Page 15 of Threads of Fate

The gates are open when he gets there and he turns onto the long drive, Gideon’s Escalade is already parked in the courtyard. The architectural firm where Grayson works is closer than thehospital, but Gideon must have broken every speed limit to beat Leo home, seeing as Quest is farther into the city proper.

“Goddess, please let me find the right words,” Leo whispers. He’s not especially connected to the Were faith, not like Gideon or even Luca, who can sometimes be heard talking to Them when he thinks no one is listening. Perhaps it’s because he’s rarely seeking patience (Gideon) or strength (Luca). “Oh, and Goddess. I know I don’t talk to you much. I’m sorry about that, but if you could watch over Jay and Finn? And Nix. Please.” Sighing when, as expected, there’s no obvious answer, Leo opens the car door.

The large house is surprisingly silent when he gets inside. He’d expected to be rushed with a multitude of questions tumbling over each to seek the reassurance they needed. Emergency family meetings are, thankfully, rare.

“How long are you going to hide out here?” Gideon asks, fresh from the shower and smelling like a thunderstorm. He drags Leo into the family room by the wrist, pushes him into the single large chair, and hands him a cup of tea. Leo hates tea, but Gideon has a mind that tea fixes everything, and Leo has a mind to stay off Gideon’s shit list.

Rowan has a blanket-burrito-ed Luca on his lap. The beta is obviously anxious, alternating pulling the blanket (Jay’s) or Rowan’s wrist up to his nose for big huffs of grounding scent. Sitting, Gideon pulls Grayson to his side, and all four turn to him. Their fear is palpable, and though each mate is trying to be calm, the overall effect is still distressing.

Leo decides the only way to the other side is through because Jay could call anytime with news, and Leo wants everyone to be on the same page when the news comes. “Finn called from the hospital this morning and said he found our eighth.”

They’d all long ago accepted that they would be seven—Jay’s Nix lost to them years ago. But they each bear a Rhodes rosetattoo with eight thorns, one of which remains unshaded in memory of their lost mate.

The response to the news is instantaneous. Luca battles his way out of his blanket burrito and Rowan’s grip like he has plans to make it to the hospital on foot. Grayson and Rowan talk over each other with questions.

“Luc, sit. There’s more,” says Gideon.Wise, wise Gideon.

Grayson is sensitive and insightful, and on the surface, he goes against most enigma alpha preconceptions, and he makes the connection soon after Gideon has. “Finn called from the hospital. Is he hurt? Come on, just tell us.”

“Fuck, okay,” rubbing his face, he just word-vomits the rest in a rush. “He came in last night, and Finn helped him with some injuries. He couldn’t say much given his oath, but he led us to believe he was being hurt at home.” Eye contact with Gideon has Leo shaken. There was murder in his mate’s eyes. It sends a zing of desire straight to Leo’s core.Not the time. Leo.

“Where is he now? Shouldn’t he be here with us? What if he gets hurt worse?” Luca isn’t wrong. The realization makes the sensitive beta’s face crumple. “Oh god, how badly is he hurt?” Without even having met their mate, he’s close to hyperventilating, just imagining the worst. Reaching out, he pulls one of Rowan’s thick fingers into his mouth. The alpha is used to the common self-soothing behavior and pulls the beta into his shoulder, whispering soothing words.

“He snuck out when Finn wasn’t watching. We don’t know why. I don’t know why Finn didn’t tell us last night, but this morning…” Choking back his memory of Finn sitting on the floor of the medical bay, stock-still and sobbing like he had never seen before, Leo finally manages to get the last bit out.

“Someone brought him in this morning, unconscious and beat to shit. Riordan was on call, and he’s having surgery now.”

“But he’s Were, right? He’ll be okay?” Rowan sounds exactly like the young man he is. “It’s not like he’s frail like a human. Right?”

“That’s the thing. Heishuman, and he’s not alright at all.”

“What aren’t you telling us?” Gideon is suspicious at the best of times, and with his mates in various states of distress and two (three?) out of their den, he is absolutely not fucking around. “What’s his name, Leo? At least tell us who he is before we have to mourn him.”

“It’s Phoenix. It’s Jay’s—our—Nix.”

The silence that follows is the calm before the storm. Leo rushes to calm his mates’ impossible questions before they can start, “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why he is in Nashville and hasn’t contacted us. But we’re here now, and no one is ever going to hurt him again.”

The storm he expected doesn’t happen. His mates sit together, and the silence is broken only by Luca’s occasional quiet hitching breaths, Rowan’s humming to soothe, and Gideon’s continuous growling. Grayson is frozen.

“Jay will call when Nix is out of surgery. He—doesn’t want us to come to the hospital. He says that if something happens to Nix and we’ve started the bond, it’ll be worse for us. Right now, it’s only he and Finn who will feel the partial bond—break—” The idea that their mate might never know they love him finally breaks his resolve to be strong.

Gideon opens his other arm, and Leo is no fool. He launches himself under and presses his nose into Gideon’s armpit, gripping him hard across his broad chest. Leo has always felt that his scent suits him—the wild power of a thunderstorm, the soothing balm of a cool rain all wrapped up in petrichor and water. Wild and powerful and cleansing. That’s Gideon in a nutshell.

Gideon Carnell is classically handsome, in the way old movie stars were in the 30s and 40s, like Clark Gable or Cary Grant. He has glossy caramel-brown hair that he wears short over his ears and longish on top so that it often falls into his piercing honey-brown eyes. Those piercing eyes are currently roaming the room in silence, waiting for the rest of them to come to a decision.

“I want to go,” Luca’s whisper is loud in the waiting quiet. “I’m not going to let him d—die alone. I’m not letting Jay or Finn suffer alone, either. We’ve always been all in. Take me to the hospital, please.” Luca is still holding Jay’s blanket and wearing only Grayson’s tank top, but he is already moving toward his shoes.

“What he said. But I think you should probably put pants on, baby.” Grayson’s teary joke makes them smile. Luca is quite a sight, lovely and alluring, with his tears and bouncy butt on display, but that wasn’t for anyone but their pack.

“I hate pants. I wonder if Nix hates pants. I’m so alone in this.” His sigh is quite put upon, as if his pack isn’t happy he’s pants-less ninety-nine percent of the time.

“Pants, Luca Wilde. Then we’ll go get our mates.” Gideon hoists them both off the couch, strong thighs bunching. He turns and pulls Grayson up by the hand, too. “We’re out the door in thirty minutes. Come on, baby. You did well. You’re so good,” is whispered into Leo’s ear and he’s filled with gratitude that maybe he had help to say just the right things.

It takes Gideon thirty-six minutes to pack a bag with food and water, but no one is stupid enough to point out the delay. Leo throws the food in the trunk, along with bags filled with nesting materials, because who knows when they’ll be home again?

They climb into Gideon’s SUV, with Leo riding a shotgun, and the others cuddle in the back. Luca’s ears are covered with his headphones and his butt with plaid pajama pants. Graysonhides his red-rimmed eyes with the Tom Ford sunglasses he’d received as a gift from Rowan on his last birthday, and Ro is squished between them.

“Let’s get it! Woot!!” Rowan yells, and he receives an admonishing stare from Gideon in the rear-view mirror and a thigh slap frombothGrayson and Luca.

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