That was the last straw. The stress was finally too overwhelming.
Completely against his will, Ezra burst into tears.
“Oh no,” Titan said in alarm. “Why do you have ocular wetness?”
“Something happened,” he struggled to say. “We… You… Goddamn it, just…” He lifted his shirt up to his ribs and took hold of Titan’s wrist, guiding his hand to his bare belly.
“What am I—” Titan started to say, but Ezra interrupted him.
“Don’t talk. Just… concentrate, okay?”
Titan’s frown deepened, but he did not argue. He gave Ezra one last look, then let his eyes flutter shut. A wrinkle of concentration formed along his forehead. Silence set in and lasted for several long, long seconds, until Titan suddenly yanked his hand away with a gasp, as though he had been burned. His eyes snapped open and he stared at Ezra in shock. Then, slowly, he reached back out with both hands and placed them on Ezra’s stomach.
“How is this possible?” he breathed, searching Ezra’s face.
Ezra shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said in a watery voice. “I was hoping you would be able to tell me.”
Titan sucked in a deep breath, gaze lowered and eyes far away, like he was searching the distant corners of his mind for something—anything—that might explain the life growing inside of Ezra. His lips tightened, and with a little shake of his head, focus returned to his eyes.
His hands slid slowly from Ezra’s bare stomach to his hips, then beyond that to his lower back.
Titan took Ezra carefully into his arms and held him there in a loose hug.
“I do not know,” he admitted quietly—vulnerably—speaking into Ezra’s hair. “It should not be possible. Most human males are incapable of conception, and there is no reason why your body would have changed for me, as we do not share a True Mate bond, yet there is no denying it. There is life inside of you, Ezra. Life we have made together.”
Defeated, Ezra slumped against Titan’s chest. “I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps it is not a thing that wishes to be understood,” Titan reasoned, running his fingers soothingly along the course of Ezra’s spine. “There are a great many such things in the universe, much to the disappointment and frustration of our very good scientists. Perhaps it is enough to say it is possible because it wants to be—because even the universe knows that I am yours, and you are mine.”
Titan held him closer, his arms tightening protectively—possessively—around Ezra, and Ezra could take it no more. Tears streaming down his cheeks, he flung his arms around Titan’s neck and held him as though if he let go, he would be sucked up into space.
Titan didn’t falter.
He held Ezra through it all and never let him go.
“It is not weak to fear the unknown,” Titan whispered as Ezra cried, soothingly running his fingers through Ezra’s hair. “It is a survival mechanism common amongst all sentient beings, regardless of the complexity of their intelligence. Your fear is strong in the face of such a thing, but it will not be strong forever. All will be well. I will make sure of it, as I will be here with you, next to you, supporting you, so you will not need to face this fearful unknown on your own.”
Titan’s sweet sincerity only made Ezra cry harder.
How could he say such things when they were barely more than strangers? When Ezra turned him down at every chance he got, and had gone out of his way to avoid Titan as best he could?
No one stuck around—not his dad, not his stepfather, not even the boyfriend who’d said he’d loved him—yet he was supposed to believe this literal alien from outer space would be the one to buck the trend? His head, poisoned by the pain of old heartbreak, insisted it was impossible… but his heart, never one to remember its own pain in its desperation to love and be loved, wasn’t so sure.
He lifted his head from Titan’s chest and looked into his eyes, the pink in them now splashed with blue, as though Ezra’s own sorry emotional state was causing Titan great sorrow. It was beautiful, and it was tragic, and it was made so much worse when Titan smiled a little smile for him.
A smile that showed Ezra he empathized and understood.
And with that little smile, Ezra’s foolhardy heart won.
He kissed Titan not with lust or greed, but with a desperation that spoke to how scared and broken he felt inside. He kissed Titan because, in that moment, he couldn’t imaginenotkissing him. Not giving in. Not letting himself be vulnerable. Not letting himself believe.
And Titan kissedhim back with warmth, and confidence, and something that felt a lot like love.
The kiss deepened, and one touch of their lips at a time, Ezra’s brain shut off, taking with it his anxiety. He could do this—hewoulddo this—but it could wait. There was time. Right now, he thought as he drew Titan into the room and pushed him onto his bed, there was something—or rather, someone—he needed to do much more.
18
Titan
