Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
CIARAN
Something was wrong.
Something was very wrong with Sawyer. His heart was hammering so hard, Ciaran could feel it, and he was pale, clammy, and a little delirious.
“You’ll be okay,” Ciaran whispered. He kept his hand pressed to Sawyer’s cheek, holding eye contact—those perfect ice-blue eyes—as if that would keep them both calm and centred.
It was almost working when Kellan rushed through the door, his med kit in hand. “Sawyer,” he said, almost knocking Ciaran out of the way to take his place. “Look at me.”
Sawyer drew his gaze from Ciaran to Kellan, blinked a few times, and then his gaze went straight back to Ciaran. He peeled an arm out of the blankets, searching for Ciaran’s hand.
Ciaran was quick to take it.
It made him happier than it should have. This contact and the fact that Sawyer seemed to need him.
Kellan checked his heart rate, his eyes, his temperature.
“I’ll be okay,” Sawyer mumbled. “I just... I just...” He shook his head and didn’t attempt to finish.
Kellan glanced at Ciaran. “He attacked Fray?”
Sawyer’s head shot up. “I didn’t mean to. I just...”
“Fray was gonna leap on me,” Ciaran said. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I’m sorry,” Sawyer mumbled, looking over at where Fray stood in the doorway. “I’m really sorry.”
“I know,” Fray said. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
“It’s the bond,” Ciaran said to Kellan. It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.
He knew.
Kellan gave a nod. “I think so, yes. We have no way to know for sure because he’s not like us. But...”
“But what?”
“But it appears to be getting worse.” Kellan gave half a shrug. “The fact he went into the water twice in one day doesn’t help. Almost drowning and hypothermia certainly don’t help, but then sharing a bed with him to get him warm would have exacerbated the situation. When did he eat last?”
They all looked at Sawyer for his answer, but he could only look at Ciaran. “I... I can’t remember. I don’t know what time it is. How long did I sleep for? What day it is?” He scrubbed his hand over his face, finally meeting Kellan’s concerned gaze. “Doc, I just...”
Ciaran held Sawyer’s hand in both of his. “You just what? You’ve said that twice now. Whatever it is, whatever you want to ask Kellan or me, you can just say it.”
“You looked so sad,” Sawyer whispered, his gaze locking with Ciaran’s.
“It was a physical pain.” He put their joined hands to his chest. “Actual pain. I feel okay now. But god, seeing you hurting.... I felt it. I think I felt what he felt.” He shrugged then, squinting his eyes shut and shaking his head.
“Maybe I’m hungry, I dunno. I feel like.
.. something’s not right. Something’s missing. I need—” He winced again.
“You need what?” Ciaran asked quietly.
Sawyer’s gaze darted to Kellan, then to Fray, then to Ciaran. His cheeks flushed with shame.
“Me?” Ciaran prompted. “You need me?”
He snorted, clearly embarrassed, but gave a nod, looking down at the blankets he was wrapped in. “I can’t explain it.”
Ciaran was torn. He hated to see Sawyer so confused, so conflicted, but by the gods, how it soothed something inside him to have Sawyer admit that he needed him. He crawled up onto the bed, fixed one leg behind Sawyer, and wrapped his arms around him to bring his back against Ciaran’s chest.
He went willingly. Eagerly, even. He shuffled in closer, up higher, so his forehead was pressed against Ciaran’s neck. Ciaran tightened his arms around him, around the blankets, purring with satisfaction. “Feel better?” he murmured, his lips brushing against Sawyer’s hair.
Sawyer nodded. “Yeah. I do. Which is weird and kinda fucked up, but at least I can think now.”
Kellan gave Ciaran a sad smile before his frown deepened. “It’s getting worse.”
Or better, Ciaran thought.
“I think a decision needs to be made,” Kellan advised, then added, “Sooner rather than later.”
Ciaran felt Sawyer freeze. “A decision about what?” Sawyer asked.
Kellan glanced at Ciaran briefly before his gaze settled on Sawyer. “The bonding ritual.”
“So it’s a ritual now?” Sawyer asked. “I thought it was just fucking.”
Fray snorted, earning a well-aimed glare from Ciaran.
Kellan didn’t seem to find it as funny. “It’s not just... that.”
“What else is it?” Sawyer asked. He kept his forehead in the crook of Ciaran’s neck, and Ciaran kept his arms around him.
“Needing to be this close? How long does this last? Will I always be this codependent? Needing to be physically close? To touch him? Because this is going to make my job a little difficult. Are we, like, conjoined twins now? Because honestly, what the fuck is this?”
Fray laughed again, and Ciaran growled at him. “Fray. Can you give us some privacy, please?”
“No,” Sawyer said, sitting up so he could look Ciaran in the eye. “I tried to kill him earlier. I wanted to kill him because he was going to touch you. And if he’s going to be around you, around us, I’m pretty sure he should be in the loop.”
Ciaran wanted to be pissed that Sawyer just admonished him like that in front of his consortium, but he couldn’t. He’d give Sawyer whatever he wanted, but Ciaran knew Sawyer was also right. He relented immediately. “Fine.”
Fray grinned. “I knew I liked you, Sawyer.”
“Almost strangling you aside,” Sawyer mumbled. He settled back into his spot, nuzzling in even closer than before. “I am sorry about that.”
“I know,” Fray said. “Gotta say, I always thought being pinned against the wall by some hot naked guy would be fun, but—”
Ciaran snarled at him, and Fray put his hands up. “Kidding. Just kidding.”
Sawyer hummed as he pulled back to see Ciaran’s face, his blue eyes on fire. “I like that sound. Do it again.”
Kellan sighed. “Can we focus, please,” he said.
“I know this is difficult and strange. But you both need to make a decision. Sawyer, to answer your questions, first I need you to know that the only knowledge we have is what the bond is like for our kind. How it will be for you is unknown. It could be worse, or it could be better. We simply don’t know the effect it will have on a human. ”
“So when two octomorphs—”
“Cephamorphs,” the three corrected him at the same time.
“Cephamorphs, sorry. When two cephamorphs bond, what happens to them? Do they decide yay or nay, then either copulate or part ways? Live happily ever after together? Or just say no and that’s that?”
Kellan took a moment to answer, as if torn over admitting what he knew. “No bond has ever been refused.”
Sawyer sat up. “Ever?”
Kellan shook his head. “No. For our kind, it’s... it’s a revered thing. A privilege.” He swallowed hard. “We should be so lucky to find our one.”
Sawyer turned to Ciaran. “You said it was simple. If one of us didn’t want it, we’d just have to spend some time apart, and the urges would go away.”
“That’s what we’re led to believe.” Ciaran put his hand on Sawyer’s shoulder, his neck. “If you don’t want this, we’ll—”
“I never said I didn’t. It’s just a lot to get my head around.” He turned to Kellan then. “And what I feel… what I feel for him—is that, like, real? Or just some hormonal attraction that will subside? I mean, if we weren’t bonded, would we even be attracted to each other?”
“That’s...” Kellan made a face. “There’s no way to know that. Ciaran felt a pull toward you from the second he saw you on Tobin’s boat when you first arrived.”
Sawyer turned to Ciaran, his smile wide and breathtaking. “You did?”
Ciaran found himself smiling back at him. “Yes. You looked over at us, and I didn’t know what it was at first. It made me kinda mad because I felt so out of control.”
“Just kinda mad?” Sawyer asked. “Because I seem to remember you trying to rip some doors off their hinges.”
Fray laughed at that, and Ciaran couldn’t even bring himself to care. Instead he shrugged it off, not even remotely sorry.
Sawyer laughed. “I remember seeing two guys on the pier, wringing wet in the freezing cold, and wondered if they needed help or if they were just idiots.”
Fray laughed. “Ah, love at first sight.”
Ciaran was a little hurt. “So it wasn’t instant for you, as it was for me.”
Sawyer took his hand out of his blankets and cupped Ciaran’s jaw.
“I was acutely aware of you. Where you were, when you were gone for a few days. You’d sneer at me, and I liked that for some reason.
You looked at me like you wanted to kill me or fuck me, and I wanted to really piss you off just to see which way it would go.
You’d put your hands on me either way, so. ..”
“Jesus Christ,” Fray mumbled.
Kellan stood up. “Okay, I think he’s fine. Ciaran, feed him—”
Ciaran purred, his gaze melting into Sawyer’s, and that made Fray laugh out loud. “Food, Ciar. He meant actual food.”
“We’ll leave you to it,” Kellan said, picking up his med kit.
“No, wait,” Sawyer said. “I have questions.” But then he looked back at Ciaran, as if torn between needing information and staying in bed. “How... how does the bond work? Like, the sex part. You said if we have sex, we’re bonded? How does that work? Can you only have sex with prospective mates?”
“No. We can have casual sex,” Kellan answered. “But once the bond initiates, sex becomes something different.”
“Different how?” Sawyer made a face. “I’m not asking about.... What I’m trying to ask is what happens during the bonding sex that makes it different? Why does that complete the bond?”
“The act of claiming,” Ciaran said. He was trying to keep his voice neutral, to answer the questions without the emotion or the desire. It was more difficult than he expected. He couldn’t get the visuals out of his head, imagining Sawyer naked beneath him. “Uh...”
“Once the bond has initiated,” Kellan said, thankfully taking control of the conversation. “The act of sex, the claiming, the owning, is cemented by the biochemical exchange, and you will be, for the lack of a better word, genetically coded to each other.”
“Biochemical exchange?” Sawyer asked slowly.