Page 14 of Tides of Fate (Fated in the Stars #3)

The vestibule of the ER is just as warm as the very first time he’d been in it, only this time he can smell the scent blocker spray, deadening every scent in the small space. It’s strange to be wired into a whole new set of sense memories, knowing he had completely missed it the first time around…and the second.

The waiting room is as empty as that first time, the same nurse from that first night standing in front of the counter. Phone propped on a box of tissues, he’s practicing the movements to a dance, bright pink Crocs squeaking with every slide and hip thrust. But as soon as the doors slide shut, his nose lifts quizzically in the air, and when he sees Nix, his eyes pop open cartoonishly wide, though not in embarrassment.

Nix has been recognized.

“Holy shit balls,” the nurse mutters. The familiar face actually helps with the low-grade anxiety simmering under his skin. Memories of when he’d sat in that chair, hurting and hoping he’d get home in time to clean the mess before Hayes came home, creep in around the edges.

Tsuki presses herself against his leg in comfort, and not for the first time, Nix feels gratitude for her constant presence. She lets out a small growl to warn Nix that the nurse is coming toward them, and Nix pastes a patient smile on his face that he doesn’t quite feel.

Finn is in the hospital somewhere, and time is ticking. There is no time for small talk.

“Hey, you’re Finn’s mate, right? Nix? Wow! You look way different from the last time I saw you. ”

Tsuki lets out a growl, and Nix’s jaw drops a little at the faux pas.

The nurse goes pale before he literally smacks himself upside the head. “Fuck. Of course you do. Dammit. I mean, from that first night. Not the next day, when you were…uh–” He’s bright red now, and Nix worries the sudden change in blood flow to his head might be unhealthy.

“It’s okay. I know what you mean.” He does, and the nurse clearly means what he says, but Nix is much more concerned with finding his distressed alpha. “It’s the hair, right? I’m not blond anymore.” He’s trying to give the man an easy out so that they can both move on. Luckily, he takes it.

The nurse nods, eager to avoid offending him, even though he has not stopped staring. He’s no closer than ten feet away when Tsuki gets to her feet and moves to stand in front of her chosen person. Still holding her leash carefully in her jaws, she’s taken up a protective stance between the nurse and Nix.

“Hey, uh.” He spots the nurse’s name tag: “Dennie, I’m here to see Finn. Do you know where he is? I, uh, left my phone at home, and he told me to meet him here—but I’m not sure where to go. I think he was meeting Riordan.”

“He’s here? Well, he hasn’t been to see me. Chief Kennedy and the admin offices are best reached through the ER to the left. You could go around but…I can’t go with you, as I’m the only one up here…or back there. It’s been dead…er… shit. ”

Nix throws formalities out the window, as he doesn’t have the time nor the spoons for social niceties right now.

“Listen, Dennie, sorry to run, but I’m going to go find Finn, if that’s okay?” He starts through the doors, eager to get away, but he stops with his hand on the button to the automatic doors. “Hey. Thank you, though. For before? Yeah?”

He tacks on his biggest smile and is gratified when Dennie just nods his head dazedly.

Once he’s got the doors open, Tsuki is off at a trot like she knows where she’s going. Nix determinedly doesn’t look at the med-bay where he’d met his mate, but follows Tsuki’s doggy butt to the left and nearly knocks into her from behind when she stops suddenly to go up on her hind legs and scratch at a door labeled Staff Restroom .

Knocking and then wiggling the locked doorknob, he calls, “Finn? It’s me, Nix. And Tsuki. Can you let us in?”

Now that he’s here, Nix feels exposed. He wasn’t supposed to leave the house, but now that he’s here and Finn is on the other side of the door, it’s finally sunk in.

The door swings open suddenly, and Finn yanks him through the narrow opening before slamming it shut once Tsuki is in, too. Nix’s alpha smells like rotten berries, and his hair is a sweaty mess.

What has happened that Finn is in this state? Has someone hurt him? Nix feels his fangs drop a bit at the thought. “Are you hurt? Why are you hiding in here?”

Instead of answering, Finn asks his own question. “Why did you come? Fuck, Nix, anyone could have–”

He plops down on his butt, Nix following suit right after. Tsuki finally drops her leash at Finn’s feet and nudges him with her nose until he moves over enough that she can lie down beside him.

They’re squished behind the door under the hand dryer, and it’s not the first time he’s sat on the floor of a bathroom that smelled like urine and anti-bacterial hand soap. It is the first time he’s not alone, though, and given how distressed Finn smells, Nix is glad he came.

“You never said why you’re in here and so sad, alpha. Come here.” At Nix’s request, Finn surges up and shoves his nose into Nix’s neck, who starts a low, soothing rumble.

Nix grabs his hand and places it over his diaphragm, trying to slow his own anxious breaths. They breathe together, and after a few attempts, their breathing syncs. It’s then that Nix notices his sad-smelling mate is crying.

“Finn. Please tell me what’s going on. Why are you hiding in here? Are you hurt?”

Finn uses the sleeve of the white sweater to wipe at his face and he just sticks his nose into Nix’s neck again. “I can’t.”

“You can’t what? You can tell me anything,” Nix says .

“I can’t forget what it was like when you were…” The words are whispered, and Finn just breathes deeper, clutching Nix’s pale yellow sweater.

When he was…hurt? Bloody? Dead ? Nix is glad he can’t remember any of what went on because Finn is heartbroken enough to remember it for the both of them.

Nix feels a pressure behind his eyes, and a pulse starts up at the base of his skull, but he locks it down as well as his scent so he doesn’t upset his mate any more than he already is. The subsequent sound Finn makes is more like a wail than a whine.

“Nix, please, give it back. I need it. I can’t…” He’s scrabbling at the collar of Nix’s shirt on the left side.

It’s getting easier to get it going again, even if he can’t quite control how to make it stop every time.

Although it’s burned sugar, Finn sighs in relief, sagging back against the wall. “I’m sorry I’m like this. How am I going to go back to work if I can’t be here, Nix? It’s like every time I’m here, I see you broken. I can’t get it out of my mind. What am I going to do?”

So this has been why his mate has been a ghost in their home. Flitting from room to room, hiding his emotions and spending as much time away from them as possible.

Well, Nix is hardly the expert at getting over his shitty memories in a healthy way. His wolf shakes his head and snorts. Nix mentally chastises him with a shut up, you’ve been no help lately .

“I don’t know, Finn. I’m hardly an expert,” he says as he runs his hand through his alpha’s damp hair.

What he knows is that since he’s been bonded, it’s been better. Maybe Nix handles it when his mates are out of sight because he can see the bonds and can feel every one pulsing and alive.

Maybe that’s the answer.

“Hey. You should bond with me.”

Finn spins his head around, and his tear-stained face is entirely horrified. “What? No. I am not fucking you in a dirty hospital bathroom. Absolutely not. ”

“I’m not saying you should.” He takes Finn’s face in his hands. “We can do it without sex, right? And what better place than right here where we started? Right? Like a second beginning. And then we can feel each other, and you’ll never have to worry about…not feeling me ever again.”

Nix brushes his mate’s tears away with his thumbs, and it’s almost like he can feel his brain working through the partial bond. When he says it, he knows it’s the right thing.

“Nix,” Finn whispers and touches Nix’s forehead with his own.

“It’s not a ‘no’ though, right?”

Finn sighs and kisses Nix’s palm. Running his hand through his hair, he sighs. “How can I say no to you? Okay.”

“Okay?! Really? Yes!” Nix pumps the air and wiggles—a weird reaction given the solemnity of the moment, but it is something he’s been wanting for the longest time, and it’s hard not to let it show.

He’s rewarded with a soft laugh as his mate gets to his feet.

“Okay. But I am not doing it here in this gross bathroom. We should do it where we met.”

“In the med-bay?” It’s Nix’s turn to have his heart racing and palms sweaty. But this was his idea, and he’s not backing down now.

“Fuck. Ugh, why is it so hard? I’m a doctor and you’re alive and…shit.” Finn presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and bends over, hands on his knees.

Nix stands and brushes off his butt.

“We can do it together. Tsuki will help. Let’s go. It smells like pee in here.”

Tsuki sneezes as she agrees.

Finn laughs under his breath and straightens the white sweater. “Yeah, it does. I’m going to splash water on my face, then we can go.”

Nix washes his hands, and it takes a surprisingly short amount of time before they crack the door open to the deserted hallway. Nix can’t hear anything but the soft hum of white noise.

They follow Tsuki back the way they came, leash back in her mouth like she understands she’s supposed to have it, but not how it works.

She heads past the abandoned nurses’ station in the center of the ER and right to med-bay one. It’s empty and innocuous in its sterility—it holds nothing but the memories and a gurney. She sits down in the doorway, waiting for her people to decide whether they’re going in or going home.

It’s weird not having memories of that second time, especially when Finn can remember every minute of the day Nix’s life changed forever.

It might have been bad, but they’re on the other side together, and it feels good to know that this side is pain-free and filled with so much love.

Finn pulls him forward, and even though his jaw is tense and his scent sour, they’re standing where they were three weeks ago. “It’s not what I had planned, Nix.”

His alpha had planned something special for their bonding, and it made Nix’s stomach swoop. “You planned something? Romantic? Tell me.”

His mate’s face is red, but he meets Nix’s eye without shame. “Nope. I’m still going to knock your socks off. But I can maybe do this one thing now?” Finn pulls out his phone and clicks through until he finds what he wants. “Phoenix Rena, may I have this dance?”

The dulcet tones of Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love starts playing, and Nix’s heart melts at how sweet his mate is. How romantic—and how utterly in love Nix is with this man.

“Of course, Dr. Merritt. It would be my pleasure.” He places his hand in the much larger one of the man who continues to rescue him from a life without love—every time.

Finn leads them around the small space.

No one bothers them, even though at one point, Tsuki turns at a noise only she can hear. Elvis gets to the Take my hand, take my whole life, too , and Finn begins to sing.

His voice is pure and strong.

He sings each word, looking into his eyes, and Nix cannot look away. He wonders if there is anything Finn can’t do.

“ For I can’t help falling in love with you . I mean it, Nix. That first night, you were sunshine in the dark. I knew I would love you forever and do anything I could to keep you with me. Even if it meant I’d lose the job I’d worked for my whole life. You are worth it, and it doesn’t matter if I met you in this life or the next one—I will love you, always.”

“Finn.” Nix stands on his tip-toes and slides his hands up to Finn’s cheeks so he can press his lips to his mate’s. “I will love you always, too. Will you bond with me now?” He tilts his head so Finn can add his bite near Jamie’s.

It feels right to have his two first loves in the place where his heart and his mind connect.

Finn’s phone plays the song again, as he runs his nose along the side of Nix’s neck, up and over Jamie’s mark—up and up, until he reaches the spot right under his ear, in the exact mirror image of Nix’s on his own throat. “Here?”

“Yes, please.”

He doesn’t need to be asked twice, and his fangs dig in deep.

Finn groans, but it is lost in the color that explodes from every cell of Nix’s being. His neural synapses forge bright blue bonds in new ways, continuing to flow through his cells, merging and flowing until they meet the rest of Nix’s bonds in a kaleidoscopic supernova where it explodes outwards.

Finn just holds him tight as he screams—as it burns through him in waves.

He couldn’t have expected it, but now that it’s complete, it’s a monument to his fated bonds.

There is a flash of white light and the crack of glass, but still, Finn holds them up, making sure he’s safe, even at cost to himself.

When the white light fades, the bright blue is the last to fade away to the back of his mind.

Nix lets go, knowing his alpha will catch him.

“Nix. Holy shit. Open your eyes, baby.” Finn sounds worried, and Nix can’t be sure how long he was out.

He comes to, sitting on the floor of the med-bay in what looks like the aftermath of a tornado. The gurney is bent in half, the mirror is pulverized into dust, and there’s a cut on Finn’s cheek. The overhead lights are flickering and snapping.

“What happened? Tornado?” he slurs.

“Fuck, no. You happened. I bit you, and then it was all Leeloo and The Fifth Element . Woosh, light everywhere, and then done. Did you just save the planet?”

Nix laughs, but his mate does not.

“What, no. I did this?” He puts a hand to his neck and touches his bite. He’ll never be able to hide it, and he’s never been happier about it. “Are you okay, too?”

He wipes the blood off Finn’s cheek, noticing that the cut is already healed.

“Fan-fucking-tastic, aside from wondering what the fuck happened. It was magical.” He laughs, suddenly giddy. “You were right, Nix. I can feel you, and it’s so strong.”

He touches his forehead with a finger.

“In there?” He asks. “Not in your chest?”

“Ha. No, like, right in the back of my mind. Steady and happy and…a bit confused.”

His look of relief eases Nix’s stress, and when he turns his mind’s eye inwards, he can see the swirling, entwined rope of light with tendrils going off in several directions and one bright blue one crossing the twenty centimeters to Finn’s head.

Huh.

Curiouser and curiouser.

“You really love that movie, eh?” Nix teases, just to see his mate’s cheeks go pink.

“Yeah, I do. Bruce Willis is an icon.” He boops Nix’s nose and surveys the damage. “We are going to have a hard time explaining this to Riordan. And Jay—he already wrote a check for seventy-five grand,” he says.

Tsuki barks in agreement, still sitting nonplussed where Nix had last seen her before this had all begun. “What a mess.”

Finn’s phone rings with the sound of a vintage bell telephone. “Shit, that’s Jay. Do you think he knows?”

He answers it anyway.

Nix actively tunes into his bond with Jamie when he does, and it is snapping and fiery red. Yikes.

“Jay? Wha—slow down? He’s here. He brought Tsuki. Whoa.” He looks at Nix. “Nix, did you leave your phone at home?”

Oops—and after he promised to be more careful, too. “I’m sorry. I have Luca’s, though?” Nix smiles and digs it out of his pocket.

“He says it’s at home. He’s very sorry.”

He rolls his eyes at Nix before Jamie’s next words have his jaw clenched hard.

“How bad is it? Are you guys okay? Yes, okay, we’ll leave now. Bye.”

Finn stands and brushes the glass dust off his pants and then Nix’s. “We need to get home stat, there’s trouble at home. I’ll tell you on the way.”

This isn’t just about him leaving the house or even that he’d forgotten his phone again. Jamie’s bond is still burning hot, and Gideon’s is ice-cold, snapping energy.

“Yeah—uh…should we…” He gestures vaguely at the wreckage that is med-bay one.

The sink is hanging off the wall and there’s a steady stream of water trickling down from the pipe in the wall, so they use that to rinse their hands. All the paper towels are spread uselessly all over the floor, so they just wipe them dry on their pants.

Nix fully expects to see the rest of the ER in a similar state, but the damage is limited to just their med-bay.

“What the fuck, Finn.”

“I don’t know. Not sure we should think too hard about it. It was…It feels like a dream.”

Even though it doesn’t look like one.

The fluorescent light crashes to the floor.

It’s enough to get Tsuki to pick up her leash again.

When she does, Dennie bursts through the door from the waiting room with a look of absolute shock on his face.

“Finn? What did you do?” Hands on his hips and left foot tapping his pink Croc in a rapid staccato.

“Sorry, Den, we gotta go. It was a mechanical malfunction. Send the bill to the Rhodes’s.”

Nix tries not to laugh at the pink-cheeked nurse and the flustered Finn. Nix waves as they run out the doors with Tsuki in the lead. Finn pulls up his ride-share app, and there’s a car sliding up to the doors in minutes.

Once they’re seated, they giggle as Tsuki lies across them in the back, despite the dubious face of the driver.

“Wow. That was close. Will you get into trouble?”

“Riordan will no doubt have words for me. But we couldn’t stay. Jay was totally losing it.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot my phone again. I’m not used to carrying one, and I wanted to get to you as soon as I could. But it wasn’t just that, was it?”

“It was better when you got there. I feel better than I have in weeks. It’s good.” He kisses Nix’s cheek. “You’re right—that’s not what’s got him worked up.”

Arm over the back of the car seat, Finn leans in so only Nix can hear. “Someone broke into the house. They didn’t trash the place, but Gideon thinks they were looking for something and didn’t find it.”