Page 33 of Blood Loss (The Obscura Saga #2)
K Y LO
“You’re sure you have everything?” Kylo hollers as he stands by the front door, ready to go with his rolling suitcase and his backpack slung over his shoulder. “ID, underwear, toothbrush…SUNSCREEN?”
Lathan ties his grey plaid scarf around his neck, bubbling his hair above it like a jellyfish. “It’s December,” he reminds Kylo, joining him at the entryway of their apartment. The wolf’s concerned puppy eyes make him sigh. “It was the first thing I packed.”
“Good,” he says with a satisfied smile, and then glances over the apartment. “Stove is off, lights are off, thermostat is lowered for while we’re away… I think we’re good to go?”
Lathan reaches for Kylo’s olive beanie, tucking some flyaway curls underneath the knitted hat, smiling softly at his worry. “Everything’s fine. We can go.”
“If you say so.” He smiles bashfully, giving Lathan a quick peck on the cheek before flicking the entry light off as they walk out the door. Together, they wheel their luggage to the elevator and travel down to the lobby of their building .
Maria’s been hounding the boys every day since the beginning of the month to come down and stay with them for the holidays. One of Lathan’s final exams was just yesterday, almost two weeks into December, though. He tried to convince Kylo to go first, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave him behind, even if only for a few days.
The last time he was there, his whole world fell apart. He flatlined.
So he’s scared. Of being triggered. Of things going awry again.
They follow the shovelled pathway to the bus loop, dragging their rolling bags behind them. It’s snowing lightly—or the breeze is picking up the light dusting of white along the trees and fences. As they get closer to the bus shack, Kylo’s gloved hand squeezes Lathan’s tighter.
A bus pulls out of the loop, leaving behind a handful of students with shopping bags or backpacks, coming back from Ridley with groceries or gifts for Yule. One of those figures—now heading straight for them down the path—is Jake. And Kylo smells him the moment the wind blows their way.
Jake is typing on his phone when he stops abruptly in their path, about ten metres ahead. He slowly looks up with a sneer.
This time, Kylo doesn’t react. He just takes a deep breath of cool air—letting it roll out and fog up in his face—and they continue to walk, seemingly approaching the werewolf ahead of them, the wheels of their luggage carving lines in the icy sidewalk in their wake.
Jake shakes his head; his eyes fixate on the hand-holding of the two men. “Still can’t believe you mated a fuckin’ bloodsucker,” he murmurs, phone still in his hand, but clearly the sight before him is more interesting.
The comment makes Kylo’s teeth grind, his grip on Lathan’s hand tightening. But looking up at his mate—the man that means so much to him, the man that’s stood by him through everything—he relaxes.
Jake doesn’t get to define what we are.
When they’re almost face-to-face, the jock pipes up again, not getting the reaction he wanted. “I pity you, ya know. You’ll never know what it’s like to be mated to a wolf.”
He’s aggravated, but more than that, he’s quite obviously jealous. Jealous of what Kylo and Lathan have. Which makes Kylo smile minutely, because he’s so proud of what they’ve built together.
Passing Jake without a word of acknowledgement seems to drive him up the wall, causing him to yell after them, “I could’ve been your Alpha!”
The final call of desperation makes Lathan look at him over his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, but he smirks, winking at the jealous wolf. Kylo just smiles at his mate, the man his biology chose. He doesn’t need Lathan to be a werewolf. Because he’s the Alpha here.
As they pull away in their bus, Jake is still watching, as if still waiting for a reaction—or for Kylo to ‘snap out of it’ and run to him instead. Yet, as the scenery changes—rolling out of the Obscura gates and into the snow-dusted California landscape—it feels as if a chapter in their life has officially closed. Although, it may have closed that fateful day with Lathan in the hospital, or maybe on one of their long nights adjusting to routine, or maybe it was on Lathan’s birthday, when love surrounded them both so wholly.
Whichever it may be, running into Jake has made it clear just how far they’ve both come. Together .
◆◆◆
Screeching to a halt in front of the departure terminal, Kylo gives Lathan a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing hold of his suitcase handle—which his backpack is securely strapped onto—and standing to leave the shuttle.
Hopping down the stairs onto the concrete, the sun is just starting to shimmer through the clouds. Kylo stops to take a deep breath of fresh air after the long ride, but instead his heart jumps to his throat and blocks it. The familiar stench of skunk wafts from a group of young people chatting outside. The scent is warm and nostalgic, which is exactly why it’s terrifying .
Shit. It’s just another obstacle, it’ll be okay.
Flicking up the hood of his sweatshirt, he holds his breath and covers his nose with a loose hand, keeping his head down as he walks as fast as possible. It’s embarrassing to react this way, he doesn’t want to make a scene, and he knows it’s just a bump in their travel plans, but that fact doesn’t make his heart rate any calmer.
“Hey,” Lathan calls, catching up to him. One hand on his luggage handle, he takes the other from his coat pocket and touches Kylo’s arm. “You feeling sick?”
“No, no. I’m fine. The smell.” He nods his head toward the door, lowering his hand to wave it off like it’s nothing and then pulls back his hood.
Lathan squints at him. “The smell?” He looks back at the door, and then his face relaxes. “Oh.”
Even though Kylo’s addiction was to a different substance, his dependency was on any high he could experience: stardust, marijuana, venom. It’s easy to avoid them in the bubble they’ve created, but, in the outside world, he can’t anticipate what others do.
Lathan offers his partner a sympathetic smile. “Let’s get away from the doors, then, hm?”
Walking further into the airport, they find themselves in front of a screen where they check themselves in digitally. Boarding passes in hand and luggage tags now attached to their suitcases, they drop off their belongings on the conveyor belt and join the Ether territories security line—the gates for entering Society reside in the opposite wing of the building.
Lathan looks over to the shorter crowd coming from and going to Society, and Kylo’s eyes follow. Lathan was part of that crowd once, when he came from Vancouver to attend Obscura. His mate can be back in that line in mere months, if he chooses—once graduated and certified to join humans as an adult. They haven’t discussed the future yet. What they’ll do. Where they’ll go. And maybe he isn’t ready to yet. But they will because they’re in this together.
Thankfully, they get through security without a hitch, managing to bypass any spontaneous pat-downs. Looking down at his ticket, Kylo thinks aloud as they walk down the hall to the left. “Okay, so . We’re at gate twelve, and we’ve got about thirty minutes before boarding.” He looks up at him with a brighter expression than before. “Do you wanna get a coffee or something?”
Lathan rubs one of his tired eyes with his knuckles. “Mm.” He nods; while his sleep habits have gotten better over the months, they aren’t perfect, and neither of them got much sleep last night thanks to their anxieties about going back to Arizona. “Yeah. Coffee sounds good.”
They venture to put eyes on their gate, and then backtrack to the quaint coffee booth they noted as they walked by. Lathan orders their drinks and they step aside to wait for them. Across the hall is a wine stand, for people to taste local brews, and a shop behind it for last minute gifts.
Two girls find their way into the coffee bar line. One’s already clutching a foam cup. “Why would you want coffee right now? There’s wine right there .”
“To sober up. If they see I’m already drunk on the plane, they won’t serve me any drinks.”
“Then just don’t act drunk,” the girl with the cup says, backing away from her friend. They giggle and snort at each other, until the girl whirls around right into Kylo. Her drink splashes onto him, staining the front of his shirt a deep plum red.
“Ah, shit.” She licks the side of her cup to collect the remaining drops of wine.
Kylo’s entire body goes rigid, as if he’s a cardboard cutout of himself—that is, until he starts to tremble with a look of panic in his eyes.
First Jake, then the smell of pot, now this —red wine seeped into his ivory hoodie, reeking of strong, dry liquor for the average nose, but for Kylo, it’s like sniffing rubbing alcohol.
Memories of parties come flooding to him. Of being so drunk he couldn’t walk. Of being hammered every night he spent with Jake. Of drinking while smoking. Of that fateful day he bought stardust. Every substance he’s ever abused began when he was a teenager— drinking .
His breathing turns rapid and he grips the fabric against his chest. “Get it off,” he utters under his breath, starting to claw at his hoodie. “Lathan, get it off me,” he gasps, choking on the words, his blood rushing through his veins.
“Woah, chill . It was an accident,” the girl scoffs.
“Move along,” Lathan snaps at her, and then turns to Kylo. “Hey. Hey. Look at me.” His hands bracket Kylo’s face. “Do you have a shirt on underneath?”
Kylo’s chin creases with his sad puppy face, shaking his head ‘no’ to the question. He didn’t think he’d need one. “Exposure therapy isn’t what it’s cracked up to be,” he tries to joke, despite his lungs sputtering for air, his body in protest of the whole situation.
“Come on,” Lathan says, dropping his hands to place one on Kylo’s back as he ushers him away from the drunk girls and their pending beverages. Just around the corner is the busy men’s bathroom, with passengers coming and going. Lathan pushes them past the short line, as they don’t need a stall, and to a far sink. He starts unbuttoning his black shirt as Kylo tries to calm his breathing over the bowl of the sink.
Kylo ignores the stares of the men around them, ignores his own stare in the mirror. He focuses on the cool, smooth granite sink and breathing in for four and out for four—which is significantly harder to do when each inhale singes with one of the things he’s been avoiding since September.
“Why me? Could’ve been the floor, or her own fuckin’ shirt, but no. Spill on the addict ,” he grumbles quietly, slowly calming down.
“Take off your hoodie.” Lathan shrugs his shirt off his shoulders, tugging the sleeves past his wrists, and holds the fabric out to the man complaining to himself in the mirror. He still has on a white tank for under his jacket.
Without question, Kylo whips off the stained article as quickly as possible, stripping in front of both business men and Obscura students alike. Holding it out at arm’s length, he swaps it with Lathan’s shirt. It’s too large for him, but he fills it out more than he would have this summer.
Lathan folds the hoodie so the wine stain is hidden, then crosses the bathroom to shove it into the garbage bin.
Kylo follows close behind with a lightened load off his shoulders. Once out of the rest room, he sighs heavily, shaking his head in shame. “Thanks, baby. I don’t know why, but I just froze. Like my brain saw the liquor—after the pot at the door—and just malfunctioned . Shut down.”
“Because you weren’t prepared for it.” Lathan slips back into his jacket, fixes his scarf, and pulls his long hair over one shoulder. He looks at Kylo and touches under his chin, seeing the shame on his face.
“I’m not prepared for Arizona, you know,” he says, an attempt at comforting him, equalling them out.
Lathan smiles crookedly and looks down. And Kylo gets it. How hard it’s going to be, being in that house again. They won’t be able to go upstairs, so if they aren’t staying in the guest house again, if it’s given to Kianna and her little family, they’ll have to get a hotel room. Seeing that bedroom…he knows it’ll send them both into a mental frenzy. But, unlike himself, Lathan’s weapon of choice is always equipped, always on him. He’s been free of self-harming for two months, having slipped a few times after the hospital, but Kylo knows he still doesn’t fully trust himself. An d there’s a lot that could trigger him being back there.
Kylo nods, scanning the kindness in his eyes. “I know,” he breathes, “it’ll be hard, but it’ll be good. And I know a certain little someone that’ll be very excited to see you.”
Maria, David, Lucas, Kianna, Bruce, and of course little Mateo are waiting for them. It’s not Lathan and Kylo’s first Yule together, but it’s their first Yule together with family. As family. And in three days, they’ll officially be one year mated.
Which is why Kylo knows this is the right time.