“Nix—”
“No. Now, you really listen to me. Carnell, despite his hand in the last five years of my life, has also given me you. I won’t tell you all the ways you make my life better because I don’t think you’re open to hearing them. So, for now, I will just say that you make me feel loved—in so many ways, big and small. No matter that you share, by chance, his DNA, you are a gift to me. To allof us. And I won’t listen to anyone say anything bad about you. Even from you.”
“But—”
“Now, this is the important part: you are not your father. You are not responsible for the things he does.” He smooths his hand around Gideon’s cheek. “Don’t you teach Rowan that he is responsible for shaping the man he wants to be?”
There are so many other ways Gideon shows them that they are responsible for their actions—that they can choose their paths. From Jay to Grayson to Leo, they are the men they are today because Gideon has encouraged them to be their best selves.
“Gideon, you live by example, and you have nothing to apologize for. Not to me, and never about this. You are a good man, a good mate. You’ll be a great father, and I am looking forward to seeing it.”
Gideon’s face is frozen—in confusion or denial, it’s hard to tell.
Absolution is difficult to accept when the life he’d been living had been lived largely in response to his father’s choices.
Gideon was good because Carnell was bad.
Or, that is the simplistic formula Gideon had been living by all this time.
It’s a sharp moment of clarity for Leo, and as he looks around the room, he sees his mates have figured it out, too.
How would it feel to change the way he thinks, down to the foundations, after all this time?
“Please, Gideon. Can you try to see yourself the way we do? I know it will be hard to let him—to letthisgo. It drives you; anyone can see that. But you aren’t Carnell. Isn’t that what this has all been about? That you want to show him? Can you try to be Gideon without it being because of him?”
Gideon flinches andblinks, blinks, blinks.
“You make the choice to live the best life you can—for yourself and for us—every time.”
They’re still kneeling on the floor, facing each other, and when Gideon looks away, Nix lets him. Knows him well enough to understand that Gideon will not be easily convinced to abandon this course of thought.
Gideon sits and hauls Nix into his lap so Nix can stick his nose into his neck. “Come here, let me hold you. You look cold. That’s a cold nose, Kitten.”
“Warm heart, though,” Nix giggles softly.
“The warmest.”
It’s silent in the room while everyone processes the Carnell–Hayes connection and the emotional inertia that always occurs when Gideon shares big emotions.
It’s a bit discombobulating when Gideon is the one being managed and not doing the managing.
“Let’s get these mattresses down and get ready for bed. I am weary to the bone,” Finn suggests.
“Let’s do the dishes, Luc,” Nix says, climbing off Gideon’s lap and offering his arms up to help Luca down from his mattress tower. Nix hoists him up on his back for the short trip to the kitchen.
A few minutes later, the water turns on and with a sigh, Jay stands so he can stretch his back, turning this way and that to try and get the day’s kicks out. “Can you give me a hand in the shower, love?”
“You just want in my pants,” Gideon teases, but pulls their leader to his feet.
“Always. But…maybe tomorrow? I’m fucking wiped,” he says, as he follows Gideon out of the room and into the tiny washroom.
The rest of them push the chair and tiny loveseat out of the way and try to get as many mattresses laid out as they can. Leoadds more wood to the fire so that when Nix and Luca finally get the borrowed nesting materials into a semblance of comfort, it’s warm enough that they can fall naked into a pile.
It’s not long before Jay is snoring, pressed up against Nix’s spine, pressing their omega between him and the extra-warm Grayson.
At least now they know it’s because of his Fire Affinity—and it’s not frying his brain like an egg.
Rowan had shifted back to his Wolf form after his shower with no preamble or explanation. Just one minute a man, and the next—the Wolf. Maybe he’s just practicing the transition, or more than likely, avoiding any emotional conversations. He’s probably working up to an apology to Nix and Luca, and Jay, for abandoning his post.
