“Please, call me Laolao.” She placed a large bowl in the centre of the table before moving towards the connected kitchen.
Sam couldn’t help his smile. “Laolao,” he repeated, saying it with her pronunciation rather than Axel’s.
“Hmmm, something smells –” Axel froze when he noticed his cousin. Sam knew there was still so much left unsaid between them, Titus’s recovery taking far longer than Axel’s. But they had done it together, refusing to leave each other’s side despite it.
“All my boys together,” Laolao said with delight, squeezing her hand over Sam’s before placing another, smaller bowl in front of Titus. “Don’t worry, Ti, it’ll be your turn next to find someone special. Actually, my friend Susan’s granddaughter’s just come –”
“We’re making dumplings,” Titus interrupted his grandmother’s attempt at matchmaking, shuffling awkwardly in his chair. Axel sat to Sam’s left, the table dwarfed by the two men, while Laolao took the remaining seat to his right.
“We must teach Sam how to make the perfect dumpling,” she said. “My Axel loves his dumplings.” Her grin was infectious, as was her enthusiasm as she explained every step in making the filling, and then the dough.
“Like this?” he said after a while, staring at his pathetic attempt at closing the wrapper.
“No, no,” she chuckled. “Like this. Pinch, pinch, pinch.” Laolao carefully demonstrated how to fold the dumpling with more patience than he had, both Axel and Titus sniggering with their perfectly prepared ones.
Sam’s brows came together in concentration. “Aye, just you wait,” he said to them. “This time next year, I’ll be a master.”
Laolao chuckled, supervising as she carefully moved them into the steamers. She’d asked him about his life, about his work and his parents. Axel had tried to redirect the conversation, talking about the legal proceedings regarding his old landlord but Sam had decided to be honest about his upbringing.
He didn’t have a home full of love with his parents, didn’t have an entire childhood where he could look back and have happy memories. And that was okay, because without everything he had suffered, he wouldn’t be the strong leopard he had grown to be. He wouldn’t have met his best friend, and he wouldn’t have met Axel.
He had no idea if his father still lived or not, and he’d decided pretty quickly as he watched over Axel’s recovery, that he didn’t care.
He wasn’t a fighter, and unless his da threatened someone he loved, Sam wouldn’t give the man that had sired him another second thought. He was nothing but the past, and Sam only looked towards the future.
A future with his mate.
Mate.
Sam smiled, turning to find Axel watching with an effervescence that radiated from within.
I love you.Sam may have not gained any cool telepathic superpowers when they mated, but Axel knew, Sam made sure he showed it often.
Axel smiled, and Sam couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to have someone to call his own.
The table jolted, Laolao scolding Titus who had ‘accidentally’ kicked Axel. “What you looking at, Pretty Boy? Cat got your tongue?”
“Your face beneath my boot in a minute,” Axel growled, forcing Sam to laugh as he returned to his lesson.
He hadn’t only gained a partner when they’d mated, but also a pack, a family. For years it had just been him and Alice, connected on a spiritual level through trauma. Now when he looked at the threads of life, he was tied to them all, the Guardians more than just brothers in word, but in spiritual magic too.
For the first time that Sam could remember, he was whole. He didn’t feel trapped, or have the need to add others to his bed. Not even when Axel had said he was open, that he would never stop Sam from what he wanted. That he would love him regardless.
It had taken Sam too long to realise love wasn’t simple, it wasn’t about opening your soul and making yourself vulnerable. It was an equal partnership, about sharing your life, and sharing theirs in return.
And Sam was more than ready to finally share everything with his mate.
It was as if he and Axel were always meant to be, and Sam had just been too stubborn to see it sooner. It was something he would never repeat, because Axel was his, and he wasn’t letting go.
* * *
AXEL
Axel watched Sam laugh along with his grandmother, both facing the steamer as she told him every embarrassing story from his childhood that she could remember. He drank the foul-tasting tea, Laolao none the wiser for the reason he’d asked for the specific one. He wasn’t sure if it helped with the cravings, the intrusive thoughts still there, just quieter. Some days were better than others, but his mate was there to support him.
‘How’s the withdrawal?’Ti asked, linking their minds as Sam continued to win their grandmother over with his charm. Not that he needed to even try, she was smitten from his first smile.
‘Manageable.’Many times he’d caught himself losing his temper over little things, his body aching for a substance he refused to give.‘Sam’s helping.’
