Page 17 of Fighting Fate (Monsters of London #4)

Dax

Dinner goes well, juggling aside. My cheeks still burn as I think about it a couple of hours later, but no one seemed to be annoyed by what I did.

I remember Vince’s eyes on me and my heart beats a little faster. No. He didn’t look bored, that’s for sure.

Drew’s sitting next to me on the sofa—it’s the only place we can both comfortably fit, though it means Adam’s relegated to perching on the arm—and he yawns loudly, covering his mouth with one hand. Adam laughs and kisses him on the temple.

“Time for bed.”

Drew pouts up at him. “It’s not that late.”

“Don’t you have to be up at four?” Ophelia asks. She’s sitting on the floor, playing cards with Quinn, who’s so focused on his hand that he doesn’t even look up as the conversation changes topic.

Drew sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

I glance at my watch. It’s eight already, and it’ll take me at least an hour to get home from here. I get to my feet. “I need to get going anyway. Got to work in the morning too, but not that early.”

Drew huffs a laugh even as Kieran eyes me. He’s sitting on Lucien’s lap in one of the armchairs; Vince is in the other. Sam is chatting to Dante in the kitchen, though I’m sure he’s listening to our conversation.

“How’re you getting back?” Kieran asks.

“The tube.” I’m not getting a taxi, and besides, it’s not late.

Kieran nods. He seems uncertain about something, but I don’t know what. Lucien leans in and murmurs in his ear, quietly enough that I don’t hear the words.

“We’ll see you at Thursday’s class?” Kieran asks, and his gaze darts to Quinn just for a moment.

I know he skipped the class today. I don’t know all that happened to him, but it’s clear it was pretty bad, so I don’t blame him for it. Hopefully, he’ll be feeling better later on in the week.

“Yeah, sure.”

I put my shoes on by the door and as I’m picking up my bag, I realise Vince has followed me, picking up his own trainers.

“What are you—”

He silences me with a look.

“I’m off, too!” he says, tone light and breezy. The others wave him off, but when I glance into the kitchen, I see Sam’s smirk.

I don’t ask. I don’t want to risk Vince waiting around until I’ve left. It could just be a coincidence, anyway. Me getting up and making a move—he could have realised the time, thought that he needs to get back, too.

Except he keeps pace with me once we’ve left the building, walking the same route as I do to the nearest tube station.

We walk for about five minutes before Vince breaks the silence. “So… juggling?”

My face flames. “I—Yeah, that is…” I trail off. It’s something I liked to do as a kid, is all. I might not ever have been good at intellectual stuff, but my hand-eye coordination was all right, and juggling only made it better.

Plus, it’s an easy way to keep myself entertained. No one likes a restless wolf.

“It was really cool,” Vince says. His smile widens when I look at him. “I mean it. I always thought juggling was kind of…”

He bites his lip, eyes darting away, and I can’t fight the laugh that bubbles up from my chest. Vince’s smile doesn’t fade when he hears it. It softens a little, and that has my heart beating faster, too.

“Do you have any hidden skills?” I ask as we turn onto a new street.

Vince shrugs. “Nah, not really. I mean, I guess most people don’t know I do yoga, but I don’t think it’s a surprise when they find out.”

No, not really. Kieran told me that he and Vince met at the gym after another friend introduced them. It’s clear just by looking at Vince—looking at both of them—that one of their hobbies is keeping in shape.

Yoga, though. My mind conjures up images of Vince bent into impossible positions, and my cheeks heat. Vince’s smile doesn’t slip, not exactly, but when I breathe in deeply, I pick up an edge of concern to his scent.

I sigh. “Vince…”

“We need to be able to work together,” Vince says firmly. His eyes are still soft. “I mean it, Dax.”

“I know.”

I do. I’m not pushing.

“No, it’s not… Those wolves need you. You’re really good with them, and I don’t think we’ll keep up with the kind of progress we’ve been seeing if you leave.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Vince replies. “I know things have been awkward between us, and that’s on me, but this is bigger than just us two.”

My chest warms at the earnest tone of his voice. I’ve never for a second believed he wasn’t taking this seriously, but to hear it like this… He cares for our packs, for the clan.

“It is. I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Vince eyes me for a moment before he nods. “So we’ll be friends?”

“Friends?”

“If you want,” Vince says, eyes darting away. “I know before I said it wasn’t a good idea, but that was when I thought I’d never see you again, so…”

“Yeah. Let’s be friends.”

Vince smiles at me again and this time my wolf pushes, trying to shift and show our mate just what we’re capable of. Vince gasps, eyes widening for a second.

I swallow and shove my wolf back. I’ll have to shift this weekend or something. Anything to take the edge off.

“Does that happen a lot?” Vince asks quietly. He knows what the change in colours means. Has he asked Drew? Kieran?

“Sometimes,” I say.

Does he remember my eyes changing at all during the weekend we spent together? I know it happened. There were times I could hardly fight my wolf back at all.

“Did you…” I begin, and Vince just watches me curiously as I try to get my words in order. I have to know. I have to be sure of what he knows. “Did you talk to Kieran about wolves?”

“Yeah, a bit. I think he got sick of me asking questions. He got Drew to shift for me in the end, just to shut me up.”

He laughs, but my wolf whines. I should have been the first one to shift for him. It’s clear from his expression that he’s still impressed by what he saw.

It should have been me.

“And the vampires and stuff?”

Vince shrugs. “Lucien told me about, y’know, their hierarchy and all that.” He waves a careless hand. “I figure they’ll remind me if it becomes important. And I still don’t get the difference between witches and mages, but I know that Sam’s a mage and not a witch because he looks, I don’t know, kind of queasy whenever I say witch around him, even though Dante and Ophelia don’t seem to mind.”

“I don’t really get all that either,” I admit, though I’ll be careful to remember what Dante told me earlier today. “We don’t really have that many pack mages—or witches—anymore.”

Vince hums, nodding. “I mean, it’s all interesting, don’t get me wrong, but it’s… a lot.”

“I can imagine.” Sort of. I’ve grown up with it. Even when I was in Cornwall, and there weren’t really vampires around, I knew they existed. Witches, too, though I knew a couple of those.

“Besides, Kieran mostly wanted to talk about having a mate once we got into that , and then I made the mistake of asking about Sam’s whole… situation, and that, well—”

My heart thuds against my ribs. “What about it?”

“It’s a fucking lot, isn’t it?” Vince says, repeating the same phrase as before. His eyes are a little wild as he looks up at me. “You all… All you wolves have one mate, forever. Or two, in Drew’s case, I guess.”

“We’re supposed to.”

“And you just, what, fall in love with them? And that’s it? Forever?”

“Not everyone does,” I reply, praying that Vince can’t hear the slight tremor in my voice. We’re close to the tube station now, but I don’t want this conversation to end. “Some wolves avoid their mates. Some don’t believe in it.”

“What about you?”

I almost trip over my own feet. “I… I want to find mine.”

“Kieran said that’s it, when you do. That if you fall in love with them, there’s no one else.”

“Once the bond is strong enough, it’s true,” I say, thinking of Alpha Deacon before anyone else. He didn’t have anyone else for a hundred years, and he hadn’t even mated with Vasile before they broke apart.

“And a wolf’s mate can be anyone? Or just vampires and mages and whatever?”

“Didn’t you ask Kieran that?”

“I dunno.” Vince pouts a little. “I had a lot of questions, and I didn’t exactly take notes.”

I can’t help my smile, but it fades as I think his question over. “Yeah, it can be anyone. Wolves know right away, so long as both sides of us are in sync. The bond can take a while to form, but we still know. Humans don’t feel it the same as others, though.” I frown. “Maybe mages and vampires don’t, either.”

“God, I can’t imagine,” Vince says, blowing out a heavy breath. “That’s a lot of pressure. I can’t… I don’t think I’d handle it.”

“Why not?”

“Seriously?” We’re at the tube station and we pause outside of it, Vince looking up at me. “You’re telling me a bond could form without me even feeling it? Someone could be completely in love with me—and not just that, but, what, unable to fall out of love with me—and I’d never know? Fucking hell, Dax.”

My stomach twists, any hint of a good mood souring at the earnestness in Vince’s expression. Because that’s it. He’s not mad about it; he’s worried, almost scared.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I—It’s okay,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m probably overreacting. Not like it’ll ever affect me, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, and the word tastes like ash on my tongue. “Yeah, probably not. Like I said, we know quickly. They’d tell you. If the bond doesn’t have time to form, well, the wolf doesn’t have another mate out there waiting for them, probably, but I guess they can still fall in love with someone else.”

“Right.” The look Vince gives me is unreadable. “That’s… That’s good to know.”

He glances at the entrance to the tube station. I know he lives nearby and that he’s planning to walk the rest of the way from here. I bite my lip to stop myself from begging him to come back with me because even if it wasn’t a bad idea to begin with, after the conversation we’ve just had, it’s terrible.

“I’ll see you at the next class?” he asks.

“Of course.”

Vince moves closer, and when his arms wrap around me, pulling me into a hug, I roll with it. I wind my arms around his middle, pressing my face into his shoulder so I can greedily drag his scent into my lungs. Vince exhales shakily, fingers digging into my back even through my clothes.

He relaxes his grip, and I step back, hardly able to look him in the eye.

“Friends,” Vince says. I think he’s talking to himself. “Friends.”

“I’ll see you in class,” I reply.

“Y-yeah. See you then.”

The TV is blaring when I walk into the flat, but Patch hears me anyway. “How was dinner?” he calls.

I kick off my shoes, thinking over my answer. I really enjoyed it, but I don’t know how to tell him that. It’s not like we have pack dinners—Axel’s pack is too big, and besides, there are so many wolves with their own families—but Patch knows me really well.

Too well.

When I glance up, he’s standing in the hallway, a frown furrowing his brow. “Vince was there?”

“Yeah.” I don’t feel… embarrassed, exactly. But I don’t want to share much, either.

“You smell a lot like him.”

“He gave me a hug.”

Patch grunts, crossing his arms over his chest. I sigh. He’s been on me since I told him Vince was the one running the classes. On me to make a move, to lure Vince back into my bed, to—

To tell him the truth.

Which I should, I know I should. But it was a complicated topic to broach when I thought he knew nothing about mates. Now that I know he doesn’t like the very idea …

Patch’s expression softens at whatever he sees on my face. “C’mon. Let’s talk about it.”

I pout. “Do we have to?”

He snickers but turns on his heel and goes to the fridge. I drop my bag and head for the living room, then curl up on my side of the sofa. I should have gone out to shift. I need to let Alpha Axel know first, though—even if it’s just a text, to log it in case anything happens—and I can’t be bothered with it.

Patch drops onto the sofa beside me and hands me a bottle of beer. I take a long swig. We both like the taste, even if it would take a bucketload to get us drunk.

“So,” he begins, and I look at the TV, curious about what he’s been watching. “What happened?”

Some documentary about… something. I don’t know. I sigh and rub my thumb over the top of my bottle.

“We had dinner,” I say with a shrug. “I was there. Vince was there… Basically the whole pack was there.”

“And it was good?”

“Yeah.” I dart my eyes to him, then away. “I juggled.”

Patch laughs. “You did? How did that even come up?”

“Adam nearly dropped a load of glasses.” I didn’t mean to jump in. Just habit.

“And? Was he impressed?”

“Adam?”

Patch gives me a long-suffering look. “No, Dax. Vince.”

My face heats. “Uh… yeah. Yeah, he said so.”

“Really?”

“It’s not—I’ve got to go slow. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Patch says, “but there’s slow, and there’s whatever it is you’re doing.”

“We’ve only been working on the classes together for a few weeks. I don’t want to mess it up.” I sigh at Patch’s nod. “We had a conversation on the way back about mating bonds.”

Patch sits up straighter. “You told him?”

“No, we just talked about the idea. He… doesn’t like it.”

“Did you explain it all to him?”

“Yeah? Kind of?” I shake my head and put my beer down. “Patch, I don’t know. It’s all a bad idea. Maybe it’s better to put distance between us before things get worse.”

“You love the classes, Dax.”

“I know.” But I don’t know what to do. Looking at him, neither does Patch.

“You’ll have to talk to Kieran either way,” Patch says finally.

“If I want to leave the classes, sure.”

“If you decide to mate Vince.”

“I’m not—” I frown. “What? Why?”

Patch huffs. “He’s Vince’s alpha, Dax. You have to have figured that out.”

Have I? I take another swig from my bottle, frowning at the TV presenter, who’s explaining something about… ghosts? What is Patch watching ?

Vince is human. He’s only just learnt about all our stuff. How can he be part of Kieran’s pack?

“I’ll think about it,” I say when the silence stretches out too long. “But I want it to work out. We’re mates. That’s all I want.”

“I know. And hopefully it will work out. Before one of you dies of old age,” Patch replies. He takes another drink of his beer but then grins at my indignant sputter. “I’m glad you’re getting to spend time with him, though. With all of them. It’s good for you.”

I’ve rarely seen him so serious, and the sheer concern in his tone makes me flush again. “Yeah, they’re all… nice. Really. You should come hang out sometime.”

“I will.” Patch means the words, I think, but his tone is a little sad. There’s not a sign of it on his face, so maybe I’m wrong. “Hey, what do you think about going to visit Millie soon?”

“I’m off next weekend. That work?”

“Yeah, Dax. That’ll work.”