Chapter 38 #2
Had Marcus already seen inside? His hand tightened on the doorknob as he glanced over to the couch, where Marcus had already settled as if he hadn’t felt the breeze of Nicholas speeding past him.
It would be just like him to have seen and understood everything, all while sparing Nicholas the embarrassment of acknowledging it.
Only once seated did he greet the dogs. Marcus believed delayed gratification inspired discipline.
“Two weeks is a long time. They miss you.”
“We’ve both been busy,” he said. “But we miss them too.”
Busy doing what? Nicholas wanted to ask, feeling irrationally hurt that Gabriel wasn’t sitting around hoping that he’d return. That senseless pain quickly reshaped into jealousy. Could someone else be keeping him occupied?
Jealousy gave way to concern as his gaze landed on the muted TV. He must have forgotten to turn it off that morning. He seemed to be forgetting a lot lately. The news was on.
“How long are you keeping them this time?”
“I’ll bring them back in a few days.”
Nicholas nodded, angling his head at Maxim. His sadness from a second ago was now replaced with a type of manic euphoria.
Nicholas glanced between the windows and the dogs, creeping over to the rain-slicked glass to peer across the street.
“What’s wrong?” Marcus watched him with keen eyes.
“Were you… Were you waiting for us across the street? In the alley between those two buildings? They had a pretty intense reaction to something over there. I thought it was the rats, but that doesn’t feel right.”
Marcus came over, peering into the night, expression giving nothing away.
“I’m sure it was nothing. I’ll have a look when we leave.”
Nicholas relaxed. “Thanks. The violence seems to be ebbing out there, but it hasn’t diminished completely. Can’t be too sure, you know?”
If the war was in fact coming to an end, Nicholas should’ve felt good about it. Instead, he couldn’t help feeling like Kyrin would now devote time to unresolved grievances.
“It’s good to stay vigilant, but you shouldn’t obsess over the news, Nicholas.”
“Why not? Shouldn’t I know what’s going on? I’m not a child. Please don’t treat me like one.”
Marcus’s nod was as slow as a bow.
Nicholas had to ask. There were already so many things he kept contained, wondering if Gabriel would break his promise could no longer be one of them.
“He isn’t going to do anything, is he? To Kyrin?”
“Gabriel is a man of his word, Nicholas.”
He closed his eyes, practically swaying with the relief of being right.
“You smoke now.”
Nicholas’s cheeks warmed. What other depravities did Marcus’s nose pick up on?
He pointed his chin to Nicholas’s desk, where the evidence lay, as if to say that was how he knew. How kind of him.
Nicholas walked over to the mirrored tray, fingering the thin, white sheets of paper and loose tobacco spread out on top of it.
He’d learned to roll them himself after finishing what Gabriel had left behind.
He still couldn’t sleep without them, without his ritual.
He couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, couldn’t leave the shower, or walk out the door without first completing it.
He wondered if he was the first supernatural being beholden to so many addictions.
“Yes,” he admitted, seeing no point in denying it. With that one weakness confessed, he saw no point in holding in all the others.
“How is he?” he whispered.
He never asked about Gabriel. It felt counterproductive to his wish to end the bond. The hypocrisy of that almost made him laugh.
“As you would expect.” His reply didn’t tell Nicholas anything, which he was sure had been the intention. Marcus was protective of Gabriel’s secrets.
Nicholas could only imagine what his resulting gaze conveyed to Marcus, enough to make him sigh and give Nicholas a bit more.
“He misses you, but don’t tell him I said that.”
“Because he wouldn’t want me knowing he hasn’t gotten over me?” That would make two of them.
“Because he wouldn’t want it to sway you.”
Nicholas averted his gaze, blood-tears stinging the backs of his eyes. He really needed to get some rest. His emotions were all over the place.
“You seem to be struggling,” Marcus said. Nicholas normally hid it well. “May I ask you something personal?”
Marcus wasn’t intrusive. He never asked personal questions.
“Yeah, of course.”
“How are your feelings for him?”
Nicholas wanted to lie, but what he hated even more than lying itself was lying to Marcus. He had a feeling he’d see right through him anyway.
“Not good. Worse, in fact.”
“What will you do about it?”
“I don’t know. It’s like the blood-bond can’t be broken.”
Marcus didn’t outwardly react, but a weird electrical current whipped through the air.
They stared at each other for a while, the sound of Nicholas’s heart overriding the sound of the pouring rain.
“We should get going before the storm worsens. I’ll text you if I notice anything nefarious across the street.”
“Marcus,” he called sharply, stopping him on his way to the door. “Look at me. Look at me!”
He peered over his shoulder at him.
Nicholas couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t think past the hammering in his chest.
“C-can the blood-bond be broken?”
“Of course it can.” He’d said it so easily, without inflection or hesitation. Nicholas latched on to the confirmation, feeling resuscitated by it. Marcus and the dogs were gone a second later, leaving him alone with his relief.
Nicholas leaned against the wall for support, repeating the five most important words to himself.
The bond can be broken.
The bond can be broken.
The bond can be… broken.
Flashes from the past struck with the first roll of thunder, reverberating through Nicholas’s skull. His claws punched out as realization hit, scraping against the drywall at his back.
The bond can be broken… if there’s a bond to begin with.
Nicholas raced out into the hallway, flying down the four flights of stairs and bursting through the building doors. He ran into the street in time to see Marcus’s taillights turn the corner several blocks ahead.
“Fuck!” He balled his fists, blood filling his palms, ice coating his veins. Remembering where he was, his gaze flickered up and down the street and into various apartment windows.
He dropped his head when his next-door neighbor exited, distracted with the task of opening her large umbrella. Nicholas slipped past her without a hello, charging for his bedroom once back inside his apartment.
Dripping wet, he yanked the nightstand drawers out, dumping their contents onto the floor and rummaging through for his dream journals. He found two, neither of them containing what he looked for.
He leapt over to Gabriel’s side of the bed, doing the same to the drawers there, finding what he searched for.
Tearing through the pages, he found the entry detailing the events after Zayn’s transition—the moment he and Gabriel became blood-bonded mates, and everything required to make that happen.
Nicholas sank to the floor, mind, body, and soul fragmenting, the pain unbearable.
There was no blood-bond between him and Gabriel. No obsession—at least there wasn’t only that. There were no excuses, no crutch to lean on, and no hope of being free.
Stripped of all that, Nicholas was left with one thing that had always been.
Love.