In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic)

by Marina Vivancos

  Hakan’s eyes opened. The first thing they focused on was Damien. He watched Hakan’s vulnerable face rearrange. First, to delight. Then, worry.

  “Good morning,” Damien said softly.

  “Good morning.” A tentative echo back.

  Damien gave him a small smile. Hakan stroked his cheek. They stayed there for a while, in the strengthening light of the day.

  “I need to tell you something,” Hakan said eventually.

  “Okay,” Damien acquiesced softly.

  Silence fell softly for a moment. Hakan took a deep breath.

  “Damien, I love you. I’m in love with you and, fuck, I’ve been in love with you for so long.…It’s not something I feel anymore, it’s something I am. It’s so deep and so…there is nothing I wouldn’t give or kill or change for you to be happy and safe and…that’s how I want to make you feel. Every nightmare you wake up from, I want to be there. Every time you’re sad, or angry, or, or, or anything, I want to be the one that helps you make it go away. Every time you’re happy, it’s me I want you to think about sharing it with.

  “You’re so…there is just so much muchness of you, like you fill everything up. You’re the best person I know. My best friend, I just, just…I want you. I want to be your home. Do you understand what I’m saying? I want to be your pack, and your mate, I want to…I want you to never for a single fucking moment ever feel alone again. Ever. Every time you feel worthless I want to rip it apart and sooth it and convince you because you are, Damien you’re everything, you’re so…I don’t have the words. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just don’t have the words to tell you, to show you how fucking amazing, how much I…need and want and…”

  Hakan shook his head, choking on a laugh. Damien was finding it hard to draw in a full breath.

  “I’ve made so many stupid mistakes, starting with being eighteen and blind and an idiot, and every moment since for not telling you how I felt after I realized it. For being a fucking coward in the face of the bravest person I know. I want you to…I want you. I want everything. You can, obviously, you can say no. If you want to, say no and we’ll be friends, forever. But don’t for a second, don’t you dare for a second pretend that what I’m telling you isn’t true or that I’m confused because I’m not. Whatever you may feel is yours, but this is mine, okay, this is mine, so…” He trailed off. Damien could feel Hakan’s hand shaking on his face.

  The silence felt thicker than ever. Damien felt he had to force his way through it to get to the carousel of his thoughts.

  Hakan loved him.

  Mia wanted him to be pack.

  Damien remembered, a visceral memory that metastasized straight from the gut, being tucked under his desk at the McKenzies’. That feeling, of wanting to disappear. Of being small and wanting to be smaller. Of being alone and wanting to be nothing.

  Of wanting it to stop, stop, stop.

  It went so deep, that feeling. So deep into the earth of him. Damien couldn’t see how it would ever stop. How there would ever be anything different. How he could be more.

  He looked at Hakan, there in that bed in the light of a new day. Damien’s lens flickered. For a moment, he saw himself through Hakan’s eyes.

  Damien realized he was shaking his head when Hakan closed his eyes and laughed a little wetly, a sad smile on face.

  “Okay,” Hakan said. “That’s…that’s okay. I get it, after everything I’ve…but I just wanted you to know, even if you don’t, if you can’t…it’s okay…”

  Damien looked at him. Open. Loving.

  The lens focused. He let his barriers weaken.

  Hakan loved him. Loved him, the same way that Damien loved Hakan. With a force that felt like it could destroy or create anything for the other. There was a pain at the centre of his chest, but it felt like relief.

  Mia wanted him to be pack.

  Hakan loved him.

  If he trusted them, then what did that mean?

  Fear was like a fire inside him, seeming to catch on every dark thought, on every pining moment and longing thought, as painful as it was purifying.

  Damien couldn’t make sense of it in the moment. Couldn’t believe it fully after a lifetime of guarding himself against the assurance that this could never be. But he couldn’t fuck this up, either. He didn’t have to tackle it all at once. He just had to take a step.

  Damien turned his face and kissed Hakan’s wrist where his hand was still stroking Damien’s cheek. Hakan breathed in sharply.

  “Damien.”

  “Yes. Yes, yes,” Damien said, answering a question that hadn’t technically been asked. Yes, I’m yours. Yes, I love you. Yes, keep me safe, give me a home. “I love you. You know I do.”

  There was a moment of disbelief, and then Hakan was gripping his face. His eyes were bright.

  “Damien, Damien,” he said. They fell into each other, lips pressed into a kiss filled with watery laughter.

  Damien could feel it inside. The truth of it. Even as his head tried denying it, his gut knew.

  Home. Family. Pack.

  Damien felt Hakan’s skin and his body. His Ousía. Him.

  They curled into each other in the streaming sunlight. The world contracted to contain just the two of them, leaving everything else behind.

  It had been a long road. The rest of it stretched ahead, difficult and uncertain. But if they could keep this one promise. To shelter each other, to persevere together, they could make it.

  Damien had hope.

  **********

  This is what they didn’t tell you.

  Some families were given, and some families were found.

  Damien looked around. The faces of the Salgado pack were lit by the roaring bonfire. The new moon night was dark beyond them, filled with the pinprick of stars.

  Their faces smiled and welcomed. Damien could smell the birch and daffodil. Could hear Nova’s voice speak of new beginnings. Of nature. Of pack.

  He could feel it in that moment. Not only his Ousía but that of the land. Of the pack. Of his Kephalē. Of Hakan.

  He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. There was no moonlight, but it didn’t matter. It was inside him now.

  There was a golden thread making its way through him. The gentle touch of it was a question. A calling. A scent that draws you home.

  Damien followed. His nomadic feet were tired. It was time to share the burden instead of carrying it alone.

  He opened his eyes. There, across the flames, was Hakan. His face was shining, eyes sparking yellow in the light.

  He felt the thread tighten and—there. A knot, a binding, a bond.

  He looked at Hakan as the air filled with howls. His heart was racing. He felt the Ousía of the pack thrum through him, a home.

  Hakan smiled and his howl joined the pack.

  Damien knew this wasn’t the end of the road. If there was one thing he knew, it was that nothing was ever easy.

  But, God, could it be good.

  FIN

  A Note from Marina

  Hello! Thank you so much for reading In This Iron Ground and taking this journey with me. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Damien and Hakan as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

  If you did, please consider spreading the word any way you can. Reviews, social media, word of mouth—you have an amazing ability to impact my life and help me continue writing! Any little helps.

  You can find out about future releases by signing up to my NEWSLETTER

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  More Stories by Marina Vivancos

  Sicken of the Calm

  Fox Lake 1

  Summary

  Joaquin would never forget the boy who came out in the middle of the school cafeteria when they were both fifteen. Ezra. His unapologetic bravery was something that would haunt Joaquin who, despite being the captain of his high school football team, was too reserved to come out before college, let alone approach the boy
he admired from afar.

  Joaquin is in his third year at Fox Lake University when he sees Ezra again. Joaquin expects the distance between them to remain unbreeched, but Ezra, as brash and impetuous as he was in high school, crashes into his life. At first, it’s just a shared class project, but it doesn’t take long for things between them to heat up. Before Joaquin knows what’s happening, he’s squirming on a chair as Ezra watches him jerk off, those clear, intent eyes pinning him in place. This starts a friends-with-benefits relationship with the aim of exploring a submissive and Dominant dynamic in bed, dipping a toe in the BDSM world together.

  However, nothing is ever so simple. As their sexual relationship amps up, so does their friendship deepen, fed by those gentle moments after sex, underbelly-soft and vulnerable. As Joaquin gets to know Ezra better he realizes that his assumptions about who Ezra is, and even the assumptions he has made about himself, have to be challenged in order to break the cycles that may lead to their relationship breaking apart.

  Excerpt

  “Fucking Excel. I swear to God…they do this on purpose, I’m about to…How is that the y-axis? Who decided that should be the y-axis!” I bark at the computer. Ezra snorts and I whip around to glare at him.

  “Do you want to try to get this to work?” I growl. Ezra holds his hands up, still grinning.

  “Nope. You’re doing amazing. Fuck Excel, go you,” he says. I roll my eyes, turning back to the computer. “What’s the problem? Is it the data?”

  “It’s not the data. It’s the program. It’s the—look! Why does it do that? Why would it think that’s the data for the y-axis I just-” I pull the hair on my head.

  “Ok, dude, I think we need a little break.”

  “I don’t need a break.”

  “Uh, yeah, you do. We can do something relaxing.”

  “I’m not doing fucking yoga with you,” I say. Ezra snorts.

  “Well, then I’ve run out of ideas. That’s all I do, yoga 24/7, no other way to relax. Well, that, and jerking off.” There’s a pause. “Maybe you should try that.”

  I turn to glare at him, expecting to see a teasing grin. Instead, his face is quiet. Intense. My whole body stills like it’s sensing a danger my mind hasn’t caught up to. I know I could just roll my eyes and make a joke of it, but the moment stretches past the point of no return.

  Slowly, Ezra sits back, still pinning me in place with his eyes. I can feel every breath in my tight chest, in my throat, in my dry mouth.

  What the fuck is going on? What the fuck is going on?

  Ezra slides his chair to face mine. Slowly, slowly, he lifts one of his long legs and places it on the side of my wheeled chair and pushes gently. The chair slides away from the desk until it faces him. The mouse clatters on the desk as I release it from my suddenly sweaty hand.

  I wait for the joke to end. Wait for him to sit up, to throw his arms in the air, to wink and tease. Instead, the stillness thickens and settles like honey, sweet and oppressive.

  “Why don’t you show me what you like?” Ezra says. His deep voice makes my own mouth open, but I can’t think enough to protest. His foot is still on the side of the chair. I can feel the pressure of it on my thigh. I can’t move and I can’t think and I can’t-

  “Show me what you like, Joaquin,” he says, and my name in his mouth makes my chest tighten. I’m caught in the current of his demand. A soft sound leaves me, a formless breath, “ah”.

  My head is a single white room. My hand is no longer mine. It’s Ezra’s, and it moves down between my legs. Presses against my jeans and the hardening beneath. My breath stutters and his lips part slightly, a flash of tongue. Everything is happening too quickly for the fog of my thoughts to catch up, even if I wanted them to.

  And, God, I don’t.

  Continue Reading…

  Nights Without Night

  Fox Lake 2

  Summary

  Isadoro and Iván have known each other all their lives. They were raised together in La Portera, between the orange trees and water reservoirs, under an endless blue sky. That’s where Iván’s love for Isadoro grew, too. From the earth and water, organic and helpless.

  Isadoro leaves for the military when they are both eighteen, but a thread remains. Phone calls, Skype sessions, rests between tours…it’s never quite enough.

  After eight years, Isadoro comes back. An already complicated situation is tangled further as they rekindle the “benefits” part of their friendship. The heat between them has always been undeniable, and now it scorches through them.

  All seems well in the beginning, but nothing is ever so simple. Iván’s love cannot simply banish the insomniac shadows of the past, but perhaps they can face what the night brings—together.

  Excerpt

  The summer before Isadoro was finally deployed had run on borrowed time. I hadn’t applied to college but had gotten a summer job in La Portera while I figured out what to do with my life. After work, I would go to the beach with Isadoro, pretending this was any other summer and that adulthood wasn’t looming in September for both of us.

  One night, we went down to the beach when it was late and dark. The sea was a pool of ink, the sound of it washing in and out a secret call. On Isadoro’s dare, we’d stripped our clothes and ran into the water, the coolness a relief from the thick summer air.

  The half-moon had been a bowl of rice perched on the black. We’d swam around, free in the salt and the waves, pulling each other under in a familiar game.

  We’d been our child selves, free of the ties tugging at us beyond the water.

  When we tired and let ourselves drift, I remember Isadoro swimming close to me. Remember the moon in his eyes. The way his wet skin had felt against mine. It had almost been a kiss. Almost. But I couldn’t do that to myself. Not again. Not when he was leaving and he wasn’t in love with me back.

  Who would have thought that I would be able to resist the pull of the moon at eighteen, and cave so many years later, caught completely in its tide.

  Continue Reading…