Every part of me sensed he was telling the truth, and I relaxed, easing my death grip on the poor steering wheel. “You’re the first person I’ve spoken to about this in ten years.” The only other person I’d told was my father when I returned home early from Cornwall, heartbroken and angry. Even then I’d only given him the bare facts, no names. “I’ve not even told Talis, and we tell each other everything.” At the mention of my beta’s name, Axel squirmed in his seat and looked out the front window for a moment before meeting my eyes again.
“You can tell me as much or as little as you want,” he said, offering me a small smile.
Okay.
Fuck, where to start?
“I met him in Cornwall,” I began, keeping my eyes on the road. It was easier if I didn’t have to look at him. “Since I was seventeen and not registered, I could get away with going to the human bars. Gabriel had just turned nineteen and—”
“So Mase is human?” he asked, and I gave him a funny look.
“Yeah. What else would he be?”
Axel shrugged. “I just got a vibe. Never mind.”
“A vibe?” I asked, not willing to let it drop. “What sort ofvibe?”
“You know.” He waved a hand between the two of us. “A non-human vibe.”
“Gabriel?” I shook my head. “No way. He’s no shifter, and I’d know if he was a witch or anything else.” I’d been as close to him as I could physically get. I’d beeninsidehim, for fuck’s sake. The thought sent a delicious shiver down my spine.
“I guess I was wrong.” Axel shrugged again. “It happens.”
“Hmmm.” Did it? Gabriel was as human as they came. I refused to believe I’d been wrong about that too.
“Anyway,” Axel said, “carry on with your story.”
So I told him.
About how we met. How I was full of shifter arrogance and prickly, and Gabriel was all easy smiles and laughter. “I wanted him from the second I saw him.” At nineteen he’d been more on the skinny side, still toned, but not as filled out as he was now. With his jet-black hair and startlingly blue eyes, he stood out like a beacon.
He did to me, anyway.
“With me being me, I told him I wanted him and we were full-on from the start.”
Axel grinned. “Of course you were.”
It had been a wild two months.
“I’d never felt so consumed by another person, never felt so in tune with my wolf either. Like we both knew that we’d found something precious, something that we needed to be whole.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And I’ve never been so wrong in my life.”
Axel reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You were seventeen.”
“I was an alpha’s son. I’d been raised to trust my instincts, to recognise danger, but I failed to notice that the boy I was in love with was a fucking hunter.”
“You loved him?” Axel blew out a breath. “That must have been hard to walk away from.”
I laughed again. “Oh, it gets worse.” Once I’d started talking, it seemed I couldn’t stop. I’d never meant to tell him this much, but the words kept flowing. “My time in Cornwall was coming to an end. I only had a few weeks left before I needed to come home, but I wanted to keep seeing him. Wanted to ask him to come with me when I went. I felt that fucking strongly.”
I blinked away the traitorous tears that threatened. I’d shed enough tears over Gabriel Mason; he didn’t deserve any more. “So, I worked up the courage to tell him what I was.”
I sucked in a breath, heart heavy as I prepared to tell him the rest.
“I was supposed to meet him that night, but some of the pack I was staying with got into a fight at one of the bars. A human bar,” I added, knowing Axel would realise what that meant. “Someone got seriously hurt and they ran. The police called in the local hunters to help catch them. So instead of meeting Gabriel, I rushed to help find them.”
“And did you?” Axel asked softly.
“Two made it back to pack territory. We found the last guy dead in the woods—stabbed through the heart—hunters having got there first.” I glanced over at Axel. “And Gabriel stood over him, holding the knife.”
