Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
FRAY
“Hey, I got you,” Fray murmured. “I got you.”
He’d barely managed to catch Tobin before he collapsed to the ground. He looked awful: pale, dark circles under his eyes, and he was haggard. Like something was killing him from the inside.
But his hold on Fray was strong, desperate. He clawed at his back, his face in Fray’s neck, mumbling over and over that he was sorry.
Fray was hit instantly with an avalanche of emotion. A surge of love and adoration, of peace and relief. It was so pure and overwhelming, it almost punched the wind out of him. The ache in his chest became something else. Something new and wonderful—and terrifying.
Then, as sudden as it had hit him, it was gone. The absence of it felt like a sucking chest wound, but then Ciaran was there, peeling Tobin’s arm from Fray and slinging it over his shoulder so he could hoist Tobin up to his feet. “Let’s get him inside,” he said.
Fray was too confused, too overwhelmed, to process much of anything, least of all the thrum of his body wherever his skin touched Tobin or his urge to tell Ciaran to stop fucking touching him.
Or what the fuck he’d just felt. For one moment—one perfect moment—that was over so fast, he had to wonder if he’d imagined it.
But the burn, the sear of where the love had been, remained.
What the fuck....
But Ciaran was walking away, half carrying Tobin, with Fray almost stumbling to keep up, and the concern for Tobin won out. Something was wrong with him, and Fray needed to fix that.
They hauled him into his place and helped him onto his bed. No easy feat considering Tobin was half sitting up and clutching onto Fray as if his life depended on it.
Tobin’s small house, which was no more than a single room, really—a double bed, small sofa, an old box TV, a kitchen cabinet, and a half fridge—was a whole lot smaller when everyone piled in after them.
Fray tried to unclasp Tobin’s hold on him, but Tobin wouldn’t let go. “Don’t go,” he breathed, barely conscious.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Fray said. He looked up at the concerned faces, and, seeing Kellan, his brows knitted. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Everyone out,” Kellan ordered.
Hendrix led Dylan out. Sawyer stood by the door waiting for Ciaran, but Ciaran’s gaze fell to Fray, and he hesitated. “I could stay—”
“I’ll come find you, Ciaran,” Kellan suggested to him. “Give us a minute, please.”
“I won’t be far, Fray,” Ciaran said gently.
“Okay,” he replied, unsure. Everyone seemed to know what was going on but him. When Ciaran and Sawyer were gone, Fray looked up at Kellan. “What the hell is this?”
“Do you not feel it?” Kellan asked.
Tobin mumbled, again nudging his face into Fray’s neck.
His breath, his lips on Fray’s skin made it very hard to concentrate.
Fray could barely think straight. “Uh, feel what exactly? You’re gonna have to narrow it down because I’m feeling a whole lotta things right now.
I felt something fucking huge out there, but now it’s gone.
Is he okay? What’s wrong with him? I mean, I’m not complaining, but this is not like him. He’s never—”
“It’s the bond, Fray,” Kellan said. “He’s been fighting it, resisting it. And I’d say it very nearly killed him.”
Fray blinked, trying to ignore the way Tobin nuzzled into his neck. His whole body zinged with sensation overload, but god, what did Kellan just say?
“Sorry, it’s hard to concentrate,” Fray panted. He wanted nothing more than to take a hold of Tobin’s face and kiss him, but he’d locked down his self-control years ago. “Did you say bond?”
Kellan nodded slowly, his expression cautious. “But you’re not.... You don’t feel it? I’m not sure how that’s possible. You said you felt something huge, but now it’s gone?”
“What don’t I feel?” Fray asked, confused.
“I feel like a burning crater in my chest where something was but is now gone. But—” he cradled Tobin’s head in his neck and rubbed his back “—this is making it better, I think? I’m not sure.
I feel a hundred kinds of confused and concerned right now. Did you say bond?”
Kellan nodded again. “It should be almost unbearable,” he said. “You saw how Ciaran and Sawyer were.” Tobin clung to him tighter, mumbling and nuzzling. Kellan gestured to him. “Like that. Tobin appears to be affected, but you... do not.”
Fray took a moment to assess exactly how he felt, and the only word he kept returning to was confused. “I’ve just spent the past two days convincing myself I wasn’t in love with him,” he admitted, needing a second to rub his sternum. “Ugh. I don’t know what this is.”
Kellan stepped closer, raising a hand as if to touch Tobin, and a low rumble formed in Fray’s chest. Kellan stopped and put his hands up in surrender. Then he almost smiled. “Well, that’s a good sign.”
Fray should have been horrified at his behaviour, but he couldn’t even bring himself to be sorry. “No one touches him. Please.” He winced. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Kellan said, smiling as if relieved. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What do you feel coming from him? What he’s feeling right now? Tell me about that.”
Fray paused for a second, concentrating, but again came back to confused. “Am I supposed to feel something? I know how I feel—mostly confused, concerned, considering freaking the fuck out, not gonna lie—but...” He shrugged. “How can I tell what’s his and what’s mine?”
Kellan’s brows furrowed. “I think you’re just supposed to know. I think it’s supposed to be very apparent.”
“Well, it’s not. I don’t know, and I don’t feel anything from him, so...”
This was fucked.
And wrong.
“Clearly it’s not the bond,” Fray said bitterly.
Because of fucking course. For years Fray had loved Tobin from afar.
He’d longed for, wished for, dreamed of something like this.
So of course this would happen to him. “And as if having all three hearts broken repeatedly for years wasn’t enough, now I have to go through this.
Here, Fray, here’s everything you ever wanted, but just kidding, no, it’s not. ”
Kellan shook his head now. “Something’s not right.”
Fray needed to leave. He needed some space and some distance from Tobin, even though it would probably fucking kill him to leave him right now. His Norwegian cousins were here. He should go talk with them. Or maybe another long soak in the bottom of the Cove so he could cry some more.
“I need to go,” Fray mumbled.
He tried to loosen Tobin’s hold on him, pull his arms off him and free himself, but Tobin responded by shifting and morphing, snaring Fray in a combination of both human arms and dark green tentacles, holding him tighter, like a spider catching a fly.
“Tobes,” Fray pleaded, trying to wiggle free.
Tobin startled awake, his limbs all morphing back to human. He glanced around wildly, as if shocked to find himself on his bed. He recoiled at seeing Kellan, but then he looked up and saw Fray.
An explosion of emotions pummelled Fray again, ripping the air from his lungs and sending ripples through him, his form shimmering with the need to morph—
And then Tobin grabbed Fray’s face and kissed him.
It was no gentle kiss. It was hard and demanding, desperate. His hot mouth, his sweet tongue, the way he held Fray’s face, the urgency.
Too many emotions to name, too powerful, too consuming.
Too perfect.
It was everything Fray could have ever dreamed of. He wasn’t even sure this was real.
Then Tobin moaned and began to push Fray down on the bed, and someone cleared their throat.
“Uh...”
Tobin shot back, startled, and the onslaught of emotions, of desire, disappeared so fast and with such force, Fray almost fell off the bed.
Tobin grabbed him and put himself between Fray and Kellan, clearly startled, his eyes wide and his chest heaving. “Kellan, what the fuck?” he asked, breathless. Then he looked back at Fray and made a noise low in his throat, but then he appeared to remember. “Fray, what the.... Oh, holy fuck.”
Fray could barely catch his breath, his chest burning again with the crater-sized hole where the world of emotions used to be. “Christ,” Fray gasped, pressing hard against his sternum, surprised it was even still there.
It didn’t feel like it should be.
Tobin seemed to notice too. “Fraser,” he breathed, his hands skimming over him, trying to find the source of the pain. “What’s wrong?”
Fray sucked back a breath, still clutching at his chest. “I felt it, but it’s gone again.
Fuck it hurts. Like it’s being ripped out of me.
” He shot Kellan a wild look. “I felt it. The bond. I felt him.” Then he looked at Tobin.
Beautiful, haunted Tobin. “I felt you. Just for a second, and it was so beautiful.” Fray had to swallow down the urge to cry.
“But then it was gone, and it fucking hurts.”
Tobin’s eyes went wide with horror. He looked at Kellan, then Fray, then back at Kellan. “What? What does that mean? What the fuck is going on?”
Kellan pulled over a dining chair and sat down, his expression grim. “Tobin, you know your bond is with Fray, yes?”
His eyes welled with tears, and he blinked quickly before conceding a nod. “I tried not to,” he murmured, then looked at Fray, his eyes deep pools of sadness. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I left so I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Fray’s hearts burned, hot and awful. “You should have told me.”
He nodded again, his eyes cast downward to his fidgeting hands.
“Is that why I can only feel it in waves?” Fray asked Kellan. “Because he doesn’t want it?” He scrubbed away a tear, but no sooner was it gone, another took its place. “Is it broken?”
Tobin groaned as if in agony, but then he cupped Fray’s face. “Please, Fray. I can’t take your tears, your pain.”
And then it was there again, a rush of happiness and peace, of love and understanding. A bloom of perfection and serenity so real, so tangible, it took Fray’s breath away.
And his pain.