by J B Black
Swallowing the wave of grief which came at that thought, Ælfweard ducked out of the room, heading to the kitchen. Breakfast used to be his task. It seemed a world away from those days when William would get a desk for them in the alchemy library before their morning session when the third and second years did their best to take every single one. Reverting to what they had done, Ælfweard would turn back the hands of time, erasing his grief and longing from the warlock’s mind.
Descending, Ælfweard gathered plates from the kitchen as the dining hall had finished breakfast some hours ago. Balancing the plates, he headed back to the alchemy tower, finally feeling like he had his feet back under him. Just the sight of William might change that, but it would get easier with time. Gods, he hoped it would get easier.
“Look at you, delivering food like the nobody you are,” Nicholas drawled when Ælfweard turned into the long stairs to ascend to the dormitory. Smirking, the strawberry blond wizard sneered at his younger cousin. “I suppose I get what he sees in you if spreading his legs gets him a servant.” Ælfweard glared, but he said nothing as he attempted to maneuver around the other man. However, Nicholas wouldn’t have it. “You know, no matter how much you rut like that bloody beast you call a father, he won’t let you breed him. Clever creature like William? You don’t have a chance.”
Ælfweard ground his teeth, glaring. “Let me pass.”
“Why? So you can feed and coddle your pseudo-mate?” Nicholas taunted, and the word hit Ælfweard, leaving him winded and unable to hide the pain which tensed across his face. Of course, his cousin saw everything. His eyes brightened. Like a predator spying his prey, he leapt upon it, leaving no room for the younger man’s escape. “Ohh - you actually kissed him, didn’t you? Must hurt to realize you’ve put all this effort into wooing your way into his pants only to find how he’s not your forever broodmare.”
“Shut up.”
Nicholas chuckled, swaggering back and forth to block Ælfweard’s escape. “All that talk from your mother, and here you are, chasing after someone who you know isn’t your mate. I suppose, though, that’s good news for me.”
Rage built in Ælfweard’s stomach. His magic tightened about him, but he held fast, keeping it steady when every instinct in his body urged him to take out the competitor who had threatened his mating bond. No matter the desire coursing through his veins, William did not belong to him. The pain which pulsed with every beat of his heart when he looked at the warlock underlined how alone he was in the longing. Ælfweard held no right to fight for him. Not in this way.
“Leave him alone, Nicholas,” Ælfweard hissed. “He doesn’t want you.”
The heir to the Blythe dynasty laughed, tilting his head as he smirked. “He doesn’t want you either, does he?”
“He is my friend,” the younger wizard insisted, yet the stone beneath their feet trembled, giving away the agony clenching around his heart.
All at once, understanding dawned on Nicholas’s face. His eyes widened, and the smirk on his face became all the more genuine as he found the loose thread to pick at.
“But you're not his mate,” the older wizard drawled. “But he’s yours, isn’t he?” Ælfweard didn’t have to answer. Rage and heartbreak darkened his glower, and the other wizard crowed in delight, cackling as he clapped his hands together in glee. “Of course! That’s brilliant! Mummy and Daddy ran off together to breed like rabbits, but you’re stuck with a one-sided bond. Oh, this is too good.”
Chest tightening, Ælfweard swallowed, forcing back his grief. “You have absolutely everything. The Blythe fortune, an entire family’s support — practically the power of an entire empire behind you, yet you can’t seem to stop coming after me. Am I so terrifying to you? Are you such a disappointment that you think the family might look for someone else to take the reins?”
“Afraid? Of you?” Nicholas laughed. “You have absolutely nothing of interest, Grey.”
Meeting the other’s mocking gaze, Ælfweard demanded, “Then why do you continue to stand in my way.”
“Out in bumpkin country, I have no doubt you were the best, and you’ve done well in your first semester here, but there is no place for someone as untested as you in the real wizarding world. If you aren’t capable of setting aside your mother’s ridiculous romantic fantasies, you’ll wind right back there in obscurity and poverty. Is that what you want?” Nicholas returned, stepping closer to put them nearly chest to chest if it were not for the plates in the younger wizard’s hands. “If your bond is one-sided, all the better. Marry advantageously. Network carefully and take the power your mother abandoned.”
Ælfweard’s eyes narrowed. “And in your elite little world, do you honestly think any woman would marry a no-name country bumpkin?”
Humming softly, Nicholas took a step back. He twirled as he said, “Well, I suppose if your own mate didn’t want you, it might be difficult to find anyone to have you. Rejection does carry a certain stink.”
“He didn’t reject me,” Ælfweard insisted, but the flinch he gave showed the crack in his armor, and Nicholas dug in quickly.
“He didn’t? Are you sure? You have no idea what he felt, so he could have pretended he felt nothing. Maybe he just didn’t want someone like you,” Nicholas suggested.
Though Ælfweard refused to believe William capable of such cruelty when he had so honestly attempted to comfort Ælfweard while seemingly agonized over his inability to reciprocate, the other man’s words shifted the younger wizard’s view just enough, picking at the scar of rejection which the warlock had cut time and time again earlier in the academic year. On one hand, if William felt the bond, then there was a chance that the warlock’s desire to remain friends could one day lead to him falling in love with Ælfweard, but if that time came, what would the wizard say? How could he accept the knowledge his mate had kept them apart in this way? If William needed time, Ælfweard would have given him as much as he needed. If they were mates, he wouldn’t have insisted they complete the bond immediately, and if William truly hadn’t wanted him, he would have accepted the rejection, but the idea of it coming as a lie somehow hurt worse.
Nicholas laughed, running a hand through his strawberry blond hair. “Did you not even think of that? So naive.”
“Shut up,” Ælfweard murmured, but his throat hurt, threatening to close as panic gripped him.
Still, his cousin smirked, dancing about him. “To be rejected by the one person in existence created for you. Now, that is pathetic, isn’t it? I would think —”
Footsteps sounded in the stairs, and William popped around the corner. “There you are Ælfweard!”
Immediately, Nicholas’s cruel smirk turned into a bright smile. “Good morning, William. I do apologize for holding up your roommate. We were just having a talk about the mysteriousness of fate. It’s truly ineffable, isn’t it?”
The warlock’s eyes narrowed as he studied the older man, and as he crossed to stand between the two wizards he replied, “What sort of fate?”
“Oh, about how in another world, we would have grown up together,” Nicholas lied, and it did it so easily that if Ælfweard had been the one to have come into the conversation, he might have believed him. “Well, I’ll leave you two to enjoy your breakfast.”
With a smile firmly in place, he swaggered by his younger cousin, humming a jovial tune. His cocky happiness only made Ælfweard all the more caught, careening between grief and rage. If William looked at him, he would break. The sight of his heart shattering anew on his face, so he rushed up the stairs, ignoring the curious look the warlock gave him. Naturally, William didn’t leave well enough alone.
“Wait, Ælfweard, what did he do?” the warlock called, jogging to catch up with his roommate, but the wizard only offered him a smiling facade.
“Nothing,” the blond assured him. “Nothing happened. I’ve got food, so let’s go finish up those figurines.”
William’s heart sunk. Something had happened. Even if Nicholas danced around thin
gs once the warlock arrived, the cracks from whatever damage the older wizard wreaked stood as clear as day, but after so long, he hesitated to pry.
***
When their morning session came on Monday, the underlying tension remained, destroying any hope William had that Ælfweard had ever recovered at all. His roommate moved through the motions. When they woke, despite the warlock’s offer for them to go to the dining hall together,the blond wizard insisted he wanted to continue to reorder his notes, so they ended up at the same desk in the back of the library, eating breakfast just as they had the last few weeks.
Everything changed so rapidly between them. Whenever William remembered how frustrated the wizard made him less than a month ago, guilt threatened to swallow him whole. Ælfweard only ever tried to befriend him, and perhaps they would have had more time together if only William hadn’t placed him amongst the rest. Hadn’t believed the blond to be the same as Timothy and those who looked at him with hunger as if he would bend to their will and be nothing more than a plaything — a toy for their own gratification. All the arrogance of wizards left him defensive, and now, the distance between him and Ælfweard just continued to grow.
“We should head to McCoy’s class,” William prompted before the bell rang, and the weariness in those beautiful cornflower blue eyes almost brought him to tears.
Silently, the wizard put away his books, following the warlock with that sad smile. Though the expression likely was his best attempt at a mask, William found the cracks more easily now than he had at the beginning of the weekend. Part of him yearned to believe those cracks hadn’t been there. To assume Nicholas said something unrelated which shattered the blond man’s ability to wear his usual friendly air. However, as much as William wanted to lie to himself, he couldn’t.
“Our top three are dismissed from the supplementals, but the rest of you will be reporting to classes for the full week!” McCoy proclaimed after droning for nearly the full time about how disappointed he was in the class’s performance.
As the warlock gathered his things, Gilroy came over to Ælfweard who had sat beside him in this session. The red-haired warlock wore entirely black once more, and his loose robes followed around his lithe frame. His usual henchman had rushed off with the others who were stuck in the supplemental sessions for the rest of the day and week, so William pushed back the immediate desire to launch a preemptive attack at the other man.
“Knowing how nosy you two are, I thought I would prefer to be the one to tell you that I will be spending the winter holidays with Wulfric’s family,” Gilroy announced with his arms crossed over his chest.
Ælfweard smiled. “That’s wonderful. I hope you have a good time.”
The other hummed, glancing between the two roommates with his piercing gaze. “We intend to announce our engagement when we return next semester. My father likely won’t support the matter.”
“Why not? I thought you said he supported you being with your fated mate,” the blond asked, perking up for the first time all day as his curiosity and concern for Gilroy seemed to overwhelm his own sadness.
With a vague gesture, the copper-haired man sighed. “He likely hoped my mate would be a woman. Wulfric being male will reveal my true nature, and I have refused my father’s request to adopt rather than carry any future children, so he’s quite put out.”
“Wizards with witch mothers can also carry,” William pointed out. “You wouldn’t have to reveal anything if you didn’t want to.”
“I’m tired of hiding. My reputation will undoubtedly take a hit, and I’ll be stuck with the two of you more next year, so…” he pointed between the two, “sort this out.”
Brows furrowing, the dark-haired warlock frowned, but he didn’t argue. The other man was right. Even if it meant losing the friendship William longed to keep, he and Ælfweard couldn’t stay around each other if it continued to hurt the wizard. But everything in William protested. He hated the idea of living without Ælfweard close beside him. He adored the man, and if it weren’t for his fated mate, he would have not hesitated to enjoy whatever time they had together for however long Ælfweard’s feelings lasted.
However, the blond heaved a lamentous sigh as he stood. “There’s nothing to be sorted.”
“Bullshit,” Gilroy exclaimed. “You’re both moping, walking on eggshells about each other like idiots when you could be —”
Cutting the copper-haired man off, Ælfweard hissed, “Leave it alone.”
Without waiting for William, he stormed off, leaving the two warlocks to stare after him. However, while William found his heart aching to comfort the other, Gilroy swiveled on his heels to level an accusatory glare at William.
“What did you do?” Gilroy demanded.
Gaping, William sputtered, “What did I do? I didn’t do anything!”
“I have a string glass,” the other insisted.
“We don’t need one.”
Gilroy’s eyes narrowed. “So you realize you’re mates.”
“We aren’t mates,” the dark-haired warlock insisted.
Frowning, Gilroy sat on the edge of the desk, studying William. “But you love him.”
He did not say it as a question, and the truth of it clear in the other man’s voice left William no energy to deny the truth. “Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you together!?”
“Because I have a fated mate somewhere in this world, and one day, I’ll find them, and I can’t promise that I’m not just going to break when fate comes knocking,” William retorted darkly, shoving his notebook into his bag as he stood. “I don’t want to lose him.”
Gilroy scoffed, “You’re not doing a great job at keeping him. He adores you.”
“And we’ll find our way back to friendship. He was just infatuated with me. After winter break, he’ll be back to normal, and —”
With a wave of his hand, the other warlock cut him off. “You’re not an idiot, so don’t act like one. Ælfweard has been in love with you from the beginning, and if you weren’t absolutely determined to ignore him, you would have seen it.”
“He’s nice to everyone. That’s all that was,” William argued, but his words fell flat even in his ears.
Staring down the dark-haired warlock, Gilroy seemed to weigh him, and while he had brushed off the other’s judgmental gaze more than once in the last few months, William found it harder this time. His own heart screamed at him, willing him to ignore the future and all the pain it might bring for the joy of what he could have — however temporary — with Ælfweard. But it would only be cruel, wouldn’t it? A faithless proposal for him to offer his heart knowing he would be destined to give it to another in the future. The memories they would create would only serve to make the separation all the more unbearable, and Ælfweard’s own life owed itself to the irresistibility of fate in this matter. Surely, the wizard could understand. There had to be a way for William to lessen the agony. If his forthright denial of his emotions would make it easier for Ælfweard in the long term, he would bear the weight of his affection in silence. Ælfweard deserved better. He deserved someone who would and could at least promise a future in good faith even if the unknowable tomorrow chanced a changing of the wings.
“You aren’t noble,” Gilroy informed him after a long moment of silence weighed upon them both. “What you’re doing isn’t selfless. So what if you aren’t fated? If you aren’t, then what risk do you have in loving him for now? If fate gives a damn, you’ll both fall out of love before you find your fated partner, and if so, all this is just an idiotic attempt to martyr yourself to hold on to something guaranteed to break.”
William’s lips pressed into a straight line. “It doesn’t have to.”
“But it does. You’re breaking his heart and your own. There is no future where you come out of this as friends,” Gilroy proclaimed, and he spoke with such authority on the matter it was easy to see how he had pulled the rest of their peers around him so easily.
The dark-haired ma
n’s chest throbbed, and pressing a hand to his heart, he sunk back into his seat. “There has to be a way.”
“Why?” the other warlock asked, cocking a copper brow. “Because you want one? That’s not how the world works.”
“And I’m just supposed to accept that?”
Gilroy laughed, nose wrinkling as he stared down at William with disbelief scrawled across his face. “Fuck no! If you love him, fight for him. Hold onto him for as long as you can, but don’t be a fucking coward and flounce about foreswearing happiness as being less for being temporary. If you love him, be bold! Be brave!”
A rush of want pulsed through William’s body. Gilroy made it sound so simple — so beautiful and straightforward — as if loving Ælfweard overpowered all else. As if the longing in his soul outweighed whatever fate intended for them both. While he could not offer Ælfweard eternity, no one could. Death came for all, and there were those who never had mates as those who might have been meant for them died too soon. Others found their fate cut short despite feeling the pull acutely.
Leaping from his seat, William clapped the other on the back as he raced from the room. “Fuck, Gilroy. You’re right.”
“I’m always right,” the copper-haired warlock called after him.
Racing through the hall, William ignored the doubt already seeping into his core on the coattails of anxiety which sent his pulse soaring. All he wanted stood before him. Even a lifetime with Ælfweard struck the warlock as too short, so if he could only have a few years — months or even days — he would take them. Fate willing, Ælfweard would feel the same. The tragedy of rejection and truth might span between them, but choice mattered, didn’t it? Surely, the wizard would forgive him for being a coward and following fate’s design even when it broke both their hearts.
