“Ido not answer to you.” Casersis’s voice shook. I could almost see his blood pressure rising. “One last chance. Get. Off. My. Mate.”
I came back to myself in waves—first my hearing, then my sense of touch. I kept my eyes closed because it felt like they were weighted down, and I didn’t want to see if Erastus was in pain. I already knew he was. I’d heard him yelp and give those shrill whimpers when the bolt struck him.
He adjusted his position atop me, and I hugged him. Though, instead of fur, I felt miles of naked skin and grunted. Well, wasn’t this special? What was happening? Why did I have a naked man sprawled over me?
I managed to open my eyes enough to glance over at Casersis. His hands were limned in golden light that arced and spat in time with the anger I felt thundering through our bond.
“Cass,” I whispered hoarsely, my voice shredded and raw from screaming. “Stop.”
My stupid heart felt two sizes too big, and butterflies took flight in my stomach at the thought that Casersis came to my rescue, that he was so protective. It really liked that he called me his mate. But I couldn’t condone what he was threatening Erastus with, especially since Erastus did his best to comfort me while I was thrashing around in agony.
Another wave hit me. It wasn’t as bad as the last one. Gritting my teeth, I thrashed around and accidentally kneed Erastus in the nuts. He grunted and shuddered above me but said not a word.
When the wave of pain subsided, I wheezed and thudded my head against the ground. I wondered why Erastus hadn’t moved, even when I knocked his nuts around. Then I realized I had fistfuls of his skin again. He literally couldn’t move unless I released him.
The moment I let go, he let out a breath and rolled to the side. “Are you all right?”
Laughing, I shook my head. “I’m not the one who got shot or kneed in the nuts.”
“Dustin…” Casersis still had his magic pooled in his hands, a scowl in place that looked wrong on his face. He was ready to attack. “Beauty, move.”
My mood instantly soured. “What the fuck, Cass?” I rolled to my side, putting my body between my lover and Erastus, so Casersis didn’t have a line of sight. “Put your fucking magic away and calm the fuck down.”
I heard a rustle behind me and glanced back to see Erastus back in his wolf form. He licked my cheek with a soft whine. When I reached back and petted his head, Casersis let out a strangled, angry sound.
“Why won’t you listen to me?” I demanded. “He was very gentle when keeping me warm. He tried so hard to pick me up to take me back to the estate, but when he tried to pick me up, the pain flared harder until black spots flashed in my eyes, and I nearly gave him a concussion from thrashing.”
I glared at him. “If you want to hurt him, you’ll have to go through me first.”
Casersis growled to himself. Then he sighed and motioned toward the forest. “Go. And stay off my property.”
“Cass… He only comes onto the property to visit his family’s grave. If you’re going to keep him from that, then maybe I should start questioning you about other atrocities you may have done.”
Erastus sneezed behind me, and I turned to him. I petted his head and muzzle again and murmured, “Thanks. I’ll be okay now. And I’ll make damned sure if he wants to keep you out, he’ll move the wards to let you have free rein of that clearing.”
Erastus whined but got up, licked my cheek again, and ran in the direction of his family’s grave. Once he was gone, I struggled to my feet. No way was I going to argue with Casersis with him towering over me. No one would have that power over me.
Once I was on my feet, I stalked over to him and squared my shoulders. “What the actual fuck, Cass?”
“He was—”
“No,” I ground out. “Don’t even go there. I told you Erastus wasn’t hurting me. I told you he helped me by trying to take me to the estate—while naked, mind you—and when he couldn’t, he kept me warm.”
I pointed at his chest. “He was helping me, and you fucking shot him. You didn’t ask a single question, did you?”
Casersis opened his mouth, then shut it again. “No.”
“Exactly. And for the love of God, would you start listening to me? If I say I’m all right, then I am. If I say someone isn’t hurting me, you should take me at my word. If I say I’m angry or bored or want to go back to my job, you should listen. But no, you go behind my back, give my boss—who is like a father to me—a letter of resignation that I’m fairly certain has my signature forged on it. You hurt someone who has done nothing to me except be nice. And fuck, Cass. He actually listens to me. Remember the home improvement store? I told him to leave, and he did. No questions. He just trusted me and left. And at the fair? I asked him to leave us in peace because I’d been having a bad day, and he wished us well and left.”
I glared at him. “Why is my mate unable to trust me, but a stranger who is supposed to be your enemy trusts me without question?”
“But—”
“No. No ‘buts,’ Cass. Not a single one.” I started pacing between the two trees on either side of me. “If this is how you normally treat him, no wonder he hates you! For all I know, maybe you are the cold-blooded killer he accuses you of being.
“And yeah,” I stopped long enough to give him a withering stare, “yeah, it doesn’t look good for you that you try to keep him away from his mate’s and their pups’ grave. What kind of fucked up monster does that?”
Casersis flinched and took a step back as if I’d just punched him. And at the moment, I wished I could. But as much as I was pissed, I couldn’t hurt him. He’d called me his mate, and I wasn’t opposed to that idea so long as he stopped being an idiot.
“Beauty…”
“Stuff it, Cass.” I went back to pacing. “I’m angry, okay? And I’m fucking allowed to be angry. And I’m allowed to be hurt and feel betrayed because you can’t trust me enough to know what I want and what I need or to make the right decisions or listen to reason when we discuss shit. I’ve been alone for a long time. I fought tooth and nail for my emancipation. I worked my ass off to keep a steady job while still going to high school. And I managed to graduate with a perfect four-point-oh grade point average.”
I huffed softly and leaned against one of the trees, silently begging Mother to soothe me as she did before. “And you know what? I found my job with Joe on my own. I earned it, and I worked hard as fuck. And I did a goddamned great job. It was easy for me to assume a leadership role with them because they knew I was great at my job. They knew that I knew my shit. And I earned their trust and respect.”
Shrugging, I pushed off the tree and faced him. “And you know what? I’m tired of trying to get you to see that I can make my own decisions, that I can be trusted to do what’s in my best interest, that I will listen to reason, and that I’m not going to endanger myself. I’m not stupid, Cass. And I’m not going to just roll over and let you take complete control of my life like you’ve been trying to do. That’s one of the main reasons I keep leaving. I needed time away to calm down and work out the aggression before I did something we both would regret.”
I chanced a glance over at him, and Casersis stepped forward. He reached out to cup my cheek, and it took all I had in me not to knock his hand away. “Beauty?”
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” I said quietly in a raspy voice that I knew did strange things to his insides by the way he shivered and the way our soulbond lit up.
“I thought he was hurting you,” Casersis said on a sigh. “It wasn’t until you said something that I realized he wasn’t.”
I laughed, bitter and full of the ache I had building up inside me. “And when you knew he wasn’t hurting me, you still threatened him with magic. That’s unacceptable, Cass.”
With a frustrated sigh, I brushed past him and headed for the estate.
“Beauty, please—”
“Nope. I’m going to the estate, and then I’m leaving for a while.” Pain and grief shot through my solar plexus, and I whirled around and jabbed a finger at the center of his chest. “Just because I say I’m leaving doesn’t fucking mean I’m rejecting you. If I were going to reject you, I’d be blunt about it. This right here? This just means I need to get away from the estate for a while to get my head back on straight, and you need to do some fucking soul-searching to figure out why you’re being an idiot asshole. You’re a goddamned former king, for Christ’s sake. You should know better. You should be better.” I groaned and spun back around and kept walking, calling over my shoulder. “I’ll take Don and who-the-fuck-ever else, and I’ll be home before dark.”
When I said “home,” I felt a flutter over our bond, and I had to fight against a smile of satisfaction. I had done that to my mate. The power I had over him with just a few words was heady. But I was still pissed, and I couldn’t calm down, so I marched myself to the estate.
I forgot Casersis was only a few steps behind me until I heard his yelp when I accidentally slammed the door in his face.
He opened it back up and caught up with me. “At least tell me where you are going.”
“I think it’s best you not know,” I muttered as I headed for my room. I shut the door in Casersis’s face again and headed for my walk-in closet to pull down my favorite hoodie. I didn’t want anyone to see my ears. That was one of the concessions I’d make—that and letting a security team follow me around like lost pups. I felt bad for them because I was pissed, and I’d be terrible company during our rides to and from wherever I felt like going. And right now, I had no idea where I wanted to go. I just needed out of his estate and away from Casersis for a while.
I didn’t get it. Why couldn’t Casersis grasp such simple concepts? Why couldn’t he trust me to make my own decisions and bounce back from my own mistakes? But no. He had to do stupid shit like forging my signature and sending a letter of resignation to my boss.
Maybe my first stop should be Joe’s office. I missed the bastard. I hadn’t been lying that he was like a father to me. He took me under his wing and gave me a job that I quickly grew to love, and he cared. He listened to me. He offered sound advice. And maybe that’s what I needed right now—his advice and the care he radiated just by being near him.
But would he want to see me after getting my resignation letter?
Well… I’d find out soon enough.
The moment I put my hoodie on and left my room, I headed for the front door, grabbed my jacket, and opened the door to find a car already waiting with Don in the back seat and a driver I didn’t recognize at the wheel.
When I got in, the driver smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “I am your assigned driver, Lawson. It is a pleasure to meet you. Where to, Master Dustin?”
I patted Don’s leg, silently letting him know that I appreciated his quiet presence. “Joe Nichol’s Construction. Do you know where he’s working now?”
Lawson nodded and pulled away and down the circular drive. I waited until we were in the city to pull the hood of my hoodie up, making sure my ears were hidden. It looked strange with my down-filled leather jacket since the hoodie had holes and was well-loved, and the jacket looked like it came straight off the runway. I didn’t care, though. I loved them both, and I’d wear the hoodie until it fell apart. Though I guessed I’d wear the jacket until Casersis decided I need a more updated one for fashion trends since he was a clothes horse.
And just thinking about Casersis hurt. What was he doing right now? The bond between us jangled with his uncertainty, with his anger and confusion. It made me wish I was calm enough to go back home and comfort my omega.
When we pulled up outside Joe’s office, I turned to Don, and he held up a hand. “I’ll wait outside the door like last time. Go do what you need.”
Nodding, I got out of the car and headed up the steps to the mobile office. When I opened the door, I found Joe behind his desk, his holoscreen up as he worked on reports.
When he looked at me, his face softened. “How’re you doing, D.J.?”
“I should ask you that.” I sat in the chair across from him and sagged back into it with a groan. “You got my letter of resignation?”
He sighed and rubbed a hand down his tired face. “I did. It sucks, though.”
“My boyfriend sent it to you without my knowledge,” I admitted. “He’s got good reasons, but he’s been a bit of an idiot.”
“So are you, or are you not, going to come back?”
It was a fair question, and as I studied my boss, it just hit me how haggard he looked. Dark circles ringed his eyes. Wrinkles I’d never noticed before lined his face. His skin took on a pallid appearance that made him look sick.
He’d die in short years. Maybe soon, maybe when he was in his nineties. Either way, I’d live on. I probably wouldn’t physically age past how I looked right now. And both thoughts made my heart ache.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. “Cass is right. I can’t come back until my gene therapy is done. I’ve been going through bouts of pain that wrack my body so hard that all I can do is scream and thrash and eventually faint. They happen randomly, so I can’t do anything right now except stay with him and hope they stop soon.”
“Shit, kid.” He shook his balding head and dismissed his holoscreen. “You sure you should be here right now?”
I shrugged. “I have a security detail. My bodyguard, Don, is waiting outside. If I go into another fit, I’m sure he can handle it until my boyfriend gets here. He knows how to handle me.”
“If you’re sure.” Joe got up and rounded the desk. He hauled me up and hugged me like his life depended on it. “You at least come visit, yeah? Or just call on occasion. Let me know how you’re doing and that you’re not dead.”
Hugging him back, I squeezed tight and murmured against his broad shoulder. “I promise.”
“Good.” He gave me a gentle push toward the door. “Now get out of my office, so I don’t have to witness one of your fits. My old heart couldn’t take it.”
With a smile and a wave, I headed out of the office and closed the door behind me to keep the heat from escaping. Don met me and fell into step beside me. He opened the car door, and once we were both settled in, he and Lawson asked in unison, “Where to now?”
I took my time thinking about that. After a few moments, I rubbed my chest over my heart and sighed. “Oak Rest Cemetery, please.”
Neither said a word, but Lawson got the car moving, and I stared out the window, watching the scenery rush past.
I didn’t realize we had arrived until Don opened the door and got out, holding it open for me. I slid out and smiled. Lawson had somehow brought me to the bottom of the walkway leading to my parents’ plot at the top of the hill.
It had been so long since I’d been here that I wished I’d brought flowers or something, anything to make it up to them since I used to come at least once a month.
Long time absent, my feet still knew the way, and before I realized I’d taken the first step, I was at the foot of their grave where they were buried side by side.
“Hey,” I murmured. “I miss you guys.”
I settled down on their grave and pulled my knees up to my chest as I stared at their headstone. “Been a while since I came out here. Sorry about that.”
Their headstone made my heart ache even more, so I looked up into the canopy of the trees that shaded my parents’ grave in the spring and summer. The cold weather, however, had left only a few brown leaves dangling from the skeletons. And that was almost more depressing than staring at my parents’ headstone.
Resting my chin on my knees, I looked out across the cemetery. It was the same as it always was. Though, my parents’ plot was a little overgrown. I just didn’t know whether it was safe to pull up the weeds. Was that something an elf would do? Were elves appalled by how humans treat weeds and grass? Would Mother be mad? Would she care since so many humans did it? Or did she think of it as some sort of spa day? Like someone getting their brows waxed, threaded, or tweezed?
Ugh. It was doing my head in. So instead of sitting there, letting my mind go in circles, I started cleaning up my parents’ plot. The groundskeeper mowed the grass on all the plots, but they didn’t get the weeds around the headstones. I used to do it every week. And as I pulled weeds and gathered them up to dispose of later, I felt a pang in my chest that made me stop and take a breath.
Was that Casersis? Was he okay?
Of course, it was Casersis. Still, my chest felt tight at the thought that he might be in pain, and that just made me flop back onto my ass from my knees and groan.
“Sorry, mom and dad. Looks like my boyfriend is in some sort of trouble. But isn’t he always? He and I have been fighting off and on for weeks, and it hurts. I don’t know how to make it stop. How did you and dad get along so well every day? Or did you guys have arguments when I either wasn’t around or when I was asleep?”
They didn’t answer, of course, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t hear me. Maybe they could. Maybe Casersis was right that souls went to Mother, and maybe that meant they could hear everything I said, even if they couldn’t respond.
Or maybe they were just desiccated husks taking up space in the ground.
That thought hurt more than I figured it would.
I didn’t dare ask for a sign. If I got one, I’d probably shit myself. And if I didn’t, I’d be disappointed. Either way, I’d be fucked.
I got up and brushed the grass and whatever else off my ass and paced the area around their headstone, pulling up any weeds I had missed before. I knew I was doing it to keep my emotions in check. One wrong move and I feared I’d be a bawling mess.
Then a flutter over the bond hit me like a Vaciroth car moving at three hundred miles per hour. I flopped down and scrubbed a hand over my face.
“You know what the worst thing is?” I asked rhetorically. “The worst thing is I loved him before the bond, and that love has grown. So as much as I want to fucking stay mad at his idiot ass, I can’t help but want to go coddle him whenever I feel his sadness jangling over our damned bond.”
But then I paused and sighed. “But is it real love? Or is it as Erastus said, and I’m suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? I don’t think it is, but that’s what someone suffering from it would think, isn’t it?”
Groaning, I covered my face with both hands. “He’s like a little parasite. An adorable fucking parasite. Burrowed under my skin and made himself at home. And the shit thing is, I let him, and I couldn’t imagine him anywhere else.”
I went quiet, and after a moment, tears stung my eyes. “But I’m turning into an elf, guys. I don’t know what all that means. I mean… are you guys upset that I’m changing species?” I lowered my voice further as I pawed the tears off my face. “Am I still your son? Cass said I’m changing species. The magic from his pendant is completely rewriting my DNA. And I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.”
I huffed a laugh and sat back, resting my upper body weight on my palms behind me and crossing my legs at the ankles near their headstone. “Apparently, I’m an alpha, and Casersis is an omega. I guess it fits because I feel comfortable in the role. It makes me feel ten feet tall and herculean when I can reduce him to a panting, moaning, leaking mess within seconds.”
Then I wondered, “I wonder if you two had that kind of relationship dynamic. If I had enough elven blood for Casersis’s pendant to work, that would mean you and dad both had lots in you, too. It makes me wonder… who was the alpha, and who was the omega? Did you two soulbond and not know it? Is that why mom went insane when dad got shot?”
I smiled sadly. “Guess I’ll never know. But still… I can’t stop thinking, you know? It’s terrifying and glorious at the same time that I’m changing species. I have a new connection to our planet. My ears and eyes are kinda cool. But the screaming, thrashing pain that comes with the bond could fuck off. It comes at random. But how random is it?”
Something wrapped around me, a feeling of love and light. I closed my eyes and let it wash over me. “I still want to know, though… I wish you could tell me. Am I still your son? Is there going to be any of either of you left in me to say I’m your son, that I’m not losing you both again?”
That feeling that wrapped around me tightened until I closed my eyes with the comfort of it and wiped the tears off my face.
“They will always be your parents,” Casersis said softly. He bent down and laid a beautiful flower arrangement at the base of their headstone. “You will always be their son because no matter what your DNA does or doesn’t do, it will not ever erase your memories. It will not ever erase the knowledge of who raised you, who loved you, and who protected you. It does not change who you are, just what you are. And there will still be their markers in your DNA since they had elven blood. It won’t erase that, either. You will always be their son.”
I looked back at him, kind of miffed that he’d followed me but also glad he’d come. He sifted his fingers through my hair and smiled down at me. “Nothing can take those things away. And I would never try to take them from you, even if I could.”
With a smirk, I reached up and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I know.” He squeezed back and turned his attention to my parents’ headstone. “I just also know that when Don told me where you were, I couldn’t stay away.” Casersis sat in the grass next to me and leaned his shoulder against mine, keeping our hands clasped between us. “I also know, beauty, that I deserved your wrath today.”
When I looked over at him, he gave me a sad smile. “I am sorry, my beauty.”
And when he looked at me like that, with hearts in his eyes, butterflies fluttering along our bond, and his hand warm and sure in my own, I loved him just a little more.
