Chapter One
Landon
I didn’t sleep. At least I think I didn’t. Sure, I’d turned off the light and closed my eyes to lie there like a normal person as I tried to convince my mind that everything was fine. That I hadn’t just watched a room full of people casually confirm that monsters—no, creatures—were real.
That my son had fought at their side so the ones fated to them were kept safe.
Fated like they were a married couple. Magically tied together once they accepted the bond.
Then that man—an elf—had dropped to his knees in front of me like I was something sacred and called me his beloved in such a way that made me think he’d been searching for me for years.
So yeah, there was no sleeping after that.
Every time I drifted even close, I saw him again.
How dark his hair was, how too-perfect his face was, and those eyes.
Jesus, those eyes.
They’d been focused solely on me with such intensity. Like nothing else around us had existed.
Like I was what mattered most.
And it was that part that had stuck with me.
Not the new ink that had painfully appeared as soon as we were close to each other, mine on my wrist, his on his neck. And the talk about fated mates or completing bonds or whatever the hell else hadn’t been what was playing on a loop in my mind either.
It was the way he’d looked at me.
Like he was… pleased. Like he’d found something he’d been missing.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and stared harder at my coffee. I’d gotten up, since sleep wasn’t happening, and hoped that a wake-up buzz from the brown liquid would knock the thoughts loose.
Didn’t work.
There was nothing about last night that made sense.
Shifters. Vampires. Elves.
My brain kept trying to file it under dream or hallucination, but the problem was that dreams didn’t follow you into the morning.
Slowly, I turned my hand over. The tattoo was still there, marking my wrist and up my forearm.
It wasn’t like normal ink a tattooist could do. A dark blue that shone in a way I couldn’t describe, it almost looked alive and like it was part of me now.
I swallowed.
“Okay,” I muttered under my breath. “Okay, so… this is all real.”
Saying it aloud didn’t help. If anything, it made my chest tighten.
I dragged my other hand through my hair, fingers catching, and leaned forward, elbows on the table as I stared at the damn thing like it might explain itself.
It didn’t.
Of course it didn’t.
Because apparently I was now living in a world where Fate just decided things for you and didn’t bother asking for your input.
Lucky me.
Sighing, I closed my eyes, until I could feel that familiar weight of a child watching you because they were worried about you.
Only this child was a fully grown man and hadn’t lived at home for a long time, but he’d stayed last night. Not that I’d been in this house long. I’d only moved to town when an accountant job opened up close enough that I could apply. Close to the club, too, so I could finally be near my son again.
I let out a slow breath and leaned back in my chair.
I looked toward the doorway to see Monkey there.
That was his club name, earned when he became a member of the Fury Motorcycle Club.
When he was born, we’d named him Leon, but once he’d patched in as a full member, he was christened with Monkey—no doubt because all the monkeying around he did.
When he’d asked me to call him that, I did.
He was my son, no matter what he wanted to be addressed as.
His mother—God rest her soul—may have had a different opinion, but I just wanted my son to be happy, and as a member of the club, he was.
He was leaning against the doorframe like he’d been there a while, arms crossed and quiet. His eyes flicked down to my wrist, then back up to my face. “Morning,” he said casually, like this was any other day.
I huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t sound so rough. “Yeah. Let’s go with that.”
He didn’t smile or move. He just stayed where he was, watching me like he was trying to figure something out. Or maybe like he was waiting for me to say something.
Did he expect me to have made a decision?
I looked back down at my wrist again. “Still there,” I said, because apparently, I was stating the obvious now.
“Yeah,” Monkey replied quietly before releasing a long sigh. “Pops, I’m sorry this has happened.” He sat next to me, reaching out to clasp my shoulder. “No offense, but you look like shit. Did you get any sleep?”
Snorting, I shook my head. “Not even a lick.”
He groaned and sat back, rubbing at the back of his neck. “If only—”
I waved a hand about. “Let’s not go there.
There’s nothing we can change, so there’s no point in dwelling on the what-ifs.
” Even though I had thought about them a lot through the night.
But I’d come to the conclusion that I didn’t want my son to feel guilty about me being there last night.
It was my own fault for not having my phone in the first place.
We couldn’t go back in time.
We couldn’t change anything.
It was real. It had happened.
Somehow, I was the fated mate of an elf.
“Just remember that you don’t have to finalize anythin’. You can pick to not accept it and go back to knowin’ nothin’ about their world.”
“But—”
He shook his head. “If you say anythin’ about me or Coms being allowed to keep in the know if you accept this, then I’ll tell that elf he can get lost now. Don’t make your choice because of us. This is about you and you alone.”
I nodded.
I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do.
He was a man. An elf man who wanted to be with me romantically.
My face burned at the thought. How’d it work?
Shaking my head, I wanted to thump myself in the face. I knew how it worked. I wasn’t na?ve. I’d watched porn and seen some guy-on-guy action. But it’d never interested me.
Monkey chuckled. “Where’s your head gone, Pops?”
“Nowhere,” I yelled, not at all suspiciously.
My son snorted and then smirked. “You know, if you want me to get my prez and Riker here, you can ask them about being with—”
My eyes bulged, and I kicked him under the table. “Shut it, kid.”
He laughed but sobered quickly. “Don’t stress over this. No one’s rushin’ you. No one expects things from you, and if you do go down the route of being with him, no one will judge you. Hell, he’s a good-lookin’ guy-elf.”
Groaning, I touched my forehead to the table.
A knock sounded through the too-quiet house. Monkey and I straightened instantly, my adrenaline spiking.
It couldn’t be, right?
Would he?
Then again, who else would it be?
Monkey and I stared at each other, and he quirked a brow. “Want me to get it?”
He thought it was the elf too.
Shaking my head, I pushed back from the table, chair scraping against the floor as I stood and drew in a long breath.
Every step toward the door felt heavier than it should’ve. My heart also wanted to beat out of my chest while my stomach fluttered like I was heading on a first date.
Then again, my reactions were probably just from the lack of sleep, making me go a little delusional.
Yeah, that could totally be it.
Why else would I feel like something was pulling at me to hurry and get to the door.
Or maybe I was just overthinking everything.
Yeah. That seemed more likely.
When I reached the door, I hesitated for a second, scrubbing a hand over my face. I inhaled another breath, this one shakier, then opened it.
He was there.
Of course he was.
Dashiel stood on my doorstep as if he belonged there. The tips of his pointy ears peeked out through his dark shoulder-length hair. I wanted to touch them— Wait, what?
My cheeks heated while he stood tall and composed with his hands clasped loosely behind his back like he had all the time in the world.
Like he wasn’t about to completely derail my life just by existing.
His eyes met mine immediately.
And there was that look again. That same intensity from last night, but softer now.
“Landon,” he greeted, voice calm and even. Like this was normal and we’d done this a hundred times before.
I blinked at him. Once. Twice. Yep, he was still in front of me and still very real.
“Uh…” I cleared my throat, suddenly very aware of the fact I was standing in my own doorway like an idiot. “Morning?”
His gaze flicked over my face briefly, as if he was assessing something, before he inclined his head slightly. “I wished to see you,” he said. Then, after the smallest pause, he added, “But if this is too early… or unwelcome… I will leave.”
I frowned a little, caught off guard.
Last night, he’d been all “You are mine as I am yours.”
Now, he stood there ready to walk away if I said the word.
I glanced back over my shoulder. Monkey was still down the hall in the kitchen, very much pretending not to listen.
Drawing in a tired breath, I looked back at Dashiel—at the way he stood there, completely still, like he was waiting for permission to exist in my space.
Relief shifted in my chest.
He wasn’t pressuring me. He was giving me a choice to invite him in or send him away.
His reaction gave me the courage to step back and pull the door open wider.
“No. It’s fine,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “You can… come in.”
For a split second, something bright flickered across his face. But it was gone so fast, I almost thought I imagined it.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, dipping his head.
He had to duck to step inside because he was the tallest man-elf I’d ever met—also the only one I’d met—and he looked like a flawless model in his late twenties.
My gut rolled.
I was fifty-three, old enough to be his father. Hell, I had a son probably older than him.
The coffee I’d drank threatened to come up.
This couldn’t work.
I couldn’t miraculously change my way of thinking. I liked women. No. I loved women, and now this twentysomething elf wanted to be… married to me?
With another twist to my stomach, I shut the door behind him and turned, suddenly very aware of how small my house felt with him in it.
He looked around briefly before his gaze landed back on me and locked.
He said nothing, and I didn’t know what to say, either, but it honestly did seem, from his small, pleased smile, that he was just happy to be in my company.
This was weird.
“Ah, coffee?” I asked, because I needed something normal.
“If you’re having one, I would welcome the opportunity to have a drink with you,” he replied.
That was a very fancy way of saying yes.
“Right,” I muttered, heading back toward the kitchen. “Coffee it is.”
Monkey had disappeared by the time we entered. Smart kid. Or maybe he just knew this wasn’t a conversation he needed or wanted to be part of.
I busied myself with the machine, grateful for something to do with my hands as more silence settled in.
I could feel him behind me.
Waiting. Watching.
At least he wasn’t pushing me for answers.
He did seem like a nice, considerate person, so maybe what I could do in return was give him the real me and actually get to know him. Then at least I could say I honestly tried, but switching up for a guy was never in my cards.
Nodding to myself, I poured the coffee into a couple of mugs before turning and handing one to him.
Okay, why am I noticing that our fingers didn’t touch?
Leaning against the counter, I took a sip and gestured vaguely between us. “So,” I said. “This… thing.”
Smooth, Landon. Real smooth.
His gaze briefly dropped to my wrist, which had me looking down to see that the tattoo seemed warmer now. Was that because he was near?
“The bond,” he said.
Lifting my gaze, I blinked. What had we been…? Oh, right. “Yeah. That. The bond.” I exhaled slowly. “Look, I’m just going to ask this straight, all right?”
He inclined his head.
“You’re really okay with this?” I asked, gesturing between us again. “With me?”
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened.
Shit. They looked nice like that.
Wait… huh?
“More than okay,” he said.
I huffed out a breath, shaking my head. “See, that’s the part I don’t get. You don’t know me. Not really. I’m just some old man with a kid, a job, and a very normal life. We’re different on so many levels.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I know enough about you,” he said.
That was what he chose to say?
“That’s not reassuring,” I shot back.
“If it helps,” he continued calmly, “I am also learning.”
I blinked. That wasn’t the answer I expected. “You? Learning?”
“Yes.”
I frowned. “About what?”
“You. Humans. What it’s like taking care of one.”
Jesus. I dragged a hand over my face, letting out a long breath. “This is insane,” I muttered.
“It’s unfamiliar,” he corrected gently.
I dropped my hand and looked at him again. “You really believe all that stuff you said last night?” I asked. “About Fate and… me being yours?”
His answer came without hesitation. “Yes.”
I stared at him for a long moment, then shook my head slightly while letting out a quiet breath. “Yeah,” I said. “This… it’s a lot and a bit overwhelming. I-I think I need time to adjust a little to having you around and wanting to get to know me.”
A small flash of hurt crossed his features, but it was gone quickly as he dipped his head. “I understand.” He stood as if to leave.
“I didn’t mean you had to go now. You can stay for a bit, but then I have to get to work.”
His chest puffed out. “I would like that.”
What in the hell am I doing?