Page 116 of Knight’s Absolution

This conversation had to happen, and he’d been dreading it despite the indescribable happiness he felt since he’d made Luna his mate several days ago.

The agony etched into Rocco’s face was hard to look at. Christ, it killed him. It’d only been a few days since Gunner had last seen his brother, but he continued to physically deteriorate. His face was all sharp angles, the scruff now closer to a beard.

Gunner took a step closer. “Brother—”

Rocco shook his head. “I can sense it, can see it in your eyes. I’m happy for you, for both of you. Truly, I am.”

Gunner didn’t know what to say, how to make this bearable for him. It wasn’t possible.

“So…how was it?” Roc asked, voice so low and gritty it lifted the hair on the back of Gunner’s neck.

“We don’t need to talk about this—”

“I want to know,” Roc said, but there was no missing the growl, the underlying anger.

His anger wasn’t directed at Gunner but at what had been stolen from him. Telling Roc how fucking amazing he felt, how goddamned happy he was, wasn’t something his brother needed to hear right now.

“Gunner,” he bit out, his jaw working, fingers clenching and unclenching, body shaking. “I…I need to know, please, just…just fucking tell me.”

Rocco was torturing himself and they both knew it. “Nothing good can come from talking about this, brother.”

Roc shook harder. “I dream about her, think about her every day, every night. She’s the only thing in my head. And the fucking awful, twisted, horrific truth of what she’s going through right now, right at this very moment…” He gripped the sides of his head, gritting his teeth. “It’s all I can fucking see. I can’t see how things were before she was taken from me. I can’t remember, Gunner. The darkness won’t…it won’t let me see. I need you to tell me. I need to close my eyes and see Kyler and me, just for a moment, please.”

Roc was willing to put himself through hell and back to feel close to Kyler. Jesus fucking Christ, they were losing him. They were going to lose him the way they’d lost Tobias. But Gunner couldn’t deny him. If sharing this gave him even a moment of peace, he would do it.

“Close your eyes,” Gunner said.

Rocco did as he asked, chest pumping, his fists so tight, knuckles so white they looked close to splitting.

Gunner’s throat was tight, and he had to clear it several times to talk. “We…we came together, Roc, like we’d been made to fit only each other. Did you see it, that thread, when you were with Kyler…before?”

“No,” his brother said. “Silas told me it’s not there until your female has her powers.”

“It’s gossamer fine and so beautiful you know it has to come from something so fucking pure, so good and perfect. That connection between her and you, even before mating…you know, Roc, you already know nothing is more perfect than that.”

“Yeah…there’s nothing like it.” Roc shifted from foot to foot. “When you mated, you saw it and you grabbed for it?”

“Yeah, and I fucking held on.”

“What’d it feel like, Gun?”

“It was like Luna wiped me clean. Nothing before her matters. I cracked down the fucking middle, and when she put me back together it was with a part of her inside me. When you reach for that thread, when you take hold…for me, it was pure unrestrained euphoria. I never knew it was possible to feel so much, so fucking much. You think you reached the peak, that it can’t feel any better, but then it does, it grows and grows and somehow you find the capacity to hold it all inside you. And just when you think you’re going to die from the pleasure, the joy of it, it overflows and, fuck, Roc, fuck, it gets even better.”

Rocco was trembling, eyes still squeezed tight. “And w-when it’s over?”

“It’s not just you anymore; it’s you and her. You aren’t on your own, you know?”

“Our demons…the darkness?” Roc rasped.

Their demons, the fuckers they spend their whole lives fighting until they mated. “They’re still there, but it’s not the same. They’re leashed, brother. Your demon loves her, worships her as well. It doesn’t want to break free and lay waste anymore. It wants to be with her, it wants to protect her as well. You are of one mind. You share the same heart. Her.”

Gunner stood there watching Roc. His brother’s eyes stayed closed and he was breathing roughly, those fists still tight, and he was deep in his own head because, for one fleeting second, his mouth curled up on the side. Like in his desperation for Kyler, to make her his, his mind was tricking him, just for that second, was letting him imagine it was him and Kyler, instead of Gunner and Luna.

But slowly the strain crept back, the pain.

“Roc?”

“Don’t—”