16. Graeme
Graeme
B ringing Avery home from the hospital, eating dinner with him, joined by his family, his parents, his siblings and their mates, my brother and Gigi, was so comforting that I had a bit of trouble holding myself together.
I had called my grandfather and woke him from a sound sleep while the doctors fought to save my true mate, to tell him I was terrified Avery was dying, that his body was shutting down, and I didn’t know how to reach him through our link, the covenant vow that only true mates shared.
He told me, quite sensibly, to shut up and listen.
“Go in there, get everyone else out, hold him as tight as you can, and clear your mind. Use what you know, where you think he’d want to be, what he’d want to be doing, and then think about what you, and only you, can give him.
A true mate is the other half, the opposite side of the same coin.
They provide what you don’t have, what you can’t create for yourself, and vice versa.
” He took a deep breath. “You have to think about the one thing Avery can only find in you. Only you, Graeme.”
“Yessir.”
“Your grandmother and I will be there soon, son,” he promised, and hung up.
I knew why they were coming. Either my mate would die and I’d need them, or my mate would live and they’d want to meet him.
Charging back into the room, I made everyone stand back against the walls and leaned over, lifted Avery up off the bed, and wrapped him in my arms. At first I was afraid; I didn’t want to hurt him, but he made a noise when I pressed him gently to my chest, a soft whimper of need, and when I clutched him tighter, his moan startled everyone, as was evidenced from their gasps.
His breath on the side of my neck told me that he needed me, his mate, more than anything else.
It terrified me to think I could fail. I had no idea what I was doing; I was going in blind, without a map.
I was always prepared, always confident, always in control…
except with Avery. I had never expected him, and so was blindsided by this beautiful man who walked into my life and brought the sun with him.
But he had everything he needed, there was nothing he was lacking, and nothing that I alone could…could…
Home.
I was his home.
While he was unconscious, he was reduced to his most primal state, his wolf. Home was a complex idea, but a den, that he would understand. That he would need. The warmth and safety that only I could provide, because I was his mate.
Letting my mind drift, I imagined him running outside, somewhere safe, somewhere cool and lush, a forest that would shelter and protect him.
This primal daydream led me to a hill, where I looked out over a valley, ripe and bursting with a riot of color.
It was stunning, this Technicolor dream-state, and so perceptible it felt real as I ran down into the meadow.
The scene changed then, and his scent brought me up short.
I saw him in the moonlight, a beautiful wolf, white except for the black marking on the tip of his tail, like it had been dipped in ink and used for a paintbrush.
Small, delicate, his paws were tiny compared to mine, but I was a dire wolf, as all cynes were, nature seeing nothing to improve on as dire wolves remained unchanged since before the first ice age.
I wasn’t sure what to do, how to engage his wolf; we’d never run together, but my mate was funny, had a sense of humor, so I teased him.
I was playful, tugged on his tail, nipped at his ears until, frustrated, he snapped back.
Once he decided I wouldn’t hurt him and came closer, I released my pheromones so he’d know who I was.
If the bond wasn’t strong enough, he’d run and I’d lose him, both in the dream and in reality.
He could easily die without our connection.
When he whimpered and whined, wanting to be close to me, I howled my happiness to the stars.
He had to run with me, followed me all the way back to his body, cradled there in my arms, and it was slow, rough going, a slog, but then he picked up speed, and I felt him getting stronger.
Then he leapt home, tethered by the astral cord, into his body, eyes open, flailing, the machines chirping, letting me know he was alive and breathing.
And the blood, his blood that had needed replenishing, he had regenerated that himself.
My mate would live, and I cried softly into his hair as, even in sleep, he clung to me.
I could barely keep my eyes open at the dinner table.
When I nodded off, Avery helped me to my feet, making our excuses to our family, and walked me to our bedroom.
It had been redecorated: black and white with deep maroon, forest green, and sapphire blue accents.
He stripped me quickly, and I crawled, naked, into the warm bed, cocooning myself under the new cotton sheets and heavy quilts.
He tucked me in, kissed my forehead—no one smelled like him—and promised to be right back.
And so, happy but emotionally and physically exhausted, my brain shut down, and I was out.
And I dreamed.
I was falling. I was freezing and wet, pelted with hail as I dropped.
When I hit the water, a cold, roiling sea, I opened my eyes as I sank.
I could see a room in the deep, and then there was blood and a knife, a white wolf sitting in a pool of blood, staring at me with dead eyes.
Avery was swimming toward me, reaching, but the current kept pulling him away, no matter how hard I swam.
I was sinking, drowning but still kicking as hard as I could, trying to rise from the darkening water. I was drowning, and my lungs screamed for air. I needed to break the surface—
“Graeme!” Avery yelled, and I heard him even though he was hoarse, like he’d been yelling for a bit.
“Avery!” I howled, scrambling to sit up, everything spasming at once, my entire body a rictus of pain, and then he was there, on me, his warm body covering mine.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed, hugging me tight, his weight on top of me so welcome, so calming, so settling that I inhaled deeply, making sure my lungs were working.
“You’re okay, baby,” he crooned, kissing the side of my neck. “You’re here with me, and everything’s okay. I’m all right, you’re all right, and everything turned out fine.”
Had I ever had any idea how much I would enjoy being called baby ?
“It was just a bad dream, and sometimes, a dream is just a dream.”
Yes.
He cupped one side of my neck with his hand, pressed hot kisses to the other, and I realized, after a moment, that I was naked and so was he.
When I wrapped my arms around him, he shuddered, and I rolled us so we faced each other, chest pressed against chest, close but not on top of him so I could look deep into his eyes, that were shrouded with dread.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, using my thumb to wipe away his tears. “What happened? You were scared, and I felt your panic like it was mine.”
“I’m sorry,” he husked, “I didn’t mean to––”
“Tell me,” I demanded, needing to know, needing to protect him, whenever possible, from all things that could cause him pain. “I could almost taste your fear.”
His hands were all over me, couldn’t stop stroking up over my ribs, my chest, down my sides, mapping my skin with every graze of his palms.
“Avery?”
“I read Wade’s report, and Daw had a gun too, and…if Kat hadn’t been there, he could…he could have…killed you,” he said gruffly, swallowing hard.
“It was scary for both of us,” I murmured, my hand in his hair, savoring the feel of the silky strands on my skin. “But we came through. We both did.”
He laid his head down on my chest.
“Avery, I––”
“Shh,” he hushed me.
I smiled over how serious he’d sounded. “What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I’m listening to your heart,” he murmured. “It’s steady and it calms me and I like to be close to you.”
“I like being close to you as well,” I croaked out, my voice faltering with his nearness. “No great secret there.”
“You’re warm too,” he moaned softly.
His sleek skin was hot, which was terribly distracting, but I needed to extract a promise. “You must take greater care with yourself, as your life is now more than your own.”
“I promise to be more careful,” he said, wiggling out from under me, pushing me over on my back, bending to kiss the side of my neck. I turned my head to give him better access, luxuriating in the feel of his hot mouth on my skin. “And you promise too.”
It was hard to concentrate with his kisses, his tongue and his teeth licking and nipping at my skin. When his hand slipped around my slowly thickening cock, it was all I could do not to arch up off the bed.
“You were amazing in our shared dream,” he almost moaned, his voice silky and hoarse as he reached under his pillow.
“I loved us running together, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.
I never choose to be in my shifted form, I never want to be a wolf, but Graeme, I can’t wait to run with you in the forest for real. ”
My heart swelled just thinking of us together, running side by side. It was my place as alpha to show Avery the beauty of his wolf, and this was progress.
“Promise me after the party on Saturday that we can go away, just the two of us, for a few days. Stone said you guys have a cabin that backs up to Matthiessen State Park where you can run at night. Tell me we can go.”
The pleading in his voice between kisses, the desire, the way he was looking at me, and his hand on my cock brought a whimper up from my chest I would have been embarrassed by if it was anyone but Avery who’d heard it.
“It’s your cabin too,” I assured him, barely getting the words out but needing that to be clear. “Everything that’s mine is yours.”
“Then I want the two of us to go to our cabin, alone,” he husked into my ear.
“Yes,” I promised him. It sounded like heaven.