by Susan Laine
Gabriel nodded, his smile tender and sympathetic, and Kieran felt calmer. “I know I am your first man—and hopefully your last man.” The little jest made him even more relaxed, and he was becoming convinced that maybe being with this man wouldn’t be so bad. “If you say stop or no at any time, I will go no further with you. Do you understand?”
Breathless and speechless, Kieran nodded. Gabriel reached for him and placed his palm gently on Kieran’s chest, where his heart beat a steady staccato, rising to a more frantic rhythm with every breath. That warm, heavy hand feathered over Kieran’s gray sweater, briefly brushing over his collarbone and neck and making Kieran quiver as it inched over his bare skin. Gabriel’s agile, strong fingers curved around his nape and pulled him closer.
This is it. This is the watershed event of my life.
Kieran didn’t know what to do with his hands, so they fluttered and fidgeted. As if with a will of their own, they sought contact with Gabriel. When his fingertips felt the plain cotton shirt the man wore, Kieran knew his body had already made up its mind. Now it was up to his mind and heart to decide whether or not to follow.
By the time Gabriel’s lips ghosted over his, Kieran’s hands were clutching at Gabriel’s arms, holding on as if to an anchor in a storm. Their lips met, closemouthed, soft, barely touching. For what felt like an eternity, Kieran kept his lips sealed shut, afraid to proceed further. He knew he was shaking, but Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, massaging away his tension, his fear, his doubt.
With an inaudible sigh, he parted his lips just a hint, and Gabriel’s tongue grazed Kieran’s lower lip. Backing away, Kieran couldn’t look at his mate, feeling too much for words or deeds. He didn’t know why this time kissing his cowboy felt so different and awkward. After all, they had kissed—and done even more than that before.
“So, this is just… sex, right? Not mating?” He sought clarity, though Gabriel had told him all this many times.
“Yes.” Gabriel pulled back a bit, and Kieran could feel him studying him. “Do you want to have sex or to mate first?”
Kieran’s eyes shot up in shock. “You… you can mate before having sex?”
Smiling mildly, reassuringly, yet kind of sadly, Gabriel nodded. “Yes.” His brow furrowed briefly as he veiled his gaze with his lowered lashes, then he let out a breath, as if coming to a decision. “For two people to mate successfully… sex doesn’t have to happen at all.”
Now it was Kieran’s turn to back off. “Wait. Back up. Are you telling me—now—that you and I could become mates, but we would never have to have sex?”
Barely concealing his disappointment and misery, Gabriel nodded almost imperceptibly. “Mating and sex are two very different things. They do complement each other, yes, but neither is a requirement for the other.” Still not looking up, Gabriel sat there, unmoving, and Kieran felt like he was sitting on an anthill—of fire ants. The cowboy’s hands left Kieran. “If you never….” Clearly distressed, Gabriel closed his eyes. Kieran just stared, waiting, holding his breath, seething inside with rage at not being told the truth—yet again. “If it is any consolation, you will not miss what you have never known. If we never have sex, you can go on with your life just as you did before all this happened.”
Fighting for control, his temper rising, Kieran asked, “Would this… feeling of nausea and weakness and fear of losing you go away if we mate? Even if we don’t ever fuck?”
Gabriel cringed at the word Kieran chose, but he finally whispered only, “Yes.”
“Goddamn you!” Kieran jumped to his feet, wanting badly to punch the guy and keep hitting him until he was just a bloody smear on the ground. “You knew I thought we would have to do both of those things. You knew I assumed sex and mating were both necessary to get my self-control back and to rebuild from the shambles my life has become. You knew this—and all the time the truth was something else. You lied to me!”
Gabriel’s shoulders slumped and he seemed several sizes smaller, deflated and bereft. “I’m sorry, Kieran. I didn’t want to lose you. I thought if you got to know me before I told you… I didn’t set out to lie, or withhold the truth from you. I just wanted a bit more time with you. If you liked me in spite of being a lycan and your mate… I was hoping it wouldn’t matter then. That I wasn’t as upfront with you as I usually am, you know, with everyone else. You’re different. So special to me. I couldn’t risk….” His hands were clasped together so tight his knuckles were white, and he stared at the ground like a man who had lost, not the battle, but the war. “But you’re right. I should have been honest with you from the start. It’s just that…. If we still go through with the mating, you will regain your sense of self, but I will not. For a lycan to be united with his or her mate and not be able to be with them in every sense of the word, is… it’s agony. It’ll be torment, a living purgatory. The torment of Tantalus.”
Kieran had no idea what that reference meant, but he knew he had heard enough. “I’m out of here. I need to think. Alone.” With that line, Kieran made his physical exit too.
THE town library at Connor’s Crossing left much to be desired, and the collection had clearly dwindled over the past few decades. There was more shelf space than there were books, and a lot of books were on sale close to the front doors.
Kieran had found the library computer and googled the torment of Tantalus. Though he was still so mad he could barely sit still for a minute, he wanted to know what Gabriel had meant because that would describe how he felt. Finding the mythology reference wasn’t hard, and he soon learned the tale of Tantalus, a man who had stolen ambrosia and nectar from the gods and whose eternal punishment for his crime was being locked up in Tartarus, forever close to fruit and drink, but always too far to reach them.
An eternity of torture for wanting a taste of the divine.
Kieran shuddered.
The worst part was that he understood now. Gabriel had wanted to be with his mate, the one he was destined to love. Craving it for the better part of four centuries, he had concealed the truth from his mate, even though the lie of omission could destroy him—and it had. Kieran wanted to run and scream and drive his hand through a wall. How could Kieran blame Gabriel for doing that? He had sought his one true love, his mate, for so long it boggled Kieran’s mind. And he had at last told the truth, when it mattered, and even volunteered the information that his pain would far outweigh Kieran’s anguish—assuming Kieran even felt any for choosing not to fuck, or be fucked by, Gabriel.
“Hi.”
Unaware of being approached, Kieran started at the greeting and got to his feet so fast his motion sent the wooden chair clattering on the floor loudly in the silent place. The young man chuckled a little and pulled the chair up before extending his hand. “I’m Kris Ellis. I saw you at the ranch earlier with Gabe.”
Warily, Kieran checked the guy from head to toe. Kris was the not-so-tall, lean athletic type with startlingly blue eyes, hair so black it shone bluish, and an expressive face that held no secrets. He seemed like an okay kind of guy. “Hi.” He shook the offered hand. Kris’s handshake was warm and solid but not aggressive or overbearing. “I’m Kieran.”
“It’s very nice to meet you.” Kris’s smile was like a burst of sunshine on a cloudy day, and Kieran felt his face muscles twitch in an attempt to smile. Glancing around surreptitiously, Kris stepped a little closer and lowered his voice. “I’m Rafe’s mate.” Stepping back again, as if nothing had happened, Kris continued, “Rafe is the youngest of the King siblings. Since he takes care of the horses mainly with his brother Michael, he hangs around the stables a lot. You might’ve seen him there.”
“A blond guy who grins a lot?” Kris nodded, laughing. “Yeah, I saw him, just for a second earlier today.” Giving Kris the once-over again, Kieran tilted his head, wondering what Kris and Rafe’s story was. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.” Kris chuckled, shrugged, and dropped his tone once more. “And Rafe has about two centuries on me. Not that it
’s a contest.” Lifting his chin to indicate the direction of the library doors, he asked, “You want to maybe take a walk? I can show you around town. Not that it will be the Grand Tour of yonder, since this is a small town, but we can talk more.”
Immediately Kieran felt cornered and manipulated. “Did Gabe ask you to talk to me?”
Kris frowned, but his was a gesture of curiosity, not conspiracy. That much Kieran could tell with ease. “No. Why?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Oh.” Kris’s face lit up like he suddenly understood the meaning of life. Harrumphing a bit, he gave Kieran’s arm a small empathetic pat. “You didn’t want to be a lycan’s mate either, did you?”
That got Kieran’s immediate attention and his eyes widened. “You too?”
Kris did the chin lift again. “Let’s walk.”
Dressed in dark gray jeans, light blue T-shirt, and raggedy army boots from a surplus store, Kris epitomized a twink, and Kieran found himself liking the guy for no apparent reason. He followed the young man out of the library and onto the wide-open space of the front lawn with its tiny pebbled pathways cutting through the planted flowerbeds. Kris took a seat on one of white-painted wooden benches there, near a small modern fountain giving off a tiny shower of sprinkling water, and waited for Kieran to do the same.
As they sat on the bench side by side, Kieran felt the guy’s gaze on him, more curious than anything else. He longed for the guy to speak first so he would know where the conversational boundaries were, and thankfully, he was not disappointed. “I was connected with Rafe by a blood test, and when we first spoke, we didn’t meet face to face. We spoke on the phone.”
“How did that go?”
“I was so mad at him in the beginning. It didn’t feel real. I felt like a puppet on a string, as if the universe was playing a cruel, unfathomable trick on me.” Suddenly Kris’s expression melted into soft affection Kieran very much liked on him. “It wasn’t easy at first, when we met. It was like we were light years apart. Not just the age difference, which is pretty big, almost insurmountable.” He sneered briefly. “But I soon came to see what kind of man Rafe was. Yeah, there was a lot we didn’t know about each other and how we lived our lives, but… those are small things, everyday things that you just sort of live through. Who Rafe is as a man, that was what got to me.”
Kieran sighed, looking at his feet, a heavy weight of decision hanging over his head. “Gabe’s a good man too. The longer I hang around him, the more I like him. I feel drawn to him.” Even though he lied to me. “I want to trust him, but….”
“I know, it’s not easy,” Kris agreed. “It’s a whole different way of life. It takes some getting used to.” Kieran watched as Kris’s eyes glazed over, as his mind drifted to moments past. “It was an arranged marriage between me and Rafe. Well, that’s how it was supposed to be, considering we didn’t just meet out of the blue, by sheer chance. It was strange but when we were together… it was like we were different people, you know?”
Frowning, Kieran shook his head. “Like how?”
Kris fidgeted, searching for a comfortable pose, his gaze darting to Kieran’s. “As though we behaved in opposition to our natures, to our own wishes. But it turned out that it was how mating bonded us. I’m pretty outspoken, but with Rafe I was tongue-tied. Rafe had waited a long time for me and he wanted me, but… Rafe tried to shuck me.”
Kieran just stared helplessly. “What? Why?”
Kris shrugged with a pensive expression. “Because he believed I’d be safer without him, and because I’m so young and I had dreams of how I wanted my life to go.” Chuckling, he shook his head in disbelief. “I was so naïve back then.”
“Those sound like valid reasons to me.”
Kris laughed merrily. “Oh, yeah, sure. They’re good reasons—but for Rafe they were excuses. He was afraid and conflicted. He wanted to share his life with me, but he tried to sacrifice our future happiness in exchange for my life.”
“What happened?”
Kris smiled wickedly. “I fear I might have… seduced him. He desired me, and I him, so I took a risk and embraced him and what we could have. And then he bit me.”
Swallowing hard, Kieran stuttered, “So, are you a, uh, a wolf now?”
Kris turned to Kieran wide-eyed. “No! It was a mating bite, not… a transforming bite. They are different, you know.”
Kieran let out a tiny sound somewhere between a sneer and a scoff. “No, I didn’t know that. How could I possibly? I don’t have a clue about what wolves do with their lives, their mates, or anything.” All of a sudden, he replayed the last bit again and faced Kris with an inquisitive look. “Gabe told me mating and sex have nothing to do with each other.”
Now it was Kris’s turn to look puzzled. “What? Well… I suppose that’s sort of true. I mean there’s sex and then there’s mating. But Rafe and me… we mated during sex.” Leaning closer, he smiled compassionately. “The bite hurts, of course. I mean Rafe was more wolf than man when he… you know. But it lasted a split second, and then….” Kieran watched his expression closely and intently, and found a deep well of satisfaction there he couldn’t wrap his brain around. “Then it was bliss.” Not knowing what to say to such a statement, Kieran waited. Kris let out a contented sigh, but his tone became earnest. “You see, before me and Rafe got together I had two fears. That I’d have no more freedom of choice and no more sense of self, the first because it was an arranged marriage and the second because of the potency of the mating bond.”
Kieran’s brow furrowed. “And…?”
Kris smiled a little. “None of my freedoms have been infringed. The pack does worry about me when I’m not on the ranch, but that’s just their way. I’m free to make my own decisions, same as always. As for my personal identity…. I didn’t lose myself in the heated frenzy of mating, as I had anticipated, but in fact through Rafe and my love for him, I found who I was. The real me beyond the childish, selfish dreams I had before. Rafe made me grow up into a mature, better man. We don’t always see eye to eye and we have our rows, but we’re working things through, like all couples. He has his life on the ranch, and I still have my own dreams to fulfill, independent of him.”
“So… if you could do it all over again, you’d still make the same choice?”
“To be with Rafe? Yes, absolutely.” Kris bumped his shoulder on Kieran’s arm. “It’s not always sunshine and roses, but I do love him. I didn’t always love him. There was a time when I hated him for putting me into a position where I felt trapped. But Rafe is sweet and kind and loving, and he would never hurt me.” Slowly Kris grew serious. “What is it that troubles you about Gabe?”
Kieran had known their talk would veer into this direction sooner or later, but now that the moment was upon him, he felt like running. Yet he stayed put on the park bench. “Before you knew of Rafe, before you met him—were you, um, gay?” Kieran felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment at asking such a personal question of a person he had met less than ten minutes ago.
Snorting, Kris nodded, looking baffled and amused. “Of course. Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Holy shit!” burst out of Kris’s mouth so fast it practically merged with his breath, but then he slapped his hands crossed in front of his mouth. “Sorry.”
Kieran laughed and thumbed his chest. “I don’t mind. Fellow cussing enthusiast sitting right here.”
Blinking with his jaw down, Kris seemed lost. “Wow. That’s like… serious, and deep, and weird.”
Huffing a little, Kieran managed a small sound of concordance. “You’re telling me.”
“Oh, wow….” Kris braced his arms on his knees and stared at the pebble path looking dumbfounded. “Okay…. So, you’ve never done, um, anything with a guy?”
Kieran cleared his throat and felt his neck sweat. “While me and Gabe were on the run, we were staying at this shack in the woods and… one thing led to another.” Whispering, he added, “We suc
ked each other off. First time for me. With a guy, I mean. First everything. The kissing…. Jesus fucking Christ. I thought I’d go spectacularly insane.”
“Okay…,” Kris finally said, slowly, as if taking his time letting the information seep in before commenting. “Well, I guess my first, and most important, question is… did you like it?”
At that Kieran couldn’t help himself and started chortling breathlessly. “Jesus, how the hell should I know! Was it me who liked it—or me reacting to whatever love drug he oozes out of his pores at me?” His laughter died down, and his stance slumped in defeat. “I don’t know anything anymore.” Worrying his lower lip till it bled, he grudgingly admitted, “He lied to me. Just once as far as I know, but I don’t know if I can…. I mean we have zero common interests. He’s a cowboy in the middle of fucking nowhere, and I’m a freelance mercenary who hunts his kind for a living.”
“You what?” Kris sat up straighter, confusion and growing rage on his beautiful face, and Kieran hated having put those feelings there.
He sighed resigned. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s in the past. And I couldn’t do it anymore anyway, even if I wanted to. It’s all gone to hell.”
“How could you—” Kris started, and his righteous indignation Kieran did deserve.
“That’s enough, Kris.”
Gabriel’s smooth voice cut through Kieran’s consciousness and tingled through his system, like a spark shower. The man had somehow inched closer without Kieran being any the wiser, and now the cowboy stood not ten feet away.
But Gabriel’s gaze was securely locked on Kris, dark and dangerous. “I’ll handle this, Kris. You go on home. Your mate wants you.”
Kris glanced between both men several times, clearly wavering between staying to chew Kieran a new one and leaving to reunite with his own mate. Then he sighed and placed his hand on Kieran’s arm. “I’m sorry if I was hard on you. God knows I didn’t fare much better when I was in your shoes.” With a small, bashful smile, he nudged Kieran in the arm with his own. “I’ll see you at the ranch, okay? And my door’s always open for you if you want to talk.”
