Chapter 123 - Inseparable

Inseparable 2:79

Nash

I slept so deeply that when I finally woke up the next morning I felt groggy and hungover. Before I opened my eyes, I groaned, and reached for Daphne, but my searching hand felt only cool, empty bed sheets.

My head snapped up from the pillow and I squinted at the vacant spot beside me.

Had I dreamed it? Was last night only another hyper-real hallucination, like the one that had overtaken me at the damn gas station last night?

I was really starting to doubt my own sanity. It felt like nothing in my world had made sense since Daphne had pulled up to the curb in front of the Bleakly house.

I stretched and groaned over my sore, stiff muscles, and something uncomfortable rubbed under my thigh. I reached under the covers and fished around, until my fingers closed around the offending thing and pulled it out for inspection.

I spread the scrap of fabric between my hands. Daphne’s panties. I smiled a little. Guess I wasn’t dreaming after all.

I rolled off the bed, suddenly feeling more energized and eager to meet the day. After a trip to the bathroom and a quick, cold shower, I dug around in my duffel bag and pulled on a clean set of clothes. My fashion repertoire was cargo pants and an army-green t-shirt, clean socks and black combat boots, unless otherwise specified. Simple and utilitarian. I ran a plastic comb through my hair, so I didn’t have any weird cowlicks, and scraped a razor over my face so that I didn’t look like a sasquatch. Finally, scrubbed my teeth and tongue with a toothbrush, and I was ready to roll.

But roll to what?

Where the hell was Daphne?

I pulled open my door, and stepped out into the hall. I noted the two doors that Daphne had pointed out last night. Hers next door to mine, and across the corridor, the King’s.

Had she slipped out of my bed last night just to go to his?

Well, there was one way to find out.

I crossed the hall to the ornate door, lifted my fist, and gave it a good hard pounding, the kind a drill sargent would use on new recruits at Hell Week.

I took a step back, squared my shoulders and clasped my hands behind my back. What would I say when Daphne opened the door? A part of me wanted to say adios and get the hell out of this wacky werewolf world, but I knew that running away wasn’t an option.

She was carrying my kid.

Not to mention that I had just found her again, I didn’t want to leave her.

I sucked in a deep breath when the door handle finally turned. It wasn’t Daphne who stood in the doorway though.

It was Louis. It was Louis wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Not that I gave a damn about seeing a man in his underwear. I’d seen plenty of guys in a lot less and hadn’t given their willies a second thought. But other men didn’t make my arm hair stand on end. Louis was tall and lean and muscular, with a physique like a swimmer. Not bulky, but strong. He didn’t look like a man old enough to have a grown daughter. In fact, to the naked eye, he didn’t look any older than I was, if not for that slight streak of white at his temple.

He was already clean-shaven, and I could smell his aftershave drifting off his smooth face. He had a toothbrush stuck in his mouth and a hand towel tossed over one shoulder. He quirked one eyebrow at me and took the toothbrush out of his mouth to address me. “Can I help you, Mr. Turner?”

His voice, or maybe the way he addressed me so formally, made a shiver run up my spine. I ignored it. “Yeah, I was looking for Daphne.” I tried to see around his body, to see into his room, to see if there was evidence of a sexual escapade inside. Was there clothing strewn about? Pillows thrown off the bed in wild abandon?

Instead, his eyes went to the doorway across the hall. I turned to follow his gaze, and as if on cue, the other door was yanked open. A bleary-eyed Daphne blinked at us. “What the hell is all that noise?”

She did not look happy to have been roused from her bed by my heavy knocking. Her dark hair was a tangled mess, and she wore another one of those damn stretched out, faded, holey t-shirts from her brothers. At least I hoped it was her brothers. It was long enough that it fell almost to mid-thigh, and thin enough that I could see her hard nipples trying to poke through.

I really needed to give her some of my own t-shirts.

She hadn’t slept in Louis’s room. She had slept alone in her own bed. And judging by her puffy, shadowed eyes, she hadn’t slept very well.

“Good morning. I was, um… looking for you.” I admitted sheepishly.

Behind me, Louis quietly shut the door. I gave it a glance before I crossed the hallway to Daphne. “I was worried when I woke up alone this morning.”

She sighed tiredly, “Worried about what, Nash?”

“That I had been hallucinating again.”

Her eyes shot across the hallway, and an uneasy feeling settled into the pit of my stomach.

“I wasn’t hallucinating, was I?”

She didn’t answer me, she just stepped aside and held the door open wide so that I could enter her room.

Her suite was larger than mine, the decor decidedly more feminine and opulent. Almost like it had been designed just for her. I could see her things here and there. A framed photograph of her family on the mantle of the fireplace. A little tree-figurine that held her jewelry from its branches on the dressing table. A stack of books on the bedside table. A sweater on the back of the chair.

It was weird how much comfort I felt, just being in her space.

But not so comfortable that I forgot the topic of conversation. She sat down on the sofa, but I preferred to stand. Somehow it was easier to get bad news if I was on my feet. She clasped her hands between her knees and gave me an almost apologetic look. “It’s the bond, Nash. It has created a sort of…psychic link between the three of us.”

“So… the night before last?”

She didn’t even have to answer. The flush in her cheeks said it all. And not that she was embarrassed or ashamed, oh hell no, she had a devilish little smile around her lips.

“Jeezus, Daphne, I was in a public place!”

“Oh yeah… well let me tell you about a day I was in a library, Nash Turner!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!” I ran my hands through my hair, “I haven’t been with anyone else since I left you.”

“I didn’t say you were with someone else.”

I opened my mouth, and then snapped it closed again, as a memory of a certain day was roused, when I couldn’t get Daphne off my mind, and I was craving her so badly that I had a little solo-sex in the shower.

“A small-town public library, Nash! With a bunch of little old ladies pretending to browse for books!”

I tried to keep a straight face. I tried to feel empathy for her embarrassment. But I couldn’t. I burst out laughing. And so did she.

How long had it been since I had something to laugh about?

She patted the couch next to her, and I finally relented and folded my body next to her. She didn’t hesitate to cuddle into my side and pick up my hand, allowing that strange current to pass freely between us. It wasn’t such a shock anymore. In fact, I was starting to find it kind of comfortable and right. I ran my thumb across her knuckles just to feel more of it.

“What happens next?”

“What do you mean?” She leaned her head against my shoulder.

“About this three-way mix-up.”

“It’s not a mix-up, Nash. There’s a purpose behind our mate-bond, we just have to trust–”

I shook my head, “No, Daph, I’m sorry, but I don’t buy into that b.ullshit.” I sucked in a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, trying to sort out my thoughts, which seemed to have grown strangely muddy. “You are going to have to choose, right? There’s that rejection thing.”

She stiffened beside me and pulled her hand away from mine. She twisted to look at me, but wasn’t quite satisfied with the angle, so she jumped up and straddled my lap, and held my face in her hands so that she could stare into my eyes. “You listen to me Nash Turner, and you listen good. A rejection is no simple thing. It’s a ripping apart of souls. It’s painful, and it's dangerous. Maybe not for you, because you are a human, but for a werewolf, it can be fatal.”

I swallowed at the intensity behind her words.

“A rejection won’t just affect the one being rejected, it will affect all of us. And a shock like that might cause me to lose this baby. And whatever you may feel about this child, I want it, and I don’t want her to die.”

My eyes widened in horror, “No! I don’t want that either!”

“Furthermore…we don’t know what happens when one part of a threesome is rejected. It’s not a limb you can amputate and the rest of your body will be okay. More than likely, if you break the bond with one of us, you break the bond with all of us. So if you reject Louis, it’s likely we will all lose." She blinked a few times. "You and I could also lose our bond."

She dropped her hands and looked away, but I could see the sparkle of tears in her eyes.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I wrapped my arms around her body and pressed her close, tucking my chin over her shoulder. I could feel a shudder run through her body. I knew the mate bond thing was sacred to werewolves, but I hadn’t fully comprehended the seriousness of it until that moment. Someone could die. Daphne could lose the baby. It wasn’t something to take lightly.

She sniffed and sat back again so that she could see my face once again. “Nash, I have to ask you something. And I know it’s a hard ask. I know it’s unfair to you. But can you just… go with it for awhile?”

“Daphne…”

“No, just listen, please? Just because you and Louis have a bond doesn’t mean it has to be sexual. Can you at least get to know him?”

“Getting to know him isn’t the problem, Daphne!” My hands tightened around her body. “What the hell do you expect us to do? Share you? Pass you back and forth? I get you on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays? I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

She closed her eyes as if my words were causing her physical pain.

I had a new idea. “Let’s leave! Nobody has to reject anyone. You and I can just go. I have a house, you can look for a job in Rutberg–” she was already shaking her head negatively, “Or we can go somewhere else, anywhere else, just, not here, with him.”

She pushed back against my chest, until I released my grip on her back, and she slipped off my lap and rubbed the tears off her cheeks. “You still don’t get it, Nash. I love you.”

Her words hit me like a slap in the face, but deep down, I felt their veracity.

“I know it seems improbable, we barely know each other, but I do. It’s only grown stronger since you came. Maybe it’s the bond, maybe it's the baby, maybe it’s the three of us being here together…” She smiled sadly, and lifted her chin. I knew I wasn't going to like what she said next.

“I love Louis, too. And I’m not going to abandon him.”