Page 7

Chapter seven

K eegan held his breath as he stepped into Noah’s apartment on the seventy-fifth floor of the Tower.

He didn’t know why he had come, and part of him already regretted asking Rune to bring him, but he needed to see it.

Despite a lack of lamps or light fixtures, a pale glow illuminated the room, glinting off the white walls and gleaming over the appliances in the kitchen.

A half-empty glass of water still sat on the countertop near the fridge, along with a small saucer dusted in crumbs.

Rune hung back, letting him explore the area at his own pace, but he wore an odd little smile.

Almost like he was…pleased.

“What is it?”

In answer, Rune motioned toward the water glass, then to a black hooded sweatshirt draped over the back of the sofa.

“When a soul crosses the river or gets erased, the units reset themselves.”

Noah’s apartment looked like he had merely stepped out to run an errand, and the place was just waiting for him to return.

“So, he’s still alive?” He waved a hand and shook his head.

“You know what I mean.”

“I can’t say for sure, but it’s a good sign.”

Gripping the edge of the counter, Keegan closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

Noah was still out there, trapped but existing, probably cursing him for getting them into this mess.

It might not seem like much, but it was something, the tiny thread of hope he’d needed to keep going, to keep trying.

Traveling deeper into the apartment, he paused behind the beige sofa, his fingers dancing over the soft cotton of the hoodie.

Not really Noah’s style, and furthermore, it looked too big to fit his brother’s narrow frame.

“Are you sure this is his apartment?” he asked over his shoulder.

Rune nodded confidently.

“Yeah, why?”

Turning, he held the sweater up in front of him by the shoulders to give a visual comparison to his own body.

The fabric absolutely dwarfed him.

“Do you know if he was seeing someone?”

“Uh, no one person in particular,” Rune hedged, suddenly fascinated by a narrow, vertical shelf of cubbies filled with an odd assortment of knickknacks and baubles.

Keegan rolled his eyes and tossed the hoodie back onto the couch.

“If you’re trying to spare my feelings, don’t bother. I am well aware of my brother’s…extracurriculars.” His mate’s continued evasion, however, made him suspicious.

“Wait a minute. Did you…?”

Rune finally turned and met his gaze.

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never,” he answered, a note of finality in his voice.

Keegan believed him, but he couldn’t resist the urge to poke.

“But you thought he was cute.”

“Not my type. Hideous, in fact.”

“You think I’m hideous?” He choked back his laughter as he winged both eyebrows toward his hairline.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

“But not Noah?”

“Hideous,” Rune repeated.

Keegan barked out a laugh.

“Sir, we are literally identical.”

Dropping the facade, Rune chuckled as he placed Keegan’s basket down on the kitchen counter before coming to join him in the living room.

“Not really. It’s subtle, but there are definite differences.”

“Oh?” His mother had always said the same thing.

“Do tell.”

“Your cheeks are softer.” The smile slipped, his expression turning serious as he caressed Keegan’s face with the back of his hand.

“More rounded. Your nose is a little longer.” He drew his fingertip along the bridge.

“And your mouth is fuller,” he concluded, smoothing the pad of his thumb over Keegan’s bottom lip.

Keegan’s breath caught, and tension coiled in his stomach as sparks of electricity ricocheted up and down his spine.

“You smell different too.” Hooking a finger in the collar of his shirt, Rune pulled him closer, bending to skim his nose up the side of Keegan’s throat.

“I love the way you smell.” His voice was quiet, husky, with the barest suggestion of a growl.

“Sweet like honeysuckle, but also a little untamed. Like the scent on the air right before a thunderstorm.”

Fisting his hands at his side, Keegan closed his eyes, swaying into his mate as his body responded to Rune’s nearness.

His heart and mind, however, swirled with conflicting thoughts and emotions, triggered by that one little word.

Love.

He understood familial love, platonic love, but he had never experienced the state of being in love.

Oh, he’d read about it.

He’d heard other people describe it.

Media made it sound like a fairy tale.

Friends talked about it with giddiness, as if it didn’t come with a whole host of side effects, like insecurity, uncertainty, and nearly paralyzing fear.

While he agreed the descent had been effortless, the act itself was fucking terrifying.

Was he enough? Too much?

Did Rune feel the same way?

Even though he resided in the Underworld, Rune was still alive, meaning he had options Keegan didn’t.

What happened if he grew tired of the gloom and decided to return to his life topside?

He had said Keegan belonged to him.

Not temporarily, not just until they rescued Noah, but indelibly.

Yet, he hadn’t claimed him.

In fact, they hadn’t even discussed that being a possibility.

Keegan sensed more than saw the shift in his mate, the tension that bled through his muscles as he straightened.

He couldn’t say the response was entirely unexpected either.

Rune might not be able to read his mind, but he didn’t need to, not when he could hear the frantic beat of Keegan’s heart and smell the anxiety pouring off him.

“What’s wrong, kaelaer ?”

He could give him the pretty version.

The grown-up response filled with shiny words and emotional maturity.

It wouldn’t be authentic, though, and they’d both know it.

So, he took a deep breath and blurted out the crux of the problem, the true core from which everything else stemmed.

“I love you, and I’m scared you don’t love me back.”

Rune growled, the sound resonating throughout the room, and the muscles in his jaw and neck swelled with tension.

His nostrils flared, his lips pressed together, and his irises glowed with the same golden light that manifested when he had strong feelings about something.

“Before I answer,” he said, his voice too calm, too steady, “I want to know why you feel that way.”

Nothing about their relationship had taught him to expect instant reassurance or validation, so he didn’t know why he had assumed this time would be different.

On the other hand, he had also learned there was always a lesson to be gleaned, even if he didn’t understand it right away.

Still, feeling something and explaining why he felt it were two entirely separate beasts.

Emotions tended to be messy, illogical, and not always based in facts.

Which, he realized, was probably the point Rune wanted to make.

When he examined it objectively, he couldn’t point to anything that Rune had done to make him feel uncertain.

From the moment they’d met, the Guardian had been attentive, affectionate, and committed.

Sure, Rune challenged him, but in ways that made him better, stronger.

He showed up consistently, and he always made Keegan feel special, even in the little things, like giving him first dibs on the shower.

Rune called him kaelaer .

Not something generic, like sweetheart, baby, or darling.

Not something sentimental, like treasure or star.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, he had chosen an endearment both meaningful and lovingly irreverent.

Little chaos.

As a man who valued order, being paired with a mate who broke out in hives at the very mention of a schedule couldn’t be easy.

But Rune hadn’t tried to change him.

He’d embraced it and found a way to make their differences work for them, not against them.

Which, once again, brought him full circle to the heart of his insecurities.

“Why haven’t you claimed me?”

This time, the answer came immediately, but it wasn’t what he had expected.

“Because that’s not my choice to make.”

“I…but…” His brain malfunctioned, short-circuiting as it tried to rewrite its own narrative.

While he had never rejected the idea of bonding with Rune, he’d also never given any indication that it was something he wanted.

In reality, he had simply been too scared to ask for it, too afraid of rejection, but he couldn’t blame his mate for that.

It also answered another question he’d been struggling with, even if he hadn’t been able to put it into words.

He did have a choice.

He had agency. Fate had brought them together, but they weren’t beholden to it.

“It’s my choice,” he murmured.

“That’s right, kaelaer .” Rune’s shoulders visibly relaxed, and a smile curved his lips.

“It always has been.”

Stepping forward, closing the distance between them, Keegan took his mate’s hands and shook his head.

“Not just mine. It’s our choice.”

“And I will always choose you.”

The dam broke open, flooding him with emotions and causing his voice to tremble under the weight of them.

“And I choose us. Not for right now.” He glanced up at his mate and smirked.

“Not for a little while. But forever.”

“You are mine, Keegan Marsh.” A noise somewhere between a growl and a purr rolled in his chest as he palmed the back of Keegan’s neck and pulled him closer.

“Don’t ever doubt that.”

How could he when Rune proved it every day in all the ways that mattered?

“Then show me.”

“Gods, I love you.”

The words burst from his lips, quiet and shaky, restraint alone no longer enough to hold them back.

Then he slanted their mouths together, dragging Keegan into a hard kiss filled with equal parts desire and desperation.

Capturing Keegan’s face in his big hands, Rune delved between his lips to taste and tease.

Their tongues slid together, gliding and tangling, dancing to an intimate rhythm as his mate traced the recesses of his mouth in minute detail.

Rune leaned into him, forcing him back a step, then another, guiding him across the room.

A soft breath puffed from Keegan’s lips when he connected with the wall, his shoulders pressed into the hard surface, anchored there by the shifter’s muscular frame.

A knee slipped between his parted thighs, holding him in place and leaving Rune’s hands free to map and explore.

Piece by piece, his mate took him apart as he groped and caressed, eliciting needy moans and deep shudders.

Keegan dropped his head back against the wall when Rune released his mouth to kiss down his neck, leaving a trail of fire and need in his wake.

His heart slammed against his ribs, almost painful in its intensity, and his muscles quivered, taut with expectancy.

Interspersed with ragged moans, his breaths came in shallow gasps, every inhalation searing his lungs.

Rune undressed him slowly, methodically, peeling away the layers that separated them, both literally and metaphorically, leaving Keegan bared and shaking.

Then he divested his own clothing in the same controlled, precise movements, making sure Keegan’s gaze remained fixated on him as he revealed hard muscles wrapped in velvet skin.

Long and thick, his cock jutted proudly from a nest of dark curls, the length pulsating with his heartbeat and the crown glistening wetly in the light.

Muscles flexed and rippled, every hard bulge accentuated by shadowed valleys when he moved.

Gathering Keegan’s wrists in one hand, he stretched his arms over his head and pinned them to the wall.

A strangled groan burst from Keegan’s mouth when he was blanketed in a wall of heat, the sound muffled when Rune attacked his mouth in another darkly possessive kiss.

His mate consumed him, overwhelmed him, leaving him completely undone.

Every touch was purposeful.

Every glide of his tongue designed to ignite.

Every scrape of teeth demanding a response.

Rune didn’t move away, but Keegan felt him shift to the side, his arm stretched and his hand reaching, fumbling for the narrow shelf of cubbies beside them.

Objects toppled over and tumbled to the floor, the sound muted and distant to Keegan’s scrambled brain.

Only the snick of a bottle cap cut through the lusty haze, making his cock throb and his muscles clench in eager anticipation.

A corded arm wrapped around his waist, lifting him from the floor and sliding him up the wall.

With his arms still stretched over his head, he locked his legs around Rune’s waist for balance, his eyes rolling back in his head when his mate’s slick erection slid against his own.

Then Rune’s mouth was on him again, licking and nibbling along the column of his throat as he repositioned them, the thick head of his cock pressing at Keegan’s entrance.

His hips flexed, applying gentle pressure, and Keegan groaned when the tight muscles parted to accept the invasion.

He squeezed his eyes closed, quaking as Rune pushed inside him, feeding the swollen length to his clenching channel.

Pressure built in his balls, and the bite of pain, as his muscles stretched to accommodate the thick shaft, sent a wave of heat washing over him.

“Relax,” Rune murmured against the side of his neck, stilling to give him a moment to adjust. “Let me in, kaelaer .”

Keegan took a couple of shaky breaths and nodded his readiness.

Rune started slow, setting a temperate pace meant to coax rather to incite, every measured glide training Keegan’s body, teaching it what to expect.

As his muscles responded, opening, surrendering, his mate changed the rhythm, increasing both the tempo and the intensity.

Releasing his wrists, Rune wrapped both hands around Keegan’s thighs, gripping them firmly as he pulled him onto his cock with every hard thrust. Keegan dropped his own hands to the male’s shoulders, his fingers grasping and clawing at the sweat-slicked skin.

“Harder.” He reached between them and fisted his cock, jerking himself in tandem with Rune’s forceful thrusts.

“Give me more.”

A deep, sexy growl rolled through the room as his mate hammered into him.

Stripped bare of his restraint, Rune pistoned his hips, pumping harder and faster, pushing Keegan up the wall with every demanding plunge.

Rune’s eyes glowed, the ring of golden light swelling and pulsing, and his canines elongated, the tips visible beneath his upper lip.

Reacting on instinct, responding with total submission, Keegan turned his head and bared his throat in offering.

The Guardian didn’t hesitate.

Closing his mouth around the pulsing vein, he sank his sharp fangs into the delicate flesh with a growl that reverberated through Keegan’s entire body.

There was no real pain, just a pinch, a sting that only increased his pleasure and drove him closer to the precipice.

They continued to rock together when Rune lifted his head, pushing and pulling, each of them chasing something that waited just beyond reach.

Keegan stroked his cock faster, his grip tight and desperate, the pressure building once more as the tension stretched to its limits.

Rune claimed his mouth again, forcing his tongue between Keegan’s parted lips.

It was clumsy and uncoordinated as he continued to drive into him, but every swipe of his tongue carried the distinct taste of copper, of Rune’s very essence.

A scream ripped from Keegan’s throat as a surge of heat and light exploded in his chest. Strong and unbreakable, the threads of fate solidified, binding him and Rune together, their souls merging, joining.

“Mine,” Rune rasped, twisting his hips and slamming into him.

Clinging to his mate, Keegan cried out his name, bucking and writhing as his orgasm tore through him, rolling him beneath a wave of indescribable pleasure.

Translucent ropes of hot seed burst from the end of his cock, spilling over his hand and splashing against Rune’s rippling abs.

Rune cursed and dropped his head to the wall beside Keegan, a near-constant growl vibrating in his chest as he thrust through his own climax, filling Keegan’s depths with his release.

“I think I died,” Keegan muttered a moment later as they held to each other in the afterglow.

“I hate to break it to you, but you’re already dead.”

“Then I think I was just resurrected.”

Rune’s chuckle ended with a groan when his softening cock slipped from Keegan’s body.

“You are ridiculous, and I absolutely adore you.”

He gasped, his head snapping up when Rune’s voice floated into his mind, the tone filled with love and a hint of smugness.

“I heard you in my head.”

His mate smiled.

“I can hear you too.”

“This is weird, but also kind of awesome.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Keegan giggled, giddy with the shininess of new love.

“Are we going to unlock any other superpowers?”

“I highly doubt it.”

He leaned back against the wall and stared into his mate’s eyes, speaking his next words out loud.

“But you don’t know. We should try again.” His cock twitched, swelling with renewed interest. “Right now.”

Growling, Rune leaned into him, covering him as he brought their mouths together.

“Whatever you want, kaelaer .”

Keegan grinned and spread his legs wider, welcoming the shifter into the cradle of his hips.

Oh, he definitely liked the sound of that.