by Lyra Evans
Connor’s hesitation lasted the length of a breath, then he reached out and picked up one of the glasses. He swirled the liquid in the glass, smelling it more openly. Oliver picked up the second, and Sky took the last. He held up his glass in a toast, and Oliver and Connor followed suit.
“To justice,” he said, tipping his glass. “You won’t have to make any more of these speeches or gatherings,” he added, nodding down the stairs. “I’ll make sure of it.”
They clinked their glasses together and drank. As they downed the drink, Sky caught Oliver’s eye over the rim of his glass. Oliver finished the drink; it tasted of starlight and fresh water, of blueberries in cream, and of the breath of cool after a storm. Connor licked his lips, studying the bottom of the glass.
“Thank you,” he said to Sky. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
Sky smiled crookedly. “An old family recipe.” His eyes found Oliver again, and Oliver felt as rush of tingling all over his body.
“We should get to bed, I think,” he said suddenly, turning to Connor. “It’s been a brutal day. We need to recover for tomorrow.”
Connor nodded. “Yes,” he said placing the glass back on the tray. Oli followed. Sky’s face fell a fraction; he didn’t move. “There’s a guest room made up for you, if you like. Just down the hall from ours.” With a sideways glance at Oliver, Connor added, “I’ve had Donna increase security on the wards, and some of my Wolves will be running a perimeter around the grounds in shifts tonight.”
Sky nodded. “Great,” he said, but it fell slightly flat.
Connor climbed the stairs first, Oliver following close behind. As he moved up, he felt Sky’s eyes on him with every step, every inch higher into Connor’s home. Oliver’s back burned, his cheeks flushed, knowing the feel of Sky’s look, knowing the familiar way he took Oliver in. When they were together, years ago, that look always preceded something. Sky would walk behind him, stripping him naked with his eyes, playing it off with his words as though he wasn’t intent on eating Oliver alive. Then, the moment they were behind closed doors—any door—Sky would push up against him, pin him somewhere, and ravage him. He’d be all hands and lips and tongue, driving Oliver to madness, unable to say much but Sky’s name.
Oliver burned as they made it to the top of the stairs, his jaw tight, his body flushed. Connor gestured to a door to the left, in the opposite direction to Connor’s bedroom. Sky’s eyes never left Oliver, his gaze still raking over every inch of Oliver’s body.
“Thanks for that,” he said to Connor though not looking at him. Connor was tense next to Oliver, rigid as a rock. “Sleep well.”
Sky turned and disappeared into the guestroom without ado, and Oliver turned quickly to lead Connor to his own bedroom. Once the door was closed, Oliver pressed Connor against it. He hit the wood with a heavy thud, knocking his head back, and Oliver fell to his knees in front of Connor.
Within moments, he’d pulled open Connor’s belt and unfastened his pants. Shoving them down with deft fingers, he released Connor’s cock, already hardening before his eyes. Oliver licked his lips and pulled Connor’s cock into his mouth, relishing the feel of it filling on his tongue, pressing all the air from his mouth, taking up every bit of room. He nearly gagged on the girth, on the length against the back of his throat, but adjusted quickly and began to run his tongue in thick stripes along the underside of the shaft.
“Oliver,” Connor husked, his hands buried in Oliver’s hair, grabbing handfuls and pulling smoothly. “Fuck, Oliver.”
Humming against Connor’s erection, Oli began to suck in earnest, his own cock a hard, heavy pressure against his pants. He swirled his tongue around the head with every stroke, reaching up to cup Connor’s balls, to massage them and press his fingers behind them, slowly drawing lines toward—
“Oli, wait,” Connor said, urging his head back. Connor’s cock popped out of Oli’s mouth. He met Connor’s eyes, confused.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, smoothing a palm over Connor’s thigh. “I want you to feel good.”
Connor braced himself to the door, fighting to slow his breathing, and Oliver smirked, nuzzling Connor’s bobbing erection. He flicked out a tongue to taste him, pressing the tip into the slit, but Connor pulled himself back.
“I—can’t,” he said, forcing himself off the door and pulling his underwear back up to contain his cock. Stepping away from Oliver, Connor pulled off his pants and set them aside, taking time to unbutton his shirt. He stood with his back to Oliver.
Kneeling on the ground, alone by the door, Oliver searched the room with his eyes, looking for an answer. “What is it? I thought this was how you mourned—”
“This isn’t about that,” Connor said, his voice distant, sharp. He exhaled hard and dropped his head a moment. Oliver got to his feet.
“What is it then?” His heart was pounding in his chest, hammering against his ribcage like an animal desperate for escape. Connor cast him a look over his shoulder. “This is about the article,” Oliver said, a stab of pain in his stomach.
Connor gave him a look, removing his shirt and tossing it aside with his pants. “No,” he said, but mention of the article caused him to tense visibly. A glance at his cock confirmed it. His erection was gone.
“You have to know I’ve never used my position, never abused my power—” Oliver started, his words coming out halted, stilted. Breath caught in his chest, and he couldn’t manage to force it out in one go. “I never traded sex for—”
“I know that,” Connor said. He sounded alarmed. “I never believed that. Not for a second.”
Oliver felt himself shaking. “And I only fucked that asshole once. I didn’t—I haven’t been with anyone since you. I don’t want—”
“I know that, too,” he said. “I told you, this isn’t about that.”
Oliver stilled, knowing the truth. He knew it before. “Sky,” was all he said.
Connor inhaled and exhaled slowly. And the weight in Oliver’s stomach dropped further, as though he was being crushed by it from the inside. “Why didn’t you ever mention him?”
Oliver pulled off his sweater, his turn to put his back to Connor. “I don’t know. Because we haven’t really talked about exes much? And it didn’t matter, anyway,” he said, trying to believe it.
Connor stayed silent a long moment, and Oliver let his fingers play over the obsidian stones at his neck. “He was your lover. That sounds like it matters to me.”
Oliver shut his eyes. “It was in the past, Connor. Whatever he was then—he’s nothing now.” The tightness in Oliver’s chest seemed to increase. He wasn’t sure he was still breathing.
“Except that isn’t quite true,” Connor said, and Oliver thought he would break apart. Anger and frustration filled him, forcing at the edges of his raw feelings and emotions. He wanted to be angry with Connor for not believing him, with Sky for being here in the first place, but he was really only angry with himself. Angry for not having fully killed that part of himself, the old Oliver, the one who’d let himself get broken by Sky. “Did you love him?”
The question startled him, shocked like static in the dark. Eyes wide and staring at the wall, Oliver didn’t quite know what to say. “I don’t know,” he said, as honest as he could be. “I thought I did. But I don’t know.” He shook his head. “He left me, broke my heart so badly—there’s no coming back from that. I don’t love him now. I’m don’t want him.” A tiny part of him that was the old Oliver stirred, cringed, but Oliver ignored it.
“He seems pretty interested in you,” Connor said, his every word careful, falsely casual, full of hurt. Oliver shook his head.
“He’s just jealous I’ve moved on with you,” he said. He didn’t want to think that Sky really wanted him back, really saw his mistake. He didn’t want to consider that option at all. It wasn’t an option. “Irked that I’m not in pieces over him anymore. He’s just trying to get under your skin.”
There was a long silence, and not knowing wha
t else to do, Oliver stripped down to his boxer briefs and got slowly into bed. When he looked over, Connor was nearly naked, his intense gaze fixed on Oliver. He looked as though he was inches from either attacking or breaking down. Oliver couldn’t read him, not now. He’d never seen Connor like this.
Finally, it broke. The intensity shattered to let a more clear emotion through. Concern wrote itself across Connor’s gorgeous face, his blond hair ruffled and falling in little locks across his eyes. He crawled into bed, hovering over Oliver with an arm on either side of him. Oliver was forced down, laying flat beneath Connor, which was generally the way he liked things. But Connor’s face was wrought with all the pain of the last two days, with all the loss and wounds he’d suffered at the hands of people he didn’t know. The article, the murders—Oliver wanted to shield Connor from those things, from the hurt it caused him. Guilt was Oliver’s constant companion. The words of the article echoed in his mind. He was already hurting Connor, already breaking his heart.
“I just can’t imagine—if something happened to you—” Connor said and leaned down to capture Oliver’s mouth in a kiss. He held there for a long while, tasting Oliver, deepening the kiss with slow, intimate strokes of his tongue. When he pulled up, Oliver lifted his head to follow him. Connor sighed. “You’ve had so many lovers—”
Oliver flinched as if Connor had hit him. He swallowed against it, searching Connor’s eyes. There was no judgment, just the same frightened worry. Oliver brushed blond hair from his face.
“Not lovers, just stupid fucks,” Oliver said, trying to make it as crass as it was. There was no love between him and any of the men he’d picked up. He didn’t care about them. Not at all. “You’ve had partners too. I know how many people were angry when you showed up with me, remember?”
Connor smiled slightly at the now-fond memory. But he shook his head. “I’ve had sex with a few people when I was younger, exploring. No lovers though. I was courted, yes, but I never had a relationship. Not like this one.”
Stunned, Oliver cupped Connor’s jaw with his hand, rubbing a thumb over his cheek.
“I’ve never had a relationship like this either,” he said.
Connor’s eyes searched him. “What about Sky?” Oliver said nothing, not knowing what he could say. Connor shook his head, turning to press his lips to Oliver’s palm. “I just—I want to make you whole again, if I can. I want to be the partner you deserve, so you never feel like you need to go out and pick up some random guy again.”
“I don’t,” Oliver said, lifting to press a kiss to Connor’s lips. “You’re all I want.”
Connor kissed him again, slowly, deeply, then rolled to Oliver’s side and gathered him in. Oliver fell asleep enveloped in Connor’s arms, with his warm breath against his shoulder.
Morning came quickly, abruptly, without warning. Sunlight pierced through the haze of Oliver’s sleep. As he squinted around, he became aware Connor’s arms were no longer around him. When he turned over to touch him, to wake him for the day, he suddenly felt wide awake. Connor was gone.
Chapter 14
Oliver walked through a fog, like a dream, trying desperately to move faster, to force his muscles to comply, to let the scream in his throat tear out of him, but nothing happened. No matter his effort, everything happened in slow motion, his body burning with desperation for speed, for violence, for power. Everything was wrong and nothing was as it should be. Connor was gone, no matter where he looked. Connor was gone.
And then, the world sped up again. As if trying to catch up for the lost time. And suddenly Oliver was leaping down the staircase, then another, throwing himself into the throng of Wolves in the basement, searching. Searching for the tell-tale blond head, the giant white Wolf, the familiar smirk, the familiar scent.
Because by now Oliver knew Connor’s scent, the essence of him. Like moonlight on a clear summer’s night and the crisp crack of wood on a fire in winter, the spice of an old growth forest and the breath of fresh air out of a steam shower. Connor was chocolate and dark roast coffee and the indescribable, glorious, glowing scent of magic. But Oliver couldn’t smell it. Connor’s scent was gone. Connor was gone.
“Oliver, what’s wrong?” Donna’s voice, cutting through the buzzing, the endless buzzing in Oliver’s brain as his eyes roved over every Wolf, every head and face, again and again. Only when he turned to her, scanning her face as though she might be Connor in disguise, did he realize what he must look like. Wide-eyed and pinched, Donna’s expression was thinly veiled alarm, because Oliver’s expression was bald terror.
“Connor,” he said, choking out the sound. “Where is he?”
Donna didn’t glance at the other Wolves. She didn’t scan the room for her Alpha. Though, some of the other Wolves exchanged glances, low looks and subtle twitches of the nose that indicated they were searching.
“He was with you,” Donna said slowly. Oliver shook his head.
“I woke up alone,” Oliver said, casting aside any concern for privacy or dignity. He didn’t care now. He needed to find Connor, and though there was no obvious reason for alarm, Oliver knew something was wrong. He knew it in his bones and in his chest. He knew it in the magic thrumming through the obsidian collar. “I can’t smell him. I can’t find any sign of him anywhere.”
Dark eyes steady, Donna studied Oliver. The moment extended too far for Oliver’s frantic nerves, and it took him far too long to understand she wasn’t staring at him at all. She was smelling for Connor, and maybe for some sign Oliver was drunk or drugged.
Drugged. The buzzing in Oliver’s brain was more familiar now he thought about it. He’d felt it before, when he was young and stupid. It felt like a magic hangover. He brought his hands up before his eyes, scouring his nail beds. The image of his own limbs blurred in front of his eyes; he was shaking though he didn’t feel it. When he finally steadied his hand, he saw it. So slight he might have overlooked it, might have never noticed if he hadn’t known the symptoms, was the blue tinge to his nails. He might just have been cold, the blood rushing away from his fingertips, but Connor’s house was hotter than usual, thick with bodies gathered. Oliver couldn’t be cold here. The blue wasn’t natural.
“What happened?” Donna asked suddenly, drawing Oliver back. Her pupils were contracted, nearly pinpricks against the dark brown of her irises. Tight jawed, Oliver felt something in him lock into place. He was right; Connor was gone.
But the panic rose again in place of his concern for his own sanity. “Nothing,” Oliver said shaking his head. “We fell asleep together in his bed. That’s all. Then I woke up and he was—wasn’t there.”
Donna turned to the gathered Wolves, each of them alert and ready to action now. None of them had transformed, all nodding between Oliver and Donna with their ears pricked and hackles raised.
“Buck, Shannon, alert the Alphas,” Donna said, and two Wolves leapt into action, skirting past Oliver on their way up the stairs. “Patrick, Jess, go to Logan. He needs to be informed. And be quick. He should know before anyone else.” Two more Wolves launched by Oliver, bolting by so quickly Oliver barely saw them move. “Hal, Ari, Xander, Gail—organize searches. One group to the grounds, another to Black Moon, Hunt, and so on. We search everywhere, beginning with all Connor’s known properties and haunts. Dispatch your fastest Wolf to alert me the moment you find anything. Go.”
She’d barely spoken the order before the entire remaining pack mobilized to search, each of them rippling with a palpable anxiety. It took only a minute or so for the Wolves to disappear to task, leaving Oliver standing alone in the basement with Donna. Heart pounding, barely contained and getting faster by the second, Oliver felt himself struggling to breathe, struggling to think.
A sudden weight on his shoulders, bracing him against the onslaught of his own chest, Oliver looked up to find Donna grasping him, her expression intent, intense.
“Breathe,” she said, the same tone of command she’d used on the Wolves, and Oliver felt his heartbeat s
low slightly, even out. He breathed in and out, unsure what in her voice made him acquiesce so easily. But as he did, his head began to clear, and he realized he was gripping her wrists, his knuckles white, his fingernails digging into her skin. “We will find him. But I need you to work. I need you to do what you do, Oliver. Connor says you’re the best detective in Nimueh’s Court. He believes in you. You have to find him.”
The buzzing in his mind dulled, quieted, and Oliver found his footing again. He hadn’t lost himself that way for years, not since—
“What’s going on?” Sky asked, standing fully dressed and confused at the top of the stairs. Oliver looked up at him, a floodgate bursting open in his chest. “Oli? What’s wrong?”
And in an instant, Oliver was back at the Academy, back to the weak-kneed, fluttering-heart Oliver who sought Sky out for everything. His head was filled with the searching, heavy touches in the middle of the night, sharing a single bed and trying to steady their breathing because they couldn’t be caught. The stolen kisses, the urgent press of bodies in a tiny alcove behind the medals of honour display case, the moments in between classes and training, alone in the corridors and searching endlessly for sheltered places they could share together. Oliver was flushed with the memory of Sky’s body against him, holding tight in the dark, cold cave that first night, the first time he let someone have him like that. He remembered the bubbling delight in his chest, swirling into his stomach, when Sky leaned in and kissed him. When he realized Sky wanted him too, just as much as Oliver wanted him. He remembered the naked way he laid himself bare, in his heart and his body at once, letting Sky in faster and with more ease than he ever would again. He remembered Sky’s mouth on him, on his skin, on his cock, and then he remembered Sky inside him. And he remembered waking up with arms around him, with a heat in his belly that wouldn’t go away, and with slow kisses he never wanted to end.
