I didn’t know if it was the thread, if it was my grief, or if it was Fate, finally sick of my shit and telling me I couldn’t fight this anymore.
Sephtis was as inevitable as the stars in the sky. Hate and love, grief and comfort, monster and man.
All the lines were blurred, and when they came together, the only thing I could see was him.
Us.
It had always been leading to us.
“Cole, I don’t…” He paused when my mouth found his again, lost in the kiss, his arms spasming around me when I rutted against him. When he pulled back with a gasp, his eyes were like a solar eclipse—blown-out black surrounded by a halo of golden sun. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Oh. Of course. If he’d never felt anything before all of this, and he’d spent every night after watching me…
When else…
When would he have had time? When had he really looked at anyone butme?
The thought stole away the rest of the logic I might have had—the knowledge that there were hounds close, that the lake water wasn’t quite washing away the blood on my hands.
All I could think about was Sephtis, and the infinity of the night sky burning in his eyes. I was drowning in howgoodit wasto finally let go of my pain, my grief, the weight that had been chasing at my heels since the day we’d learned Caiden was sick.
Fuck, it felt amazing to let go of all that and just let myselffeel.
And all I could feel was him as I drifted my lips over his and whispered, “I’ll show you.”
We weren’t really in a position for me to do all the things I wanted, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t about doing itright, or being perfect. It was about the touch—the connection. It was the way I was drowning in need, hungry for his skin pressing against mine.
It was about his arms around me pressing all my broken pieces together for the first time in so long that I felt liquid, loose.
My mouth found his again, and I slid my tongue inside, the unfamiliar sensation of the coolness of his lips not unwelcome. That ice burned through the fire that had been eating me alive and made me shudder. My fingers spasmed in his shirt, yanking at the material in frustration. I needed more. I needed to be closer.
Closer.
For someone who’d done a good job of letting me know that I wasn’t in charge of my own life or death, my own destiny, Sephtis was so compliant with my demands. He raised his hands above his head and let me strip him out of the tight black sweater he seemed to pour himself into every day. The sound of it landing wetly on the shore was the best I could manage. I didn’t even bother throwing mine beside it—it was covered in blood.
Blood.
When my mind tried to drift back to what had happened in that room, I silenced it by dropping my mouth to the line of Sephtis’s bare shoulder. He let me kiss and suck against his skin with little rumbles of desire guiding my path, let me taste andnip until I knew every place across the sweep of his chest that wrung out sounds of pleasure.
I was faintly aware that the howling had gotten closer, but I was so caught up in the taste of Sephtis’s skin beneath my tongue that I couldn’t convince myself it mattered. Nothing mattered but what was happening right now, because every time I closed my eyes, I could see that red light between us shining brighter.
Every time I closed my eyes, it felt like the man clinging to me—the monster I’d shaped myself to fit with—was the only thing keeping me tethered to the world.
The only thing that mattered.
For the first time in so long, since Caiden’s death… since before then, if I was being honest with myself… I felt something close to whole, like I could touch it if I just tried hard enough. Like I could find every piece of myself I’d been missing if I pressed my lips to Sephtis’s and licked into his mouth.
It felt like he could drink down my pain, my loneliness, every broken part of me, and leave me as something different.
Something made just for him—not to break, not to mourn or hate.
Something new.
My fingers fumbled between our bodies, and I was grateful for the water, for the strength of Sephtis’s arms. He held me up while I unfastened my jeans and shoved his pants down in near frantic motions. There was so much I wanted and so many things we couldn’t do because of where we were. I wanted to crawl onto the shore and fuck him open with my tongue and fingers. I wanted to see if his skin tasted as cool as it felt pressed against mine.
Instead, I wrapped my legs around his waist and lined up our cocks, rocking my body up again to feel the friction of us rutting against each other beneath the water.
It was…
