Chapter 31 #2
“So right, and yet so wrong. Mostly right, though.” He raises his half-filled glass to me, then sets it on the table. “That’s something.”
“What did I get wrong?”
“Mates sense each other’s feelings unless separated by a very great distance, but it’s a general feeling, without much context.
” Nathan’s words come through clear enough, though he’s busy assembling our meal from take-out containers: a salad from the fridge and lasagna kept warm in the oven.
“To get context—what the other is thinking or why they’re feeling something—takes a lot of energy and focus.
Sustaining that effort for more than a few minutes is exhausting.
Longer than that? Whoever’s trying will keel over. ” He sets the lasagna on the table.
“Huh.” Impossible to miss the longing in his voice. I watch him from the corner of my eyes as I set the cat back on the floor, wash my hands, and settle at the table.
“Don’t get me wrong, the connection is worth it. Being able to really share what you’re feeling makes little moments more special and big moments deeper, richer. Sharing love helps it grow.” A soft smile suggests good memories floating through.
The acrid element of his scent has vanished. Now, it’s robust and full, with a lusty edge to the musk, unmistakable despite mixing with the smell of our food. My alpha responds as a thrill of interest runs through my veins.
“It can be easier to dig to the roots of anger and frustration, but”—Nathan sighs and shakes his head—“the long and short of it is that, even with bonds, mates still have to talk to each other. Too many people end up in my office, looking for dissolution services, because they thought the bond would magically do all the work for them.”
“Hm.” I know more than I’d like about struggling with communication. Learned the hard way, by working through errors and offering ample apologies. I gave up on the idea of bonding when I went on suppressors—but Nathan’s clear longing feeds an urge to learn what I’ve been missing.
“All the same, the longer bonds are in place, the harder it is to hide things.” He looks down at his plate and waves an empty fork; the food’s good, but he’s too busy talking to eat.
“You have to talk to each other, but usually you’re reconciling what your bond mate is saying with what you sense, so it gives an edge in noticing when words and emotions don’t match up.
Though, as often as not, if you’re mated to good people, they aren’t deliberately trying to deceive you—rather, you catch them lying to themselves, then decide whether to help them face that or not. ”
“Got it.” I shrug. All his lines about the drawbacks and limitations of bonds fail to counter his obvious joy when recounting the essential connections bonds offer. “You miss them.”
His head snaps up, and our gazes connect.
I’m not usually poetic. I don’t read emotions on peoples’ faces well, and eyes are eyes: colored irises around dark pupils. The whole thing about eyes being the gateway to the soul? If so, not for me.
Yet in this moment, here and now, so much of him shines through. Devastation. Loss. Longing.
For all Nathan’s pretty speech, no one really understands bonds. Maybe here, in the house he shared for decades with his mates, something of the magic lingers, because the longer we gaze at each other, the more I feel emotions swirling around that aren’t mine.
My body responds, muscles tautening and blood throbbing in my groin. Nerves twitch, preparing for an instinctive leap to action. My fork clatters as it falls to my plate. The taste of copper floods my mouth, overwhelming any lingering taste of dinner.
An indeterminate need rises in my alpha to do something. Both synapses—the desire to fuck and the urge to fight—fire in my brain, sending contradictory urges through me.
Nathan’s nostrils flare, pupils darkening. He leans forward, just as intent as me—and his scent equally confused. Anger and lust swirl together in a heady combination.
Until one of the cats meows impatiently.
Chairs clatter as we both jump. The distraction allows me to turn my head without signaling submission.
Fluffier rubs against my legs. When I glance under the table at her, she meows again and jumps onto my lap, turning around and around before settling.
She flexes her paws, claws digging into my thighs briefly.
On the other side of the table, Fluffy sits on Nathan’s feet and, for the first time, I register that he’s barefoot.
“Did you know alphas live longer than any other designation?” Nathan asks as he retrieves up his fork and stuffs an oversized bite of lasagna into his mouth.
I’ve no clue where that non sequitur came from, but decide to reply rather than get caught in another staring contest. “No, we don’t. Omegas and betas both tend to live to their seventies or eighties, regardless of sex, but alphas die younger—especially males, because we’re so reckless.”
The doctors dinned that into my head decades ago, as motivation to take supplements and keep my alpha under control.
“It’s more accurate to say one-third or more of all alphas die within three decades of presenting, maybe even half,” Nathan says.
“All the fucking and fighting?” The urges still flow in my veins, and my cock is half-hard, but I ignore it as I dig into the vinegary, overdressed salad.
“More arrogance and attempts to dominate the world, though young male alphas are notorious for making bad choices about who to fight or fuck. Thank fortune we’re both past that.” Nathan smiles. “But those of us who live past fifty have a good chance of making it to our nineties in decent health.”
I and my alpha like that, the notion that we’ve passed some marker and might get a reward—a mixed reward, granted, because the longer one lives the more one watches the world one knew slip away.
Of course, that’s assuming we can believe Nathan and his sources.
Yet, right or wrong, for some reason, I do.
And wait for the other shoe to drop.
“I’m over fifty. I spent nearly three decades with one mate and over two with the other.
I know they wouldn’t want me to spend the rest alone.
” He turns his hands out, gesturing at our surroundings.
“They haunt me in this house because, if they could watch me, they wouldn’t want me to hide here but get out and about, living my life and finding new loves. ”
Turns out, his diversion into alpha ages wasn’t such a non sequitur after all. “They sound like the best kind of mates. I’m sorry I’ll never meet them.”
Chair legs squeak against the floor as Nathan gets up.
He gently removes a photo magnet from the fridge door, cupping it in his hands as he returns to the table.
He caresses the image, then lays it in front of me before shuffling backward, hands behind his back as though resisting the urge to snatch it back.
The details of the faces escape me. I could never describe them afterward and do them justice—but their smiles embed in my brain. Three smiles, all as big as can be: Nathan and another man, a little older than him, on either side of a woman.
Only then does it occur to me that I haven’t seen Nathan smile. Granted, I’ve only met him three times—twice at the Shallot Consulting offices and now here—but each time, he’s been thoroughly serious.
Not so the man in the photo. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it never captures the whole of reality. My alpha and I share a sudden desire to see Nathan smile at something, doesn’t have to be me.
Nathan leans back against the cabinets, hands still behind him.
I lift the photo with both hands, holding it, as he did, with respect. Rising, I return it to him, and he places it against the fridge, magnet snicking as it takes hold. His hands linger, framing the smiles.
I position myself right next to him, aligned so as not to push or press or lean, but just be present to lend support. He’s a little taller than me, and our proportions aren’t quite the same—he has a longer torso—but my right shoulder and hip brush his.
“Renee was more dominant than me, though she let me take my share of the load.” He runs a thumb down the side of the photo with her face, then that of his other mate.
“Lawrence never challenged either of us, but not because he was a beta. He picked his battles and reserved his dominance for work, but at home, he was the sweetest person we ever knew. I found Renee first, though she always claimed she found me. Lawrence walked into my office seeking help with a divorce. I knew the moment I saw him. Referred him to a colleague and had to wait an agonizing ten months before I could bring him home to Renee. Him and his daughter, who became our eldest.”
He points to a different photo on the fridge, this showing a pack of five—two male and three female, one holding a baby. “She lives in Vespucci, with her pack.”
Another photo, a studio image of a young woman in cap and gown. “Our other daughter. She graduated with honors last year and is now teaching English and studying languages in the Mongolian Confederation. Our son”—the last photo, of a teenager—“is a junior at the University of Cleaveland.”
Other than to indicate the photos, Nathan barely moves as words pour out, so neither do I.
His perfume shifts a dozen times, enough to make me a little dizzy, but quite understandable.
He shares snippets of the quiet, solid love his pack shared, the three children they raised together, and the car accident that left him alone.
His children and cats carried him through the loss, but the children are grown and spreading their wings, the cats aging.
I don’t remember what I thought when I first met him, all of two days ago.
He looked like a lawyer—truth in advertising—a solid, salt-of-the-earth guy with an eye to his main chance and his rights.
Now, he seems more like a tent after a storm blew through, tearing out half of the ropes tethering it to the ground.
He’s not in danger, yet.
And somehow, someway, my alpha decides to like him more because of this.
“We’re both in this because of Johanna, because we know and want her.
I don’t know you, not yet, though you showed an insane willingness to share intimate elements of your life with strangers the other day.
” Nathan shakes his head, hands trembling.
“Now, you’ve somehow you got me doing the same with you.
You’re infectious, and I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. Infectious—and addictive.”
I’m not sure what Nathan means by this, but this close, it’s impossible to miss the signs of his arousal. Beyond the notable ridge in his pants, his pupils are blown, and his scent overwhelms everything else, except mine.
I’m not sure who moves first, but our mouths meet in a clashing kiss. Lips and tongues duel. A sweet taste blooms in my mouth as he licks the inside of my lips, teeth tight against mine.
Inside, my alpha stretches and snarls, so I pull back, breathing hard. My jeans are so tight I expect to see ridge marks on my cock when I next remove them.
Nathan’s not in any better condition, but seemingly has more control.
“Renee led, I followed, but I don’t know if I have it in me to yield that much power to anyone else.
” He lifts his chin high, looking down at me from eyes with little more than a thin line of brown around his pupils.
“If I’m not the primary alpha in our pack, I won’t be the last or least, either.
I must have some control over my fate, over when and how I bond. ”
My alpha snarls again, although not clear whether he’s agitated over Nathan’s need for dominance rank or not getting to fuck or fight him.
“Are you a stronger dominant than Corin?” I ask. There’s not just the two of us in the mix, after all.
“I don’t know. We haven’t figured that out.
In any case, it’s not just alpha dominance that matters, but also human will—at least for those of us who make it past fifty.
” Nathan rolls his shoulders and adjusts his pants over his groin.
“But Corin isn’t here at the moment, so the question instead becomes ‘which of us rules?’”
“I don’t fight.” I step backward. The more space between us, the more a cool breeze passes around me, wicking away my sweat.
Half of the heat warming me came from him.
That, I miss, but not the dominance fights of my youth, or the risk of rut.
“Too much of that when I first presented. Without medication I’d have been one of those alphas who didn’t make fifty. ”
“You don’t fight, but neither do you truly submit. We’re going to have to choose, if we want Johanna and a pack.” Nathan crosses his arms, a curious choice of stance because it can assert strength or betray defensiveness. “Otherwise, one of us will have to walk away.”
That sounds like a threat, but directed at whom?
“Nathan.” As I say his name, I realize it’s the first time I’ve spoken it aloud. A chuckle escapes me, and as I continue, even I can hear the husky, teasing note in my voice. “Since we are over fifty, don’t you think we’re old enough to take turns?”
He stares at me, gaping, then throws his head back and laughs. “Lawrence and Renee would’ve loved you for that.” He cups my cheek, thumb stroking close to my lips. There’s a prickle of challenge there, an edge of dominance, but I’ve earned a smile from him at last. “Maybe. Just maybe. We’ll see.”
Then, he leans in for another kiss.
My alpha and I choose to let him.