Chapter 25 - Heath

Chapter 25

Heath

None of us had known quite what to do when Gage’s fear hit us through the newly cemented connection we now shared as Freya’s Bonded. Our pack alpha was stunned senseless, and I couldn’t quite understand why. I’d sensed his dread after Freya had bitten him, but now that he knew just how deep our new connection went, he’d completely frozen.

So, I took over as second-in-command.

“Rowan, Flint, did you get a chance to eat?” I asked quietly, trying to bring back a sense of normalcy.

They nodded, and I gestured toward the bedroom door.

“Good, then get some rest with Freya. Gage and I will stay awake while you sleep.”

“Got it,” Flint said before slowly turning the doorknob to sneak inside.

Rowan followed behind, then closed the door afterward. The last sight I caught of his expression was of Rowan’s raised eyebrow.

“Talk to him,” he said in the privacy of a link between just the two of us.

That proved that the new bond between us worked just as it did in wolf form, allowing us to communicate one-on-one or more broadly with the rest of the pack.

“I will.”

Gage had already drifted away. I found him in the kitchen, reheating some leftover roast in the microwave. Frost Fang pack members had precooked enough meals for us to take care of ourselves and Freya for five days. He stopped the microwave’s countdown before it could beep, then guiltily glanced over at me.

“I’ll get my own,” I assured him.

The new connection between us shivered with relief and then regret and something like… curiosity?

As I picked out something else from the fridge, I gave Gage safer ground to tread upon.

“Do you think we’ll be able to shift when the time comes?”

He shrugged. “I can’t shift now, can you?”

I paused, checking with my wolf, but he was curled up in my head like he’d found his den in the winter and wouldn’t come out into the blizzard.

“No.”

“The only reason we could shift last time was because of the full moon,” Gage sounded confident, closer to his normal self. “We won’t be so lucky this time.”

He was right; the full moon was a week away, but Ironwood would likely spring the trap in the next few days. We would be ready, even if we couldn’t shift. I was looking forward to finally making Luka pay for everything he’d done — he’d allowed Freya to be mistreated and beaten when he was the second-strongest alpha in the pack, he’d rejected her, he’d exiled her, he’d hunted her all the way to Moonblessed and beyond, and, after he’d finally violently kidnapped her, he’d threatened to rape her. Then he’d had us tortured after Rowan got her out.

But before Luka fell into our trap, Freya’s heat would run us ragged, and I already felt drained. Plus, confronting Gage with my feelings and then getting nothing in return had left me feeling emotionally beat up.

As long as Freya remained between us, he acted naturally. But when we were alone, like now — he sat on the other side of the table. He was protecting himself from me, and that made my stomach sink.

I didn’t want him to be miserable, and I didn’t want this dread and worry I sensed from him now. Maybe it was a sign of how thin I was stretched emotionally, but I couldn’t let this go. This had to come to a conclusion, even if it meant hitting our breaking point.

Now that we could all sense each other’s emotions as well as Freya’s, things between me and Flint and Rowan already felt stronger, more natural, and easier. Gage was the opposite.

“Why does it bother you so much?” I asked before shoveling food into my mouth, even though eating was the last thing I felt like doing.

He sighed, then sat back in his chair.

“I got used to the pack bond letting me sense all of you, but I never expected it to go the other way. Maybe that makes me a coward, but…” He shook his head. “The pack needs to be able to follow the pack alpha’s orders without question. But now that you can all sense my emotions—”

“We won’t question your decisions in battle,” I argued. “This changes nothing.”

He groaned. “It changes everything.”

“Don’t you trust us?” I asked. “Rowan, Flint, and I… we have your back.”

“I know that… I just…” He shook his head.

I focused on what our new bond could tell me, trying to understand. He glanced at me, caught me looking, and averted his gaze. Embarrassment, fear, and curiosity warred for dominance through the bond.

“You liked what we did with Freya?” I asked, just to see what response that would provoke in the bond.

Embarrassment and curiosity instantly won, and then something like chagrin chased them off.

“Of course,” he answered.

Gage’s emotions ebbed, becoming weaker and harder for me to pin down, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Don’t do that,” I growled.

His eyebrows shot up, but determination leaked through from him as he silently raised another bite to his mouth. It didn’t matter that it was the wee hours of the morning; we needed to eat, to keep our strength up for what was coming. I knew that, but like a dog with a bone, I couldn’t stop worrying at it.

“You don’t have to hide from us,” I explained, letting him see my annoyance through the bond. “I know you’ve gotten used to a one-way bond with us, even with Freya. But this just makes it easier for all of us to share the burden.”

He shook his head vehemently. “No, it makes it more complicated.”

His eyes scanned over me. My elbow rested on the table as I brought another forkful to my mouth, and his gaze zeroed in on my biceps. Though Gage had clamped down on his feelings through the bond, he couldn’t help the desire that leaked through.

While we were with Freya upstairs, pure lust and need had been bleeding from Gage the whole time, but even when he’d been looking at me, I’d assumed it had all been for Freya. I’d hoped it might hint that Gage was feeling something beyond platonic for me, but it hadn’t been clear.

Now, sitting at the table, his gaze snapped up to mine when he felt my excitement and pride. As we sat here alone together… Gage felt desire as he looked at me.

At me .

Hope rose within me, but I tried to suppress it, for my sake and his.

“Heath…” His throat worked, but it seemed he couldn’t get any more words past his lips than my name.

And somehow, that made me feel bold.

I raised my chin, daring him to sense whatever he sensed from me. I let him in and didn’t hide a thing. Years of pent-up desire burst free from the dam I’d been holding them behind, but neither of us moved.

“Why didn’t you ever say…” Gage trailed off.

“I knew better than to tell you.”

“Because of my father’s stupid laws about alpha procreation?”

“Because of what happened with Sven.”

That was the male wolf Gage had rejected in front of everyone. The poor guy had been so embarrassed he’d moved to a different town.

Understanding dawned in his eyes as horror bloomed in his heart.

“You’ve always been straight, so I didn’t see any reason to force the issue.” I scooted food around on my plate with my fork. “But I’ve always cared about you, Gage. That’s why I left Frost Fang and followed you into the wildlands when your brother banished you. It’s why I did everything I could to make things better for us… even coming up with the idea to start our pack. Your happiness always came first for me, even though I knew one day you would…”

I lifted a hand and gestured upstairs toward Freya.

“I always dreaded the day you would find a mate,” I whispered.

Gage’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “And that’s why you treated Freya the way you did.”

Protectiveness rose within us both, twisting alongside my regret.

“Gage, when she showed up, you treated her like the enemy. But, I noticed the changes in you almost immediately, well before you did. She made you come alive.”

“You were jealous.”

“Of her? Of you? Maybe both?” I shrugged. “Eventually, I realized I better fix things with her.”

“Why didn’t I notice any of this through the pack bond?”

“I’d silenced my feelings for you every chance I got. For years. Even I didn’t notice them anymore. But they were always there.”

“You pushed me to get over Nira and go out with you, though…”

“Yeah, I held on for a while. I tried to love you selflessly, but… secretly, I always hoped… Maybe if I paraded enough lovers in front of you, eventually you’d get jealous or something, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “But you never did. So, I stopped wishing. I decided all I wanted was to see you healed and happy.”

“I’ve been so selfish.”

I shook my head. “No, I just knew not to show you how I really felt. You always put our pack first, and I always tried to love you enough to be as selfless as you.”

My heart skipped a beat as I realized how I’d foolishly dropped the L-word… That was pushing things way too far, too fast. Luckily, Gage didn’t seem to notice.

“But you’ve always hidden it from me… even in the bond.” He tilted his head.

I barked out a laugh. “If you think I’m going to teach you how to hide in the bond—”

“You’ve had a lot of practice,” he said ruefully.

I let my eyes seek out clues as I searched the mate bond, trying to figure him out. Without me prodding, he went on.

“I’m just rewriting everything I thought I knew. About… everything.”

And his gaze skipped down from my eyes to my lips and back again.

I pushed my plate away, the food forgotten. Because, for once, Gage wanted to understand. His curiosity sparked, and I wanted to coax that ember into life and fan the flames until it turned into passionate fire. Freya and I would feed those flames and keep the fire alive until he realized we’d created it together. All of us.

“Gage… With the slightest hint from you that my feelings aren’t hopeless… that you might be interested at all…”

Curiosity rose in him, but with it came a sense of worry or… a type of fear I couldn’t quite decode. I needed to tread carefully, because I had a feeling that landmines I hadn’t caught sight of yet might explode in my face.

I decided to take the initiative to clarify things. Then he could decide whether to bridge the gap between us. If he chose not to… I would respect his decision. I would go back to hiding my feelings for him. Nothing would change. We would return to normal.

So, what did I have to lose?

If I wanted him to feel safe letting us sense his emotions, I needed to let him sense mine. All of them.

Stretching across the table, I reached toward him. I didn’t touch him, just left my hand there to let him take the leap.

“I’ve wanted you for a long time, Gage. But I’ve survived this long without ever acting on it. If you only want to be with Freya, I understand. I’ll enjoy every moment like the one the three of us just shared. If that’s the closest you and I ever get to making each other come, that’s good enough for me. It doesn’t have to be physical between us if that’s not what you want. But you know I’ve always been interested in more than just women, and… I always liked variety.”

I winked. My heart dropped as he leaned back in his chair, dropping his hands in his lap and putting distance between us. I withdrew my hand, left out in the cold.

Frustration and guilt rose within Gage, and I opened my mouth to say something, but he beat me to it.

“Freya is our mate. We shouldn’t crave ‘variety’ now that we’ve claimed her and she’s claimed us.”

“I don’t,” I rushed to say, backpedaling as fast as I could so he wouldn’t misunderstand. “Freya is…” I took a deep breath. “She’s amazing. She’s everything I never knew I needed. I love her just as deeply as you do, Gage. She has my complete loyalty.”

“How can you say that?” Anger rose within him as he flung a hand toward me. “You basically just propositioned me, Heath.”

“Remember when you made Freya agree to the deal? She could only be with the Howling Echo — us and only us. Well, why can’t it be the same for all of us? I don’t want anyone outside of the Howling Echo, Gage. Like I said, if you don’t feel the same way… Freya is all I need.”

“Then why are you—”

Rowan’s voice in our minds interrupted our argument. “Freya’s dreaming. Come up here.”

Gage and I shared a look of surprised concern before we both jumped up from our chairs and raced upstairs. But we approached the doorway quietly, letting ourselves in without bothering to close the door after.

Flint and Rowan laid to either side of Freya. Her eyes were closed but moving, and across the mate bond, I could sense flickers of emotions as I often did when she dreamed. Fear rose before being crushed beneath euphoric relief.

“You made it,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

Gage and I exchanged another glance before she surprised us with a moan. Her emotions shifted to desire and need. But the name she uttered wasn’t any of ours.

“Zack,” she cried, her hips bucking.

“Who—” Gage’s eyebrows rose.

“Yes,” she sighed, her legs straightening and tensing as though she were on the edge.

I shook my head, wondering if we’d misheard her. But her hands drifted to her naked body, her left hand squeezing her own breast as the other fell between her legs. Her head thrashed as she moaned. Lust-filled dreams were common enough during a female wolf’s heat, and last time, we hadn’t woken her up when this had happened. We’d let her stay asleep, getting what little rest she could.

I didn’t have a mate bond with her last time, but what I sensed this time shocked me.

It felt similar to when one of the others fucked Freya — through the mate bond, I could sense her with someone else, and usually I could tell exactly who she was with. I looked over at Gage in surprise.

Not this time. Though she was here with us, she was also with someone else — someone unfamiliar. Not one of my packmates.

“Zack,” she cried again

My hard dick ached as she came, her body convulsing as she rocked through her orgasm — while still asleep. And then the craziest thing of all happened… a fifth rune flared to life under Freya’s left collarbone.

She relaxed, drifting deeper into slumber, her emotions no longer so obvious as she rested. She rolled over onto Rowan’s chest, sighing with contentment. He looked up at me with a helpless expression as we all stood in shocked silence.

“She dreamed of another man,” Gage said through the bond, stunned.

After our conversation and the way he’d gotten up in arms about the word ‘variety,’ it must sting to know Freya had dreamed of someone else… Someone who had made her come while asleep. Someone she’d clearly just claimed as her mate… from a distance.

“And she’s already claimed him as her Bonded,” I added, shocked to even say the words.

“She dreamed of Rowan during her last heat,” Flint pointed out. “Dreams have power.”

“Freya and I both recognized each other as mates the moment we met,” Rowan added.

I couldn’t resist ribbing him. “Even if it took you a while to admit it.”

“Could she truly have more than four mates?” Gage’s dread reached us through the bond again. He jerked a hand through his hair and huffed out a sigh, gathering his composure. “That would explain why we still can’t keep her sated.”

“She bears a fifth rune.” I laid a hand on Gage’s shoulder. “But I guess there’s no way to know for sure… unless he shows up.”

And if he did… I swore to myself not to make Freya feel guilty about taking a fifth mate. I wouldn’t put her through a guilt trip the way Gage had done with me. If my amazing mate needed five men to see her through her future heats, then she would have him. Whoever he was.

Flint gave me a slight nod, proving he’d sensed my determination through the bond and felt the same way. The other two might take some convincing, but Flint and I would give our mate anything she desired.