Chapter 14 #2
Safely in the tack room, he took a moment and breathed in deeply. Leather, linseed oil, and the faint scene of liniment filled his nostrils, familiar and grounding.
He’d come out to the barn looking for comfort.
The truth was, he’d wanted Colby’s presence, his steadiness, the warm spark of connection he couldn’t stop thinking about.
He couldn’t remember his dreams, but he knew they’d been about the brig.
And for reasons he didn’t understand, the presence of his pack was no longer enough to comfort him.
It hadn’t occurred to him, beyond the obvious things like food and blankets, that Colby might be the one who needed comfort now.
Although things had changed a little after Cale’s pack came for Jesse, Tristan remained the baby of the pack.
Some of them still called him pup even though he was twenty.
And while that sometimes grated, it was also safe.
They looked out for him, took care of him.
He wasn’t used to being the one someone else turned to.
But maybe that needed to change. He always gave back—he didn’t know how not to, even had he wanted. But this was different. Colby needed someone to lean on, to help hold the weight that threatened to crush him. Tristan wasn’t there yet, but he wanted to be. For Colby.
He returned to Colby’s stall, arms full of blankets, and met Colby’s gaze, his gray eyes shyly warm on Tristan. And as he looked into Colby’s eyes, everything inside him stopped. The world kept spinning, but he was completely, utterly still.
It hit him with the force of instinct, immense and sure, something ancient slotting into place inside him. Mine.
Certainty surged through him, wordless and bright, and Tristan, who usually blurted every thought before it was fully formed, stayed quiet. He didn’t want to scare it away by breathing too hard. But joy built inside him anyway, wild and fizzing, until it felt like it would escape through his skin.
He turned away, busying himself with the blankets, needing the movement to ground him. To hide the grin spreading across his face, huge and unstoppable. Colby—sweet, kind, heartbreakingly brave Colby—was his. His mate. And he would never be the same again.
Now that he knew, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it sooner.
He thought back to that moment in the brig, when Colby had touched him for the first time—how warmth and a feeling of rightness had filled him, even as fear spiked in his chest, sharp and wild.
He’d chalked it up to panic, to adrenaline.
But it hadn’t been just that. Something deeper had answered Colby’s touch, something primal and wordless that he hadn’t had time to unpack.
He’d dreamed of it so often, that first touch between him and his mate, when everything he was feeling would be amplified and the rush of joy he’d feel.
It had never crossed his mind that it might happen when he was scared shitless.
But even then, through the spike of fear, he’d felt something else.
He was still trying to work out how to tell Colby as he straightened once more. Bryce had always said he’d have years before he met his mate and not to worry about it yet, so he’d never even thought about how to approach the subject once his mate showed up.
Thoughts of Bryce brought him to a sobering realization.
Telling Colby they were mates right now would be like the worst form of coercion.
It didn’t matter that he wanted to shout it to the world and wrap Colby in every promise that word carried.
What mattered was that, for Colby, this could never be another kind of cage.
The understanding of how carefully he’d have to tread at least helped the smile reduce to something more manageable.
But it was still there because, even with all the complications he’d have to navigate, he’d never thought his mate would be someone as wonderful as Colby.
He understood now why coming to the barn had been such an immediate decision.
Why he’d been prepared to brave his alpha’s displeasure. He’d needed to be with Colby.
He grinned happily at Colby as he fetched the comforter from the straw bale. Colby blinked slightly, and Tristan realized his smile must still be out of proportion with what might be expected for laying out a bed in an empty stall in the middle of the night. He tried to dial it down further.
Colby looked from Tristan to the makeshift bed as he smoothed the comforter into place, and Tristan realized he hadn’t told him what he was doing. Damn, he was going to have to get better at communicating if he was going to have a mate. Especially when that mate was Colby.
“I didn’t want you to be alone tonight,” he said finally, sitting back on his heels.
Colby didn’t say anything, but he was listening. Tristan could feel it in the air, the stillness.
“I thought we could lie down here,” Tristan said, quieter still. “Because I want to be near you. That’s all. Just… near you.” His throat caught. “But if it’s not what you want, you can stay over there. Or tell me to go. And I will.”
Colby still said nothing, and Tristan decided to take his silence as permission to stay. Settling on his back beneath the comforter, he left plenty of space beside him. His heart was beating too fast, feeling like it was trying to burst out of his skin.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then came the faint shuffle of movement. Colby stepped over slowly and turned back the comforter long enough to climb underneath it. They weren’t touching, but Tristan could feel the shift in the air between them. Could feel him there, warm and real.
“I’m going to turn my phone off now, okay?” Tristan said. “While I’ve still got some battery left, because this one won’t hold a charge for long, and I really need a new one.”
Colby was still and silent, and after waiting a moment, Tristan thumbed off the light, plunging the stall into darkness. He could hear Colby’s breathing, a little uneven and fast.
He tried to relax, pulling the comforter higher over his shoulders as he damned himself for not remembering pillows.
Colby’s voice, when it came, was a whisper. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever known.”
The words wrapped around him, quiet and uncertain. He swallowed hard, breath catching. “Is that a good thing? I hope that’s a good thing.”
In the dark, Colby’s breath hitched. “Yeah. It is.”
They lay there as the barn creaked softly around them, hearing the occasional rustle and thud of a horse moving in its stall. And with every moment that passed, something inside Tristan steadied. He didn’t reach out. But he wanted to. God, he wanted to.
He stared up at the rafters, enough moonlight coming through the gaps in the wood to make the stall a mass of shadows now that his eyes had adjusted. He was aware of every beat of his heart, every breath.
Beside him, Colby was so still he might have been asleep, but Tristan could sense he wasn’t. And then Colby shifted, just enough for his arm to brush against Tristan’s beneath the comforter. The contact was so light, it could have been accidental.
Except it wasn’t. Tristan knew it in his bones, and his breath caught.
Slowly, Tristan turned his hand over in the darkness, palm up. A silent invitation. It made no sense how Colby would have known in the darkness, but it seemed Colby was attuned to his movements, because his fingers slid into Tristan’s. Careful and unsure, but real.
Tristan didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He just held on, as tightly as he dared.