20. Gabriel
Chapter 20
Gabriel
G abriel wanted to fall into bed and sleep for at least three days. Every bone in his body ached from exhaustion. All week, he’d been attending to issues in the village. One of the large gardens was doing worse, which would cause a food shortage if they didn’t figure out what was killing the crops soon. Another one of the wells had dried up too. Of course, they could leave Zariea in their wolf forms to hunt and drink from streams as needed. They wouldn’t starve.
It made daily life more complicated though. Tensions were high. There’d been more than a couple spats between families that he had to step in and handle before they escalated. The list was endless.
He was nearly to his door before he remembered Brinley was in his rooms and he was staying in a spare one down the hall. Sighing, he raked his fingers through his hair.
Wanting to check in on Rose, he headed toward the iron stairs instead. He opened the door to the solarium, slipped inside, and froze. One of the exceptions to the sitting-by-the-door rule was Pax. Yet, here he was, leaning back in the chair with his feet propped up on the small table. He quickly lowered them when Gabriel entered.
“What are you doing over here?”
Pax stood, his eyes flicking in the direction of the sitting area. “Um…”
That was when Gabriel heard the second voice, one that didn’t belong to his sister. Before he could charge over there, Paxton grabbed him.
“Don’t,” Pax hissed. “Just wait. Listen.”
“I had one rule.” Gabriel matched his quiet tone. Despite his blood boiling with the need to shout and literally drag the witch out of this room, he trusted his beta.
“But listen,” he repeated. It was the almost-desperate pleading that made Gabriel nod and stay silent.
Peals of laughter danced around the room. Gabriel pushed past his best friend to creep closer. Peeking around a tall bush, he saw the two girls. Rose was lying on the settee, and Brinley sat on the floor with her back to it. One of his sister’s pads of paper was on her lap, and she had a stick of charcoal in hand.
“How are you so bad at this?” Rose asked with another laugh.
Brinley didn’t look offended in the slightest. In fact, she seemed happier than he’d ever seen her. She chuckled and shook her head. “I told you I can’t draw.”
Gabriel couldn’t stop staring. His sister continued to grin, giving instructions in a clear attempt to help the witch’s nonexistent artistic skills. But Brinley… her smile appeared genuine too. There was a relaxed aura about her in here. He clenched his jaw and returned to the door.
“She’s been coming here most of the week,” Pax whispered, leading him out to the hall so they could speak more. “After you leave for the day, she visits almost immediately, like she just waits for the moment you’re not around… like she’s eager to be here.”
“And you let her in that first day?”
Pax shook his head. “Joel was on duty the first time, but he was late. Apparently, Rose had gone downstairs looking for us and found Brinley instead. She was too tired to return on her own, so Brinley helped her.”
“Shit,” Gabriel said under his breath. “He was late because of me. It was still early, and I assumed Rose would still be asleep, so I left her before he got here and went to find him.”
“I thought you two were done? Last week, you and Brinley?—”
“I know,” he interrupted. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
Paxton crossed his arms and leaned against the wall with a smirk. “Which one?”
“Asshole.” Gabriel shoved his shoulder as he took up the spot next to him. “Joel knows about Brinley. We’re fine and still friends. He agreed to step aside so I could give this a real chance, but after everything that happened… That morning, she was taunting me and I just… I needed to let off some steam. So, I went to find him?—”
“What do you mean she taunted you?” Pax interrupted.
Sighing, Gabriel told him about the night she healed him and how she’d overheard him and Joel talking. He summed up how she figured out about the curse as well, though she didn’t know most of the details still. “So, a few mornings later, the day Joel was late, I’d gone into the study to grab a few things, and I told her I had people to visit, suggesting she get out of the house for fresh air. I was trying to get her to go with me, but then she asked if I was going to see Joel. I hadn’t planned on it other than to ask him to sit with Rose early, but after I left, I was so frustrated that I?—”
“Stop, stop, stop.” Pax lifted a hand. “You’re rambling, and there is so much to unpack here. First of all, if you need to leave early or need a break, come get me. I was right downstairs.”
“You’d been here late and?—”
“I don’t care,” he cut in. “Just tell me and I will come sit with Rose, regardless of the time of day. I’ll fucking sit in there with her all the time if needed.”
Gabriel took a deep breath, staring at his friend. This was breaking him. Gabriel could see it in his eyes, in the way he sagged against the wall in defeat. “All right. I’ll find you next time.”
“Thank you,” he whispered then cleared his throat. “Now, I’ll get back to you and Joel, but Brinley knows about the curse?”
Gabriel nodded. “She put some things together, like how we can’t shift into our human forms outside the village. And she knows there’s a reason why I could the night I found her, but she doesn’t know what the reason is.”
“How did she figure out all that?”
“Yes-or-no questions,” Gabriel said. “I was able to make it clear there were things I couldn’t talk about, so she asked questions and had me tap her hand if the answer was yes.”
“Like in the forest,” he said. “But that was more than a week ago, Gabe. Why didn’t you tell me?”
That was a good question. One he didn’t know how to respond to. He should’ve told Paxton and Daciana the next day. Every time he tried, however, he couldn’t. Not just physically. It wasn’t like the curse that choked off his words if he got too close to revealing those details. This was more like his soul didn’t want to share what happened that night with anyone else. It had felt so intimate, sitting beside her while she was in the tub, touching her hand over and over, then helping her out of the water and into a fresh shirt. His shirt.
Seeing her in it had nearly been his undoing. It had taken every single bit of will power he possessed to walk away that night. The way it stuck to her wet frame, leaving her legs on display… He’d wanted to throw her onto the bed and rip it back off. He had wanted to feel those legs wrapped around him.
“Gabe?”
He cleared his throat, ridding his mind of that tempting image. The one that had haunted him all week. “I don’t know.”
“You can’t keep secrets like that from me,” Pax said. “If it’s related to the curse, I need to know.”
Gabriel looked at his friend and nodded again. He understood exactly what Pax meant, what he wasn’t saying. If it was related to the curse, if it would affect Rose, he had to know. For the same reason he would sit with her day and night, why he would stop whatever he was doing to make sure she was taken care of. She was one of the most important people in his life; he was a part of their family.
“Is there anything else?”
“No.” He’d already kept everyone up to date on the things he’d dealt with in the village. Daciana had taken on a fair bit of the labor herself, as had his other friends. Everyone had stepped up to do their part in keeping this place self-sustaining and peaceful while trapped, and now they worked together to stop it from crumbling to pieces around them.
“Good,” Pax said. “Now, tell me about Joel. I thought you two stopped that a while ago.”
Gabriel let out a soft laugh. “About once a year, we say we’re going to, but then neither of us settles down with anyone else, so we just don’t see the point.”
“But you don’t love him?” When Gabriel shook his head without hesitation, Pax asked, “And you’re sure he’s not in love with you? Eight years is a long time to be sleeping with someone just for fun.”
Crossing his arms, Gabriel sighed. “I know.” After a moment, he told the truth of that morning. “I went to his house after she suggested it and said she didn’t care who I was with, even after we… So, I went over there, but I… I couldn’t do it. We didn’t even start undressing before I stopped it. Nothing happened.”
Paxton seemed to consider his next words before delivering them slowly. “Do you think if there wasn’t a curse, if that wasn’t always sitting on the back of your mind and you didn’t need to…”
“Would it have changed things for us?”
Pax nodded.
Before, Gabriel would have at least considered it. He wanted to say that he held back because he didn’t want to let someone in just to push them away in order to break the curse. But he knew that wasn’t true.
Gabriel Ferway wasn’t afraid of most things, and yet, the reason he kept everyone at arm’s length terrified him. He didn’t want to voice it, knew he shouldn’t, but his best friend was standing next to him, waiting for him to speak, willing to listen. There was no one he trusted more, save for his sister. So, he lowered his voice and said, “I don’t know. Joel has always been a great friend, and I care about him, but something has always pulled me toward Brinley. Six years ago, I realized why just before everything was taken from me. I stopped looking at anyone else that way and spent so much time searching for her.”
“I remember.” Paxton’s tone was soft. “But then, you returned to Joel?”
Nodding, Gabriel whispered, “Out of desperation to feel anything other than guilt and grief. It was one of the few things left in my life I had any control over.”
“Gabe…”
“He knew.” Gabriel cleared his throat, pushing down the painful memories. “Joel knew what it was and was fine with it. He knew I would’ve done anything to find her, and not just because of the curse. I couldn’t give up, and he didn’t let me. He understood just as well as I did that something would pull Brinley and me together again, just as it had so many times before.”
Paxton’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?”
“I was always meant to find my mate and bring her home.”