Chapter 9 #2
Reaper muttered a curse under his breath but mounted up.
The horse shifted beneath him, its muscles bunching, and for a second, he was sure he was about to eat dirt.
But then Cian’s hand was there, gripping his thigh with a strength that grounded him.
“Trust me.” His fingers felt warm even through the fabric of Reaper’s pants.
He kicked the horse into motion. “Are you coming?”
“I am,” Cian called after him. “But you’re going the wrong way.”
Fuck my life.
He got the horse turned around and thundered after Cian, then settled in to ride next to him.
He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
The man moved like he was part of the damn horse, his body swaying in perfect rhythm with its gait.
He could feel Cian’s gaze, but he didn’t turn his head.
He had until they made it to wherever they were going to figure out if he could do this.
Mate or die.
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
This is happening.
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
Mate or die.
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
This is really fucking happening.
Do I want to stop it?
No.
Yes.
Fucking option number four.
He’d spent years avoiding anything that even resembled a relationship. After Derek, he’d sworn he’d never let anyone close enough to hurt him again. Now he was bonded to a man he barely knew, a warrior from a world he didn’t understand, with a deadline hanging over their heads like a guillotine.
Until sunrise.
Or we die.
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
His fingers twitched against the horse’s neck. The animal snorted as if sensing his tension, and Reaper forced himself to exhale.
Think, damn it, think.
Just do it.
The trail narrowed, forcing them into a single file. Cian’s horse fell back half a step, close enough that Reaper could feel the heat radiating off him. He didn’t speak, or push. He just rode in silence, giving Reaper the space he clearly needed.
It should’ve been a relief… It wasn’t. Because the silence left too much room for the memories.
Derek’s venomous voice, “You’re nothing without me, Michael. Just a broken little bitch who doesn’t know his place.”
The sting of a belt across his back, the taste of blood in his mouth, or the way his own body had betrayed him, freezing up when he should’ve fought back. His throat tightened.
No.
Not now.
He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, urging it to go faster. The beast surged forward, eating up the ground, but the past clung to him like a second skin. He could still feel the phantom weight of Derek’s hands on him, the way they’d pinned him down, the way they’d—
A hand closed around his wrist and he jerked, nearly losing his seat. “Shit.”
The warrior had reached across the gap between their horses, his fingers warm and rough against his skin. “Breathe.” He stroked his thumb over the back of his hand. “Just breathe.”
Reaper yanked his arm back. “Don’t.”
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
“If you want to go back.” Cian didn’t let go. “We go back and let the fates decide what happens at dawn.”
“I said don’t.” The words came out harsher than he intended, raw with something he didn’t want to name. He didn’t want comfort or pity. He was a Navy SEAL, goddamnit. He’d faced down worse than this.
Haven’t I?
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
The words kept resonating in his head. Why the hell had he been so insistent on saving Cian earlier, only to let them both die now?
This is fucking with my mind.
Cian’s grip tightened for a heartbeat before he released him. “Fine. But if you want to live past dawn, we don’t have time for this.”
Reaper barked a laugh, bitter and hollow. “Time for what? For me to get my shit together? Newsflash, warrior—I don’t have my shit together. I’ve never had my shit together.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know if I can do this.”
Cian’s horse surged forward, cutting him off.
The warrior twisted in his saddle, his moss-green eyes burning into his.
“You think I don’t know what it’s like?” His voice was rough with something that sounded an awful lot like understanding.
“To be bound to someone you didn’t choose? To have your body betray you?”
Ah, fuck. I’ve hurt him
Hurting Cian was the last thing he’d wanted to do. Reaper’s chest ached. “This isn’t the same.”
“Isn’t it?” Cian’s mouth twisted. “My father has spent my entire life trying to control me. Trying to own Failinis. And now?” He gestured to the red marks snaking up their arms. “Now I’m bound to you. A man who doesn’t even want me.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut. He opened his mouth and shut it again.
I’m being a selfish dick.
He didn’t know what to say or know how to explain the storm inside him. The fear, the rage, the way his own mind turned against him every time he let someone close. He’d spent years building walls, and now they were crumbling, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
Cian turned away, kicking his horse back into motion.
“We ride,” he said, his voice flat. “When we get there, you decide. But know this, Reaper—” He glanced back, and there was something raw in his gaze.
“If we don’t do this, we both die. I’m not sure I’m ready to die for a man who’s already given up. ”
Given up?
Have I?
The forest swallowed them whole, the darkness pressing in like a living thing. And for the first time in years, Reaper didn’t know which way to run. Fate had never been kind to him. Why would she start now?
Cian finally dropped back and rode silently beside him. His presence was a solid, warm weight in the dark, a contrast to the chaos churning in Reaper’s gut. The man didn’t ask questions or demand answers. He just let the quiet stretch between them as if he was waiting for him to break it.
Reaper’s mind raced.
Mating.
Bonding.
Forever.
The words tasted bitter with the memory of Derek’s hands, his voice, the way he’d twisted love into something ugly that left scars deep in his soul.
He’d spent years burying that shit, locking it down tight, refusing to let it define him.
Now he was riding toward the one thing he’d sworn he’d never let himself need again.
The trees thinned ahead, and a pair of standing stones loomed like ghosts in the moonlight, the pool at their center dark and still.
A shiver ran down Reaper’s spine. The place hummed, a low, thrumming energy that vibrated through his bones, like the aftershock of an explosion or an earthquake, felt more than heard.
Cian reined in his horse, dismounting in one fluid motion. He turned, his gaze locking onto his. “We’re here.”
Reaper swung down from the saddle, his boots hitting the ground with a thud that jarred knees that had endured too many years of jumping out of planes and helos.
His legs felt unsteady, the ride leaving his muscles stiff.
He ignored the way his body protested and rolled his shoulders instead. “Yeah.”
Cian didn’t crowd him. He just stood there, watching and waiting. Like he knew Reaper needed the space to breathe, to think, to decide.
Reaper scoffed under his breath, kicking at a loose stone with the toe of his boot.
Decide.
Say the words, baby…please help me help you.
Like he had a choice. Mate or die, those were his options.
There was no in-between, no team riding in on desert Ubers to save him.
There were two paths, both leading to the same damn cliff.
He rubbed at his arm, his fingers tracing the red lines of the mark, and it tingled in response.
He’d spent his whole life fighting for control—over his body, his mind, his damn fate.
Now some ancient magic was calling the shots, and he was just supposed to roll over and take it.
His molars ached from the pressure of his jaw. “This isn’t how I do things.”
“I know.”
His head snapped up, his gaze locking onto Cian’s.
The man stood there, his arms loose at his sides, his posture relaxed but alert, like a predator waiting for the right moment to strike.
The moonlight caught the angles of his face, casting his cheekbones in sharp relief, his eyes dark and unreadable. “You don’t know shit.”
A corner of Cian’s mouth quirked. “I know you don’t like being backed into a corner.”
His laugh was humorless. “Yeah, and look where that got me.”
Cian tilted his head, his gaze never wavering. “Alive.”
Reaper’s chest tightened. Alive. That was the kicker, wasn’t it?
He’d spent years downrange in the sandbox, in the shit, fighting tooth and nail just to keep breathing.
Now he was standing in some fairy-tale forest with his life hanging in the balance on whether or not he could stomach letting someone in again.
His fingers curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. “I don’t—” The words stuck in his throat, and he swallowed hard, forcing them out. “I don’t know how to do this. Not anymore.”
Cian’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t have to.”
“Bullshit. I do…we do…or we die.” The mark on his arm pulsed in a sharp, insistent throb, like it was laughing at him.
Cian took a step forward, then another, and another until he was close enough that Reaper could see the swirls of the mark on his arm, the red lines glowing faintly in the dark, mirroring the ones burning beneath Reaper’s skin.
“You think this is about choice?” Cian’s voice was a low growl. “Do you think I chose this?”
Reaper’s gaze flicked up, meeting Cian’s.
The raw edge in the man’s voice cut through the noise in his head.
For the first time, he really looked at him, not as just the warrior, a myth, or the problem, but as the man standing in front of him, with his expression tight, his jaw set, and pain in his eyes.
There was something there, beneath the surface.
Something that looked a hell of a lot like frustration.
Cian’s fingers flexed at his sides, like he was fighting the urge to reach out.
“I’ve spent thousands of years waiting for my Grá Croí.
Thousands of years, watching my brothers, my kin, live their lives while I stood guard.
” His voice was a raw whisper. “Now I’m told I have to bind myself to a man who’d rather die than look at me. ”
The words knocked the wind out of him. He hadn’t—fuck. He hadn’t thought about it like that, or considered that Cian might be just as trapped in this as he was.
Cian’s eyes burned into him. “You’re not the only one who didn’t ask for this, a stór.”
The endearment was a whisper, barely there, but it sent a jolt through Reaper’s system. He didn’t do pet names, but the way Cian said it made something in his chest tighten.
He looked away, his gaze landing on the standing stones and the pool.
Do it.
Take a fucking leap of faith.
You asked him to let you help him; maybe it’s your turn to take a Hail Mary shot on him.
His fingers twitched as the mark on his arm pulsated in time with his heartbeat.
He could feel the bond, the magic, and the inevitability of it all.
It was like standing in the open door of a helicopter, with the wind howling in his ears and a drop yawning beneath his feet.
He could turn around, walk away, and let the bond kill him before he let himself be chained again.
But then what?
He’d die, and Cian would die with him.
I don’t want him to die.
He wasn’t a hero, and he damn sure wasn’t a saint. He’d done plenty of shitty things in his life, things that haunted him in the dark. But this? Letting someone else die because he was too stubborn and scared to take a leap of fate?
His exhale was sharp, fogging in the cold air.
“Fuck.” He dragged a hand over his face, his palm rough against the stubble on his jaw.
He was tired…so goddamn tired. Tired of fighting.
Tired of running. Tired of pretending he was in control when the truth was, he never had been.
Not really, not when it came to this. Fate was running this shitshow, and he and Cian were just along for the ride.
At least Fate picked someone I like as a man, and maybe even in a couple of decades or two, learn to love.