Chapter 26 #2
“—and then I missed your call and I just—I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard your voice—” He sounds completely wrecked, raspy and frantic, and I hate that I made him feel this way, that all of this is my fault.
“And I woke up Felix and I told him my m—” He catches himself, but I think I know what he was about to say.
My stomach lurches. “—that you were in trouble and I needed help tracking you down. I called Jane and I called Aleo, and you weren’t answering your fucking phone, and I just knew you were in danger.
And then Jane found your phone, and I could smell that you were terrified when you dropped it. ”
“Wait a second,” I say. “Is that how you found me? By smell?”
“Scent, and a lot of good luck,” he says gravely.
“I tracked you to the parking lot,” he takes a deep breath here, “and knew you were injured at that point. Jane drove to the beach and saw a parked car and then the light from their boat. So we figured they were taking you out to sea.” He stretches his arms out before him, lifts his palms in a gesture of surrender. “So I, uh, stole a boat.”
I can’t imagine there are boats just lying around the beach, but then I remember the rental companies, the wealthy neighborhoods nearby with private docks and relent. “Is that… Is that like a felony?”
He gives a short, astonished laugh. “I have no idea. I hope nobody ever finds out it was me. Felix broke the camera and I just—” He shrugs. “The rope was frayed. I yanked on it a little bit and it snapped. Hopefully they assume it was an accident.”
Of course he can tear a rope with his bare hands.
“And then what?” It’s kind of surreal, hearing what transpired while I was busy being kidnapped by maniacs.
“We went out to the cliff.” He’s shaking now, looks like he could rattle apart right there in the same chair he does his homework in every night.
I want to reach out and touch him, but he’s so far away and I’m afraid it wouldn’t be welcome, that my presence will only make things worse.
Something in me shrinks at the thought. “We found where they moored their boat. It, um, smelled like your blood.”
Of course he knows what my blood smells like, I think absently, too tired to be surprised.
“And then we found that fucking tunnel and I thought that—” Here, Duncan starts to cry in earnest, great gasping sobs that shake his shoulders. At this, I’m horrified enough to sit up, to climb painfully to my feet. Eyes brimming, he admits, “I thought they were fucking gutting you in there.”
This isn’t exactly untrue, but I can’t stand to see him like this.
“Hey,” I murmur, a little bit frantic, pulling him into my arms even though it jostles my aching ribs and pulls at my stitches.
He folds into my embrace, clings hard, shudders fiercely.
My stomach is wet where his face presses against it.
“Hey, it’s—I’m OK,” I tell him, and he shivers again, making a noise just short of a howl. “It’s gonna be fine.”
At this, he draws back to look up at me, eyes shining, tears pouring down his face. “No,” he says. “It’s not. At some point, somebody else is going to try this—”
Fuck. That hadn’t even occurred to me. “I can learn some self-defense—”
His face is mashed against my chest. I wonder if I smell like dried blood. “But you shouldn’t have to.”
“That doesn’t change reality.”
When he exhales, his breath is hot against the layers of gauze under my shirt. “You’re right.”
I run my fingers through his hair, hold onto him. I have no idea if we’re broken up or not, if I should be touching him like this, but I can’t leave him to sob alone. Every gasp is like a serrated knife, driving into me.
I did this to him.
I should probably go. Rid his life of me and all my problems. But I can’t walk away when he’s holding me so tight that it hurts, like I’m the only thing keeping him together.
Eventually, he mumbles, “You should probably get back in bed.”
And he’s right, I probably should. But I don’t want to leave him like this, so I say, “You should come with.”
“I—” He shakes his head. “I thought you were pissed at me.”
Tugging on his arm, I say, “Come on.”
He gets up like he’s in pain and I realize for the first time that maybe he is, that maybe he got hurt in those halls, too, and I just didn’t realize it.
“I’m sorry it’s so messy,” he says, helping me down onto the mattress, then sitting on the edge of the bed by my knees.
“I didn’t give you a heads’ up.” Then, nervously, I ask, “Were you hurt?”
He blinks at me. “Not really. I got a few scrapes in. Nobody stabbed me or anything.”
“I thought it hurt to stop halfway through a change,” I protest.
“Worth it,” he says, shrugging. “How the hell else was I supposed to save you?”
“You could’ve called the cops,” I suggest, only partly-joking.
But he shakes his head. “It would’ve taken too long to find you.”
My hand inches toward his. When I’m close enough, I intertwine our fingers. He allows it, runs an absentminded thumb over my knuckle.
We’re silent a long time. Thousands of questions ping-pong around inside my skull, but one is at the forefront. “You called me your mate,” I say, squeezing his hand. “What does that mean?”
The color drains from his face. He groans, tips his head back, then looks at me. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You were right to be pissed off. I should’ve told you sooner.”
I’m tired enough to fall asleep in this pile of laundry, but I’m determined to get an answer, so I force my eyes open. “I don’t understand.”
“I—” He drags his fingers down his face. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured, or like—like you didn’t have a choice. I wanted it to be organic, but I-I guess I should’ve told you.”
“Told me what?” I demand, propping myself up on my elbows so that I can glare at him more efficiently, even though the movement hurts my ribs.
He gestures helplessly with his free hand. “That you’re my—my…” He closes his eyes, then opens them. Leans against the wall with a thud. “You’re my fated mate.”
I spend a long moment staring blankly into space, struggling to process those words. My grasp on the concept itself is nearly nonexistent. It’s so bad that I can barely come up with a question. “I thought… your mate had to be another wolf.”
“What? No,” he says and his hand finds my shin, strokes over my jeans. He squeezes my hand. “No, it doesn’t work like that. It can be anyone. My parents are fated mates and my mom is fae. She definitely isn’t a wolf or anything.”
“Oh.” And then, because I don’t understand, because I’m so lost and this seems like it should be impossible, I ask, “How did you know?”
He lets out a short, exasperated laugh. “I don’t—it’s gonna sound so stupid.”
“But I wanna know,” I insist.
At this, he chuckles, brushes his bangs from his face.
“It’s hard to explain. I saw you across the room on the first day of class and you just about knocked my socks off,” he says.
I frown. Lots of people are attracted to me.
I’ve been the subject of a few instant crushes.
I want to believe him, but this doesn’t bode well.
“And I had a suspicion, but I-I didn’t want to know,” he says.
“I thought if I could avoid smelling you, it would be all right.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, so I smile encouragingly.
“I mean, it’s—it’s kind of, um, confirmed through smell,” he explains. “So I just thought if I avoided you in the hallways and in classes and stuff, I’d never have to confront the possibility that maybe you were more than just a really hot guy who walked in front of me once.”
Now it’s starting to come together. “Until Dr Ward’s speed-dating thing.”
A pink tinge appears in his cheeks. “Yeah,” he says.
“I was—I was so fucking terrified. I wasn’t ready to have my suspicions confirmed, and then I sat down across from you and it’s like—” He tugs at his hair, groans.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like, I smelled you, and the whole fucking universe just righted itself and I knew what you were and you looked at me like I was some kind of idiot and I couldn’t just tell you what was going on because I’m not supposed to be here—”
Fuck. That explains our first meeting, and the subsequent ones.
“—and I had no idea what to do or how to talk to you. I just completely freaked out because you’re my fucking mate and I wanted to be with you so bad but, like, you told me you didn’t even know you were fae and I thought you probably wouldn’t believe me—” Duncan sounds like he’s about to cry again, and I really, really don’t want that, so I pull myself up and manage to grab onto his knee.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, mournful. “I should’ve told you. Felix wanted me to tell you.”
“Wait, Felix knows?”
He nods. “He figured it out when I did.”
Felix knew before me? Fuck. “And you still didn’t tell me?”
He looks miserably down at my hand. “Would you have believed me?”
I take a moment to consider this. “Maybe. I would have looked into it.”
Shaking his head, he says, “I didn’t know if I could trust you. But when you said you wanted to date, I-I should’ve told you.”
“So do you just know when I’m in trouble? Is that why you were there on the cliffs?”
“No,” he says, looking sullen. “I was just being creepy.”
My blood goes cold. I don’t want to think about it, but I have to consider the possibility. “Have you been stalking me?”
“No!” he exclaims. “I was going for a walk, and I saw you, and you looked… kinda fucked up. I wasn’t going to follow, but then you went down the trail to the cliffs, and I was curious what you were doing.
And worried. You seemed really drunk and I was kind of afraid you were going to break an ankle and, I don’t know, drown in the mud or something. ”
I really need to stop drinking. This is embarrassing to hear.