Page 46 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

“I’m not good for them. Fuck, I know you love me. That I’m important to you. We’re fucking fated. But they’re defenseless babies. What if I’m like him and I…ruin them?”

Like he did me.

He doesn’t say it out loud, but Jay can hear it in the quiet words, loud and clear.

Ruin them?

Well, what can Jay say that Leo, Rowan, and most recently, Nix haven’t said? He isn’t trivializing Gideon’s feelings—because Goddess knows Jay worries about the myriad of ways James Rhodes Sr. fucked him up too, and that was even before this week.

But he can show Gideon that he understands where he’s coming from, and do the one thing only he can.

“I won’t let you.”

Gideon freezes.

“Pardon?”

“I said, I won’t let you. Is that what you need to hear?”

Jay shrugs.

“Gideon, love. You’re good. You’ve heard this from everyone who means anything to you, and when we get home, I’m dumping you on Ruthie’s doorstep so you can work this out with a professional. But if you need to hear it from me, your Alpha, then I’ll say it.”

He squeezes once.

“I. Won’t. Let. You. I won’t let you ruin them, or hurt them, or any of the other things those of us with horrible fathers have been worrying about non-stop since October.”

Gideon deflates, landing on the edge of the bed so he can relax into Leo’s waiting arms.

“Promise?”

He sticks his pinky finger out, and Jay doesn’t hesitate to connect them.

“I promise. We’re doing this together, and we’ll help each other.”

“I’ll help too, but if someone else could do the puke? I mean, I’m pretty good at ball sports,” Luca says loudly from the restroom.

He is not , in fact, good at sports.

“You can do the applesauce portion of the parenting, baby,” Finn says, and it’s followed by a giggle and kissing noises.

Gideon lies back and looks at Jay upside down. “They don’t really eat poop, do they?”

Jay shrugs. “One day at a time. It’ll be okay.”

Fuck, he sure hopes it will, because now Jay is worrying about their babies eating shit.

Leo slaps Jay’s bare thigh.

“Stop the spiral. How did we get here? We have help: my parents, Artem, and hey, Beth managed to raise Rowan. She probably knows everything,” Leo says.

“Yeah. Do you think she’ll move in?” Finn asks, pulling Luca into the room after him.

Luca snorts. “Where are we putting her? Come to think of it, where are we putting the girls?”

“I thought we might use the rut room for a nursery for now. Then we can convert the dance and music studios into a kid/family-friendly nest space. You guys are moving into the new Phoenix Records space anyway.” Gideon shrugs at their surprised faces.

“What? There’s a lot of time to think when you’re waiting on drunk fucks to spill the beans about the guy you’re looking to kill.

It’s not like I just asked and they pointed the way, you know? ”

They spend the next hour reimagining the compound so the kids and the expected visitors will have a comfortable place to stay.

Gideon makes grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and by the time their magic-infused mates return from The Guild, they have a pretty good idea of what might work. Jay will talk about it with Grayson when his mate looks less like a chimney sweep.

Windblown and singed around the edges, he still manages to look beautiful and… free.

Jay couldn’t say why, exactly, but the younger man is standing taller. He’s laughing at something Nix said, and when he catches Jay’s eye, he nods.

He means: I’m good.

Nix jumps on the bed; he, too, looks lighter. “Hi, Jamie.” He kisses Jay’s bare shoulder.

For the first time in over a year, he’s spent the whole day naked in bed, and despite their immediate plans, he’s surprisingly relaxed.

“Hi, baby boy. Good day?”

“Mmm. You smell good.” He means Finn, or maybe the grilled cheese.

“Gray, did Ignatius set your ass on fire?” Luca asks, bringing another platter of sandwiches so that they can eat from the middle of the bed.

Nix waits until Rowan slips into the bathroom in his wolf form and the shower finally turns on before grabbing a half and eating it in one bite.

“Nope. You should ask Rowan why I look like a magical fireman.”

Well, that doesn’t bode well at all.

Sighing, Jay puts the half of the sandwich he’d been about to eat back on the platter. He’s not sure he’s going to want a full mouth when he hears this. He prays they don’t have one more interstate incident.

Even Gideon leans against the door jamb, spatula in one hand and the pan in the other. “Just tell us.”

Nix giggles and snatches Jay’s discarded sandwich for himself. “Rowan thought he could get the jump on Aldis.”

“Another magic user?” That didn’t sound right.

“No, it’s Aldis—the phoenix. Ignatius has a phoenix friend. You know, the firebirds?”

Of course, Jay knows the magical birds. There’s the not-so-small matter of his big red tattoo. He’s about to roll his eyes and point at his chest when it hits him.

Oh, please no.

“Wasn’t he in the rafters of Ignatius’ two-story office?” Finn asks incredulously.

“Yes,” Grayson laughs. “I lost track of Ro in the gym during practice, and by the time I figured it out and we’d made it back to the office, he had shifted to get the door open and had used the stairs to get a closer look.”

The restroom door opens, revealing a naked Rowan with a towel around his neck. It’s nice to see him in his person-form.

Jay had been missing his face.

“I wasn’t going to hurt him. He was talking to me, and I just wanted a closer look.” He taps his forehead with a finger.

“So you were naked, standing in the rafters of the centuries-old Guild, talking to a magical bird,” Gideon clarifies.

“Well, yes. When you say it like that, it sounds irresponsible.”

Leo rolls his eyes. “I wonder why.”

“Listen, I was just looking. But then he started smoking.”

“A cigarette?” Luca asks.

“No, like him. He’s a fucking phoenix—just burst into flames, and holy fuck was it hot.”

Jay assumes he doesn’t mean the sexy kind.

“I still don’t understand why Gray looks like a chimney sweep from Mary Poppins ,” Jay says. “Will you please tell me if I have yet another institution that I need to send money to, and if I need Margot to track down a replacement pet phoenix ASAP?”

Where does one find a magical firebird, anyway?

“Aldis is a friend, not a pet, dude. Big faux pas,” Rowan admonishes, as if he hadn’t caused the incident.

“So, turns out Rowan happened to catch Aldis on an immolation day. Ignatius was surprised, too. He said maybe it was Rowan’s magic that encouraged it.

The old guy has been having a harder and harder time getting there on his own, since he’s over a hundred years old,” Nix says conversationally, and lets Rowan feed him a third sandwich in tiny bits, as if he hadn’t eaten two already.

“That was nice of you, Ro,” Gideon says with a mostly-straight face.

“Right? It totally was. I was helping.”

“So he’s standing naked in the rafters, helping Aldis self-immolate and then…” Leo prompts.

“Then he screamed like a little kid, lost his balance, and set his hair on fire, all before slipping from the rafters,” Grayson says blandly.

Jay finally notices that the hair on the side of Rowan’s head is singed, revealing his now pink scalp.

“You fell?” Finn yells, leaping to his feet.

“Yeah, bare-ass-over-tea-kettle. But Gray teleported, caught him, and then teleported back to the ground. In mid-fucking-air.”

Nix claps and bounces, making the platter tilt and dump its cheesy bounty onto the bed linens. “It was so badass. You should have seen the instructors’ faces. Epic.”

He falls back on the bed so he can kick his feet.

With his heart beating heavily in his ears, Jay lets that sink in. His eyes meet Gideon’s, over the heads of his similarly frozen mates.

“Jaybird, let’s get those plans down immediately. I think Beth should come as soon as possible,” his mate says, before he turns to head back into the kitchen.

Definitely.

“Wait.” Jay catches up with the conversation. “Pretty, you teleported?”

Grayson just shrugs, follows Gideon into the kitchen to get another sandwich straight from the pan, and rummages around in the cupboards—probably to avoid any direct questioning about this incredible Talent, or is it an Affinity?

Now that he’s finally full, Nix hands Rowan a sandwich from the now-upright platter and rests his head on Jay’s thigh.

“Yeah. Although he can’t do it through walls or doors. Found that out the hard way.”

“What he means is that Gray tried to teleport through the office doors, and they stopped him cold. It was funny.”

Grayson returns with his sandwich and a bag of chocolate chips under his arm. “Listen, Smoky-the-Were, you’re one to talk.” He mimes screaming and flailing before sitting back on the end of the bed.

“You’re okay, though?” Finn asks, pushing the hair off Grayson’s forehead.

“Yeah. I won’t say it was fun. But I figured I can already get about twenty feet in any direction. Selinde thinks I might increase it with practice.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Jay runs his hand down Grayson’s back.

“You’re feeling good about things? You look lighter.”

And he does—even better now that he’s had some food.

“It’s good. Really good. They helped me.” Grayson hesitates. “Not just with the offensive magic stuff, but with understanding how it’s part of me. That I’m supposed to be using it.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me too. I’m fucking beat, though.”

After that, they take turns in the shower before getting the nest set up and the laundry finished.

Gideon carefully keeps anything he and his “team” will be wearing to confront Carnell out of Jay’s scent’s reach, so as not to tip Carnell off to Jay’s survival.

Luca isn’t happy about it—or about living with the consequences of his actions from the afternoon. Whining and grumbling, until finally Rowan scruffs him by the neck and scents him so hard that the beta settles in a dopey daze.

It’s the early hours of the morning by the time they all quiet down and Gideon checks the locks one last time.

He climbs over Jay and slips in between Finn and Jay, causing the other alpha to grumble.

“My turn, puppy. Go back to sleep.”

When he’s finally quiet, Jay pulls him closer, pressing his nose into his soft, wavy hair and breathing deeply of rainstorms and the outdoors.

“You promise, right?”

It takes him a minute to catch up, his mind having wandered to phoenixes, teleportation, and how Grayson had known Rowan was going to fall—or how he got there in time. And being grateful he had. Jay realizes he’s talking about his promise from this afternoon.

“I do.”

Gideon traces a heart pattern on Jay’s belly, over and over, and it’s enough for both of them to finally fall asleep.

**

It can’t be more than a few hours later before Grayson jerks awake, wide-eyed, with a hand pressed to his chest. Nix isn’t far behind him, smelling of angry burnt sugar and wearing a look of disgust.

“Gray?” Leo asks, eyes wide with residual adrenaline.

“I—we saw Withers,” Grayson growls.

Rowan gets up and returns with two glasses of water and the rest of the chocolate chips. He takes a handful before handing the bag to Leo so he can pop them one by one into Nix’s mouth.

“You traveled?”

“He was out by the beach, behind that big place I saw him and Carnell last time. He was…fuck.

“He was hurting someone else. I tried to stop him, but it doesn’t work like that.” Grayson takes a few chips from Leo’s hand and then drops them, shaking his head. “Makes me sick.”

Fucking parasite. Jay is looking forward to meeting him in person.

“It wasn’t Winnie or Ansel,” Nix says. “But it was terrible. It looked like it hurt.”

Luca pulls their omega closer and kisses his cheek.

Growling, Gideon gets out of bed so he can pull his pants on. “Did he see you?”

Grayson nods. “He said: There you are. Come and get me, Hot-stuff. I’ll be waiting.”