by Susan Laine
Kieran’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. ’Cause I got tons of questions.”
Gabe leaned back on the bench and exhaled slowly, keeping his eyes on the range for the sake of his peace of mind. It was indeed better this way, with Kieran doing the asking, instead of Gabe filling the man’s head with information he may or may not have wanted to hear, let alone absorb. “Shoot.”
For a moment Kieran was silent, and Gabe feared the worst. “Back at the mansion, I got this feeling that there was more to it than your refusal. I mean, not biting Adler to change him.”
Anxious and reluctant to speak about this now, Gabe sat up straighter, fiddling with his hands in his lap. “It’s not true that if you’re bitten by an Alpha you become an Alpha too.” That was only part of the truth, and Gabe knew he had to go all the way with his mate, or Kieran could never trust him. He knew this, and in spite of that he was aware the whole truth could ruin any chances he had of happiness with his mate. So he chose his words carefully, not allowing himself to go too far. “There are bites, and then there are bites. But what the world around us doesn’t know….” Brushing his cowboy hat back from his forehead, he took a deep breath and said, “A lycan can only alter a human who is his or her… mate.”
Silence hung loaded between them as Gabe sensed Kieran trying to process and accept what he was hearing. “You’re seriously telling me only a mate can transform a human into a lycan?” Gabe merely nodded. “So even if you had bitten Adler at the right time during a ritual, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He would not have changed.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s the big secret?” Kieran sounded confused and angry. “Why the hell won’t you disclose that piece of information to everybody? It would stop people coming after you—”
“Because we don’t know what it is that triggers the mating between a mythical being and a human.” Gabe looked at Kieran, wanting him to understand. “If it’s genetic, all these people have to do is to, say, use gene therapy to add that missing link to the mix—and all of our nature will go right out the window. We could not distinguish real mates from false ones. And if it isn’t within our genes… then these enemies of ours would only have to find our mates, be rid of them, and there would be no more mythical beings. At least not ones that mate with humans. If these people found out that by eliminating our mates—who are the only ones we can turn into lycans—they could destroy us. They would do it too. My kind have many enemies.” Gabe breathed hard. “And I have a pack to protect. My family and friends. Our whole way of life. Our very existence.”
“Okay…,” Kieran said slowly, patiently, but Gabe could hear his pulse beating fast. “And why couldn’t you just tell me this instead of all this cloak and dagger stuff, refusing to see me? Did you think I couldn’t understand or—”
“I’m truly sorry, Kieran,” Gabe interjected, more apologetic than he ever remembered being. “Can you forgive me? I know it’s no excuse, but I thought—”
“Yeah, I know what you thought, you fucking idiot,” Kieran grumbled, his lips a thin white line. “Me spending my whole life hunting down those like you, and you older than me by hundreds of years…. How could I ever hope to understand? Yeah, I know what you thought. That you deserve a better mate.”
“That is not true! You are my mate, now and for all time. There is no other.”
Kieran let out a deep breath of anguish, closing his eyes briefly, and Gabe could only imagine what was going on behind his tightly pressed eyelids. “I don’t know what that means. Yes, I have noticed that in your presence I’m not straight anymore. But….” He shook his head. “In this day and age sexuality isn’t so easily defined. Sex is sex. I’m not worried about that. Okay, yeah, I am a bit worried about that, but I’ll live. I can handle it.”
Gabe didn’t know what to say, so he shrugged minutely. “That’s good. I guess.”
Shifting forward, Kieran leaned his elbows on his knees. “That night at the cabin when we… you know.” Obviously embarrassed at not feeling comfortable enough to say the word, Kieran blushed, and Gabe smiled a little. “Did we… mate?”
Following Kieran’s move, Gabe leaned forward too, his gaze landing on the ground at his feet, sandy soil covered with dry spruce and pine needles. They were treading dangerous ground now. Gabe swallowed hard, knowing the revelation lay ahead, like an unavoidable iceberg, to sink them. “No, we did not. There has to be, um, conscious acquiescence, if you understand my meaning. Both, uh, parties have to be aware that the mating is taking place. We, that is to say you and I, we just sucked each other off.”
“If—and I stress if—we mate, will I become like you? A wolf?” The hesitancy in his voice spoke volumes about the many reservations he had, and Gabe cringed noticeably, but tried to hide it behind an awkward cough.
“No. Like you said, sex is sex. Becoming a lycan will not happen through sex. You can become a wolf if you wish it, but it will not be through sex.”
Brushing his neck, Kieran fidgeted on his seat, then tilted back again to lean against the backrest of the wooden bench. “Okay. I suppose… we should get to know each other a bit better then.”
“Would you like to go out on a date, perhaps?” Gabe suggested, feeling deflated and yet exalted that Kieran was giving them a chance.
Kieran snorted. “I don’t date. Besides, don’t you think we’ve moved past that point?” Glancing at Gabe with a guarded expression, he said, “We could just, you know, talk. Like, uh….” Kieran paused for thought. “Like what’s your favorite music?” Giving Gabe a sharp look, he added quickly, “You better not say country and western, or else we’re gonna have serious issues!”
Gabe chuckled. “I must confess I do have a penchant for country music. Comes with the territory, I reckon.” Purposely exaggerating his western accent, he gave Kieran a grin, and was rewarded with a smile in return. That small gesture was like lighting a candle in a dark room. All of a sudden there was hope where there had been none. Sure, they were different, but no two people were totally alike, and if they found both common ground and differences to fill the silences, they would be on a pretty solid foundation, Gabe surmised. “I do like CCR. That’s kind of a classic, ain’t it?”
Kieran actually chuckled at that. “What, you mean like ‘I see the bad moon arising, I see trouble on the way’,” he hummed the lyrics to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising,” and impudent as he was, he kept grinning cheekily all throughout the song, for as much of it as he could remember. “How apt.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Gabe said, smiling back.
For a while they talked about movies, books, music, housework, and ranch work, places they had been to and places they would like to see, everything under the sun—and then some. Gabe had never felt more at ease, and he kept taking furtive glances at his mate, wanting to wrap himself around Kieran and never let go. And the way Kieran kept looking at him, like Gabe was his favorite ice cream and he wanted to lick him all over, was making him shiver in his boots. His own appetite was growing, but he tried to play it down.
“How could you not have seen the Alien movies?” Kieran was saying, and Gabe felt his heart beat faster at how animated his mate’s gestures became when he was excited about a topic. “I mean, you’ve lived for centuries. One would think you would’ve found the time at some point to see them.”
Laughing, Gabe remarked, “Horror and science fiction are not really my thing. I prefer romantic comedies and road movies and, dare I say it, westerns.”
“Oh my fucking God,” Kieran huffed and punched Gabe in the arm playfully. “If you tell me you had a crush on John Wayne, we’re done! That’s a deal breaker for me, sorry.” Kieran was laughing to indicate he wasn’t being serious, and Gabe liked him this way, open and responsive and lively. The guy’s dating self was a complete opposite of his professional mercenary self.
Winking shamelessly, Gabe grinned. “Not telling.”
Joining in the vibrations of shared and mut
ual enjoyment, Kieran watched Gabe watch him back, and Gabe felt whole for the first time in his very long life. Yes, they didn’t have many commonalities in terms of hobbies and favorite pastimes, but they both took pride in their work, in their expertise in their respective occupational fields. Their personalities had both similarities and differences. The most distinctive disparity between them was Kieran’s temper and Gabe’s calm.
“Okay.” Kieran stopped to think before offering a mischievous smile. “What was your most embarrassing sexual experience?”
Gabe flashed Kieran an amused and yet cautious look. “Shouldn’t we maybe focus on the positive, all things considered?”
“What?” Kieran feigned innocent. “Can’t you laugh at your embarrassments even after much time has passed? One would think a man with your life span would’ve learned that trick by now.”
“All right,” Gabe finally conceded with a smile. “There was this one guy way back in the day, in the sixties.”
“A hippie?”
“Yes and no. He kept calling me honey bear. All the damn time. Sometimes I doubted the guy even remembered my name. When he was coming, he shouted ‘honey bear’ at the top of his lungs.”
“What’s so weird about that?” Kieran asked confused.
Gabe knew he looked as sheepish as he felt, and a blush crept up on his cheeks like a flash of heat beneath his skin. “Well, one evening I made him a cup of tea with honey in it. I had to rush him into the emergency room. Turns out he was allergic to honey.”
Kieran’s lips were twitching, and Gabe knew he was holding back a barking laugh. “Oh wow. That must’ve been, um….”
“Yup,” Gabe admitted, trying not to chuckle himself. “Spent the whole night at the hospital. We broke up shortly after that—his choice—and he never did call me honey bear again.”
“Cool.” Kieran wasn’t very good at suppressing his amusement as his shoulders did a shimmy and a muffled chortling sound reverberated from his throat. It took him a moment to gather himself into a presentable conversation companion again. “So, how long has your family known you’re gay?”
Gabe shrugged. “As lycans, we know from the start we’re immortal. So we give each other allowances to experiment, to learn, to have fun, to not get bored with our choices too early on. We don’t think about sexuality in simple categories and definable attributes. Sexuality of a person is fluid, like the times. But to answer your question, I think it was sometime in the late nineteenth century that I began to sleep exclusively with men, and my ma and pa had no objections. It’s not the lycan way to disapprove of the choices of others because we live too long for conventions, traditions, or conservative approaches to matter to us.” Quieting for a moment, Gabe put his thoughts into order. “My family is very important to me. You must’ve observed that by now.”
Kieran nodded. “Yeah. They don’t seem to, well, mind that I used to hunt their kind.”
Trying to explain, Gabe said slowly, almost whispering, “Lycans tend to understand the different kinds of situations that can lead a person to a crossroads. After all, most lycans mate with humans. That brings to the table all kinds of mates.” Giving Kieran a cautious glance, Gabe focused on breathing through what he knew was about to come. “These days—I don’t know if you’re aware of this—lycans arrange matings with their human mates in a more, um, formal manner.”
Confusion clouded Kieran’s face. “Like how?”
“Well, we….” Gabe coughed to clear his throat and his head. “We have re-established the custom of negotiating all the details of the agreement beforehand, like brokering a business deal. Like, uh… an arranged marriage.”
Kieran’s blue-gray eyes widened, but otherwise he remained still. “Let’s forget for a moment what that sounds like and what the implications of it are. Who settles these… deals?”
“The mates and their families, typically. There are lawyers involved—”
“Are you serious?” Kieran harrumphed. “Well, I don’t have… lawyers or interested parties other than me, so… what does that mean for us?”
Gabe felt relieved that this negotiation would in that case happen just between them. “The two of us hammer out a mutually satisfactory agreement with no interference from anyone else.” Willing his heart to slow down and be calm, he hoped he hadn’t sounded too casual saying it, so he asked, “What about Erin, or your parents?”
“Other than Erin I don’t have any family,” Kieran admitted quietly, frowning. “I was in the IRA, once upon a time. That was sort of a family. But… there are causes and then there are causes. Some causes you’re born into, some you grow into, but they never sit right with you. I was brought into their idea of how things should be, but….” Kieran shrugged nonchalantly, but Gabe could tell the topic did sting him.
“You were born in Ireland?”
“No, in Pittsburgh. Hated that place. My folks were dirt-poor, and we had nothing.”
“When did you leave?”
“Erin’s older than me by two years. She took off at fourteen when dad smacked her for losing a beer can. I was twelve and running with some badass motherfuckers.” Suddenly Kieran’s face turned bashful and his cheeks reddened a bit, which Gabe thought was curious and a bit funny since he had heard the man curse more than speak normally. “Sorry,” he murmured apologetically. “In any case, it was my turn to get hit after that. But even though I was just a kid, I knew what to do with bullies. I punched him so hard his jaw broke. He had to go to the hospital to get it wired shut. He didn’t dare touch me after that, not even when he got so drunk that he trashed our house ’cause he had nothing else to toss around. One night, I think I was thirteen or thereabouts, I took his money from his wallet and hit the road. Never looked back.”
“Oh, Kieran, I’m so sorry for you,” Gabe started, feeling a rush of empathy with a mix of anger on his behalf.
“Fuck that, I don’t need or want your pity, got that?” Kieran’s earlier warm, light tone had vanished, and in its place was the cold, hard mercenary he had become.
Raising his hands in a surrender gesture, Gabe countered, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
For a tense moment, Kieran seemed like he didn’t believe him, but then he shook his head and waved his hand about, relaxing his shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, I know that. I’m sorry. I guess I just over-interpret things right now. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”
Gabe felt like teasing the man back to his humorous self. “Don’t worry. Even as a wolf, I won’t bite your head off either.”
Blinking hard and leaning away, Kieran stared at Gabe with his mouth gaping open. “You what?” Then, in another blink, he got that Gabe was joking, and he let out a disbelieving gasp, shoving Gabe hard and laughing. “You asshole. I mean here I am, baring my past and pouring my heart out for you, and you just—”
“Tease you?” Gabe chuckled. “You don’t like to be toyed with?”
“No, I don’t.” Kieran was still smiling, but there was a definite hard glint in his eyes, suggesting he was partially being serious. He quirked an eyebrow, but then frowned again. “Do you like being played with?”
“In or out of bed?”
Kieran rolled his eyes. “Either. Both.”
Gabe shrugged, but he felt a smile tease the corners of his mouth. “Depends on the toys—and my playmate. I have been known to try out new things when the mood has set in. You?”
Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Kieran shifted on his seat. “Women…. They take a lot more prep work, emotionally, if you know what I mean.”
“Men aren’t averse to a little foreplay either, you know,” Gabe admonished.
“I never said they were,” Kieran defended himself with eagerness. “But then again, I wouldn’t really know much about it. Before you, I had never done anything with a guy. I hadn’t so much as thought about it.”
“Not ever?”
Gabe was surprised. Most men did have at least one past incident of sexual experimentation, as a teenager wit
h a friend, in college, clubbing, or what-have-you. For Kieran to have had none of that was curious—and perhaps slightly suggestive too.
Frowning, Kieran gave him a belligerent once-over. “Okay, there was this one single time, a mutual jerk-off in college, but it was just about getting off in the absence of willing girls to do it for us. Absolutely nothing more. I didn’t even like the fucker! Why the hell would you assume—”
“I wasn’t implying anything indecent, Kieran.” Studying the defiant expression on the guy’s face, Gabe continued more soothingly, “I have lived for a very long time, Kieran. There are some things I’ve come to expect from my dealings with people, and that is that most people try out new things because they are there, the temptation, the opportunity, the freedom. But,” he hastened to add, “one single experience does not make you gay.” Although, to be fair, for Kieran the count was already at two.
“Yeah, thanks for that brilliant piece of insight, Doc,” Kieran said sourly, pursing his lips and rolling his eyes. “What I was going for was that you are all kinds of new for me. I’m not saying that’s bad or good. I just don’t have a feel for you and all this stuff yet. It’s like skydiving. My stomach’s in knots at the knowledge that I can always hit rock bottom, but with a little practice I can use a parachute to break my fall.” He shook his head briefly. “I wish I knew better what it is I do want. But my thoughts are a jumble, and I feel like I’m treading on quicksand. But… what I am sure about is that I don’t play games. Never have, never will.”
Kieran’s tone was emphatic, and Gabe held no illusions that Kieran might have been conflicted about his conviction. He held his breath. “So, Kieran, what do you want?”
Chapter Eight
DAMNED if I know.
Kieran shivered, not feeling ready and yet wanting the resolution that came with this act of intimacy he was about to share with Gabriel. “I don’t know…. I guess I just want….” Licking his lips, he felt like his mouth was dry as a desert and he was salivating like a hungry dog at the same time. “I want to be close to you. I don’t mean sex. Just your company, your presence, you know?”
