Chapter 11 Connall
Connall
Rewind
No sooner has Connall closed the back door of Beau’s SUV than his friend is peeling away from the curb. He wants to shout “Stop,” force his friend to turn around so Connall can haul his mate out of that bus and into his life.
His fourth mate.
Four beautiful men who fit Connall’s idea of perfection: handsome, strong, and filled with light. Every single one of them.
And all of them but one in Nashville. The fourth is…Goddess knows where.
The idea that perhaps he’s hurt or suffering makes Connall’s wolf howl. More than any crime he’s committed, leaving his first mate is his greatest shame. His image, burned into Connall’s mind all those years ago, rises to join the faces of the others as they swirl through his mind.
Round and round.
Izzy, Eli, the gorgeous man on the bus whose name he doesn’t even know.
And Soren. Beautiful and shining with the bright light of youth, his first mate had been pure joy.
Until Connall had crushed him, rejected him with cruel words, cursing them both to a life of suffering. A constant yearning that Connall has never been able to outrun.
Stomach roiling, Connall bends at the waist, trying to relieve his vertigo and his racing heart. Taking a deep breath, he swallows, forcing away the nausea that has been constant since he fled Quest.
“Fuck. Pull over,” Connall moans, as he loses the battle with his stomach.
“I’m not fuckin’ chasing you again, Boss.”
“Pull over, or you’ll be cleaning my puke off your leather seats.” Connall gags, swallowing pure bile and his dignity, hoping only to avoid adding even more shame to his list of transgressions.
“Won’t be the first time,” Beau grumbles, but pulls into the parking lot of a small church.
Connall gets the door open in time to lean out and spit out another heaving mouthful of bile. Face burning with pressure, eyes burning with yet another round of unshed tears, he gags and gags.
“Oh, fuck.” It’s dragged out of his soul. The place where these four men should be aches, and his body is determined to force him back in the other direction—toward Quest, where he’d left his mates. Maybe they could help him find the man from the bus.
He wants so badly to feel the relief their closeness would bring, to hold them and never let them go, to protect them.
And there it is. Connall must protect them from himself. The lies and the horrible things that not only go on under his nose, but with his full knowledge and consent.
Connall is a plague, and he will not infect one more person he’s supposed to love.
“Here,” Beau mutters, offering him a towel. It smells like gym sweat, but Connall isn’t surprised that the familiar scent of his best friend helps comfort him.
“Thanks. How’d you know where I—”
“I tracked your ass on my phone. Never had to before, though, and I’m not doing it again, if that’s okay with you.” It’s not a question, so Connall focuses on breathing through the sharp pain in his head.
Running through the streets of Nashville sounds like the last thing Connall wants to do, now more than ever. He’s been in Nashville for decades and not once run into his mates—not in a bar, although Connall owns four, at a club, or even in Lupine Park.
Why now? Why all at once?
“What a fucking day,” Beau sighs beside him. He pulls Connall’s arm until he’s out of the way of the rear door and then pushes him down onto his butt. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Sit down before you bust your head.
There’d been the rich sound of New Orleans in the bus-Adonis’s voice—smooth like the best bourbon, layered with the smoky scent of a cherry-flavored cigar. Luxurious. Expensive. Connall can picture him lying on his bed in the finest silk sheets, skin glowing in the candlelight.
Maybe with Eli and Izzy. Entwined. Their soft skin—
“Boss?”
Connall comes to himself, realizes that he’s halfway across the parking lot on foot. He has a creeping dread that this will be a fight he’s going to face over and over.
“Goddammit. What am I going to do?” He doesn’t mean to ask it out loud.
Beau scoffs, rubs his hand up and over his bald head. “You askin’ for real, or you being rhetorical?”
Not one to usually ask before offering an opinion, Connall braces himself.
“Either,” Connall sighs out, tossing the towel onto the top of the SUV. “I’m just going to sit here.”
“Let’s go over there.” Beau points to a grassy knoll near a small turquoise-blue lagoon beside the Church of the Divine Goddess. “There are eight of these churches in Nashville alone. Did you know that?”
“Yeah? How’d you know that?”
“Ollie. That kid is a fountain of information about all kinds of random shit.”
Connall sweeps back the low-hanging branch of a weeping willow tree. It’s a strange metaphor for his day—for his life, really.
“I like Ollie.” It’s all Connall can offer as he sits on the grass.
Close enough to the edge that he can see the small body of water is man-made, but there are no manufactured elements like a liner or pump.
The water is an almost electric blue. Such an odd color for not being lined in plastic like a swimming pool.
He trails his hand through the cool water, jolting in surprise when a silver-white carp slides past in a caress. It’s oddly comforting.
If Connall could bring himself to spend any of Patrick Carnell’s cash, he’d have a place with a pond and some carp—maybe ten or twenty.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
As first volleys go, it’s not as bad as Connall might have expected.
“Yup.”
Beau starts to pace the length of the pool, long legs eating the distance in five strides and then back again. His amber scent has exceeded his patch, and even though it’s in anger, Connall drags in a deep breath, letting it soothe him a little.
“‘Yup?’ That’s it?” Beau points a thick finger at him. “Listen to me: you have mates. A fucking pack. Why are you running like you’re being chased? Why are we sitting under this fucking sad-ass tree instead of driving the three of you to a fancy hotel?”
“Four.”
“Four? Four what?” Beau asks, brows pulled down in confusion. “I know about Soren, bro, but I meant today. Izzy and Eli.”
“I met three mates today,” Connall murmurs. “There was another one. On the bus.”
The words are sharp with regret, the longing piercing his gut like knives. He can’t stand being upright one more second. He lies on his back, looking up to the sunset-pink sky through the willows’ branches.
He’ll just have to take whatever else his friend has to say lying down.
“He was beautiful.” Connall relishes the ache in his groin even with the nausea and growing headache.
“Such a smart mouth. Eyes like the best whiskey. You know the one we got in that deal from…” He closes his eyes, easily bringing to mind the man on the bus’s honeyed drawl, his full mouth pulled up in the corner in a smirk, his long, lean fingers.
When Beau says nothing to mock his reverent whispers, Connall rolls to his side so he can see him better and dips his fingers back into the water.
His friend is frozen, mouth agape in surprise, seconds before it firms into a line that means only one thing: Beauregard Johnson is pissed the fuck off.
“You met three mates today? All at once?”
“Yea—”
“No. Do not interrupt me.” His hands are clenched into tight fists at his sides, a sure sign he’s holding back from punching something.
Connall wants to close his eyes and let that something be him. Just to feel something hurt that isn’t the deep ache in his soul.
“You, Connall Gaelan O’Daire, are an idiot.”
“You said that already.”
“Well, I fucking mean it. Like I have never meant anything else in my life. You have a pack. Goddess. What I wouldn’t give to have just one person—just one—who was mine.”
Connall had never heard such longing in his best friend’s voice. Not when they were indentured to a psychopath and dreaming of sailing away into the horizon. Not once.
Wait. No, he had seen a glimmer of something like it on Beau’s face at Quest, when they had watched Gideon and Luca.
Beau had wanted that for himself.
“I’m sorry—”
“Sorry? Are you fucking kidding me?” Beau asks incredulously, before he gentles his tone. “Boss—Con…Please don’t do this. Not to them. Not to yourself.”
“I don’t deserve them. It has to be a mistake.” It has to be. If it’s not, then the Goddess has cursed his mates to a life tethered to a criminal. A killer.
“They don’t make mistakes. Your mates are a perfectly chosen gift, and you are throwing it away when I would kill to keep them.” Beau doesn’t whisper the words. They’re strong and echo over the water and back again, louder, as if Connall needs to hear them repeated. “Just to make you happy.”
That’s the thing. Connall doesn’t deserve happiness. They’ll be better off without him. Sad at first, of course. No one likes to be rejected. But alive and safe in their happy, everyday lives.
“I am content,” Connall mutters, hardly believing the lie himself. He’s never been in the vicinity of content.
The lie rankles, as he rarely lies to Beau. They know the truth of each other down to the last atom. The bitter taste of it is only worse when his friend of a decade and a half snorts in disbelief.
“Come on, don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. You—”
“Stop. I’m not changing my mind.”
The words cut deep, and somewhere in the lagoon, a carp breaks the surface as a breeze carries the scent of sadness. Winter-cold.
“I stink. I need a new patch.”
Climbing to his feet, he brushes off the back of his suit. He’s not sure how he’s going to find the time to get the grass stains out, but Connall has years of experience getting all kinds of stains out of fancy suits.
Besides, there are twenty-four usable hours in the day.
Since there is no doubt he is in for several sleepless nights, he’s got time to spare.
Anything to avoid the dreams he knows will come.
They’ll bring the pain of separation as his wolf uses everything it has to get Connall to give in and find his mates.