Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mine
GABE
I tried reading his expression as I explained what happened on full moons, but he remained pretty neutral. If anything, he seemed intrigued. I’d been expecting, at minimum, fear, possible disgust. But curiosity wasn’t something I felt quite ready to process.
My fingers floated over the digital lock pad. “Would you like to see it?”
Eli took a moment to consider it. He looked toward the door, face scrunching in thought. As if this choice would alter the course of things to come, one way or another.
“Yes,” Eli said, and my heart leaped. “I’d like to see. If that’s alright.”
“Absolutely,” I answered without hesitation. This wasn’t something I wanted to hide from him.
Fuck.
I didn’t want to hide anything from him.
Ever. I’d done enough hiding. It had become a part of me.
I wore this veil of misdirection and falsehoods like the fur coat I’d wear in my wolf form, except it never came off.
No matter how uncomfortable it made me. Even if it felt like the weight of my hidden desires was heavy enough to crush me.
I couldn’t shift out of it. Couldn’t run from it.
I’d continued to lie. Continued to hide parts of myself from almost everyone except the very few who were part of my pack.
It was tiring. I was breaking.
And Eli was healing me.
I tapped the sequence of numbers that unlocked the door. The heavy lock slid open, and the door nudged forward. I pulled it open. A blast of cool air hit us.
“Whoa, is it a room or a freezer?”
“I tend to run hot in my were form.”
Eli took one more look at me, considering me, before he stepped inside. I followed him, close enough to hear the small gasp that came out of his mouth. I reached forward and placed a hand on his lower back.
“It’s beautiful in here,” he said.
And he was right, I had to admit. “Thank you. It’s an instinct to make our were rooms as nice and cozy as possible.”
That’s exactly what I’d aimed for. The logs of the cabin had been covered over with reinforced concrete, then painted in a calming, rich, mint green.
There was a wide window—hurricane-proof to withstand any kind of impact—that overlooked a sea of trees dusted in white from a passing snowstorm.
There was a television with a couple of video game consoles connected to it.
Not that I played it in my were form, but it was nice to have in the comedown after the shift, when I just wanted to chill.
There was a cloud-blue rug underneath a plush daybed pushed against the wall, a row of gray and white pillows up against the brown leather headboard.
Just next to the bed, barely noticeable, were four hooks where the chains went.
Eli was looking at none of that. His attention went to the photos that were all framed and hung up on my gallery wall.
They were artistic shots of different moments during some of the hockey games.
A close-up on Emmy’s blades kicking up a dusting of ice.
A blur of black and light blue and white crashing into a blur of red and gold and black. A wide shot of a packed stadium.
“These are all yours?” he asked, although I had a sense he already knew my answer.
“They are. Helps me remember who I am if I start, you know, losing it.”
Eli gave a nod and an “mhm.” He wasn’t paying attention to me. He was examining my photography. And even though we’d been fully naked around each other already, it was this moment that made me feel most vulnerable.
Did he think it was trash? I’d seen his work.
He had an entire Instagram account showing his beautiful shots.
It was like he had said that one time: he truly had an eye for it all.
Not just the bigger picture, but for the smallest details that turned a photo from a snapshot to a National Geographic cover.
“I love these.”
My shoulders—which had been up against my head like I was cosplaying as classic fucking Dracula—relaxed. “Really?”
He looked over at me and laughed. “Yes, are you kidding? You capture movement and color so well, it’s literally insane. And this is so hard. Everyone’s moving so fast, it’s so chaotic. But you captured peace in that. It’s beautiful.”
“Wow.” I was a little blown away by his words.
I was a confident man when it came to most things.
I knew I was great at hockey, I was great with my family, I was great with my friends.
But I never really showed off my photography to anyone else.
I always sort of kept it to myself. Even though the guys on the team and the shifters in my pack would ask to see, I’d always just show them a couple of shots from the back of my camera but never actually the full thing. I didn’t know how it’d be received.
Now, I didn’t have to guess.
Thanks to Eli.
He turned to me, smiling widely. It should have felt weird having someone in such a personal space, but with Eli, it was only comfort. Like he belonged by my side from the start. “Thank you for showing me this, trusting me.”
I reached for him. My thumbs rubbed the back of his soft hands. “I’d show you the inner workings of my heart if it didn’t kill me.”
Eli chuckled. “Yes, let’s keep that heart beating please.” He lifted a hand—mine going with him—and placed it against my chest.
“It will continue to beat. Just for you.”
Still too much space. I yearned to erase it.
So I did.
I moved in for a kiss and felt him melt against me. His body went flush against mine, fitting against me like a glove. I let go of his hands and wrapped my arms around him.
He broke the kiss, only to trail more of them down to my chin, up my cheek. A tingling warmth sparked through my body like my insides had become a night sky on the Fourth of July.
My grip on his shirt tightened. His delicious scent now filled the room, hitting me with a fresh wave of desire on every inhale.
If I followed the animal side of me, I’d have him on his knees and worshipping me.
I wanted to mark him, make him shout that he was mine, claim that he wanted me and only me.
But all that desire and yearning couldn’t cloud out a worry that crept up through the hazy heat. “Are you sure this is all okay? That none of this scares you?” I asked.
“You know…” Eli’s voice trailed off. He looked up into my eyes.
I had to restrain myself from kissing him again.
“No. It doesn’t. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s a delayed reaction, or if I’ve genuinely lost my mind, or…
more likely, honestly, it’s because I just trust you.
For whatever reason, I trust you like I trust the marrow in my own bones.
I can’t find an ounce of fear in my body that’s there because of you.
And I think that’s why I haven’t completely spiraled through all of this.
It’s because it’s all happening with you. ”
“I will always protect you, Eli. You can always trust me. I’ll always put you first. I’ll always have your thoughts, your feelings, your safety at the forefront of my mind. Always.”
“I know,” Eli said. He bit his bottom lip hard enough to pull color from the skin. “Please don’t hurt me, Gabe. Please.”
“Never.”
“I’ve been hurt before. By someone I put my all into. And I thought it was reciprocal. I was a fool for that. Please, please, don’t make history repeat itself.” His hazel eyes grew misty.
I shook my head. It hurt me that I could offer nothing else in this moment but my words.
I wanted to somehow prove to him that I’d never harm him and that thinking of anyone else making him hurt filled me with crimson-red anger.
I wanted to tear that fucker to shreds. Make him feel the pain he’d inflicted on Eli but multiplied by a thousand.
“I swear to you. I will rend this world in half if it meant keeping you safe and happy. I would reach up and grab the moon itself if I could, just so I could hand it to you and let you always have a source of light in your life. I’ll fight to the death to keep the darkness away from your light. ”
Eli swallowed, the mist in his eyes coalescing into a few rogue tears.
He reached up to wipe them away, but I caught his wrist and gently lowered his hand, replacing it instead with mine, using my thumb to softly brush away the tears.
I traced the gentle lines of his jaw, up toward his ear, then slowly down toward his chin.
“You know, the other day, when I said we were something. It’s because I feel it with you already.
I feel this connection, and I want to cement it.
I want you to be my boyfriend, Eli.” The words fell off my tongue like sweet honey.
I’d never meant something more. Never wanted anything more than Elijah Sager.
“And I think fate wants the same thing.”
He looked up at my eyes, searching them for something, before he broke, looking down at his bare feet.
“But—” Fuck. Last word I wanted to hear right now.
“—if fate has so much to say about this, then how is that going to work with you still not publicly out? I can’t be a dirty little secret, Gabe.
I can’t.” He took a step back. It was a small step, but it still felt like he dropped a fucking canyon between us.
“And you won’t be,” I said.
“Are you going to come out, then?”
The question caught me off guard, even though it shouldn’t have. “It’s something that I need to weigh. There’s a lot of pressure to keep this”—I motioned around at my shift room—“a secret. But I don’t want you to feel like one, either.”
Eli sighed. He rubbed circles into his temples.
“I get it. As a gay man, I understand the pressure of coming out and know it happens on individual timelines. And as a human, I have absolutely no idea about the pressure of keeping an entire population of magical beings secret. But I can imagine it’s a heavy burden to carry. ”