“No, look. I know I am a fuck-up, that this is all my fault. That everything has been going to shit because of me since last fall, and I am sorry. But you have to tell me all of it. You can’t sell your fucking soul.” Rowan whines the last, the tone one step away from begging. His heart hurts so badly, he wants to puke. Grayson can’t be a prisoner in that school; he can’t do this sentence because Rowan couldn’t think beyond his own dick.
“Please.”
“Okay,” Gideon says, bending forward so he can put his elbows on his knees. He meets Rowan’s eyes with a steady gaze, and as it usually does, that regard settles something inside him. “They removed the cement, let Grayson heal you through the process, without guidance or restraint.”
Oh. The pack knew that Grayson had been holding some of his skill set back, so the Guild didn’t have the big picture. Ignatius had suggested restraint, and Rowan hadn’t understood why until he’d said the same to Rowan. No one wanted to spend days under an unrelenting, magically-focused microscope while the powers-that-be tried to imagine ways they could use them for their own nefarious purposes.
“You healed me in front of them? You showed your hand?”
Grayson cups Rowan’s jaw, a show of affection their wolves haven’t allowed in years. “Of course I did. You’re my mate, Ro.”
“Oh.” Rowan looks into Grayson’s eyes, and before he knows it, he’s laying the softest press to his mate’s mouth. “Thank you.”
Rowan couldn’t say who is more surprised by the gesture, Grayson or himself, but his mate smiles, and a pretty blush tops his perfect cheekbones.
“You’re welcome.”
He looks at Rowan’s mouth as if he’s thinking about doing it again when Finn interrupts. “Okay, you two, dial it back. Ro, you are not going to want an erection today. Or maybe even tomorrow. Let’s finish this story so we can go home.” He grabs a go-bag from beside the bed and dumps some of Rowan’s stuff on the bottom of the bed while he talks.
“So you were in the surgical bay, barely under, on what had to be the last round of meds. They broke the cement down to its components in under twenty minutes, Grayson doing all the healing as they went. I can’t say I’m not envious, Gray. It was flawless.”
“And now Grayson is spending his days at the Guild for the foreseeable future. It’s more time than we’d like, but he’ll get the training he needs, and the Guild will see we’re cooperating. Antonio will make sure we’re not taken to the cleaners.”
Rowan still didn’t sound like all of it, and maybe he didn’t need to know the extent of it. Yet. So he’ll let it slide for now.
“I’m sorry I put you in this position. I wasn’t thinking. But it seems like I never am,” he whispers the last words.
There’s quiet before Jay speaks. “Baby, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. Me, Finn, even Gideon.”
The words are met with a raised eyebrow from the alpha in question before he, too, adds his two cents’ worth. “Mistakes are part of life, Ro. Part of growing into the person you want to be. You are not alone in that. Our most recent adventures to Florida are testament to that.”
“And this won’t be your last mistake, Rowan. All we can do is learn from them, yeah?” Jay shrugs, rubbing his shoulder where the bullet had gone clean through not even two weeks ago.
Grayson pats his knee. “I still haven’t shown my whole hand. Try not to worry too much. I don’t have any regrets.”
Rowan has enough for both of them. “I’ll do better. I will.”
“That’s all any of us can do,” Finn nods before his face transforms with a smirk. “Brace yourself.”
Rowan isn’t sure if that advice is for future mistakes or thefootsteps coming down the hall.
The door flings wide, and in a blink, he’s got an armful of Nix; he smells like chocolate and cinnamon ice cream, but his lips are red and his eyes shining. “Ro!”
Leo follows, holding a struggling Luca around the waist. “Luca, quit it, or you’re going to hurt someone—and that someone is me.”
“But I need to see if Rowan’s dick is broken for good. Let me go!”
“You know he’s fine. You just want to look at his—” Leo finally lets him go, and he darts for the bed, but thankfully, Gideon intercepts.
“Luca. Slowly, please.”
“Fine. Hi, Ro. Show me later, yeah?”
He gives his mate a wink before Rowan turns his attention back to Nix, who once again places his hands on Rowan’s cheeks.
“Ro, you should have come with us.”
“No shit,” Leo chimes in, grinning as he wiggles his eyebrows.
