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“It’s fine,” Brandon said, and stepped away. He threw his arms wide, glan
cing around the castle, watching the arrows be pulled back.
“No,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the tears from my voice. This wasn’t real, no one was actually going to shoot Brandon, but that’s not how it felt. “No, no, no!” I leapt in front of Brandon right at the moment the arrows were let fly. For a second, I felt the bolts slam into his back before they did the same into mine.
My breath caught in my chest as I was smashed by wave after wave of violent emotion. Suspicion, low and slinking, wrapped around us like bony curs, snarling at any kind of positive thought, laughing at my feeble attempts to reassure Aaron—or even myself—that Brandon did what he thought was right. Anger, great raging fires swept through us, burning out all other emotions, until all that was left was a barren desert. Fear whipped through, stirring up the ashes, forcing the negative spiral to build again. Then, as each wave finally died down and all three of us were left bent down low and gasping for breath, there it was—a small, pulsing, vulnerable ball of dim red light. It mewled in the darkness that followed, calling for help but not expecting it.
I crawled through the wasteland we had created towards the only point of light. Its cries raked over my nerves, dragging sympathetic tears from my eye sockets. The going was so slow, every movement of my body a Herculean effort.
This place isn’t real. Physics and reality don’t exist. Brandon’s words came back to me, echoing in my head. If it wasn’t real, why did it hurt so much?
Fine, I thought, bring me that light.
It rushed towards me, slamming into my chest and leaving me spread eagled in the dust. I took one shuddering breath, then another, then I felt the glow.
ET had nothing on me. I peered down at my chest and saw the glow get brighter and brighter until it flared suddenly, and I was forced to close my eyes, putting my arm over them to block the glare.
“I trusted you…”
I jerked my arm down to see the space has transformed again. Now, it was a soft grey that was soothing and desolate by turns. It made the two men stand out all the more, even though they would always draw my eye. I noted their stances, Aaron leaning toward Brandon, and the other man standing stiff and straight.
"I…we thought you had Jules' best interests at heart. We thought you wanted to keep her safe. We thought you loved her."
"I…" Brandon let his voice trail away. His eyes dropped to the ground, and I saw his shoulders slump. I wanted to go over, cheer him up out of this mood, and make everything better, but I couldn't. In some ways, Slade was right—if this was our pack and the only thing that kept us together was my meddling, then we would never make it. We had to sort this out, and we had to decide to make it work.
"I do," Brandon said finally, jerking his head up. "That's the thing that none of you seem to get. With the information I had, I could have replaced the lot of you. I could've gotten on side with Jules early, steered her towards guys who would be easier to manipulate, who'd do exactly what I wanted, but I didn't. I loved her, before you even knew who she was, before you'd even considered taking a mate. I loved her, and did my damnedest to use the information I had to make sure she succeeded."
He scuffed the dirt with his boot and then straightened.
"I was the one that drove her back when she ran. I made sure the right antibiotics had been ordered when I brought her home. There were other black wolves that could have come through that night, they were supposed to, but I stuffed around with the rosters and made sure there were extra soldiers on deck. I helped Finn find her on her first mating hunt. I made sure you knew about the choosing hall."
"And what about me?" Aaron said, taking a step towards him. "What did you see of me?"
Brandon shook his head, forcing a smile, but it looked desolate.
"I saw us, both with and without Jules, and I was selfish enough that I wanted her at the centre of things." Aaron was obviously stunned by this. "Sometimes we were in a relationship when she came, and we ended up becoming her gay best friends. We were happy together." Brandon's eyes grew unfocused as he seemed to re-experience something we couldn't see. “Sometimes one or the other of us were in her pack, but it was always when the two of us were together that things went best. You're calm and grounded, stopping her and the others she's collected from going too far, and I help her keep everyone on track, until now." Brandon sighed, raking his hand through his hair. “I’m just as invested in all of your relationships with Jules as you are. I know exactly how important you are to her, and you all treat me like I’m some piece of shit you trod in.”
Aaron flinched, wavering slightly on his feet, then his eyes flicked up to scour Brandon’s form, as if committing to memory every aspect of his body. That seemed to tug him forward, his steps eating up the space between him and Brandon, and for the first time, neither man looked at me as one jerked the other into his arms. Aaron’s mouth was on Brandon’s, the smaller man’s hands flying up in the air in surprise before slowly, cautiously going around the other man’s back.
There’s a curious pleasure that comes from seeing two of your partners reunite. Tears welled in my eyes as I watched Aaron groan the moment Brandon’s hand landed, obviously getting what the other man was feeling down the bond. They were so fucking beautiful together as Aaron was the aggressor for once, his fingers raking through the other man’s hair, his tongue halfway down Brandon’s throat. I watched their muscles flex and smooth as they seemed to fight to get closer, like they didn’t want anything between them.
Including me. That was the curious part. A selfish part of me stung to see them unload on each other so thoroughly, even though I was the one trying to get them to talk to each other. I took a long shuddering breath through the feeling and just let it go. Going into this practice, I’d felt sure of the relationships between all three of us, and now I wasn’t so sure. That was the problem with Brandon, he introduced uncertainty where we didn’t want it.
Or did he? Part of me felt guilty for potentially keeping the two men apart, but I hadn’t, had I? Brandon had made his choice. I’d checked in with both of them several times to see what they wanted to do, relationship-wise, and keeping it an occasional sexual thing rather than an emotional thing was what they both stressed that they wanted. But perhaps not now.
I wasn’t totally sure how to get out of this inner space, but I started to feel around for a way to do so, to leave the two of them to it and give them the time to sort whatever this was together.
“No.”
All of a sudden, the two of them were right next to me, one arm around each other but their other held open for me to step within.
“Look, I think you need—” I started.
“I know what I need,” Aaron said, hooking me about the waist and making me the meat in a very nice sandwich.
“You’re exactly what we need,” Brandon said, nuzzling the back of my neck.
“We’re exactly what we need,” Aaron corrected.
