Chapter 13 Elias
Elias
“We’re here,” Finn’s friend Artem murmurs.
Elias comes out of his mental stupor with a jolt to find them parked in front of a dingy bar. The sign over the door reads All’s End. It’s surprisingly fancy compared to the dingy parking lot.
All’s End.
Surely Isaac would have something to say about the name. Something like this is where it all ends. Or maybe even Connall’s End.
But Elias has never been that witty. He realizes Artem has turned the car off and is just sitting quietly as he waits for Elias to gather himself and get out.
“Sorry. I’m probably keeping you. You probably have places you’d rather be—” Elias checks the clock on the dash and sees it’s after ten PM. “Shit.”
How long was he out?
Artem is quick to shake his head. “You take all the time you need. I was headed home from a da—” He breaks off, but his smile says he’d had a good evening.
“A date?”
“Mmm,” he answers.
Even in the almost dark of the car’s interior, Elias can see a telltale flash of a pink blush visible under his evening beard. It takes years off his face.
“Been alone my whole life, and while it didn’t feel like I was waiting, now that they’re here…it feels…good.”
“Like being home.” Elias knows exactly what he means. His home is in the hospital, and he’s about to shake up their entire world.
“Exactly.” He hesitates, gripping the steering wheel as if he’s debating whether he should say what’s on his mind. “I was afraid, you know?”
Elias knows what it is to be afraid. It’s why he’s sitting in a stranger’s car long after he should have been inside already.
“Yeah, I can see you do. I spend a lot of time thinking about why now? Why me? They’re incredible, and I don’t know anything about being in a pack.
” He laughs to himself. “But I can tell that they’re…
uh…mine.” A quick flash of a happy grin before Artem runs a hand through his hair with an awkward chuckle.
“Now it’s my turn to be sorry. You have other things on your mind than an old man’s love life and self-doubt. ”
“You’re hardly old,” Elias says. He wonders what Isaac would tell Artem with the white Corolla. Feels like he should say something encouraging to the nice man who made a detour after his date.
“Well, thank you, but I’d long thought I was going to return to The Goddess alone.
It was all right. I have lived a contented life and then—” He shrugs, fingers tapping a melody on the steering wheel.
“It’s a long story, but needless to say, the past year has been more exciting than any I experienced in the first fifty. ”
“Some excitement is good for the soul. Besides, you won’t know until you try.”
“That’s good advice,” Artem says, letting the words settle in the silence.
Ah. Take your own advice, Elias.
“I see what you did there.”
“Good. I’m not saying I know this will work out—whatever it is—but you won’t know until you try.”
The words help a little. Enough to give him the courage to unbuckle his seatbelt and open the door.
“Thanks, Artem.”
“My pleasure. Do you have everything you need? For now?”
No. What Elias really needs is lying on a hospital bed hooked up to monitors.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will.”
Elias shuts the door, and without looking back, he knows the older man is waiting until he goes inside. Just in case.
Pulling open the big wooden door, there’s a glass door at the far end, but before he can get past it, he has to convince the woman guarding it to let him in.
She’s tall and broad, like Elias has always imagined bouncers would be in bars. But also beautiful with a wide smile and sharp, perceptive eyes. “Hey, sugar. Meeting friends?”
“Uh…” His stomach drops, and the pounding in his head picks up speed. He needs to get beyond that glass door. No doubt in his mind that if he said he was here to see Connall, there would be a whole lot more questions and a delay Elias’s nerves can’t afford.
What would Izzy do?
WWID?
“Yeah.” The sound of the karaoke version of Eternity by Long Road Home is audible even through the glass. “I love karaoke.”
Oh, Goddess. He’s so lame.
She chuckles. “Sure you do. You got ID, Karaoke?”
Oh. No.
His bag is hanging over the hook in the kitchen at Quest, but he puts a shaking hand on the ass of his jeans, and there is his wallet. He rarely carries it there anymore after Isaac pointed out that it was bad for his back.
After checking his driver’s license, she waves him in. “You’re good. Have fun.”
The noise inside the bar is so loud it pierces through his brain, making him sway into the back of a big guy in a black shirt seated near the door.
“Hey, buddy! Watch it.”
“Sorry.”
“He’s just drunk, Shane. Ignore him. What are you singing?” The girl with him goes back to the binder of possible karaoke songs.
Not willing to wait to see if Shane is sober enough to listen to his date, Elias makes for the end of the bar.
There’s an empty seat with an abandoned Martini, but he doesn’t sit down.
No telling if he’d be brave enough to get back up again, but he watches as several Weres head back toward the restrooms before continuing through a slightly glowing door.
Magic. Elias has always been quietly in awe of magic users. Envious of their connection to The Plain, but also respectful of the control it takes to wield it responsibly.
Four Human women pass down the hallway and into the restroom without noticing the door at all. Maybe it was spelled against Humans…and since Elias could see it glowing clear as day, it must lead to a Were-only space.
Maybe that’s where Elias could find Connall.
He’s moving toward the hallway when he spots a staircase with a single door at the top. There’s a No Unauthorized Entry sign on the door. With an OFFICE sign below.
Connall’s office. His alpha has to be behind that door.
Tingles of excitement shiver down his spine, but Elias forces them back.
Where is his earlier caution?
When he’s not worried about protecting Isaac, Elias’s wolf can let himself feel anticipation, desire, excitement, and no small amount of fear. Before he can stop himself, he’s taking those steps two at a time. He’s turning the knob, pushing on it only to find it locked.
Of course it’s locked, dumbass. Do you think he’d leave it open for any drunken idiot?
With a whine, his short-lived bravado sizzles out, taking any strength he’d had with it. He sinks to his ass, leaning back against the door and closing his eyes.
Thump, thump, thump.
The pain in Elias’s head gets worse, his stomach pitching like a boat on the ocean in a storm.
He’ll just wait here for a few minutes before braving that magical door downstairs or asking at the bar.
Just a few minutes to gather his courage again, because he’ll not go back to Isaac without Connall in tow.
He’s sure it’s only been a few minutes because the karaoke song is the same as when he’d sat down, when there’s a gasp.
“Eli.”
Connall O’Daire is no less stunning standing on the stairs below him. He must not have seen Elias when he’d begun his ascent, his phone in his hand and a scowl fading from his face.
“Alpha,” Elias whines, unable to stop himself. His alpha is perfect. With his shirt rolled up at the sleeves, revealing strong forearms and big hands. His strong jaw is clenched in anger, and even though he’s pale, with dark patches under his eyes, he is still handsome.
Strong. His wolf reminds him that an alpha like that could keep Isaac safe. Elias, too. He would help Elias carry the hard parts of life while Elias does the same for him.
He doesn’t mean to, but his lemon tea scent flows out, sugary sweet. It’s a beta’s greatest gift, to calm where others excite. “Alpha,” he says again, deeper this time.
Eyes flashing red, Connall takes two steps toward him before digging his claws into the wooden railing. He looks like he might turn and run again, or leap over the railing to the floor below.
Elias can’t let him get away. Isaac needs him, even if Elias can’t bring himself to admit the same.
Connall turns away and manages to get to the bottom of the stairs before Elias can get to his feet.
“Stop!” He’s on his feet. “Please. He’s hurt. I need you to—”
It’s enough to have Connall at the top of the stairs, closer than Elias could have expected. “What happened?”
Those long fingers take Elias’s chin in his hand, tilting it back and forth, looking for an injury. His other hand trails down his back and arm, across his stomach.
His touch burns through Elias’s soul. Lighting him up, like he only feels for Isaac.
It’s the same but also different. Where Isaac needs Elias to lead, to chase and hold him down, Connall could be the one to do that for Elias.
His knees buckle with the desire to kneel before his alpha and beg for his claim.
Here on the stairs, or down there, or over the desk in his office.
Blinking, he tries to clear the black spots from his vision, but it’s too late. Connall’s concerned face and the noise from the bar disappear as Elias faints dead away.
“Eli?” A soft hand combs the hair back from his face. “Open your eyes. That’s it.”
The gentle hand disappears from the top of his head, and a finger runs down Elias’s nose and over his bottom lip, pulling the flesh down so he can rub the slick inside.
A growl, and then the touch is gone. When Elias opens his eyes, Connall is behind his desk, both hands on the surface, his head bowed as he wrestles with himself.
Connall must have carried him into his office and laid him on the soft, well-worn leather couch.
Dark wood paneling and maroon leather are accentuated with brass sconces and expensive rugs.
It smells like old leather, whiskey, and beeswax.
Stereotypically masculine, the desk is piled high with neat stacks of file folders and a single brass hourglass.
It’s very mobster chic.
He must say that out loud because Connall’s eyes meet his, and he chuckles. The sound is rusty, as if Connall doesn’t laugh often.