“Me too.”
**********
Olive and Damien sat together watching the beginning of a sunrise as Gonzalo and Koko joked on the swings some feet behind them. Everybody except Olive had gotten into college, each in a different state. Instead, Olive had gotten a subsidised apartment when she had turned eighteen and was working two jobs.
It had just been Olive and Damien, in the start. Before Koko had really committed to being his friend and Gonzalo had joined the fold. Damien wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t approached her in the cafeteria. Somehow, would they still be friends?
“You’re getting out, huh?” Olive said quietly.
“You could come with me. Live somewhere there, work at—”
“Nah. You shouldn’t take that much baggage to college.”
“Olive—”
“It’s fine. Damien, I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will. Olive, you’re one of the best people I know. Courageous. Loyal. Determined. I know you’ll be fine. I’m just going to miss you.”
Olive looked at Damien. She leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“Me too.”
They pressed against each other. They could feel the world changing around them. Squeezing them out of places that they’d become comfortable with. The path they were on was suddenly turning, and they didn’t have another option but to go on.
Damien reached between them and threaded his fingers through Olive’s. She squeezed back.
They sat, looking at the shadowed landscape of their futures.
In the distance, the horizon was lightening. The sun was just reaching through.
PART TWO
CHAPTER NINE
College was both more and less than advertised. Damien found it was an odd combination of academic responsibility blurred with the sudden freedom of adulthood. In contrast to high school, the students of Eketon University didn’t seem to give much of a damn about what others were doing. You could go to the store in your PJs, juggle in the campus square, get drunk at two pm. Nobody batted an eye.
Damien’s worry about schoolwork followed him there. His body couldn’t quite forget being tied down in response to his failures. Those first few months carried an increase in nightmares. He started grinding his teeth in sleep, but even that was lulled back to normal as he got used to the new pressures of the nascent adventure that was college.
Damien had been terrified that the past would echo itself. That he would struggle to make friends as the people around him sensed that he was a little different. A little off. But everybody around him was packed tightly onto the same boat. Everybody was alone and wanting, and it made it easier to meet new people. Before he knew it, Damien was hanging out regularly with a few people from his dorm and a few from some of his classes. He had a room to himself, a luxury surprisingly common at Eketon, so he could always escape to a safe place when he became overwhelmed.
The ties he made weren’t the lasting bonds he hoped he had with Olive or the Salgados. It was a struggle to open himself up fully to people he couldn’t imagine telling about his past. But it was enough to settle his fears about being alone in that new world.
What surprised him the most was his own openness about casual sex. His soul was still with Hakan, and it eased the way for his body to explore the world without fear of getting seriously hurt. He couldn’t sleep with just anybody, the act too vulnerable for that, but he made a couple of friends that felt safe enough to have benefits with. The first time he had penetrative sex was painful and a little awkward, but it hadn’t been bad, and it had quickly gotten better.
In the beginning, he avoided Hakan as much as was feasible. He didn’t want to give the impression that he had chosen Eketon just for him. They had always had a separate group of friends, and Damien didn’t want to presume to have the right to insert himself into Hakan’s college life. However, he missed the pack like a severed limb. He could feel its ache as the moon gained shape and light. Hakan had been spending most of the full moons with a rag-tag group of wolf shifters, but after the first month, it became clear he wanted to spend them with Damien.
Damien had been a little floored. Such open invitations to spend meaningful time with people still surprised him.
They went to a large, witch-warded park. They chose a spot away from the other shifters and Damien looked away as Hakan undressed. It was different, somehow, with just the two of them. He watched as he transformed, however. The shift still fascinated him, even after all those years.
They ran together through the fields and trees. Damien had taken up running in the past year in order to try and keep up with the wolves. It never worked, of course, but it was a freeing experience to run for minutes on end without having to stop.
They raced between patches of darkness and silver light when they heard howling in the distance. They howled back, caught up in the tide of the moon.
Hakan looked at Damien with bright, werewolf eyes. Damien almost never dared to stroke any of the wolves, but he reached out and ran his fingers through the grey fur on Hakan’s massive head. Hakan closed his eyes and pushed his muzzle against his wrist. Damien could feel the wetness of his nose and gust of hot breath. He smiled, the moonlight seeping right into his bones.
When the night had howled and ran its way through, they returned to Hakan’s small loft together. They collapsed onto his bed, exhausted, heedless of the dirt they tracked. They curled around each other and Hakan breathed in deeply as their scents mixed.
Pack, Damien thought as he drifted to sleep.
**********
It was only a matter of time before Damien encountered another shifter.
Damien sipped at his drink, diluted with plenty of mixer so he could have something in his hands without getting drunk. He still disliked the feeling of losing control in a space filled with people he didn’t know.
He was scanning the room absentmindedly when Damien saw him. Broad, of Pakistani descent, maybe, with bushy eyebrows and dark, oval eyes. He was looking at Damien and the awkwardness of catching someone’s eye made Damien look away. But something niggled at him. He looked back at the guy, who hadn’t moved his gaze away. The stare wasn’t intense. It was almost playful.
As Damien raised his eyebrows, it was almost like sense memory. His body recognized something before his head did. Something about how the guy seemed completely sober, or the way he stood, with a casual confidence that wasn’t usual without an ounce of cockiness. The way he would tilt his head, sometimes, as if picking up a sound far away, or lift his nose a fraction. He’d seen those gestures before.
The guy made his way towards him. Damien tilted his body to meet him, the guy’s playful look contagious.
“My, Grandma, what big eyes you have,” Damien teased as soon as the guy reached him, who laughed, a mischievous spark lighting up his eyes.
“All the better to look at you with,” he replied. Damien groaned at the cheesiness. The guy laughed again. “Hey, you started it,” he said, lifting the hand not holding a drink up in defence. Damien tipped his head in acceptance.
“Damien,” he introduced himself.
“Nasir.”
“I’m surprised you can stand all the noise. And the smell.”
“You get used to it. What pack are you from?” Nasir asked. Damien had met a few visiting wolves outside of the Salgado pack when he had been back home, but he guessed asking after someone’s pack name was customary without previous knowledge of ties.
“I don’t belong to a pack,” Damien said truthfully.
Nasir’s thick eyebrows rose. “Really? That’s…I mean, your scent is clearly marked.”
“Really? Still? Well, I was fostered by the Salgado pack for years, so…”
“Wow. The Salgado pack?” he repeated, sounding impressed. Damien couldn’t help but feel pleased at that.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never heard of a pack fostering a human child. You must be pretty special,” Nasir smiled.
&n
bsp; Damien snorted. “It was more of a right-place, right-time situation.”
“Well, lucky them,” Nasir said.
Damien shook his head, laughing.
In the corner of the frat, a bunch of girls started cheering as another one of them shotgunned a beer. Nasir twitched at the noise.
“Want to go somewhere quieter?” Damien asked.
Nasir gave him a slow smirk. “Sure.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Damien said with a roll of his eyes.
Nasir shrugged good-naturedly. “Sure.”
They went outside, and Damien saw Nasir relax instantaneously. Damien wondered how other shifters got used to the onslaught of sensory stimuli in public places. He knew that werewolves had some control over what they focused on and how much their senses engaged on certain stimuli, but certain environments must still be overwhelming.
No wonder so many packs lived in rural areas.
Damien and Nasir sat away from the crowd, leaning against the wooden fence that penned the area in.
Damien took a liking to Nasir straightaway. He had an open, affable air about him that was easy to connect to. His eyes lit up when he talked about his pack, which resided a few states away.
“Really hard,” Nasir confirmed when Damien asked how difficult it was when he first moved away. “Like…when you’re with pack, on your pack land, you just feel so…connected. Like, your Ousía is at home, you know? You know you’re safe without having to think about it. There’s a flow to the bond that’s anchoring.”
Damien felt the old ache of want. He knew what Nasir was talking about, in a sense. That feeling of family, of home, had been foreign to him for the years after his parents died. There had been no safety, no respite. It had only made finding it with the Salgados more obvious.
At the same time, however, there was a depth to what Nasir described that Damien had only felt in dreams.
“That sounds awesome.”
“Yeah. But it makes it hard to move away. Even if you know you still have it, you don’t feel it, you know? I mean, yeah, you still feel it, but not in the same way. You’re left a little…”
“Unmoored?”
“Yeah. Exactly. Like that anchor isn’t as steady. A lot of shifters move away for college for that reason. It’s necessary to feel this way in order to decide if you want to stay there all your life. Most return, I think. But, man, I almost quit school in those first few months. It was a struggle.”
Damien thought back to when Hakan first left. Damien had been avoiding him then, a combination of wanting to give him space and the still-burning humiliation of the aborted kiss. He wondered if it had been the right thing to do. If Hakan had felt like Nasir described. Unmoored.
“Yeah. Everybody in the pack that fostered me that went to college chose somewhere a few states away.”
“Yeah. You’re in a relationship with one of them, right?” Nasir asked.
Damien frowned in confusion. “What? What do you mean?”
“Your scent. You smell really strongly of other-wolf. Of someone in particular. A male wolf.”
“Oh. No, he’s a friend,” Damien said, not knowing if he liked the feeling of warmth at the thought of smelling so strongly of Hakan. Like he was claimed.
“Oh. Really?”
“Really.”
“Well. His loss, I guess.”
“Mmhmm.” Damien side-eyed Nasir, who smiled.
Their conversation devolved until they were just laughing at Vines on Nasir’s phone. By the end of the night, they were sitting with their shoulders pressed against each other. Damien was laughing as he told a story one of the Vines had reminded him of, involving a bottle of Coke and a very irritated Koko.
As Damien looked at him, he noticed Nasir staring back intently. For a moment, the look reminded him of Hakan. Unbidden, heat curled inside Damien. He stuttered on the next sentence, licking his lips nervously. Nasir followed the movement with his eyes.
“I’m not usually this direct,” Nasir said when Damien finished his story, “but I would really like to sleep with you.”
Damien let out a nervous chuckle. “Um. Yeah. That is really direct.”
“I usually have to worry about half-shifting when I’m with humans. It’s hard. And…you smell really fucking good, underneath the stink of other-wolf.”
“I smell good under all the stink. Wow. I’m charmed.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like—”
“It’s fine. I think I got what you meant.”
Nasir looked at him. The look was waiting, but not expectant or pressuring. Damien got the sense that he could turn Nasir down without having him turn into a dick. That wasn’t as common as one would wish.
“So, you wanna get rid of the stink?”
“I want to make you smell like me.”
The words went right through Damien, hitting a button he hadn’t known he had. He watched as Nasir’s eyes darkened, his nostrils flaring slightly.
The arousal must have been coming from him in waves.
Damien leaned in, pausing a few inches from Nasir’s mouth. Nasir simply waited. Damien smiled.
He moved all the way in until their lips pressed together. For a single, disorienting moment, a fist of guilt squeezed at his chest. Because Nasir was a werewolf, perhaps, Damien got the sudden sense that he was betraying Hakan.
He pushed the feeling away. Damien couldn’t do that to himself. He and Hakan weren’t, had never been, and would never be in a romantic or sexual relationship.
Nasir tilted his head and opened his mouth. The kiss was slow, shallow. Almost sweet.
Damien wondered what it would be like to kiss someone in a half-moon shift.
“You only smell a little of alcohol. You’re not drunk, right?” Nasir asked when they parted.
“Do I seem drunk?”
“It’s hard to tell with humans, sometimes.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“Good.”
“I’m not looking for anything serious,” Damien said.
Nasir paused momentarily. “Okay.”
The walk to Nasir’s was comfortable, even as electricity thrummed between them. The thought that Damien had never had sex with a werewolf kept flashing in his mind. Not because he had any particular fetish he was aware of, but because their senses and abilities were bound to make such a physical experience different.
By the time they reached Nasir’s apartment, Damien was feeling a little desperate.
Damien couldn’t have prepared himself for the experience that followed. Even consciously reminding himself of shifters’ heightened senses and strength didn’t predict the sheer force and depth of having sex with one of them.
Nasir pulled Damien towards him as soon as they were through the door, as if he couldn’t wait a moment longer without his scent on Damien. Instead of aiming for the mouth, Nasir tipped his head and licked Damien’s neck. Damien shuddered.
Damien had never really liked being manhandled by people he hadn’t had a few encounters with, but the easy, skilled strength Nasir displayed instantly turned Damien on. The way he focused on areas that humans didn’t tend to linger on, marking his scent. The way that he seemed to be claiming Damien in a way that read more as being part of sex than of possession. The way he nuzzled and bit all over Damien’s body.
The focus on Damien was both overwhelming and delicious.
At one point, Nasir growled deep in his chest and Damien felt it all the way to his toes. It was the best fuck he’d ever had. As playful as it was intent, without the baggage of intimacy or emotion.
“Jesus,” Damien said as he lay sated and panting on the bed.
Even though Damien knew werewolves were resistant to STDs, they had still used a condom, and Nasir rolled away momentarily to discard it before settling back against him. Damien could feel his smile as Nasir nuzzled his neck.
“Do I smell like you now?” Damien asked sleepily.
“Hmm, you still smell more like him.”
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“Really?” Damien ignored the pleased feeling in his stomach.
“Mmhmm. You run with him?”
“Yeah.”
“That’d do it. Guess we’ll just have to be insistent,” Nasir smirked. Damien rolled his eyes but accepted Nasir’s following kiss.
Damien left not long after that, not wanting to fall asleep in Nasir’s bed. He never spent the night with people he had sex with. He didn’t want to have a nightmare and have to explain himself.
Despite his mental lecture not to let what he felt for Hakan get in the way of what had been an immensely pleasurable experience, Damien showered thoroughly when he got home. It was almost an instinctual need.
It’s because of the pack. Not Hakan, Damien thought.
The lie was too weak to hold.
**********
“Those vegetables are not the same as the ones in this picture,” Damien said. “Look! These are the judias verdes. I don’t know what that is.”
“Well, why did you look for the recipe in Spanish!”
“I didn’t look for it in Spanish, I found it in Spanish. It’s a Spanish dish. I thought it would be more authentic.”
“Not if we can’t read it.”
“I thought you’d be able to use Google Translate. My mistake.”
“You know, you didn’t use to be such a brat.”
“I guess it’s the Salgado effect.”
“Yeah, or the Koko effect,” Hakan said.
Damien laughed. “The point is these are the wrong vegetables.”
“It won’t matter! We’ll invent a new dish.”
“Maybe next time I should just give you the recipe in scent form and you can find the right beans.”
“You know, the werewolf jokes are getting real old.”
“Are you kidding me? You make fun of me for being human all the time. You literally just laughed at me like twenty minutes ago when I couldn’t move that box of books.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You were laughing at the random thing happening at the exact same moment I tried to pick up the box. My mistake.”
In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic) Page 19
