Page 37 of Darkness Echoes (Echoes of Eternity #1)

There’s another groan, and then Grayson’s voice comes over the open line, all casual-like. “Hey, Angel. Are you coming home soon?”

“Gray, what did you do to Rowan?”

“ Beeeeep . Rowan can’t come to the phone right now, please try again later.” He chuckles darkly, sending a shiver of desire down Nix’s spine. “You’re okay, though?”

“I’m good. We’re coming now.”

“You’ll be the only ones coming for at least the next twenty minutes, isn’t that right, Rowan? No. Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he drawls breathlessly.

Mouth full? Of Grayson?

There’s another groan from Rowan, and Nix moans in response. What is Grayson doing with Rowan?

“Hurry home. Love you.”

Suddenly, the line disconnects, and all Nix wants to do is be at home ten minutes ago—home with his mates, being loved within an inch of his life, being reminded that he is happy. Happy in a way he couldn’t ever dream when he’d last been in this house.

He wishes his Mom could see him now.

“Mom?” he whispers for the first time in so many years he’s lost count. He knows she’s not in the house—hopes she’s not stuck here waiting for him. But maybe, wherever she is, she can hear him.

“I’m happy. So happy, and I’ll be back…er…I miss you.”

“Kitten? You ready to head back?” Gideon asks from the archway, yellow folder in hand.

“Yeah. I’m good…Or I will be. ”

They lock up the house and make their way down the path, past the marigolds glowing in the morning sun, their soft faces turned up to catch as much warmth as they can before night falls again.

“Those were my mom’s favorite flowers, you know? She said that they look like little happy faces.”

“They symbolize purity, divinity, and the circle of life,” Gideon says, plucking a bloom that was hanging down over the last step.

“Your neighbor says this is the first year she’s planted anything here.

Her husband bought too many flats of flowers this year, and she always remembered your mother liking them, so she put the rest of them along here and in the garden. ”

“For real?”

In the past, he might have had a hard time believing that it was anything more than a coincidence, but he’s a pregnant man with nine glowing bonds. So thinking that maybe Mr. Stavros bought extra so Nix could come home to a beautifully vibrant welcome—well, that’s nothing in comparison, is it?

“I should thank her. She’s taken care of all of this for me for a long time.”

They step out onto the sidewalk, and Nix takes a last look at his parents’—his—house, looping his arm with Gideon’s as they head back up the street.

He thinks it’s okay to look back now, when he has a lot to look forward to.

“We should definitely thank her. Maybe Finn can visit with you next time? Meet her daughter. Parents like things like that, don’t they? I’ll come along too, though, just in case she needs to be reminded that Dr. Merritt has a pack.”

Nix laughs at Gideon’s offer. “I think she’ll remember Finn is ours.”

“Hmm. Rowan was on the phone earlier?”

“Yeah. Then Gray.” He feels a bit of heat slither through him at the reminder. He can feel both their bonds glowing in his belly.

“Again? You’ll let me know if you need backup in getting them to back off?”

“They’re not the only ones,” Nix sighs, “but I can handle it.”

To be fair, Nix likes the attention when it isn’t bossy, overbearing, or sneaky. Makes him feel loved, dialing into some deep-seated, ancient, instinctive feeling.

There’s no one waiting at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, much to Nix’s surprise, as he’d expected that would be the absolute farthest Jamie would have allowed them to get from the house.

But the front door is propped open, and the scent of bacon wafts out, luring Nix in by his nose and his appetite.

“You’re back! Thank goodness. Sugar, Gray and Ro are locked in the laundry room, and I wondered…”

Gideon picks his soulmate up, and Nix can only smile as Luca has his I want something but am pretending I don’t face on, loud and clear.

“Mmm? Do you want a kiss? From me? How wonderful. The answer is: yes.” He puckers up and delivers foolishly large kisses to Luca’s cheeks and neck until he squirms.

“No!”

At Gideon’s faux-sad face, he alters his tune. “Well, yes. That’s all very nice, but I was wondering if I could…come.”

“Come? Again? So soon? Maybe they’re done already?”

“Don’t be mean. Please?”

There’s a thump and a growl from the small room off the kitchen, and even Nix has to shiver.

“You can get them to open the door…come on.” Luca drags a smiling Gideon around the corner.

The scent of bacon grows stronger as Jamie pulls two baking sheets from the oven, each holding bacon in various stages of crispness.

Each packmate has their own preference, and none of them are the same.

Gideon usually shrugs it off with a “Fuck it—eat it or don’t,” but Jamie likes everyone to have it just the way they like it.

It’s such a Jamie thing to do, and Nix slips in behind him to press his nose to Jamie’s shoulder.

Rowan was right—the babies are hungry, but he can wait because it feels wrong to eat without Rowan when he’s right here…or there.

“Smells good. Sorry, we took so long.”

Jamie still hasn’t looked at him or said anything, and even though his scent is neutral, Nix feels a tingle in their bond.

“Jamie? Are you upset with me?” Nix is learning to ask for what he wants and what he needs, and right now, what he needs is clear communication.

Jamie sighs, kisses him on the forehead, as he begins transferring the bacon to a serving plate.

Nix can smell covered dishes of eggs and toast on the counter; even the table is set—evidence that Jamie has been awake for a while.

“No. Not with you, never with you.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

The tongs clang when Jamie drops them into the sink, giving him his first look at Jamie’s red eyes when he turns around.

“I’m not upset with you. I am sad that you didn’t wake me up to go with you. You don’t have to explain anything to me, Nix, especially about this. It’s my shit.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation, that’s true. But I want to give it, if it’s okay?”

Nix leans back against the counter and rubs his belly. The girls are awake again, and their wiggles and tickles comfort him.

“I was going to go by myself—” Nix puts a hand up and shakes his head, cutting off the protest he knows is coming.

“No, I know it’s a bad idea. Gideon was already awake, and it was a sign of some sort, I think.”

“A sign?” Jamie asks, skepticism heavy in his voice. He crosses his arms.

The love of his life is, at heart, a logical thinker; he admits to a non-spiritual view of the world, and at one time, not-so-long-ago, Nix would have had to agree.

Nix ignores the suspicion in his tone.

“That I should take Gideon with me and go to the— my house together, rather than alone. I knew it would be a lot for me, and if I had asked, you would have moved heaven and earth to do this with me.”

“Fucking right.”

“But I needed to just feel me in here.” He moves his palm up over his sternum to where Jamie lives every minute of every day, since the dawn of time and until the end of days.

Jamie tilts his head and narrows his eyes, and it reminds Nix of the joke about smelling smoke when someone is thinking.

“You’re saying that I would have been sad, and sad for you; and that all of that would have made it hard for you to feel the things you needed to feel on your own.”

That was it exactly.

“I love doing this life with you, and it will never be too much to have you here.” Nix points to his chest.

“You’ve always been there, you know? But this time, it was going to be so hard. I didn’t want to wait for it to get any harder, and suddenly I was here in the kitchen.”

“I do understand. I do, and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what? Loving me? Wanting to shield me from the hardest things? Wearing socks to bed? No. There is no reason to be sorry about anything. Except maybe that last one.”

“Ha-fucking-ha. I’m serious,” he mutters with a smile.

“Yeah, well, so am I. Socks to bed is weird. I will die on that hill.”

“No. Absolutely no dying. We have talked about the impact that would have on the world’s well-being at least three times.”

So very, very bad, if Nix remembers correctly.

He flies into Jamie’s arms and rubs his face over his mating bite, biting him gently through the fabric of his black T-shirt.

“No dying, check. But I am serious. I am sorry if my not talking to you about it before I left hurt you. I know you have your own memories and stuff you’re dealing with while we’re here.”

“Don’t remind me.” Jamie kisses his cheek repeatedly, rubbing his early morning scruff against Nix’s smooth jaw and chin.

“We aren’t going to worry about them…unless you want to?”

“Fuck, no. They’re part of the past, and I am here with you, despite their shit. I’m not going to make this harder than it needs to be by involving my parents in something that doesn’t affect them at all. ”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Finn says from his spot on the couch.

“Have you been lurking there the whole time?” Jamie asks.

“I have been lying here the whole time. Am I invisible? No.”

“What’s with the cryptic foreshadowing?” Leo asks when he sits up on the other end of the sectional.

Nix laughs. “You’re here, too?”

“I, too, am not invisible. You guys only had eyes for each other. Don’t put your lack of observation on me and my bae .”

“No. No bae .” Finn shakes his head. “You know that means shit in Danish.”

Nix throws himself over the back of the couch with a whoop , taking the chance that everyone will get their soft spots out of his way.

Leo’s muttered oof! means he was not feeling so lucky.

“What were you saying, Finn? Nix, watch the knees, please. Our future children depend on your care.”

Nix would like that…a Boo-Boo-Bébé. Maybe next time.

Finn stands up with the encrypted tablet and meets Jamie halfway.

“Look. I was finishing the research I started on the plane.”

“The stuff about my parents?” Jamie asks, accepting the tablet. “Holy shit.”

The door to the laundry room opens then, and Gideon hauls a lax Luca over his shoulder, while Rowan carries a grinning Grayson on his back.

Does no one walk anywhere in this pack? Nix bites back a laugh at his mental hypocrisy.

“I am tired of the ‘holy shits,’ Jay Rhodes.”

“I dare say so, Gideon. The shits are terrible.”

“Ew, Ro,” Grayson says, pulling his ride’s ear.

“What is it, Jamie?”

“My parents are being indicted for money laundering and tax fraud.”

Holy shit is right.

“Over ten years of tax fraud, according to the article, from an anonymous tip-off late last year, and then they discovered the money laundering.”

“Whoa. Late last year? That’s an enormous coincidence,” Rowan says, dumping Grayson on the couch beside Nix before heading into the kitchen.

Thank goodness, because Nix could eat enough for an army .

“Down, please,” Luca says from his upside-down position over Gideon’s shoulder, before smacking his ass with both hands. “Down. I need bacon to regain my depleted strength.”

It draws Nix’s attention to Gideon. There, on his handsome face, is what can only be called the smuggest of grins.

Gideon, what did you do?