by Jana Downs
He spied Brandon’s foot a few feet away. He was talking to someone on the edge of the pool. Evan couldn’t really make out their features, but he thought the guy looked a little like Quinn. He crept closer to his lover, careful not to disturb the water with any sudden movement. He mentally hummed the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean while he did so. He wasn’t sure where the mischievousness was coming from, but he knew that teasing Brandon later was going to be a lot of fun.
He got within a foot of him before he pounced, wrapping all eight legs around him in an instant.
I am the Kraken!
Brandon yelped and jumped up, churning the water and creating a giant splash as he did so. Evan held on tight, trying to avoid getting kicked or stepped on by Brandon’s frantic motion. Maybe that wasn’t such a swell idea. His heart pounded. Dear lord. Why did I do that? Memo to self: Next bright idea needs to be axed before execution.
Finally, Brandon stopped moving and looked down at him through the water. “You know, there are more subtle ways of getting my attention.” He had an amused look on his face despite his stern words. Embarrassment went through Evan. “Do you want to play? One arm up means yes. Two arms means no.”
Evan raised two arms. He was about done with playtime. He’d nearly been killed the first time around. Brandon stroked his body, and the touch felt good. He pried his tentacles off his lover’s leg and winced at the angry red suction cup imprints they left in their wake. He hadn’t meant to hurt him.
He thought about apologizing, but he didn’t have a mouth for it. He pictured himself doing it and found his animal reacting to it this time. It moved into the back of his mind, and his human body swelled to shape. He broke the surface of the pool. Okay that wasn’t hard. It made him feel better knowing that he could do that if he really needed to.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at Brandon. “I didn’t mean to hurt your leg. I was just playing.”
Brandon shrugged. “Didn’t really hurt, just scared me a little bit.” He chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting it.” He winked, and Evan relaxed. Everything was fine. “Though you did give Quinn a good look at my bits when I jumped out of the water.”
Evan’s head swiveled to find Quinn standing there, a grin on his face. “Nudity doesn’t bother me. I’ve seen his bits before when we shift together. No biggie. It was totally worth it to see him squeal like a little girl though.”
Evan smiled. “I was the Kraken.”
“Does that make me a pirate?” Brandon asked.
“Absolutely,” he and Quinn answered in unison. They shared a laugh.
“All right,” Quinn said, “I’m really leaving now. I’ll see you guys later.” He waved and jogged off in the direction of the door.
“What did he need?” Evan asked as Brandon pulled him into his arms.
“To see if I wanted him to drop some snacks by later. He thought we were going to shack up for a few days and didn’t want me to leave you alone in the meantime.”
“That was nice of him.”
Brandon nodded. “He is a very nice guy. He’s also my best friend. We’re just friends, in case you had any questions in that regard.”
Evan shook his head. “Nah. I have best friends like that.” He paused. “Hey, Brandon?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for being my mate.”
“Didn’t really get a choice in that, Trigger, but you’re welcome.”
As Brandon held him close, he knew that despite the rush, he’d made the right choice. This man would stand by him, and Evan resolved to stand by Brandon as well.
Chapter Seven
Three Weeks Later
“I miss you,” Brandon typed, leaning back in his chair when he finished. He’d been hanging around on Hackverse for half an hour waiting for Evan to show up. He hadn’t seen his mate in nearly a week, and it was wearing on his normally laid back disposition. Logically he knew that Evan had been spending a lot of time on the project he was working on for work, and Brandon had been busy with his own work after the company president had insisted they hire on two more guys to their security team, not just for computers but actual rounds in and about the building. However, his animal didn’t understand why he was being denied his mate, and Brandon couldn’t blame him. Frankly, he was a little sick of the distance, too.
Their first week together had been spent shacked up at Brandon’s house, shifting and fucking and generally just getting to know one another. The second week had been a bit of a struggle as they both returned to work. However, this week was pure hell. He needed to see Evan and reassure himself that his mate was his and didn’t want to leave for some unknown reason.
He glared at his screen. Come on, babe. You promised. Evan swore to him he’d tear away for ten minutes to play with him on Hackverse before they grabbed a quick bite to eat. Brandon was running a seminar at nine for the new guys to go over night procedures. He had to cover the vandalism sections and crap like that.
The indicator dinged as WrightTrigger logged on. “Hey, sorry I was late. The client’s servers can’t handle the new site with employees logged on so it keeps crashing.” It was the biggest redesign he’d ever done. Brandon tried to remind himself that he had every right to be proud of that.
“Don’t work too hard,” he typed instead. “We still on for supper?”
“Would you hate me if I took a rain check? I really want to finish this before I leave the office. That way I can come by your place at eleven.” He needed sex. It was that simple. The animal was itching for some nookie, so Evan was feeding the beast in that practical way of his. As logical as he was, he always looked for the most efficient solutions to problems. Brandon resented being a problem that required a solution.
“No.”
“No?…You mad at me?”
“When was the last time I saw you for something other than sex?”
“Lol. Are you complaining?”
“Yes. I am.” He loved sex. He especially loved sex with Evan. However, if the price was their mating, he wasn’t interested. “I want a real mating. I don’t want anything halfway.”
“I’m just busy at work. I thought you’d get that.”
“I’m not arguing with you over a messenger. Either come to my house at eleven and talk to me or we’ll talk tomorrow after work.” He logged off messenger before Evan could pen a reply. His beautiful would no doubt employ some logical argument that made perfect sense. But he didn’t want logic. He wanted to just feel the way he felt and call it a day.
His cell phone rang instantly, and Brandon’s lips twitched. His lover was not dismissed so easily. He flipped open his cell phone. “Yes?”
“Where the fuck do you get off logging off in a snit?” Evan growled on the other end of the phone. “You don’t get to just say stuff like that and then log off.”
“Right where you got off in just dropping by for sex,” Brandon drawled, drumming his fingers on his desk.
Silence met his declaration followed by a soft sigh. “Yeah…I’ve been doing that, huh?”
“Yeah. You’ve been doing that. A lot.”
Another grumble. “I’m a dick. Forgive me?”
“Maybe. Gonna make it up to me?”
“I will. I promise. Let me finish this project, and then I will be all yours for the duration.” He paused. “Anything specific you have in mind?”
“Move in with me to start,” he said. He hadn’t intended to ask, had tried to keep a human timeline.
There was a very long pause on the other end of the phone. “You want that?” Evan asked softly. “You want me to live with you?”
“Yes,” Brandon said, knowing he didn’t have any doubts. “If you aren’t comfortable with it, I won’t push. But at least if we live together we have to see one another every day.”
“Good point. How about we start moving my stuff over there next weekend?”
Brandon’s heart turned over at the offer, and every molecule in his body relaxed. “I’m really glad you said yes
.”
Evan chuckled. “You present a compelling argument. I care about you, you know.”
“I care about you, too,” Brandon murmured.
A great boom sounded, rocking the building and causing Brandon to grip tightly to his desk. His cell phone clacked on the desktop, rebooting as the battery came off. He grabbed for it and his wallet at the same time as a series of shouts sounded from inside the main building. He tried in vain to stuff his battery back in with trembling hands. What was going on?
He somehow managed to turn on his phone, and it immediately blew up with Evan calling. “Hey, babe,” he said by way of greeting. “I don’t know what happened. There was a loud boom.”
“Get out of there,” Evan commanded, terror in his voice.
“I can’t. Quinn is out there. Someone could have been hurt.” He hit the hallway and saw smoke filling the hallway. He coughed into his shirt. Damn. The smoke wasn’t like it was in the movies. It was strangling.
“Brandon! Please, get out of there,” Evan begged.
“I will, babe. I promise. Just as soon as I get—” The walls buckled inward as another explosion rocked the building. Brandon was thrown backward a good ten feet to collide with one of the outside walls. Instant agony pierced his chest before something smacked his head as he fell, and then the world went black.
* * * *
“That’s my motherfucking mate in there, you asshole, and if you don’t let me see him, I’m going to slit your fucking throat!” Evan screamed as the hospital staffer stood in his way.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the idiot said as the security guards rallied behind him. “The hospital doesn’t recognize shifter mates as the legal spouses of those interned here unless they’ve been married in a human ceremony. Congressman Payne has requested that you not be in the room, and as Mr. Payne’s next of kin, he has the right to say who can or cannot be in the room.” He really did look remorseful, but Evan was beyond not giving a shit. He wasn’t the only one who was in this predicament. There were several other shifters who had been expelled from the hospital’s property because they refused to leave their mate’s side when human family members had ordered them to leave.
“Ask Brandon what he wants! He’ll want me there!”
The staffer bit his bottom lip. “He isn’t awake yet,” he muttered.
Evan couldn’t help the low animal sound of pain that erupted from his throat. Jude and Logan grabbed him on either side before he fell. He had to get to Brandon. He had to get to him now.
Logan leaned in close. “Easy, Evan. Easy. That doesn’t mean anything. Hush, now. You can’t shift here.”
“Why? Why won’t they let me see him?”
“Because they’re assholes,” Logan rumbled. “Come on. Maybe Collin had more luck on the legal front than we did.”
He doubted it. Everything was so messed up.
“There is someone we can go take care of,” Jude said, squeezing him tight. He felt like the only thing keeping him together were Logan and Jude’s arms. “Quinn doesn’t have anyone. You said he and Brandon are friends, right? He wouldn’t want Quinn all by himself.”
That was true. Brandon had wanted to get to his friend when— No. He wasn’t thinking about that horrible moment. Instead he nodded. He would go to Quinn. He would take care of him because his lover wanted his friend cared for. He could do that much.
“He’s not on the ICU floor, so we should be able to get to him,” Logan said. “He’s on the third floor.”
“How do you know?” Evan asked, trying to keep it together.
“That’s where they’re keeping the trauma patients that aren’t critical,” Logan said. He really was a rock.
Brandon, I promise, when I can get to you, I am going to take care of you. I’m going to make sure that I spend every night for the rest of my life with you. Just please hang on until I can.
Logan continued. “We haven’t pissed off the administration enough for them to kick us off property. Let’s go ahead and find Quinn. We can call Collin when we get to the room and see if he has had any luck in the legal side of things.”
“Come on, Evan,” Jude murmured, squeezing his shoulders again.
He let them lead him from the hallway toward the elevators. They passed other visitors, most of them with faces painted with fear equal to the swell that was rising and falling in succession in his chest like a sickening tide. They pressed the up button and waited as the elevator slowly descended from the upper floors.
They piled into the elevator, taking up residence in the back after Logan pressed the three. Going farther away from Brandon was abhorrent, but what choice did he have? He just needed to concentrate on the task at hand and keep his mind off of Brandon’s injury. He had to believe that Brandon would get better. There were no other options for him. If Brandon died, Evan knew on some deep instinctual level that he wouldn’t survive it.
He hung back as they stepped off the elevator on the third floor and let Jude get the room number from a very harried-looking nurse who was answering phones there. “I’m going to call Orion real quick and tell him where we are,” Logan said, looking at Evan. “You going to be all right if I hang back by the elevator to make my call?” Orion was Logan’s younger brother and was a really funny kid. Evan liked him well enough. He’d taken to hanging around the office waiting for Jude to get off due to some odd sense of protectiveness ever since Jude’s ex tried to basically kidnap him. He had a birthday coming up soon, but Evan couldn’t remember if it was his seventeenth or eighteenth.
“I’ll be fine,” Evan muttered. “I’m not the one who was broken.” He kind of was, but that was beside the point. The point was that he wasn’t an invalid, just a worried mate. Three weeks isn’t long enough to be happily mated. He’d been such an idiot to waste even a few days away from Brandon.
Logan squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, man. Everyone takes for granted the fact that their mate is there until something happens to make them realize otherwise. Newly mated and newly turned, you wouldn’t be any different.”
He must’ve said his thoughts out loud because otherwise Logan was a mind reader. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“It’s okay. That’s why we’re here.” Logan gave him a smile before turning back toward the doors they’d come through from the elevators and ducking outside.
The details of what had happened were still sketchy. In the twelve hours since the bombing in four different sHarmony buildings around the country, a lot of theories had been bandied about. Most of which were speculating that the bombings were racially related. None of the hate groups against shifters had taken credit, but it was Evan’s suspicion that someone with enough manpower and resources was responsible. At 5:00 p.m., the offices had been filled with people. No one was reporting causality rates yet, and Evan doubted the humans could even comprehend what sort of additional causalities would ensue. The mates of the people who had died would be dropping like flies in the next few weeks as well.
Evan shivered and held himself tightly, clutching his elbows as he tried to rein in his fear. Things are getting so much worse. As hate groups grew in strength, becoming a shifter was a dangerous transition. It was one thing for a few people to hand out pamphlets on how shifters were abominations. It was another thing entirely to set off bombs at places like sHarmony.
“I’ve got his room number,” Jude said, returning to Evan’s side. He hadn’t even seen him move.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Jude grabbed his arm before he could walk away. “Where’d my mate run off to?”
“To call Orion and tell him where we were. What’s the room number and I’ll head on.”
“312.” Jude pointed toward the left hallway. “Down that way. We’ll head on in just a second.”
He nodded and took off in that direction. It didn’t take him long to find Quinn’s room. He knocked gently before swinging open the door at the muffled “come in.” The room was set up like every
other hospital room Evan had ever visited. A single bed pushed to one side, a TV mounted on the wall, and a heavy wood door that no doubt led to a bathroom made for pretty sterile accommodations. He made a mental note to have some flowers delivered here soon to brighten up the room.
Quinn’s normally vivacious face looked downright pale and grim, though he smiled weakly when he saw that it was Evan. “Hey,” he greeted. “Thank you for coming. I was going a little nuts without any company. How’s Brandon?”
Evan swallowed convulsively at the innocent question, tears pricking his vision. He couldn’t even speak past the lump in his throat. “I–I,” he stammered, swallowing hard. He took a deep breath, forcing his breathing to slow. “I’m not sure. He’s in ICU, and his dad won’t let me see him.”
Quinn winced. “Oh damn, man. I’m sorry.” He opened his arms. “You want a hug?” It was so sweet that Evan forgot all about the social norms that said that two dudes hugging it out was weird and crossed the distance between them to hug the hell out of the little man.
“Not too hard,” Quinn breathed as Evan hugged him. “I’ve got a couple broke ribs where the roof fell in on me.”
“Sorry,” Evan muttered. “My friend Jude and his mate Logan have been keeping me company. Brandon was worried about you when it happened, so Logan suggested we come check on you. Is there anyone I should call?”
Quinn shook his head. “Nobody but Brandon. He’s family. You know?”
“Yeah I know.”
A soft knock sounded before Jude peeked his head in the door. “Hi, sorry we took so long. We waited for Orion to get his butt up here. He had to take the bus from a friend’s house, and we wanted to make sure he got here okay before we came in.”
Quinn smiled. “You must be Jude.” He fidgeted with the material of his dressing gown. “Wish we were meeting under different circumstances.”