Chapter 32
Nicholas
“Iswear, I need a vacation.”
They were the first words Hamza had uttered since pulling to a stop in front of Nicholas’s building. Nicholas appreciated the spark of small talk, that he hadn’t commented on his inability to go inside.
“Where would you go?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere where it doesn’t rain more often than not.” He gestured to the fat drops of rain hitting the windshield.
“Maybe a remote village in Thailand? I hear they’re giving out all sorts of transplants.”
Hamza looked more amused than guilty. “He was too easy.”
Nicholas chuckled. “He thinks you’re hot.” He instantly felt bad saying it, but he wanted to stretch the conversation.
Hamza grunted. “He owns a Ducati.”
“So?”
“They’re pretentious.”
Not wanting to linger on something he shouldn’t have said in the first place, Nicholas moved on. “Are you going to tell me how your gift works? Its limitations?”
“Nope. But I may or may not have another gift.”
Nicholas’s eyes widened. “You—”
“Nope.”
“Fine. I’ll just ask Marcus.”
Hamza draped a wrist over the steering wheel, unruffled by Nicholas’s threat. “Prying secrets from Rayyaan? Yeah, good luck with that.”
He had a point.
Nicholas looked up at his apartment again, still no closer to getting out of the truck. His attachment to Gabriel seemed to strengthen with each city block they’d passed. How can that be?
It felt like a match had been lit under his skin. He scratched at his arms, his legs through his jeans, halting when Hamza side-eyed him. Nicholas cleared his throat.
“What did you tell Liam?”
“The priest? I gave him the spiritual retreat bit. Persuading him wasn’t as easy. Something about his mind isn’t right,” he mused.
“Or maybe your skills are rusty since you rarely use them.”
“Yeah, maybe.” His tone suggested it wasn’t important enough to debate.
“So, what day and time did you say I should be ready for my sparring lesson?” he asked, buying more time.
Hamza insisted he needed an outlet for stress and swore that learning how to throw a punch wouldn’t mean he approved of violence. Nicholas wasn’t so sure. What if he liked it? What if it opened a gateway to something more?
“Day after tomorrow, six o’clock sharp. Like I said twenty minutes ago.”
“Right. Just wanted to be sure.”
He wasn’t fooling Hamza.
“You didn’t have to leave, you know. And it’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I did, and I’m fine. I just don’t like waking them up.” He glanced at the sleeping dogs in the back.
“Bullshit. You miss him.”
Nicholas exhaled, tipping his head back against the seat rest. “You’re right. I do.”
“And if I can feel it this strongly, then I can only imagine how intensely he feels it, being the one who turned you.”
Nicholas twisted in his seat, shock and dread turning his words sharp. “What? He can feel me?”
Hamza bit out a curse. “Guess he didn’t tell you that either.”
“No. Explain. What do you mean, ‘he can feel me’? And how can you feel me? I can’t feel any of you.” His voice trembled with confusion and rage.
He’d been surprised to learn that their emotions gave off distinct scents, too.
He was aware of their individual pheromones.
Gabriel smelled like trees drenched by a summer storm.
Nicholas knew their arousal was a heady thing, too.
But he hadn’t thought much about anything else until his outings with Hamza.
“I can’t smell his emotions either. Or yours, or Marcus’s.”
That was why he believed their kind was exempt from it, because he never got any of those signals from them.
Hamza sighed. “That’s because, for the most part, we walk around with our doors closed.”
“Doors?” His heart fluttered uncontrollably.
Gabriel could feel him? Nothing had been a secret. He’d walked around like a bleeding wound of want and need, spent weeks…
“So every time I… Oh my God.” Humiliation took over.
“Yeah,” Hamza said knowingly. “If your mental door connecting you two was open, he felt it all.”
“But what if—”
“All of it.”
Nicholas dropped his face into his palms, thinking about all the times he’d gotten himself off inside that house. All the times he thought doing it with the sink faucet running, or the shower on, would hide the sounds he could never seem to hold in.
Countless hours of giving into self-gratification, too many orgasms to keep track of spilling over his hands, and every finger filling the space that only Gabriel’s cock could satisfy.
All the times he’d crept up on him with stealth, stalking from around corners. Even the moments when he was home alone, free to cry and cum as much as he damn well pleased, free to shout Gabriel’s name from the tops of his lungs until his throat bled then healed, bled then healed, bled then healed…
All of it. He’d known about all of it.
Embarrassment didn’t begin to cover what Nicholas felt sitting there next to Hamza. He felt raw; he hurt like a sore wound that smarted when touched.
“I can feel all that too, Nicholas.”
He sucked in a breath, trying to calm himself.
“Better,” Hamza whispered.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if my brother didn’t tell you, his reasons were well-intentioned. To his enemies, he may be cold-blooded and merciless, but he doesn’t fuck around with the people he loves. Whatever his reasons, I’d bet my life that manipulation wasn’t one of them.”
Coming from Hamza, that meant a lot, and deep down, Nicholas knew every word of it was true. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
“And I’m guessing he hid himself from me for good reasons, too.” His tone was cynical.
“I’d put my money on that as well. Although I’m not sure how he did it. Having to sit back and watch you gain control with the sole purpose of leaving him? It couldn’t have been easy to keep himself caged.”
It couldn’t have been easy…
Nicholas thought about the night they spoke on the patio.
The night Gabriel asked Nicholas to see him, the same night he’d almost eaten the dogs.
There had been a moment when he’d been hit by an invisible force.
Something so strong it had nailed him to the back of his seat, gasping and searching the thin air for the source of it.
In hindsight, he could identify each marker now. Excruciating pain, sadness, and… love. Back then, it had just felt like a crushing, overwhelming, earth-shattering weight.
“What does it feel like?” he whispered. “To feel each other.” He had to be sure.
“Like your emotional channel changed out of nowhere. One second, you’re entrenched in a foot chase, rage at an all-time high, adrenaline pumping.
The next, you’re consumed with a level of grief that penetrates the fucking soul, rocking your foundation.
The pain is so visceral that you look down to make sure your guts are still on the inside, so potent that you can’t even see straight.
Imagine blood-tears streaming down your cheeks because if you can feel it this deeply, then that means the person you reluctantly care about must be dying inside. ”
Nicholas’s ribcage constricted painfully. He was afraid to ask, afraid he wouldn’t survive the resulting jealousy.
“Is that what you felt when Zayn died?”
Hamza shook his head as if disappointed.
“No, Nicholas. It’s what I felt when you died.”
Nicholas regarded his hands.
“Now imagine how it must feel for your sire. How it would feel for you if he were the one hurting.”
Nicholas trailed the drop of rain sliding down his passenger window, voice as hollow as he felt.
“I’m not trying to hurt him. Not anymore. I just…”
“I know, and he knows too. What he did was wrong, and it should take more than a few apologies and sad nights alone in that big house to fix. If it can be fixed at all. This is your life. You get to figure it out on your own terms. You get to take your time doing it, too. Don’t feel guilty. And honestly, he wouldn’t want you to.”
Which made things that much harder. How could Nicholas stay angry at someone who did their best to support his wishes, even when doing so caused them immense pain?
He supposed he could view it as Gabriel being the cause of all his problems, the reason why he needed an infinite wish list to begin with, but seeing it that way didn’t feel so good anymore.
Hamza wasn’t wrong, though. Nicholas had a right to live on his terms, to try to make a way in this new, frightening world on his own. No outside influences. No influences from a blood-bond. And as much as hurting Gabriel killed him, he needed to be free.
“Hamza?”
“Hmm?”
They stared at each other.
“Teach me how to close the door.”
Nicholas didn’t bother switching the lights on in the apartment. He wanted the atmosphere to reflect his dark mood.
Hamza had spent the better part of an hour helping him locate his mental doors. He’d scoured his mind, freezing the exterior of the truck in his frustration. He’d failed.
“You won’t find it unless you want to, kid. You aren’t ready to shut him out.”
Nicholas transferred the blood from the cooler to the fridge before laying out the doggy bowls and beds.
He hesitated at his bedroom doorway, cinematic images of him and Gabriel making love in there flashing through his mind.
The scent of sex and rain lingered on his sheets and along the walls after all this time.
He’d been desperate for Gabriel’s cock then.
Hardening where he stood, he realized he still was. Would the desperation ever diminish?
“Don’t think about it,” he ordered himself.
He couldn’t think about the deep, burning ache that could only be cooled once Gabriel finished inside of him.
Refused to focus on his thirst for Gabriel’s blood, nor the safety he felt by having him near, or the reality that leaving only made him want the man more.
Nicholas couldn’t dwell on any of it, not until he gained full privacy over himself.
Lightning struck, calling him over. He flattened a hand against the rain-slicked window, worrying about plans for his future. What would he do now? Where would he even start?
Two butterflies the size of his open palm appeared, landing on the glass.