my wolf form. I’d seen myself in reflections before and knew how I looked, but I didn’t have any kind of documentation. No physical thing to hold and point to and say, “Yeah, that’s me.”
And who better to capture that side of myself than my fated mate?
…Which was an entirely different kind of discussion that needed to happen.
I could choose to wait it out, see if things progressed naturally, but that felt wrong to me.
Like I was holding back a vital piece of knowledge from him.
He should know that the hands of fate fiddled around our connection.
That wasn’t something that could just be set aside.
There were other issues I needed to confront—mainly the ironclad closet I had locked myself in for all twenty-nine years of my life—and how being with Eli publicly would shift the spotlight I’d been trying to avoid directly my way.
But he didn’t deserve to be hidden away like a dirty little secret.
No. Elijah Sager was the trophy. The Stanley. He needed to be treated as such.
He also had to know it would be on both of us to accept this decree from destiny.
A choice we needed to make together and bind it under a full moon.
I’d heard about the ceremony, but only wisps of stories here and there, only having met a few shifters in my life who had found their fated mates and followed through with the ceremony.
I needed to ask the pack if they knew more. And I would, but first, I needed to rip this Band-Aid off.
“Yes, I would love that,” I said, answering the original question before making my pivot. “Eli, have you felt something different about us? It’s difficult to explain exactly, but have you sensed something that maybe you hadn’t felt with any of your other relationships?”
Eli set his fork down on his plate with a clink. He smiled a little sheepishly. “So is that what this is, then?”
Oh shit. I really stepped in it with that one.
“Sorry. Shouldn’t have assumed anything. I mean, you know—”
Eli gave a dry laugh at that. “Considering I’ve only ever been in one relationship and that whatever this is between us already feels better than anything I’d felt during my four years with my ex, yeah, yeah, I think I’ve felt something different. Special.”
“Special’s the right word.” I cocked my head. I wanted to go on, but something about the way Eli’s face turned downward tipped me off. Shifters were well-versed in understanding body language, as it was our only form of communication in our animal forms. “What happened with your ex?”
He sighed and started to play with the scrambled eggs on his plate. He shuffled them around with the fork. “What didn’t happen with my ex? I feel like there’s so much to say, and I don’t want to talk about any of it.”
I tensed a fist. I could see there was pain in Eli’s eyes as he looked out the window.
I gave him a moment to collect his thoughts before he continued.
“We started off great. We met on a blind date, actually, set up by someone he worked with. My career was just beginning to take off, so I think I was distracted at first, and I didn’t see the red flags.
And they were there. He had control issues and some anger problems that got worse and worse after he lost his job.
We were already together for three years, and I was making enough to support us both.
But I think the stress of his job—he’s a surgeon—it just made him spiral, and the fights between us got worse and worse.
” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, wincing.
I needed to ask. Needed to know if I’d be hunting this coward down and making him pay. “Eli, did he hurt you?”
“No, no. Not physically. But there was emotional abuse that I think’s left me with some heavy baggage.
There was a lot of ways, looking back now, that he manipulated me.
Cut me off from people, belittled me. It started to affect me on the ice.
I was making mistakes and then hearing him call me a dumbass, and I’d just lose my head.
He also did shit like refuse to give me any kisses or touches, and I’m a touchy guy; I like that kind of thing.
But he’d hold it back from me. Sex too. Would say things like he just wasn’t feeling me, that I wasn’t turning him on. ”
My jaw dropped. Anger steamed up to a boil inside me. “Are you fucking kidding me? He sounds like an immature idiot, Eli. I’m sorry you ever dealt with that pathetic excuse for a man.”
Eli lifted his eyes. A curl of dark brown hair fell on his forehead.
How the fuck could anyone want to belittle or hurt this golden human being?
It was beyond me. A complete mystery. “Thank you. My confidence definitely took a hit, but I’ve been working on building it back up.
It was my decision to break up with him.
Seeing him groveling and crying to have me back was a nice consolation prize, at least.” He sucked in a deep breath and smiled at me from across the table.
“So yes, to answer the original question again, this feels very different.”
“It’s because it is, Eli. There’s something else that’s unique about shifters.”
“Besides the whole animal and healing things?”
“Yes, besides that. We also have something called ‘fated mates.’ It’s pretty much what it sounds like.
Not much is known about why it happens, and not even everyone in the shifter community believes it exists.
I’d actually been a little doubtful about it, even though I’ve met people in fated relationships before.
Maybe it was my way of protecting myself, since the odds of finding a fated mate aren’t exactly high. ”
Eli’s eyebrows started to rise, creeping up his forehead. “Are you saying…”
“I didn’t think it’d ever happen to me,” I continued.
“I doubted it. Thought I’d be fine living life on my own.
And then you showed up. I scented you from miles away.
When I saw you, my heart did a complete somersault.
And last night, when I fucked you for the first time, all my doubts were gone.
Disappeared. I knew deep down that you’re my fated mate, Eli. ”
He blinked a couple of times. Shook his head. “What does that… what’s that mean exactly?”
“It means you and I are meant to be,” I said, grinning. “I know it’s a lot, but—”
“No,” Eli said. He sat up and straightened his shoulders, tensed muscles rippling with the movement.
“It… it makes sense. It’s so fucking weird to say, but I believe you.
I think I felt it too. Not in the same way.
I didn’t smell you from miles away—if I did, then I’d be worried, scared, and ordering you an overnight shipment of Dove soap and deodorant—but I have felt a connection with you, and you explaining this fate mates thing…
it explains why I’ve literally been dreaming about you every single night.
Why I can’t stop thinking about you during the day, sneaking glances at you whenever we’re out together with the team.
” A flush crept up his chest, over his neck.
“And last night. Not just the sex, but the sleeping together, the little jokes we had this morning, the grade A dicking down you gave me over and over again.”
I laughed at that, even though hearing this made me want to jump out of my chair and cheer.
He felt it. He knew it too.
“But,” Eli said, suddenly taking an arrow straight through my joy with a single word, “this whole ceremony thing. That, that’s something I don’t know about. Not yet.”
I nodded. “I can completely understand that.” Without the ceremony, we wouldn’t officially be mates, and the bond wouldn’t seal.
Could we continue to date each other without tying our souls together?
Sure, but from what I understood, there would always be a yearning for that completeness, and the yearning many times would fester into anger and bitterness.
Not great. But also not something I was going to bring up.
I didn’t want to in any way pressure him into this decision, and he’d been through a hell of a lot in these last twenty-four hours.
“Let’s take it one step at a time,” I said, reaching over and placing a hand on his.
He looked down with a smile. I rubbed his hand under mine.
“Let’s finish up breakfast, and then we can take some photos outside. Unless you had other plans today?”
Eli’s hazel-green eyes met mine. He grinned wide enough to cause them to crinkle at the corners. “If I did, then they’d be canceled.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I want you all to myself today.”