Jagged Embrace

Chapter 29 - Will

Will put the bag on the small table with a raised eyebrow. Why were they always hugging when he found them? He shook his head. Didn't matter, hugs were what you gave your mom or a friend, nothing to be concerned about. They ate dinner, but he noticed that they were both quiet. Maybe they'd argued while he was gone.

He caught Maeve staring at his hands twice while they ate and wondered if she asked Ander about what they'd done. To take his mind off the possible uncomfortable conversation if she approached him about that, his thoughts wandered to their finances.

It was expensive to travel with her with them all the time, but what he didn't want to admit to Mason, was that he preferred it. He could be just as hardcore as the next soldier, but why eat MREs and camp when you didn't have to? Fuck, he was going soft in his old age. He chuckled to himself. Old age.

Maeve peered at him. She wouldn't get it. Will understood he wasn't old, not really, but as a Soldier of Night, he was past his midlife point. In October, he'd be twenty-nine. Most soldiers didn't make it out of their fifties because they got too slow. Once they couldn't keep up with the monsters, they were done.

Unless someone got out of the field like Mason, they knew the hazards of the job. Most soldiers wouldn't admit it, and stayed in the field until something took them out, preferring to go out fighting rather than rotting away with old age. It's how Will wanted to go, taking out some important monster, putting a real dent in those assholes' plans to destroy humanity. His eyes flicked to Ander. He'd probably go down with him. They'd die bloody and broken - but together.

Will glanced at Maeve, and an unfamiliar emotion stirred inside of him. What about her? If he died, where'd that leave her? He adjusted in the seat. She wouldn't be around that long, but... maybe he wanted her to be. His stomach flipped over. Fuck, he wanted her to stay with him. He rubbed the back of his head vigorously. His rage stirred and made his skin hot. That was stupid nonsense and wouldn't happen. 

She is our mate. She is meant to be with us, fool, the guttural voice told him.

Shut up, you know that can't happen. Not really.

Will got up and grabbed the whiskey. His hand shook when he recalled that fucking sound when he'd marked her. The same thought circled in his mind. Break her and rebuild her. Break each other and be remade together. Bound to each other forever, bloody and broken, but together, just like him and Ander. He had to stop all the nonsense in his brain before he acted on something, but the noise was so fucking loud.

Maeve's voice caressed his ears. "I'm tired, but I still like you." A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"Then I was too easy on you." He grinned. Just the sound of her voice caused him to feel more in control.

"I hope not. I don't understand how you both went through that as children," she replied.

"I am uncertain whether Will or I ever were children," Ander told her.

True enough. When Will remembered being a kid, he mostly remembered the drills and training. Sure, there was some school and chasing girls, too, but none of that stayed with him because it wasn't that important.

"Soldiers don't get much of a childhood," Will told her before drinking the glass of whiskey he'd poured himself.

"Yeah, the more I'm around you both, the more I realize how short both of yours were." Her tone sounded almost bitter. Her eyes snapped to him. "Do you remember anything about your mother?"

Will gritted his teeth. He didn't like to talk about his mom, regardless of who asked. "Not much."

"And you never knew either of your parents. It was always just Wyatt and Mason," she told Ander.