Chapter 46 #2
He allowed his own emotions to roll outward on an invisible wave until they were both gasping from the combined weight.
He let his trembling lip quiver, allowed his silent tears to fall, allowed his heart to break under the sadness it carried.
It was what Gabriel deserved. It was the least Nicholas could do.
His undisguised vulnerability was less than what he owed him.
And besides, whatever lay broken inside him, Gabriel would piece back together.
That was how his love worked. It healed just as much as it protected.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words from you, Nicholas. How many nights I’ve spent imagining this moment.”
“Does it live up to your expectations?”
“Exceedingly.”
Nicholas chuckled through his tears. “Well then, it doesn’t take much to please you, because it doesn’t even feel close to being enough.”
Gabriel frowned. “You weren’t wrong, Nicholas. You were never wrong for being upset with me. You deserved the time apart. You needed it to get to where you are now. Looking at you… Listening to you…”
He caressed the sharp planes of Nicholas’s cheekbones.
“It was worth it, Habibi. I’d suffer every excruciating moment again, for an infinite number of lifetimes, to see you like this. To see you whole.”
“I know, but it doesn’t change the fact that I hurt by hurting you. Two opposing things can be true.”
Their lips met for a brief kiss, a flame igniting along the cool waters lapping peacefully at his shore. All too soon, Gabriel eased away.
“What did you mean by you were scared of what it would take for you to love me?”
This was the moment. The moment Nicholas accounted for every unspoken denial and every whispered lie.
The moment he atoned for each self-inflicted wound, the moment he allowed the truth to lead his life indefinitely.
This was a reckoning. A reckoning with himself, with his feelings for the man in front of him, and with the person he no longer was—and never had been.
Nicholas shrugged Gabriel’s jacket off, baring himself, putting the reminders of his violence on full display.
Gabriel took in the blood splatter, the proof that he’d gone through hell and returned. The evidence that he’d killed, had nearly been killed, yet survived. They stood there as equals, what they had always been.
“You’re my reflection, Gabriel. I’ve known that from the moment I woke up as me.”
Because what he’d been before was an illusion, and he was finally ready to admit that.
Nicholas slid his palms into the opening of Gabriel’s shirt collar, gripping the sides of his throat as he stepped in close.
“You’re my beacon, my guide home, and your light shone on all the desires I wanted to keep hidden, even from myself.
My thirst for blood wasn’t what caused me shame; it was that, deep down, I didn’t feel shame at all.
And the way I desired your cock,” Nicholas said breathlessly.
“More than I desired religion, more than I desired my humanity…”
Gabriel listened intently, hands sliding into Nicholas’s matted hair.
“But it was your violence that scared me most, because it held a mirror up to what I knew I was capable of.”
His obsidian ocean had rippled and raged inside him for years, trying to get his attention, wanting to gain his acceptance. It had both now, finally able to rest in slumber.
“Every time I thirsted for blood, I blamed it on you. Whenever all I could think about was riding your cock, I told myself that you’d made me that way.
That you’d turned me into a whore. And when thoughts of you moving on with someone else made me want to kill everything walking… I held you responsible for that too.”
Nicholas shifted impossibly closer, dragging a thumb across Gabriel’s full lips.
“I wanted you to save me tonight. No, look at me,” he demanded when Gabriel averted his gaze.
“I wanted you to save me so that I could keep my hands clean, so that I could keep pretending that I’m not the man I see staring back at me in the mirror every day. My failure to act quickly cost me one of my dearest friends.”
Because whether Liam died as a human, or lived as a vampire, things would never be the same between them.
“I killed tonight, Gabriel.”
“I know.” Wasted remorse thickened his words.
“I will kill again. There’s a threat out there, and I won’t let it hurt anyone I care about.”
The beast that was him, yet not, stirred beneath his skin. They were two halves that made a whole.
“I want blood,” he seethed through gritted teeth.
“And blood you shall have.” Gabriel’s pupils sparked gold.
Nicholas watched him in awe, finding in his gaze the thing he’d been searching for elsewhere.
“I see freedom in your eyes, and it doesn’t scare me anymore, Gabriel. Neither does your love.”
Some of the greatest discoveries in life came with a cost, a reluctant surrendering of self, a loss of some part of the soul.
Nicholas had let everything holding him back fall away inside that church, leaving himself open to the unknown possibilities.
In doing so, he found himself, realizing that true strength came in the letting go.
“To love you, I had to first love myself. I had to set myself free. The version of me standing in front of you is prepared to do unimaginable things to keep you safe, and for once, I’m free of doubt.”
Gabriel watched him quietly.
“Do you love me, Nicholas? Because tonight changes everything. You aren’t the only one in search of retribution.”
Nicholas angled his head, giving Gabriel’s question some thought. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he wanted to first feel the truth of it.
He rejected the notion that Gabriel had to be different in order to be better or to be good.
Maybe his violence made him immoral. Maybe it had taken more from the world than it had given.
And maybe it would continue to do the same.
He’d accepted this about himself, and so Nicholas would too.
Because at the heart of Gabriel was honor, and that would always be enough.
“You’re my alchemy, Gabriel. My lightning in a bottle… My mate.”
Gabriel’s heart stumbled over that.
“I see you, Gabriel, and I love you anyway.”
He looked beyond the great ocean cradling his back, a silent but deadly promise made to whatever awaited them out there. Gabriel tugged his hand.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I want to clean you up, Habibi.”
“No.” Nicholas stopped him, interlocking his hands at his nape. “You’ve taken care of me long enough. Tonight, I’ll take care of you.”
Nicholas leaned in for what he’d planned to be the briefest of kisses, but hadn’t expected the electrical sparks that fired when their lips met, nor Gabriel’s ferocious response.
Gabriel lifted him under the arms, and Nicholas instinctively wrapped his legs around his waist. Deepening the kiss with a growl, he charged for the stairs. Nicholas broke free, panting.
“Okay, you can carry me, but I still get to take care of you when we get upstairs.”
Gabriel fisted his hair, forcing their mouths together as he ascended. How had Nicholas survived this long without him, without this intimacy? He hadn’t, he realized. Even with all the good happening in his life, without Gabriel, he’d been barely hanging on.
They crossed the threshold into the primary bedroom, and Nicholas broke the kiss. He slid down Gabriel’s chest, creeping deeper into the room.
The last time he’d peeked inside, all that remained was the reminder of his human death. Blood-soiled walls that told a macabre tale, ivory carpet stained ruby, and once pristine sheets sullied red. The room had been a coffin, housing his previous self, dark and glum.
The mahogany furniture sparkled now, the bedding and carpeting crisp, the color of purity. The room now reminded Nicholas of life.
“I wanted it ready, for if you ever decided to come back.”
Nicholas nodded, a heavy stone settling in his gut as he turned to face the balcony doors. He expected to feel re-traumatized, triggered in some way. But in the absence of grief and regret, the arched doors were just arched doors, a closed chapter in the story of his past.
He smiled at what awaited him beyond the glass, throwing the doors open to allow Blue and Yellow in. They fluttered anxiously around him.
“Are those…”
“My stalkers? Yup. Their names are Blue and Yellow, but I sometimes call them Lou and Low. And fair warning, they like to watch.”
He blushed, expecting Gabriel to assume they’d seen him in a compromising position with someone else, forcing him to then confess his dildo purchases.
“Ah, yes. I remember that.”
Of course.
Blue and Yellow had been there that first night he and Gabriel had sex.
“Have you truly forgiven me?” Gabriel whispered, his arms circling Nicholas from behind.
“Yes. I would die a thousand deaths to be with you. I would make any bargain to keep you, betray anyone in exchange for you, and I would sacrifice everything to get you back if I ever lost you.”
He turned in Gabriel’s arms. “Your heart was broken, and countless lives were lost for me to be here. I’m not sorry about any of it, Gabriel. I’ll never regret being right here with you, and I’ll never take it for granted. Not ever again.”
It was perhaps the most insensitive and selfish thing he’d ever said, but it was the truth, and so he owned it.
There were candles on the nightstands. Noticing Nicholas’s gaze on them, Gabriel lit the wicks with the tip of his finger.
“I have your lighter,” he said. “Were you looking for it?”
“Not really.”
He moved to the other side of the bed, lighting those as well.
They didn’t need them to see by, but Nicholas had enjoyed his company in this room by candlelight many nights.
It used to soften him, lower his defenses.
He no longer required any outside influence to be soft and defenseless with Gabriel, but it was still nice to have the scene set.