Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
SAWYER
“The water is too cold for you. It’s not good for you,” Ciaran said as they crossed the street, but Sawyer was determined.
He wanted to see this with his own two eyes.
He needed to.
Did he believe Ciaran when he’d said they were some octomorphic cephawhatever nonhumans?
Yes, he did.
Was it weird?
Fuck yes.
Actually, weird didn’t even begin to describe it.
But he did believe him. He didn’t know why, but he trusted Ciaran. He believed what he said and everything he told him.
About being drawn to him—fated mates or whatever it was called.
He felt the truth.
He felt it behind his sternum, beneath his ribs, in his very core.
Is that what this mate-bond thing was?
Sawyer wasn’t sure. He still had a hundred questions—and he would be asking all of them—but first he needed to see.
Was it cold?
If Sawyer had cared to stop for a second, he’d have realised it was freezing, and he still didn’t have shoes on.
And he still had hold of Ciaran’s hand.
He stopped at the edge of the pier and turned to find Ciaran looking down at their linked fingers, and he was struck by how beautiful he was. His copper hair at night, tousled in the wind, his lips parted, and when he looked up, his copper eyes blazed.
“Sawyer,” he whispered. “You don’t... you can’t—”
Yes. Yes, he could, and he was going to. He wanted to see Ciaran in his freeform. He wanted to see what he was talking about for himself.
He let go of Ciaran’s hand and took a step back. Ciaran’s eyes went wide, shocked and afraid, but all Sawyer could do was smile as he went backward into the water.
The cold should have shocked him. It should have seized his lungs. It should have scared him.
But it didn’t.
It was so dark and beautiful, like he was suspended in a liquid galaxy.
Tiny diamonds of light glistened in the darkness, moving slowly around him.
He saw a flash of something red out of the corner of his eye, and when he spun to look at it, it was gone.
Then again on the other side, a shot of red materialized but disappeared before he could truly see it.
Then it touched his opposite shoulder, and he spun the other way, only catching the briefest glimpse of red tendrils...
Tentacles.
Then, like it was playing a game, it touched him on the other shoulder, and he spun again, and stopped.
Before him was a giant red octopus, barely four feet away, its arms moving like a pulse, a heartbeat.
But his eyes.
He had copper-coloured eyes.
It was him.
Ciaran.
Astounding. It was really him. Striking and other-worldly—and utterly beautiful.
It should have scared the shit out of him. Sawyer should have wanted to fight or flee, to escape, but no...
It felt right. Like something clicked inside him, slotting into its rightful place.
Sawyer smiled and reached out his hand. He wanted to touch him. To see if he was real...
A red tentacle slid around his wrist, smooth and powerful. Then another around his thigh, and his other leg, and one around his waist, his back.
He knew this feeling.
In his dream, this was what had been holding him down. It wasn’t many hands that restrained him while someone fucked him. It was this.
It was Ciaran.
It had been Ciaran, the real Ciaran, all along.
Then he was being pulled upward, shooting up to break the surface. He’d forgotten about air, about his need to breathe.
He wanted to go back down there. He wanted Ciaran to wrap himself around him, restrain him, hold him....
Instead, he found himself being hauled onto the pier, and soon he was lying on the wood, coughing and spluttering.
Freezing.
Then a blanket was being wrapped around him, towels were drying his hair, and people fussing. Fraser, with the blanket, and... Kellan? Sawyer wasn’t sure. He was trying to catch his breath. Trying to get oxygen. Trying to find Ciaran.
“Ciaran,” he mumbled.
“He’s right here,” Kellan said. He sounded annoyed, then peered down at him, and his face was annoyed too.
Sawyer didn’t care. He looked around him, trying to find...
Ciaran was on the pier, human now, naked but pulling some pants up. Sawyer wasn’t quick enough to see anything. Ciaran’s hair was wet, his face flushed, and he—
“Do you have a death wish?” Kellan asked angrily, his face in Sawyer’s. “Jesus Christ.”
“Ciaran,” Sawyer mumbled again, trying to look past Kellan.
“I’m here,” he said, coming to kneel beside him.
The relief Sawyer felt was immediate and pure.
“Do you want him to die?” Kellan barked, this time at Ciaran. “What were you thinking, Ciaran? My god. His face is blue. He’s shaking.”
Whose face was blue?
Who was shaking?
Sawyer didn’t care. All he cared about right then was Ciaran. “I saw you,” he said, lifting his hand out of the blankets. “The other you. The real you.”
Except his hand was trembling, and his voice sounded raspy and reverberated. Sawyer realised far too belatedly that his teeth were chattering so hard, he could barely speak.
“Get him inside. Now,” Kellan barked. “Into bed. Again. Jesus Christ.”
Then he was being carried within strong arms and against a warm body. And the scent. Everything that made him feel right.
Whole.
His body felt wrong, though. Strung too tight and far too cold. He was shaking so hard, it hurt, but in his mind, he was right where he needed to be.
His heart was too.
He was back in the police station, then inside his small flat.
His clothes were being ripped off him, and then he was in his bed, and he was about to protest—because what the actual fuck was happening to him?
Why was he letting this happen to him?—but those strong arms were around him again, that perfect scent. ..
But then the pain crept in, along with the realisation that his body really fucking hurt.
Sawyer was so cold. He’d never been so cold.
“I got you,” a deep voice whispered.
Ciaran.
Oh, thank god.
He was pretty sure he heard Ciaran asking someone to turn the heat up and having a conversation without him, but Sawyer could only hear the murmur of his voice from where his ear was pressed against Ciaran’s chest.
The heavy weight of the blankets felt good, and there was the strangest thrum of heartbeats echoing. His mind was playing tricks on him, no doubt.
Ciaran was warm, and his strong arms held him so tight.
So right.
Then he was drifting off, dreaming that he was underwater in a galaxy silent, glittering, and heartbreakingly beautiful. Where there was nothing but an inexplicable sense of peace, strong arms, and copper-coloured eyes.
Sawyer woke up, heavy and hot. Disoriented.
He was groggy, and he had no clue what time it was or even what day it was.
It took him a moment to realise he was not alone.
Christ. Was he drooling?
The broad chest his face was plastered to rumbled and vibrated with quiet laughter.
Sawyer sat up and wiped his mouth, looking back to see...
Ciaran.
Shirtless, propped up on Sawyer’s pillows, arm folded behind his head, smirking, and sweet mother of god, Sawyer had never seen anything so beautiful. “Good morning.”
Sawyer squinted his eyes closed and reopened them to check if he was dreaming.
Nope.
Still there.
Sawyer then realised, far too late, that he was naked.
Again.
“My clothes,” he said, voice thick.
“Technically they were my clothes,” Ciaran said. “My self-control should be studied, by the way. Being in your bed, with you, when you are naked and wanting...”
Sawyer narrowed his eyes at him. “Wanting?” He swallowed hard. He’d dreamed of Ciaran again, like he had every night. Vivid and erotic....
Dear god. What had he done in his sleep?
Ciaran’s smirk faded. “You needed to be stripped. Body heat is best skin to skin.”
Sawyer had flashbacks of going back into the water. Flashbacks of...
He shot Ciaran a wild look.
This very human-looking Ciaran who wasn’t so human back then.
“You remember,” Ciaran said, his expression neutral, as if he was expecting bad news.
Or rejection.
Sawyer remembered... everything.
The cephamorphic octo-thing, the mate-bond thing.
Being underwater, seeing Ciaran’s freeform, seeing how utterly majestic he was.
How beautiful. Feeling his strong arms around his limbs, his waist, realising the being in the sex dreams he’d been having was Ciaran, like that.
.. with double the limbs he had right now.
How gloriously fucking hot it was.
How absurdly weird and otherworldly it was.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s real, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Then Ciaran shrugged. “Well, if you’re referring to the fact that we’re cephamorphic. Or the fact that you saw me like that in the water. Or the fact that you tried to drown yourself twice yesterday—”
“I didn’t try to drown myself.”
“—and how I saved you using body heat, twice. Then yes, it’s real.”
Sawyer glowered at him.
At how sexy he was, propped up in his bed like that, at how smug and fucking gorgeous he was.
Sawyer’s cock was already awake now, so he pulled the blankets up around his waist, even though he was certain Ciaran already knew.
“You have some fucking audacity,” Sawyer grumbled.
“I beg your pardon?”
Sawyer huffed out a sigh, giving him another quick glance over his shoulder. “Looking like that. So smug and fucking sexy.”
Ciaran’s smile was slow to spread, as was the heat in Sawyer’s belly.
“Christ,” Sawyer mumbled. “So... so this, uh... this...” He sighed again and rolled his shoulders, trying to fight the urge to launch himself at Ciaran. “This bond thing. What is it? How long does it last? Because fuck.”
Ciaran’s face flickered with a dozen emotions, his eyes doing that thing... that octo-thing before he quickly blinked it away. “If you don’t want it—”
“I never said that.” Those words were out of Sawyer’s mouth before he had time to think. “I mean... I don’t even know what it is. Or why I want...” He cringed.
“Why you want what?” Ciaran’s voice was low and gruff, and when Sawyer met his gaze, the fire was back in his eyes.