Chapter 2 #3
“How did he die? The man I remind you of.” He flushed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed he was dead… It’s just, from the sound of your voice—”
“He was murdered,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly, leaving Nicholas flustered.
“I… I’m so sorry.”
“No more than I am.” Gabriel admired the deep, rich color of Nicholas’s eyes. The silence stretched as Nicholas allowed him to stare.
“Did they catch the person?”
“Yes, but it didn’t feel like justice.”
Gabriel thought back to the night he’d torn the Saraadian council apart, limb by limb. With Zayn’s blood lighting up his veins, he’d been stronger than the full force of their militia. He’d been just as hollow afterward, maybe more so, than he’d been before the bloodshed.
“I’d give anything to hold him again.”
Nicholas shuffled closer to Gabriel, almost unconsciously. “What was he like?”
Gabriel stood unnervingly still, not wanting to alert Nicholas to their proximity.
“Passionate, preferred the company of animals, fiercely untrusting, and could be downright cruel when provoked. And those were his good qualities.”
“Untrusting,” whispered Nicholas, as if he’d discovered a kindred spirit. “How did you earn his trust? What did he see in you?”
“Nothing I saw in myself,” Gabriel admitted.
He understood the question wasn’t an insult, but one with an answer Nicholas hoped to benefit from. His affinity with Zayn in this regard—his ill relationship with trust—was a challenge Gabriel helped to create the moment he demanded Zayn’s return.
Nicholas felt the mutual pull between them, even if he couldn’t see it for what it was at the moment. It was in his scent, the look of longing in his gaze, in the way he was tugged closer to Gabriel. He’d shown up for vacant sex only to discover he was alone in a dark room with danger.
It was that danger that stalled him on the suite’s threshold, Gabriel knew. But Nicholas’s intuition, his body—and hopefully his heart—had carried him down that hall to him.
Gabriel brushed aside a lock of his hair without thinking, sending a jagged crack right down the center of a perfect moment. Nicholas jolted, clearing his throat. He held the card up as he backed away toward the door.
“I’ll call you with my decision.” It was the first lie he’d uttered. Gabriel could taste its foulness. He sighed, knowing he’d have to kill another innocent man if Nicholas didn’t accept his proposal.
“Nicholas,” Gabriel called after him. He froze with his hand on the doorknob.
“Once we become intimate, I want nothing between us. I’ll provide whatever you need to feel comfortable with that.” Gabriel’s kind didn’t contract or transmit diseases. The medical proof would be for Nicholas’s peace of mind alone.
“I thought you said no sex.”
“Yet, Nicholas. Yet. But make no mistake, I will have you.”
Nicholas stared in open shock, then nodded before leaving without another word.
Gabriel faced the dismal city again, releasing the breath he’d been holding for two hundred years.
But make no mistake, I will have you.
Zayn would’ve chafed at Gabriel’s arrogance, but Nicholas’s arousal bloomed, the scent of it still swirling around him.
It occurred to him that Nicholas and Zayn’s differences didn’t need to be a great tragedy.
Didn’t need to equate to loss. He traced the reflection of his own smile through the rain-slicked window.
“Who are you, Nicholas?” he murmured, excited about unearthing the answer.
Marcus didn’t interfere with Gabriel’s brooding silence during the long drive out of the city. Gabriel was thankful for the time to think; his thoughts consuming him until the scent of brine prickled his nose.
Up ahead, his home appeared. It sat, dark and looming, on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Marcus drove up the winding, steep road leading to the driveway, pulling to a stop in front of the granite structure. He put the car in park, patiently waiting for Gabriel to speak.
“Memories plague him in his sleep, Rayyaan,” Gabriel addressed Marcus by his birth name. “I don’t know if they’re mine or his.”
Gabriel didn’t yet understand to what extent their connection worked in this new life, especially since Nicholas hadn’t completed his transition. In their past life, as blood-bonded mates, they were capable of allowing each other access to their thoughts and memories while feeding.
“Maybe they’re simply dreams,” Marcus said in a clear attempt to alleviate Gabriel’s concerns.
“No. He’s seeing the past. I’m sure of it.”
What if Nicholas learned the truth too soon?
“He doesn’t know your true form, nor does he know anything of the home and people you and Zayn were born to. To him, it will be nothing more than dreams, Muharib.”
“And what happens when the past and present collide? He’ll want to know things about me, and eventually my answers will align with his nightmares.”
Nicholas was keen and skittish. The more lies Gabriel told, the further their divide would be when the time came for the truth.
“There’s also the small matter of the church.”
“That won’t be enough to stand in your way.”
Gabriel grunted, not ready to desert his pessimism, no matter how hard his friend tried to assuage his fears.
“This was promised to you. It is destined,” Marcus said with conviction. “Qadar. Remember that.”
Gabriel exited the car without saying goodnight, entering the foyer and then the living room as the sound of the engine faded downhill.
He circled in place, taking in the hollow vastness of the space around him.
His home felt dark and cold in a way it hadn’t before.
Or maybe he just hadn’t cared to notice until now.
There was no love here, and although furnished, the mocking light of the moon spotlit its emptiness.
Would Nicholas like it? Would he want to stay here?
Gabriel had been a simple man once upon a time, but he’d needed to adapt, change with the world around him in order to remain inconspicuous. What he wouldn’t give to go back to his cave near the river. The place where he’d spent nights reshaping Zayn from steel to putty with his bare hands.
Beneath Zayn’s iron exterior had lived a love so tender and without condition when he surrendered to it. But in the old world, traits such as those weren’t celebrated, they were exploited. Not much had changed in that regard.
Gabriel flipped the switch that controlled the glass wall leading to the patio. Beyond the bluff, the waves crashed against the rocks below, summoning him.
He stripped down as he marched for the edge, then dove, slicing through the wind before cutting past the ocean’s cool surface.
He let go of the impossibilities for one night.
There was much to question, but he had to believe their love would prevail, conquering the many obstacles standing in their way.
He had to believe their love was worth forgiveness.