Chapter 38
Nicholas
The Kindness Refuge’s ‘ Adopt a Pet, Win a Prize ’ event was a huge success. Fifty pets now had new homes, and thanks to that huge donation from the ‘mystery’ coffee importer, Sandy and Mike were able to throw in gift cards for veterinary services.
“I think we might have put you out of business,” Alyssa said to Sandy, gaping at all the empty enclosures.
“Trust me. Give it a month, and we’ll be running out of real estate again.”
“Really?” asked Sean. He’d also shown up to pitch in. “Are people that cruel?”
“I mean, there’s that,” Mike said. “But pet owners also get sick, they die, and some people just can’t afford to keep their pets anymore. We’d rather they come here than be dumped on the streets or euthanized.”
Sensing the shift in their victorious mood, Mateo poured tequila into the six shot glasses lining the counter. “Cheers to a successful event, and to all the animals that now have homes.”
“Cheers!”
Mateo wasn’t an animal lover, so his support meant a lot to Nicholas. He stood back to watch his friends, who felt more like family now, smiling as they joked and shared their own stories from the event.
From Alyssa’s niece crying because her mom wouldn’t let her have all the kittens, to Sandy sobbing when someone adopted Penny.
Nicholas chuckled as Sean dramatically replayed bumping into his ex in the puppy aisle. She was there to adopt a pug for her new boyfriend. Pugs were Sean’s favorite breed.
“It felt like a betrayal,” he exclaimed.
Absently, Nicholas reached into his back pocket for his phone, stopping himself when his finger hovered over Gabriel’s name. This happened more frequently now. Every time something good transpired in Nicholas’s life, the first person he wanted to call was also the one person he wanted to forget.
When he aced his midterms, when he survived his first weekend road trip with friends. They’d gone camping, and while everyone slept by the fire, he’d followed an urgent tug deep into the woods.
Haloed by stars in a small clearing, a doe herd gathered around a fevered fawn. The matriarch had shifted aside, allowing Nicholas to examine the baby deer.
He hadn’t detected pain, which meant her crisis hadn’t stemmed from an injury.
He’d closed his eyes, centering himself and praying for a miracle as he lightly rested his palms along her side.
He’d almost given up, had been about to try giving her his blood instead, but then his palms glowed blue, and she began to cool and stir.
Within minutes, the fawn was back on her feet, leaping and bucking.
Nicholas fixed Zeke’s gait once he got home and had been secretly healing the sick and injured animals that came into the shelter.
Gabriel had been the first person he’d wanted to call for all of it.
“You okay?”
He jerked his gaze up to find Mateo in front of him, face pinched with concern.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, for starters, you’re crushing your phone.”
“Damn it.” Nicholas loosened his grip on the device, but the screen protector had already cracked.
Mateo grabbed his arm, dragging him to the back and down a narrow hall.
“What are you doing?”
“Your eyes are glowing,” he whispered in a rush.
Nicholas spun away, digging through his mind for the tools needed to calm himself down. This was the second time he’d lost control this week.
Papers rustled from up front before Sandy hissed a curse.
“Frigging paper cuts.”
Nicholas’s fangs dropped at the scent of blood, lips peeling away from his teeth.
“Shit, Nicky.”
He held his breath and backed away, speeding into the pantry where he kept an insulated cooler sleeve of blood hidden in his satchel. He drank every bit of it, warmth spreading through his chilled limbs again.
“Maybe you should call Marcus,” Mateo said from the pantry doorway. He knew to keep his distance. “Maybe you’re sick or something.”
“I’m fine. It’s just stress. I’ve been studying for exams while taking exams and helping to put today’s event together. I just need some rest.”
I just need to get over Gabriel.
At the thought of him, Nicholas’s claws lengthened, mouth overcrowding again.
“Hey, what are you two doing hiding in here?”
Alyssa.
She had a crush on Mateo and a sixth sense for tracking him down whenever he left a room. There was nothing specific that gave her away, but Nicholas recognized the look in her eyes whenever his best friend was around. It was the same look he saw staring back at him in the mirror every day.
Longing.
What she didn’t know was that Mateo only slept with women when paid to.
“Nicholas isn’t feeling well. Can you give us a minute?”
“Um, sure.” She sounded anything but. Nicholas had recovered by the time her footsteps faded.
“I’m gonna get the dogs from the backyard. We’ll slip out the side door. Will you tell everyone I said bye?”
“Yeah, of course.” His lips formed a tight line. “But are you sure—”
“I’m fine. Call you tomorrow.” Nicholas brushed past him.
Although misty, the walk home helped, and he was ready to get some shut-eye by the time he turned onto his deserted street. Maybe even without the ritual this time.
Maxim barked as they neared Nicholas’s building, Zeke and Kai joining in.
“Hey.”
Nicholas jerked sideways, unprepared for their attempt to dash across the street. He held tight to their taut leashes, frantically searching for a possible threat.
They strained to get free, growling as they faced the dark alcove between the two buildings across from Nicholas’s.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, but they wouldn’t let up. Maxim, especially, whose growl morphed into a desperate whimper.
Nicholas stared intently into the dark passage, turning up the volume on his senses.
He’d learned to severely dull them as a way of maintaining normalcy in his friendships.
Anything he knew had to be told to him or conveyed through body language, not because he overheard something he shouldn’t have, or because he picked up on an emotional scent.
He breathed deeply now, but all he smelled was the reek of trash and ozone.
He listened beyond the distressed dogs, beyond the buzz of the flickering street light overhead, and past the residents moving about in their apartments.
From the alcove came a scurry and a squeak, a bottle rolling, and two rats darted out to get lost beneath the row of parked cars.
Nicholas huffed, feeling silly for the panicked state of his heart.
“You guys want to be exterminators now?”
They shifted restlessly, whining, and heavy rain started falling.
“Come on.” Nicholas jogged up the front steps, digging his keys out of his pocket.
He dried the dogs off once they entered the apartment, following their pitiful gazes to the living room window.
“What’s going on? This isn’t like you guys.”
They may have looked intimidating, but they literally wouldn’t hurt a butterfly. They were around lots of animals almost daily at the shelter, most of them smaller than they were. They treated them all with care. So why had they been so determined to go after those rats?
“Talk to me.” He scratched behind his ear, waiting for doggy words to filter into his mind. They never did. That part of Zayn’s abilities still eluded Nicholas. He could feel their emotions, though. Could feel Maxim’s grief.
“Why are you sad? Did you want to kill those rodents?”
There was a soft knock at the door, and the dogs went running. Nicholas sniffed but came up empty.
“It’s me, Nicholas.”
Marcus.
Nicholas had forgotten he was stopping by for the dogs. It’d been two weeks since he and Gabriel last had them. The longest they’d gone since he left Gabriel’s house a couple months ago.
“Just a second!”
His place was a mess after having Sean and Mateo over last night, and the keepsakes he’d sneaked from Gabriel’s home were out in the open.
Nicholas normally met Marcus downstairs, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to invite him up, but because one swift inhale would reveal all that he got up to when alone in his room.
He didn’t allow Hamza into the apartment for the same reason.
They met at his place or the sparring gym.
No one knew how bad things had gotten for him.
Nicholas rushed to the couch, balling up Gabriel’s green polo shirt and shoving it under a cushion.
Snatching up the stolen tumbler off the coffee table, he hid it in a kitchen cabinet on his way to the door.
It had a nick on it that Gabriel habitually smoothed a finger over when deep in thought.
Nicholas never drank from it because he was scared washing it would remove the scent. He just liked having it nearby.
It wasn’t his plan to use these items as a crutch, as a means to get by. They were only supposed to help him wean off Gabriel in the early days of separating from him. But instead of time and distance rehabilitating him, his addiction had only worsened.
Marcus’s gaze cut right through him when he opened the door, a streak of white flashing behind his sunglasses. He seemed to always be on the edge of his predatory side, never fully tucking it away.
The dogs fell to their haunches, tongues wagging as they waited patiently for his attention. They were always so well-behaved with Marcus. Nothing like the savages they were when Nicholas returned after a long day of classes.
Marcus kept them waiting, addressing Nicholas.
“Are you going to invite me in?”
Those same words would’ve sounded cynical coming from Hamza. From Marcus, they were warm and friendly.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
Nicholas bolted the door as the dogs trailed Marcus to the living room, their strides unhurried, like his. But Nicholas could feel how anxious they were to pounce on him.
Belatedly, he remembered his open bedroom door. All the blood in his body drained to his feet as he hurried to close it.