Page 84 of Threads of Fate

His heart is racing, pounding so hard he can feel it under his omega’s hand. With every beat, it whispers a single, relentlessNix.

“Angel. I’ve missed you.” It’s the truth: this week, and also for what feels like forever.

It’s not fireworks at all; it’s a slow dawn, warm and golden, sliding into every dark place in his soul, lighting him up from inside. It’s that last piece of himself locking into place, and where he had thought it would all be too much, it turns out it’s the exact, perfect amount.

He

is

finally

complete.

Chapter Thirty-One: Gideon

Gideon

Quest is Gideon’s point of pride. He prefers to say that he’s built itout, not up, because that implies that what had existed before had lesser worth; no, Quest had been builtoutof something small in size but not in value.

Leaving his forest and the smoldering ruin that was his mother’s pyre, he’d made his way to Nashville in the backs of trucks, over long hours running on his own two feet, and with the desire to be somewhere, he could find his fated mates and be foundbythem. It wasn’t long before he could feel the city noises pressing in on him, and he sorely missed his connection to the rivers, sky, and animals he’d left behind. He could feel his grief more acutely as well among the crowds and chaos, and it was unsurprising that the lessons he’d learned as a child at his father’s knee were waiting to usurp the serenity he’d gained.

Landing in one of the world’s largest cities with only a backpack of his clothes and a tattered recipe book from his mother, Gideon had known he would be hard-pressed to find work without a place to sleep and bathe, and he couldn’t find a place to sleep and bathe without work.

So, he’d prayed to The Goddess, as he always did when he needed direction.

The money he’d had from his mother’s meager stash had not gone very far, so with only a few dollars left on his first day inthe city. He’d sat down at the counter of a little hole-in-the-wall eatery. There’d been no signage, only the most interesting of smells emanating from the window.

A tiny beta man by the name of Oscar was servingchili in large bowls, and Gideon used the last of his money to buy a bowl. He’ll never know why Oscar offered him a second bowl or exactly what he saw in him, but when Gideon had commented on the pinch of cinnamon in the dish, he’d raised his eyebrows, peered into his soul, and promptly offered him a job and the room over the little diner.

The room hadn’t been large; it contained only a single bed, a bathroom, and a place to keep his mother’s recipe book. It had provided sanctuary for the soon-to-be alpha—a stage on which to try those recipes and a place to dream a little in the quiet hours of the night after closing, of his mates—of who and where they might be.

Over the following years, the small seating area grew to include the newly vacant space next door, people drawn to Gideon’s cooking and innovative take on old classics, and then again, when Oscar handed him the deed and told him not to fuck it up. Gideon had promptly hadQuestpainted on a new sign—an homage to his search for his Goddess-given mates—and invested every penny he had saved into expanding his new restaurant into something he could be proud of, while still living above the kitchen in that single room.

Running his own kitchen at twenty-five meant that, more often than not, he met someone who might think he wasn’t capable or staff who thought he wasn’t serious about his craft or his ambition. Occasionally, even customers would take it upon themselves to critique his food as if it weren’t his fucking kitchen and his fucking food. He tried to let it roll off his back as you can’t please everyone, and the only person he could be sure to please was himself.

One week before Christmas, during what must be one of the busiest times of the year, his front-of-house manager came into the kitchen with a look on her face that said Gideon would not like a single word she had to say.

“Maureen, spit it out. What now?” Christmas did not inspire his patrons to be kind, and in fact, they got even more entitled and picky.‘Tis the season to be an asshole.

“There’s anenthusiasticallyunhappy customer in the private room with a complaint about your panna cotta.” She looks at the napkin in her hand. “He says, and I quote: ‘Who the fuck puts fucking cilantro in panna cotta.’” The nearby staff gasps under their breath, and not one of them is brave enough to make eye contact except Maureen. There is not, in fact, fucking cilantro in his buttermilk panna cotta.

Dumbass.

“Anything else?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He finally stops dealing with the Wagyu beef he’s been seasoning, so he can lay both hands on the stainless steel countertop. “Don’t stop now.”

She takes a tiny step back out of range, of what, Gideon doesn’t know, but turns the napkin over to read, “If he doesn’t fucking know how to make it, I could go back there and teach him…uh…wait oh, here it is–a fucking thing or two.” The entire kitchen is quiet except for the cooking noises.

Gideon’s annoyance at an uppity customer turns into downright anger.Fucking Dumbass. “Alright. Bring him back.”

“What?!”

“If he thinks he can do better, bring him back here and let him tell me to my face and show me what he’d do differently. Everyone back to work!”

“Are you serious? Chef, he’s got his mates with him, I think, and two or three of them are bigger than you. They’re celebs, too. Britney was beside herself earlier.”

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