Page 85 of Threads of Fate

“It’s my fucking establishment, Mo, and he wants to talk shit. He can come back here and do it to my face. Go.” With a wry shake of her head, she heads back to the VIP room for her erstwhile customer.

Gideon hears him before he sees him, talking to his mate undoubtedly. “Jay quit it. He fucked up, and I’m just going to tell him how he can do better, you know? Just stay out here. Let me do this myself, fuck.”

Maureen comes in, wide-eyed, and holds the door open for…

Gideon’s mate.

His bond slams into place when he makes eye contact with the most beautiful boy he has ever seen: wild hair bleached blond, deep dark eyes, and a heart-shaped mouth hanging open in shock.

This is what they meant when they saidtime stands still.Everything fades away except this. Gideon forgets about his Wagyu, his anger, and maybe even his name. He’s out from behind the workspace and holding the boy’s hand before he even has a chance to say, “What’s your name?”

He’s still only slightly less overwhelmed than the mocha-scented boy, who bursts into tears, throws himself into Gideon’s arms, and kisses him within an inch of his life. Gideon is a lot of things, but a fool isn’t one of them, and he kisses his as-of-yet-nameless mate right back. Beef burning and kitchen staff hooting, Maureen finally steers them into Gideon’s office and closes the door.

“Name.” Kiss. “What’s your name, pretty?” Kiss. So many kisses, messy with snot and spit, and Gideon couldn’t possibly care less.

Luca had stopped crying long enough to tell him his name and repeat his own back to him every time he broke away to look him in the eyes. Gideon, Gideon, Gideon. The topic of panna cotta and the fucking cilantro hadn’t come up the entire time Luca had straddled his lap in his office, but lots of things had.

“Gideon. So handsome, fuck. And you smell so good. Rain and Thunder. Mmm.” They’ve finally settled on the couch and Gideon has shed his chef’s coat for his t-shirt when there’s a knock. Nose in the air, Luca turns to him with a bit of worry fresh on his pretty face.

“Sugar,” he says, and Gideon wants to hear that for the rest of his life. Then he smells them.

“Mates?” Gideon asks, and Luca nods. “Five?” Surprised, he nods again. But Gideon remembers what The Goddess had said:six will find you.

“Can I let them in? They will want to meet you, too.” Gideon knows suddenly that he isn’t ready for these six new people in his life; that even though his Goddess has sent him his fated mates, he’s not prepared for them. Maybe they’ll find him weird or scary or not like his scent. He’s not easy to like and even harder to get to know. Luca must see his panic and read his heart; yes, his heart, not his mind.

He’s 100% sure that Luca will always know his heart. “It’ll be okay, Sugar. They’re going to love you.”

Gideon puts his faith in the Goddess and his first mate and says the words that change his lonely life into one filled with magic. In the two months that followed, each of his new mates made the effort to “date” him, and he, them. Gifts of food, time, and tokens of affection made the transition into a pack of seven surprisingly smooth for someone who had previously maintained he did not like people.

BBQ dinners with Rowan, who took extra pleasure in making him pay for the meal and in winding him up with incendiarykisses. Daily workouts and, once, a hideously romantic—and treasured—indoor picnic at the arboretum with Leo, who had memorized the language of flowers to confess his adoration. Gideon still has those flowers pressed in a book of poetry at home beside his bed.

Art shows and after-hours cooking lessons with Grayson, where they spent most of their time feeding each other bits of food so they could kiss fingertips and drink wine from soft lips. Some of his favorite moments were when Gideon would bring lunch to Finn while he was on his break during his internship at the hospital, where they’d talk about music and books, finding a shared love of living things of all kinds.

He learned most about his new pack (and himself) during long walks with Jay, talking about what the future of their pack might look like, learning that he might not always need to carry the heaviest burdens by himself, and about the dark things in their pasts; about their lost mate, Nix.

But mostly, it was his time with Luca that convinced him that living as a pack would be the only way his life could ever be fulfilling. By the end of the third month, Gideon had been sure that the other boy was his soulmate, connected and bound by a nuanced array of commonalities and complementary differences.

He loved each of his mates with a love that could not easily be put into words, so he often didn’t. But with Luca, the words ‘I love you’ weren’t hard to say at all. In fact, it wasnotsaying them that was hardest.

Shortly after the pack bonded as seven—on a night that would forever remain the pinnacle of Gideon’s sexual experiences—and at the end of a week spent at home to solidify their bond, the pack members had returned to their day jobs. But Gideon found he couldn’t be separated from Luca for anysignificant length of time. On the first day Gideon tried to return to work, Luca had even exhibited signs of a broken bond.

So, they worked around it. After a month, they were able to tolerate short periods of separation, but only for a few hours or a few miles at most.

The question as towhyhe and Luca, and not Rowan or Jay or any of his other wonderful mates, still sits in the back of Gideon’s mind, but he’s never been one to obsess over a problem that has no answer. He prefers to deal with the practical.

He spends as much time with Luca as their schedules allow, even carving out time to be with each other inside their schedules. Luca sits at the restaurant some nights and works from home in the studio with Gideon on the lumpy old couch from their music show days (it’s seen more action than is probably sanitary, but Jay simply refuses to part with it).

It’s a good life, and he lives and loves his partnership with Lucainside and alongsidehis relationships with each of his mates. It’s what the soul bond means to him, and it’s evidence enough that it exists in all its glory.

Gideon wakes rested and he can just see Luca’s sunrise alarm clock beside his bed, and it’s going on 6:00 PM. Running a hand down his soulmate’s smooth spine, Gideon feels a swell of affection so deep, so beautiful, he has to take another minute to revel in it before he gets up.

“If you keep that up, sugar…” Luca hums groggily. His normally clear voice is raspy from the begging—and maybe the shouting. Gideon thinks he might ask Jay to get that exact tone on a track after Luca’s been fucked hard. It could be the soundtrack to his life.

“Come on, honey, let’s shower, and you can watch me make dinner.” He’s on his feet, hoisting his complaining mate to his feet when he remembers.

Luca and he both go wide-eyed. “Nix!”

Luca dashes toward the door. “Luca Wilde, stop. You are covered in come, and you have to wear a shirt, at the very least.”

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