Page 16

Psychopaths And Goats

There were a few unread messages on her phone when she woke up the next morning, stretching out her aching body and groaning in protest as she held the screen over her face.

Her bed was empty, but she could smell Gabriel all over it.

Which … was a little confusing because his scent generally smelled a lot like clean linen, and they had definitely ensured her linen was no longer clean.

She squinted at the time before tapping into the first message.

Gabriel: Don’t let last night fool you into thinking I’m letting you off for that comment.

She felt a stupid smile spreading over her face. She clicked into the group chat next. The unread messages started at some point during the night.

Elijah: We need to invest in better soundproofing.

Oscar: The fuck? Aren’t you in there ?

Elijah: I stepped out.

Oscar: I don’t understand.

Elijah: Gave them some privacy.

Oscar: I don’t get it.

Elijah: He deserved his first time with his mate to not be with a spectator.

Oscar: YEAH, WE ALL DESERVED THAT.

Kilian: Why are we shouting in the group chat?

Elijah: There’s no good reason.

There seemed to be a break in the conversation before it picked back up half an hour ago. Isobel worried her lip, wondering if they had slept at all.

Elijah tossed his phone to the counter, ignoring the itch of exhaustion that crawled just beneath his skin as he started the coffee machine.

“Not going to the dining hall?” Niko asked, his voice still sleep roughened.

He slumped at the counter facing Elijah, frowning at his phone as the others likely continued to bicker in the group chat.

“Couldn’t sleep in with this fucking thing going off,” he explained—though Elijah hadn’t asked anything—before setting the phone down.

Elijah nodded, too tired to muster up a response, though it seemed Niko was also too tired to want an answer. Elijah made an extra-hot Americano and poured it into a takeaway cup, moving to the doorway as footsteps thudded down the staircase.

“Here,” he said as Gabriel came into sight. “I accidentally made mine too hot.”

Gabriel took the coffee with a mumbled “Thanks” before hurrying out the door, his head down. Niko had swivelled on his stool to watch the exchange. His brows pinched together, his lips rolling in. There was a question brewing inside him, but he didn’t ask it.

Elijah returned to the kitchen, leaning against the bench beside the coffee machine and folding his arms loosely over his chest as they glanced at each other.

Instead of asking how Elijah had managed to perfectly time Gabriel’s passing the kitchen and why he had forced a coffee on the other man, Niko settled on a camera-friendly question.

“Where’s he off to?”

“He wanted to train early this morning,” Elijah responded, cleaning up the coffee machine. The minute the cleaning crew finishes, before anyone else has a chance to use the gym.

Gabriel didn’t have unlimited tolerance.

Opening up to Isobel didn’t magically create a brand-new cupboard of tolerance in his mind that he could draw from.

Getting physically close to Isobel didn’t come from a sudden, new ability to withstand intimacy.

Gabriel was drawing on his main reserves and leaving less for anyone else and himself .

He wouldn’t eat or drink at the dining hall today because he wouldn’t be able to beat his intrusive thoughts over whether the crockery was clean and the food was untainted.

He would bend and twist his entire schedule to avoid as many people as possible, and he would wash himself obsessively.

He would flinch at sounds and explode if anyone came too close to him.

Niko lifted his head again, staring after where Gabriel had disappeared, and Elijah wondered if he had come to the same conclusion as Elijah: that Gabriel might be glad for the first time in years that Isobel had more than one mate.

Not just because they would be there for her when he was overstimulated and depleted, but because they would also be there for him .

He wouldn’t be thankful in the moment—he wouldn’t realise much of anything in the moment.

Not until he had managed to rest and recover his body and mind, but the lightbulb would switch on later.

“I’m going to get ready.” Elijah pushed away from the counter and raised his brows at Niko, who subtly nodded in return.

The dark-haired Alpha seemed to understand exactly what was going on.

Elijah took the stairs two at a time, knocking once on Isobel’s door before entering.

She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her big bed, dwarfed by the giant canopy, the sheets twisted and tangled all around her, her hair tumbling like a pale gold cloud about her shoulders to tickle her waist and hips. It was getting so long.

Not for the first time, he wondered if she had been refusing to let anyone cut it since the incident with Eve.

She glanced up from her phone, meeting his eyes with a little bit of shock. Her phone tumbled from her hands, and she dug her teeth into her lower lip, a light flush of colour spreading from her chest to her neck.

“Sorry about last?—”

“No need,” he cut her off.

They both fell into silence again, staring at each other.

“He …” She swallowed, her hands nervously clutching her knees. “He asked me …” She laughed nervously, a little flash of panic racing through her multihued eyes.

“Oh, did he?” Elijah was surprised.

Her lips pushed into a little pout, like she was confused about how he could have possibly known what she was about to say.

“Do you have two boyfriends now, Carter?” He deliberately softened his voice, though there was something ragged inside his chest.

He had just needed to see her face and soothe that flex of urgency inside him that had remained ever since Gabriel had asked him to leave the room the night before.

He had just needed to reassure the bond that his mate was okay, that whatever had caused her so much terror the night before had been properly dealt with.

And maybe he needed to check that his girlfriend was okay too.

He hadn’t intended to have this conversation, and now he was worried that they were having it too soon. He needed time to fight down his jealousy and talk himself into a reasonable response … if that was even possible.

She jerked her chin in a quick, hesitant nod, examining him closely. Fuck , she could feel it. That ragged thing inside him.

“I’m still your girlfriend too,” she whispered. “If that’s still okay?”

Their entire group had approached the bond the same way right from the start: It dictated nothing.

They were technically mates, but that didn’t imply ownership or grant intimacy.

They belonged to each other only if and when they each decided that for themselves.

They were intimate only if and when they each decided that was what they were ready for, just like any other normal relationship.

So she was nervous that she had agreed to be the girlfriend of two men, and he was fucking jealous and angry.

Not because he owned her, but because he wanted Gabriel and Isobel to be happy even more than he wanted himself to be happy.

If he laid this out like an equation, then Gabriel plus Isobel plus him just made sense. It should equal happiness.

But it didn’t.

It made him want to tear his skin off.

It made him want to punch his best friend in the face and then continue punching until he felt better.

It made him want to steal her away from the others and pour his scent and essence into her body until all other factors had been brutally wiped from the equation, and it was as simple as him plus her.

A foregone conclusion. There would be no other claim on her skin, no other words in her heart. Only him and his.

He let out a ragged breath. “Of course.”

She tilted her head at him, wrapping her arms around her legs and hugging her knees up to her chest. Her ankles were crossed, covering her modesty, but the oversized shirt she wore was hiked up over one of her hips, so he could tell she wasn’t wearing underwear.

Really, he should be grateful she was wearing anything at all, but his attention drifted back to her hip again, his fingers twitching.

It was getting harder not to push their relationship into the next stage, but he was terrified that everything would fall apart if he did.

If he claimed her any more than he already had, he would lose his mind over the thought of her with anyone else.

He might go feral. He might traumatise her the same way Oscar did, or worse .

“You said not to apologise, but …” She peeked at him with sleepy, weary eyes. “I feel like I need to.”

“I meant it,” he reassured her, inwardly cringing at how stiff and emotionless his voice sounded. “Did he make you happy?”

The soft, hesitant smile that curved her pink lips halted his breath and flooded his chest with warmth. She ducked her head, hiding it in her knees.

“Yes.” The word was muffled against her skin.

Their bond hummed with gentle, fuzzy satisfaction, and he tasted it curiously, drawn toward her. He sat on the edge of the bed, which was saturated in their combined scents.

He waited for the surge of fury, but it was impossible when he could feel how happy she was.

“I can’t be mad at anything that makes you smile like that,” he admitted.

She pulled her head up slowly, her smile widening, eyes brightening, but it didn’t last. After a moment of thought, her expression crumpled. “I know what you were feeling.”

It was rare for her to call any of them out on their bullshit like that.

She usually pretended she couldn’t read their negative emotions out of consideration, just like they mostly pretended they couldn’t feel almost every major emotion that passed through her.

They gave each other at least the illusion of privacy.