Prologue
Gabriel
The dreamsalways startedthesame.
The bed shifted. Gabriel opened his eyes to a darkened room, but he didn’t need to see to know that someone was rising out of bed beside him. Drowsy confusion led him to lift his head, and he blinked a few times in rapid succession to clear the sleep from his eyes. In the shadows, a grainy gray shapeemerged.
Humanoid. Masculine.Familiar.
Gabriel settled back into the sheets and rolled over to take up the space where the figure had slumbered. The residual body heat left in their blankets warmed his skin, and the smell of the figure’s cologne—marine mineral notes with earthy, mossy overtones—partnered with the scent of alpha and soothedGabriel’ssoul.
Home.
“Garrison?” Gabriel’s voice cracked from disuse. He pulled the sheets closer to his body and looked through the darkness at the form freshly risen from the bed. “Come back to sleep. It’s not time to getupyet.”
There was noreply.
The figure standing at the bedside stepped away, putting distance between himself andGabriel.
“Garrison?” Gabriel asked again. He sat up, body protesting. It was too early to be awake. He’d worked long into the night, his hair still damp from his last shower of the evening. If he pretended, he couldn’t smell the lingering traces of his last john. “Don’tgo.”
Gabriel’s eyes were blurred from sleep, and he blinked several times to distinguish the figure in greater detail. He stood facing away from the bed—proud shoulders, a sensible haircut, body not overly athletic, but still toned enough that Gabriel enjoyed every solid muscle and each hard line. He was nude. Gabriel allowed himself to trace the outline of his body and drinkitin.
Safety. Adoration.Comfort.
He was in love, and he knew he’d feel that way forever. Garrison Baylor was his soulmate, and Gabriel wanted more than anything to prove ittohim.
“Come back to bed. Please?” Gabriel scooted over to close the distance Garrison had put between them. “Please, Garrison? We can make love, or, um, you know, whateveryouwant…”
There was noresponse.
Frowning, Gabriel swung his legs over the side of the bed. The soles of his bare feet met the cold wooden floor, and a tremble ran up his spine that he couldn’t shake. A hazy part of Gabriel’s brain told him it was summer, but the floor was freezing. This disconnect worried him, and for a moment, he remained seated on the edge of the bed while he tried to get over the strange rift between what he knew and what he felt. His gaze parted from Garrison, and he didn’t notice him move across the room until the squeak of the doorknob brought him to lift his head andrefocus.
Garrison wasleaving.
He was leavingagain.
But this time, he was leaving when Gabriel was awake and willing to offerhisbody.
He was leaving to bedanotherboy.
Impulse brought Gabriel to his feet, but his sleep-weakened knees weren’t ready to support his weight. He stumbled as he stood, barely catching himself on the bed. A shrill gasp broke from his lips on the way down, and once he was steady, he took a second to regain his breath before trying to stand again. No matter what he did, his legs were uncooperative, unresponsive, and sluggish, like Gabriel’s brain was only intermittently in control ofhisbody.
“Don’t go!” Gabriel cried through the darkness, but his voice came as nothing more than a whimper. “Don’t leave me! Don’t go. Don’t gotohim…”
Garrison pulled the door open. The darkness of the room gave way to the light of the hallway beyond it, and the sudden brightness blinded Gabriel. He squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head, but the spots in his vision didn’t go away. In desperation, he covered his face with his hand and counted down from five, trying his best to remain calm in the face ofcrisis.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway. The sound of heavy footsteps approached. Carefully Gabriel parted his fingers, allowing a modest amount of light to reach his eyes. This time, the light didn’t blind him—it allowed himtosee.
What he saw made hisheartstop.
Standing in the doorway was another man—a man whose presence alone made Gabriel tumble onto the bed and crawl backward, seeking salvation. He wanted to run, to hide, to dosomething,but his feet couldn’t find purchase on the bed, and his arms moved like he’d submerged them in a tub of syrup, if they obeyed himatall.
“Do you want him?” Garrison asked the man. “He’s one of the finest omegas you’ll ever get your hands on. Pliant. Subservient.Broken.”
I’m not broken,Gabriel wanted to whisper, but his jaw wouldn’t move.I love you, Garrison. Iloveyou. There’s nothing brokenaboutthat.
“I want him,” the man replied. Those ugly words were curled with disgusting self-indulgence. They made Gabriel want to scream. “Can I take him? Right here? Tangle him up in those sheets and makehimmine?”
