He touched her. The movement wasn’t a command from his brain, but something that came from deep in the very core of his being. It was a pull, a fundamentally urgent pull that conquered all other rational thought. The tips of his fingers traced the silky contours of her face and his eyes watched, captivated by the knowledge that he could touch her. That he was touching her.
“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamt of this,” he breathed, a little dazed.
Her eyes fluttered, almost swept shut as his thumb dragged over her mouth. Her lips parted and he leaned in, needing to taste her.
“No.” Her choked gasp jerked him back. She struggled out from under him and he let her go. “What is this?”
His hands ached, which struck him as momentarily odd. He balled them into fists to keep from reaching for her again.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he murmured. “I tried for over three hundred years to ... to fight it.”
The fear in her eyes were crippling. The sight of it skewered through him until the pain was nearly physical.
“What ... what have you done to me?” Her voice wavered as she tumbled out of bed and yanked up her ruined pants. “Stop it!”
“Valkyrie...”
How could she be so lucid and able to think when his mind was a mess of tattered thoughts? It felt as though he were drunk and she was giving him no chance to recover.
He stayed kneeling on the bed long after the door had slammed shut behind her. His entire body trembled like he was coming down from a fever. His every breath was rapid and shallow, and he felt half crazed as though the walls were pressing in on him and he was powerless to stop it.
It took ages before the numbness wore off enough for him to roll off his bed and stagger to the door. He made it with a single long stride to her door, but turned away before his hand and heart could overrule his brain again.
She needed room.
He needed room
He needed to think.
He needed his brothers.
It was well after midnight. The manor hummed in the slumbering silence. The scuffle of his feet was the only sound until he reached Octavian’s door. He rammed his fist against the wood twice before moving down to Magnus and Reggie’s doors.
Magnus charged out first, alert and fully dressed with his blade already in hand. Reggie was second, half dressed, hair in a shaggy mess around a squinting face. Octavian had bottoms on and nothing else.
“What’s going on?” Magnus demanded.
Gideon looked at the men who had stood by him through hell and high water, who fought side by side with him through every war and continued to be there for him no matter what.
“I fucked up.”
Chapter Nineteen
As though his declaration were code for imprint, all three pairs of eyes went automatically to his shoulder where the mark blazed like a fresh burn against his skin.
Magnus swore first. “What the hell happened?”
The door to Octavian’s chambers opened before Gideon could open his mouth. Riley poked her head out, her hair a riot of crimson curls around her sleepy face. She wore one of Octavian’s t-shirts, and on her small frame, it went all the way down to her knees.
“What’s going on?” she asked. Her gaze found Gideon standing in the center of the corridor clad in nothing but his boxers and concern shone in their depths. “Gideon?”
“It’s all right, darling.” Octavian went to her and brushed a kiss to the side of her head, an act he did a lot, Gideon noted. “Everything’s fine. Can you get my mother and check on Valkyrie?”
Confusion tightened her brow, but she nodded and hurried down the hall.
“Thank God there’s a bar downstairs,” Reggie mumbled. “I think we should relocate there.”
“Reggie’s right,” Octavian stated. “You can tell us what happened over beers.”
“And nachos,” Magnus decided, stalking around Gideon towards the stairs. “I really need nachos.”
“It’s four in the morning.” Reggie hurried after him. “Who eats nachos at four in the morning?”
Whatever Magnus’s response was, Gideon and Octavian didn’t hear it as they followed at a much slower pace.
“It’s going to be all right,” Octavian murmured.
Gideon shook his head. “No, it won’t. I just signed Valkyrie’s death certificate.” As the weight of that realization struck him, he hit the wall and doubled over as gut wrenching pain twisted his insides. “I’m going to lose her.”
“That is not going to happen.” Octavian’s bare toes appeared in Gideon’s line of vision. “We will find a way to keep her safe.” A firm hand rested on his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get a drink ... and nachos before Magnus eats them all.”
He let himself be guided. Magnus and Reggie were in the kitchen, dumping tortilla chips into a large bowl while a pot of cheese melted on the stove. Reggie dumped the gooey, orange mess into another bowl and together, they walked into the diner and grabbed a table in the corner. Octavian brought the beers and the four sat in silence for most of the first hour. At some point, Magnus and Reggie got into it over double dipping in the cheese, which ended in a chip war between the two. Maybe it was because it was such a stupid thing at such an unholy hour, but it made Gideon feel a little better.
“Will you stop?” Magnus snapped, grabbing a fistful of chips and pitching them in Reggie’s face. “Grow up and act your age!”
“Me?” Reggie returned the favor by flicking the broken pieces off his lap at Magnus. “You started it.”
“I don’t think there’s enough beer for this,” Gideon mumbled around a grin.
Shooting Reggie sharp glares, Magnus brushed chips out of his hair and turned to Gideon. “So what happened?”
Gideon puffed up his cheeks, rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw and shook his head. “I have no idea. One minute, I had everything under control and the next...” He pinged a chip off the table and watched it sail over the edge and hit the floor. “You know what, this is Dad’s fault.” He slammed his fist on the wood. “I told him not to let her stay here. I told him I couldn’t patrol with her. I told him this would happen! But did he listen? No. No, he did not. Now Valkyrie knows and probably hates me more than she ever did. And who could blame her?”
“I really doubt she hates you,” Octavian stressed. “She might be upset, but she’ll come around.”
“She’s not Riley,” Gideon retorted. “She’s not madly in love with me. If anything, she’s probably in her room right now sharpening her knives so she can skin me alive in my sleep.”
“She’s resting, actually.” Their mother stepped through the kitchen doors and crossed the diner floor towards them in her soft purple wrap over her nightgown. “I promised her that you would explain things to her in the morning.” She stopped just behind Reggie and lightly rested her hands on his shoulders, but her eyes remained fixed on Gideon. “She was upset and rightly so. You should have told her.”
“She left before I could,” he said defensively.
“I meant before this happened,” she amended. “Things could have gone differently.”
“I didn’t want things to go differently!” he snapped. “I didn’t want her to be here. I didn’t want her to have to go through this. I didn’t want to be sitting here in the middle of the goddamn morning in my fucking underwear, worrying about the fate of my mate because nobody in this fucking house listens to me!”
“Gideon!”
He ignored Octavian’s warning bark, his fury and worry clashing too loudly to care about anything else. He jumped to his feet, sending the chair skidding out from under him.
“She should never have been here in the first place!” The table took the blunt force of his knuckles. “I protected her for three hundred years and in the span of two months, I’ve lost her and all because you didn’t want to listen when I told you not to let her stay here, to not let me near her! What the hell am I going to do now? How am I going to keep her safe?”
His mother looked stricken. Any other time, he would have been disgusted with himself, but his anger had control of him in a way he couldn’t shake.
“You know what.” He shoved away from the table. “I don’t need, or want, any of your help. You guys have done enough.”
Not waiting, he marched from the room and thundered up the stairs. In the corridor, he was confronted by another figure going in the opposite direction.
“Gideon, have you seen—?”
Gideon marched straight past his father without a word.
He tried to sleep. He threw himself down on the mattress that still smelled of her and tried not to remember how she had come apart for him, again and again, or how she looked with her hair streaking his pillow as her head rocked from side to side. The worst torture was the memory of her in his arms, the way she had fit perfectly against him. His stupid subconscious kept reaching for her across the expense of his bed and finding air, which in turn kept jolting his brain awake mid doze in a panic, wondering if Arild had captured her. It got so bad that at one point, he actually scrambled to the edge of the bed and threw up as the nerves got the better of him.
Having had enough, he heaved his exhausted, clammy, and achy body to the door and walked straight into hers. The early morning light from the window painted her sleeping silhouette bundled beneath the covers. Just seeing her lifted some of the crushing weight resting on his chest. The rest wasn’t satisfied until he’d crossed to the other end of the bed and crawled in.
Valkyrie came awake almost immediately. Her blade was in her hand and he almost laughed at the thought that she slept with the thing under her pillow.
“It’s me,” he said before she could skewer him.
“What are you doing in my bed, Maxwell?” she hissed back, not lowering her weapon, he noted.
A feeble chuckle left him. “Would you believe me if I said I can’t sleep without you?”
Her eyes narrowed in the dim light. “Since when?”
“Since every time I close my eyes, I wake up cold sweat, terrified that I’ve lost you, because of what I did.”
Her dagger lowered. “Why did you never tell me?”
“You know why.”
She shook her head, sending dark curls tumbling around her shoulders. “All these centuries ... you should have told me.”
“And what?” he countered. “What would you have done? I asked you once to leave with me and you walked away.”
“That was different,” she retorted hotly.
Something around his chest constricted.
“Would it have made a difference if I had told you what you really were to me?”
Her gaze skirted away from him. “I can’t answer that now,” she said. “So much has happened between us.”
“But if I had told you that night on the docks that you were my mate, would you have left with me?”
She twisted her head away as though unable to look into his face when she answered. “Stop.”
“No, answer me.” He reached for her bare arm and caught himself out of habit before remembering he could touch her now. Nevertheless, he took his hand back. “What difference would it have made?”
“Because I loved you.” She kept her face firmly turned away. “And you never indicated you felt the same, not even when you asked me to leave. It was only that I would be safe and your family would accept me, not that I would be with you, or that you loved me. I always believed your fondness was out of obligation, or friendship.”
“It was neither,” he mumbled, mentally kicking himself repeatedly. “I wanted you there because I loved you, too, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt.”
She was quiet for a very long time. Her gaze remained averted from him while she tucked the dagger back under her pillow. She shook out and smoothed the comforter before wiggling down under it.
“I’m tired,” she said.
Knowing a dismissal when he heard one, Gideon began pushing out of bed.
“You might as well stay,” she mumbled with her eyes closed. “A hunter who doesn’t get sleep is a dead hunter.”
A smile almost turned his mouth. Without a word, he crawled under and lay facing her, as close as possible without touching. It was only with the soft whisper of her steady breathing that he finally drifted off.
It was late afternoon when he woke surrounded by the clean scent of soap. There was a warm weight draped over his chest that was suffocating him in fine strands of silk. It tickled his face and spilled around his shoulders. He opened one eye and peered through a wild mess of dark hair at the head resting just over his chest. A pale arm slashed across his abdomen and there was a long, naked leg tossed carelessly over both of his. He was completely pinned and harboring the mother of all morning boners.
The woman in his arms sighed and wiggled closer. Her breasts crushed against his ribs and rubbed lightly through the material of her t-shirt. The junction of her thighs rolled against his hip. The knee rode up and bumped his throbbing erection.
Gideon swore lightly. Careful not to wake his companion, he pried her off him and onto her back, freeing himself of her confinement.
Valkyrie seemed to like that about as much as a kitten losing her heat. She groaned and flopped onto her stomach, kicking him in the process. At that angle, she was sprawled starfish style across the width of the bed with her panty-clad ass exposed. The stretch of fabric hugging the seam of her sex drew his attention. His gaze traced the hill of her mound and the valley where the crack started and ended at her opening in the middle. It was so pervy, but damn if it wasn’t a sight he could get used to.
Being the gentleman his mother raised him to be, he drew the blankets up around her and padded quietly from the room. The corridor was empty when he snuck into his own chambers to hurriedly shower and dress.
“Oh Gideon!” His mom cornered him just as he was making his way downstairs, a stack of papers in hand and her glasses still perched on the bridge of her nose. “There you are.” She shook her head, making the highlights in her hair glimmer under the harsh lights. “It’s nearly impossible to find anyone in this place sometimes.”
“Hey Mom.”
She smiled up at him without the usual glow. “Hello darling. How are you feeling?”
“Like the biggest jackass in the world,” he answered truthfully. “I said some things last night in the heat of the moment and—”
Her small hand settled over his arm. “You were upset. Your father and I understand where you were coming from. Imprinting is confusing enough without the burden of worrying about keeping your mate alive.”
“Doesn’t mean I had any right to say the things I did. Truth is...” He sighed heavily. “It’s not your, or Dad’s, fault. I got carried away and let the wrong head do the talking. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”
She squeezed his forearm gently. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. This was always meant to happen. The rest is just things we will need to work on together.”
Gideon nodded slowly. “I am still really sorry.”
“I know, sweetheart.” She went up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Now.” She held out the papers to him. “These are the demons that didn’t return last night during roll call. Could you do a trace and take one of your brothers to help you?”
Gideon took the pages, counted about ten and nodded. “I’ll take Magnus. I think he’s about to climb the walls. This is the longest he’s ever gone without hunting.”
His mother sighed. “This whole business with veil creatures being killed has thrown all of us off our game. Hopefully things will go back to normal once we catch them.”
Rapping the pages on the palm of his hand, Gideon started around her when he suddenly remembered something. He turned back to her.
“There will be one more to dinner tonight. Daphne,” he added when she frowned.
Her eyes went wide. “Reggie’s Daphne?”
“The one and the same.”
S
he shook her head in amazement. “I’m not sure I understand. I thought Reggie said—”
“I asked her.”
“You? Why would you...?”
“Because Riley needs to realize she’s ready to leave this house and Octavian needs to see she’s not a weak little flower and because if Magnus whines about those two one more time, I might kill all of them. Also, Daphne needs to be here, if not for her own safety, then for Reggie’s sanity. He’s losing it, Mom. I’ve never seen him so ... angry. This whole thing is changing him in a way that isn’t good for him.”
His mother’s brows furrowed. “And how did Reggie take this theory of yours?”
Gideon touched his jaw where the pain was still very real. “He was a bit upset.”
She shook her head. “I can’t say I blame him, love. That wasn’t your call to make.”
Expecting that, he squared his shoulders. “I love you, but you’re wrong. You’re the one who’s always telling us we need to look out for each other. That’s what I’m doing.”
Her features softened. She took a step forward and drew him into her arms, which was a bit awkward for him as he had to crouch and bend his back to come to her level. Her hand stroked the back of his head lovingly.
“I love your heart,” she murmured. “It is always thinking of others.” She drew away and cupped his face. “It hurts me that you never think of yourself.”
Gideon snorted. “I think about myself all the time. I’m my own favorite person.”
Her frown was ruined by her grin. “That is not what I meant and you know it.”
Smirking, he gave her a salute with the papers and ambled towards the back door just as it swung open and Magnus ambled in.
“Christmas came early for you, my bloodthirsty little brother.” He smacked Magnus on the forehead with the pages and got a punch in the gut that was void of its usual pain, meaning his brother’s heart hadn’t been in it. “We’re running a trace.”
With that, Gideon pivoted on his heels and marched to the double doors leading into the diner. Magnus caught up to him on the porch.
Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) Page 25