Chapter 31 #2
Hamza jumped in before Gabriel could, as if he’d sensed Nicholas’s hesitancy too.
“Why the rush?”
Nicholas didn’t miss a beat. “I miss my things.”
“Then bring them here.”
“It’s not just that, Hamza,” he ground out.
Gabriel noted that the two of them were developing a relationship that was just as frustrating as the one he had with Hamza. His brother didn’t know the meaning of letting something go.
Hamza slung an arm across the back of the couch. “Make me believe it.”
Gabriel didn’t get in between them, although it pained him not to. The last time he tried, they both told him to stay out of it.
Nicholas slid Gabriel a sidelong glance before answering.
“If you must know—”
“Oh, I must.” Hamza grinned at Nicholas’s scowl.
“I want to break the blood-bond between me and Gabriel. I can’t do that here.”
“Blood-bond?” Frowning, Hamza sniffed the air, then turned condemning eyes on Gabriel.
“Yes, and I don’t need your permission. If you won’t give me a ride, Marcus will.”
Marcus looked at Gabriel.
“Or I’ll Uber!”
“I’ll take you,” Hamza said, gaze trained on Gabriel. “I think getting away from here is a good idea.”
Gabriel didn’t flinch or blink, but he hoped his message was clear all the same.
Mind your business.
“Do you need help bringing your stuff down?” Hamza asked.
“No, I can manage.”
The silence grew tense, uncomfortable, as Gabriel and Nicholas locked eyes.
“I’ll, um, be in the truck,” Hamza said. “Take your time.”
Gabriel didn’t see Marcus stand, but when the study door clicked shut, it was just him and Nicholas in the room. He pushed to his feet, but didn’t move.
“I hope you get everything you wished for.”
Nicholas’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and Gabriel could feel his longing even though he hadn’t left yet.
“You’ve helped me to see that it’s more than possible.” He peered down at the dogs crowding his legs. “I have them. And I have Marcus, and Hamza—although I might want to give him back,” he muttered.
Now they both wore smiles that didn’t fit.
“You have me, too, Nicholas. Always.”
“Thank you.”
“You never have to thank me.”
He seemed hesitant to leave, gnawing on his bottom lip.
“Did you bite Mateo?”
His words were rushed, like maybe they’d been sitting on the tip of his tongue all week. Gabriel couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t have asked sooner, but maybe he didn’t want to reveal how much it bothered him. The tick in his jaw said it bothered him a great deal.
“I did. It wasn’t my finest hour. I acted out of jealousy.”
“Jealousy?”
“Yes.”
“But we’re just friends. Why would you…” He trailed off, cheeks going up in flames. “Oh. That’s what he told you. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Maybe not to you,” Gabriel said gently.
“Mateo never wanted me, Gabriel. I’m just the only person who’s never hurt him.”
Nicholas made it to the study door before Gabriel called his name.
“Are you upset because I bit your friend, or because I drank from someone other than you?” He couldn’t help himself. He had to ask, had to know what the scent of simmering rage stemmed from.
“Have you ever fed from me?”
Nicholas touched his neck, likely thinking back on the night in his apartment.
“No,” Gabriel said, clutching at the look of disappointment that earned him.
“Then both. It was wrong to do that to him. And it makes me sick to think of someone else sustaining you. And I hate that it was someone who wasn’t me.”
His honesty floored Gabriel. After all they’d been through, after the distance Nicholas craved so much, he hadn’t expected him to lay himself bare in that way.
“Maybe with time, that sickness and hate will fade,” said Gabriel, the words cutting into him on the way out.
“Yeah, maybe. Hopefully.”
He glanced down at the two dogs beside him. Maxim remained in the center of the room, looking between both of them.
“Go,” Gabriel said to him. Maxim whimpered, lowering to the floor.
“Let him stay,” Nicholas said. “I was wondering how I’d fit all three of them into my tiny apartment anyway. Maybe we can figure out some sort of shared custody arrangement.”
“Yeah, perhaps.”
And with that, he was gone, taking Gabriel’s heart with him.
Gabriel stroked Maxim’s head while staring blankly at the mantelpiece.
“You can leave now,” he said, feeling Marcus’s concern pressing like a stiff wind at his back.
“No, I think I’ll stay.” Marcus came up beside him, gesturing for him to take the tumbler of blood-scotch he held. He sipped from his own glass.
“You’re taking this well,” Marcus said after a brief pause.
Gabriel brought the glass to his lips.
“I’m not sure if I could express how I truly feel without the onslaught bringing Nicholas to his knees. I’m afraid to try.”
“But how long until keeping yourself leashed brings you to your knees, Sayyidi?”
Gabriel would bear all burdens for as long as he could if it meant Nicholas wouldn’t have to.
“He still has things to learn.”
“He’ll learn on his own, or Hamza and I can teach him.”
Gabriel swallowed down the rest of his tainted scotch, the burn quenching the growl thirsting inside of him. He strode to his desk for his tin of hand-rolls.
“Hamza is an idealist,” he said around a ribbon of smoke. “Their sense of justice is too similar. I worry it may do more harm than good.”
Maxim hopped onto the couch, settling in while observing them both.
“Or maybe it will preserve what makes Nicholas special. What makes him unique in a treacherous world. Trust that everything will work out fine, Muharib.”
Gabriel grunted, perching on the corner edge of his desk.
“One of these days, Hamza’s need to keep his hands clean is going to cost him.”
“Maybe. Let’s hope that cost isn’t another civilization.”
They lapsed into silence, in which Marcus regarded him carefully.
“Tell me something,” he eventually said. “How is he with you?”
Marcus glanced at the study door, as if remembering when Nicholas had charged through it.
Nicholas was growing into himself, into the man he wanted to be. He asserted himself more often than not and put forth the effort not to shy away from things. But that wasn’t what Marcus was asking.
“He can be aggressive. Dominant, even. Could be that he’s still young.”
In both human and massas dimae years.
Marcus stared at his drink in thought. “Was it like that for Zayn?”
“No.”
Gabriel took a few more pulls before putting his cigarette out and strolling over to the glass wall. The sun had set, the ocean swallowing the rain.
“And how are you with him?”
Gabriel knew where his friend was heading because it was something he’d been pondering himself for weeks.
“I tend to stand down. I never want him to feel pressured or swayed. I don’t want to upset him. I’ve done enough of that already.”
Marcus hummed, his tone contemplative. “It’s more than that. I’ve seen you assert your will while maintaining diplomacy. The two have never been mutually exclusive before. Perhaps—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said, intercepting Marcus’s thought. He didn’t see the purpose of going further down that road. “It likely won’t come to it.”
They were quiet for so long that Gabriel thought Marcus had lost interest in the inner workings of him and Nicholas. But he sidled up next to him again, ready to pry a bit more, another bloodied glass of scotch in hand.
“Why didn’t you tell Nicholas the truth about the mated blood-bond?”
It wasn’t often that he and Marcus had these types of conversations. The kind that required Gabriel to bare his soul. Marcus seemed to know when digging deep was needed, and when the absence of inquiry was desired.
Gabriel had been keeping counsel with himself for weeks now, months even. Could Marcus feel the tipping point approaching? Was this his way of helping Gabriel alleviate some of the building pressure?
“But how long until keeping yourself leashed brings you to your knees, Sayyidi?”
For that reason alone, he answered.
“Partly because he’d just bared his soul to me when I learned that he believed my turning him, and him drinking from me, made us mates. I didn’t want to embarrass him with the truth.”
The truth that his feelings for Gabriel were his own.
“It shouldn’t feel like I would die without you. You shouldn’t feel like an obsession, but you do.”
Nicholas would never have been so vulnerable had he known.