They had to get out of car. They had to gather any injured and safely make their way back to the hospital. Everyone needed to be accounted for. Jenny's voice was a godsend. As he took charge, Sebestian turned his attention to his family as had become the pattern over the past few days.He would be lying if he claimed he had never been afraid in battle, but he could say that seeing Adom reach towards him the way he did was downright terrifying. He had been the younger brother for years. He had comforted and protected for so long that it was a natural instinct for him. This was different though. Sebestian was pretty sure that this was what his big brother's feel from him all their life. It had been easy enough to give Adom guide with just a strength he had left.He could barely focus on Adom and Amelia's hushed conversation. His focus was on getting them and the rest of his family to safety as quickly as possible. Amelia's scent surging next to him was a huge comfort as well.Adom's arm
Adom peeked out quietly from his hiding space on the patio. He had managed to get the cameras set up at the perfect angles, and for good measure, he had even had Sam over to lend a hand. The same Sam, who was currently hiding next to him and doing a horrible job of suppressing his excitement."Do not ruin this," Adom warned half-heartedly. He knew Sam couldn't help but be excited. After all, he had been absent the first time as well through no fault of his own."Here they come!" Sam said gleefully, and he and Adom both darted down behind the bushes. Adom had been working with Sebestian for weeks on the plan after his brother-in-law had pulled him aside and asked for his advice. It had been an ongoing game of sorts. Amelia had nearly been driven mad by not being told what it was that Sebestian was planning. Every morning started with Amelia proposing a new idea, and Sebestian only replying "you'll see" before launching into a new topic altogether. It had taken every skill they had on t
The day of the vow renewals was coming up quickly. Plans had been made. The family had plans been made. The entire apartment was one large sea of glitter, fabric samples, and cake samples. Okay, the cake samples were actually very nice, but even Adom metabolism was beginning to lose the fight against those kinds of calories. Two nights left, and then the wedding day would be upon them. Then all of this would become a distant"Adom, hey, your opinion?"Adom dragged his eyeballs back from where they had been trying to roll up into his skull and looked at the three centerpieces. "That one," he said pointing out one at random. In all honesty, planning a wedding was not the worst thing in the world. He enjoyed planning events actually, and since he had excellent taste, his events always turned out well. The problem occurred whenever Amelia was involved. Adom did things simply and smoothly. He picked out things that went together and then managed to pull off tasteful events while making it
Adom woke to sunlight streaming in through the windows and a voice talking softly in the kitchen."I merely helped him with some planning." There was a pause. "He is fine. Sleeping."Adom pulled himself off the couch and made his way into the kitchen where Sam was quietly preparing a tea from some of Amelia's stock. "Oh, he is awake now," he said and handed Adom's phone over to him. "Your-Amelia."Adom pressed the phone to his ear. "Amelia," he greeted around a yawn. "Is there a problem?""Not unless you say there is one. Though I do think there might be some things we should talk about."Adom rolled his eyes. Sam pressed a mug of something hot into his hand, and he grinned at him in thanks. "It's nothing that can't wait. Why are you calling so early anyway?""It's early?" Amelia asked, trying and failing to sound innocent. "What with the time difference here in Spain, I must have gotten confused.""Oh yeah, I'm sure that's it. You're not overly paranoid or anything." Adom could hear
Adom peeked out the window. Despite everyone in the immediate family now being impervious to sunlight, they had still decided to hold the ceremony just after sunset. They had too many friends to do otherwise. Their wedding would be held outside on the mansion's grounds, a historical event for the location."I should get these back to Sebestian."Amelia pouted. "You've been over there so long. I can't believe you've just gone by his side and forgotten all about your dear sister." She clutched at her chest. "My only brother abandoning me to the cold."Amelia's flair for dramatics and love of teasing Adom always increased around big events. Adom couldn't help but love it though. It was a signal that everything was good. No one had anything to truly worry over."I just have to take him the spare ones and let him know what you've picked. I'll be right back. I've divided the time equally between the two of you." He had actually gone out of his way to monitor the time and make sure he was sp
Six Months Later: -The first day when Alec back in his parents' apartment, he had slept straight through the night and then half of the next day. He had wrongly assumed that that meant he was fine, and he can sleep so easily. On the second night, he had slept restlessly, but he stubbornly blamed it on having slept too much the night earlier and also trying to adjust to having a normal schedule. He had used both excuses with his mom and dad when they had found him sprawled on the sofa at eight in the morning watching the morning news."I know you're trying to adjust to a regular pattern of sorts-," Amelia began."Four to nine," Alec confirmed. Five hours was plenty of sleep for him, and morning rush people tended to be the most unpleasant which was why he had picked that period of time."Yes, well, you're still recovering. You need more than five hours this first week.""That's why I'm on the sofa."Amelia sighed deeply while scrubbing at her face. Sebestian, who looked far more awake
Alec had a plenty of things to do, and still, he was bored. He never thought the day would come when he would miss bailing Ethan out of the trouble of the day. When Sebestian called him and asked him to help out with a situation with the company, Alec practically raced out of the apartment and straight to the company. If he was really lucky, his aunt and uncle would have joined forces to cause whatever chaos was happening, and he would be busy for at least two days cleaning up the mess of it all.He was relatively surprised to arrive and find that nothing was in shambles. Then again, he should have suspected as much since Sebestian had sounded remarkably calm during their phone call, even for him. There was a group of ten people gathered in the main room when he stepped inside, though the one who had called him was noticeably absent. All of the others were staring at something on the screen, and they didn't even notice that he had entered thanks to the adjustments that had been made o
Amelia was mixing up cocktails when Alec got home. Alec took one look at the strangely purple liquid with what looked like glitter swirling in it and opened his mouth to ask what it was before deciding against that."Hello, my sweet boy," Amelia greeted while pressing a glass into her hand. "Sebestian called and said he had to stay late at the company, so it will just be us for dinner tonight.""Is it anything serious?" His father rarely stayed late at the company any longer unless it was a dire situation. Alec's mind filled with possibilities from a new hacking attacking to something as mundane as a fight between the couple. He was shocked by how much the latter possibility terrified him."They have some visiting oversea people from another branch, and apparently it's expected that he be there to take charge of getting them settled in."Alec frowned. "And no one else could, do it?""You know how they are with their ceremonies, but tell me, how was your day?"Alec took a sip of the co
Ady was the one that actually tried to cheer him up with something else than kind words and chocolate."So. Heard you tried to dispatch Ci with fish knife?" he asked conversationally. "Want another go at it? Somewhere more... private shall we say?"Ethan would have been lying if he said he didn't consider it. But it wouldn't do shit for the real problem. Him."I'll let you the pleasure. Didn't you and Simon were keeping her around for a special occasion anyway?""Ah yes... Well Jen said, "only crazy, homicidal maniac keep people around to kill them later". He's such a buzzkill sometimes." Ad corrected, a fond expression on his pale face. Ethan had speculated about Ad and Jen for a while, until Alec had announced that he and the young Omega were dating more seriously now, around a year ago."Well, he's not wrong," Ethan mused, "though if you did kill her, your position would be finally secured.""Appealing to me through politics Wil? So, you do want her dead!""Everyone wants her dead.
"Ethan? Are you okay?" Matthew asked, tearing Ethan from his thoughts.Damn you burgundy Gucci shirt."Yup, just admiring you," he spoke, trying to smother the deep want that was growing in his belly. Ethan wasn't the best orator, but confronted to that shirt, he was usually back to his old incoherent self, stammering half sentences around (that was why he elected to let his body do the talking for him).Matthew batted his eyelashes, accepting the compliment easily."You're wearing a new suit, darling," he commented when Ethan had sat down, eyes riveted to Ethan's chest, "without me having to cajole you in it. Recall me to send something nice to whoever dressed you. Even if truth be told, I'm a bit jealous.""I never got your obsession with dressing rooms Matt," Ethan joked. Opening his menu, he saw that Luigi had put a small note in it Everything is going right on schedule it said. He smiled."Well you're usually half naked in those, I don't see what's not to like. At that point the
All told, Ethan had tried to propose to Matthew in six different occasions since his lunch with Cammy. It was not that Ethan was bad at it, per say. It was just that Matthew was just too good at distracting him. That, and the rest of the world didn't stop trying to kill him.The first time he gathered enough courage to propose, Matthew had mistaken Ethan going down to his knee for something else entirely and made a dirty, dirty remark and Ethan's proposal metaphorically went out the window. Cammy didn't see any of that, thank God, but the flush Cammy had sported when he reported to her his failure was enough. Sammy cackled (when did Ethan lost his ability to glare at her and mean it damn it) and justified himself for going with Matthew assumption by saying:"What, you want me to ask him after a blow job? I actually want him to give me an answer when he's capable of thoughts, Cammy."She had stared at him then, probably because she never had heard Ethan talk so easily about sex before,
After all, the man had already lived hard life. Alpha, beta, and omega tended to gain marks over the years, for each person they loved or trusted enough to share their soul with. Someone like Matthew, with his warmth and smiles and beauty, should have had dozens of lines littering his skin. A bond would have explained it all.But then, of course, Ethan's gaze flicked towards Matthew other wrist, and his eyes widened at the two lines that adorned it. Two only; one black, the sign of a broken bond, and one golden, shining as brightly as Ethan's. A single active bond."I'm surprised you accepted my offer," Matthew said a few minutes later, swirling his glass and staring at Ethan coyly. "You've been particularly hard to catch, Ethan.""Ah, yes," Ethan grimaced. "I've been... busy. You know how it is, being a Alpha. Or maybe not, but well, you know...""Yes darling, I understand," Matthew chuckled. "I'm just happy to have you here.""Happy- happy to be here," Ethan stuttered, his right fin
The change was instantaneous; Sam pursed his lips thoughtfully and looked away from Matthew. His pencil stopped moving, and his grip tightened so much that his knuckles turned white."It would make Ethan happy," he finally said. The answer was a lot more diplomatic than what Matthew had expected, especially since this was clearly something that troubled Sam. "He's a lot happier with you than he's ever been before, even with us, and I think he'd be even happier if he got to live with you.""I hope so," Matthew smiled. "But that's not what I asked, Sam. Look, I can tell that you don't really hate me, regardless of the little show you put on earlier, so why don't you talk to me about what's really bothering you? Is this about me spending too much time with Ethan?""No," Sam mumbled. "Not really. It's just... His last boyfriend used to spend a lot of time here as well, and he even told me that he was going to move in once, even though it didn't happen, and he didn't like it when I was aro
"Matthew, what is it?""Cammy!" Matthew exclaimed a tad too enthusiastically. "I've got a bit of a problem, and I think that you're the perfect person to help!""Flattery will get you nowhere, Matthew," his friend in all but blood snorted. "But go ahead, tell me about this problem. I'll see what I can do.""Right, so you know Ethan?" he started. "My delightful boyfriend whom I love very much and for whom I would do just about anything. Well, he needed someone to look after his little brother today, and I jumped in to help. But now I'm faced with an eight-year-old who doesn't want anything to do with me and seems to think that I'm worse than the devil. He doesn't believe I'm good enough for Ethan, refuses to be 'used as a way to get to him' and also slammed the door to his bedroom in a clear 'i-don't-want-to-talk-to-you' way. Any ideas?""Well, first of all, you shouldn't have accepted a job that you're too inexperienced to handle," Cammy pointed out uselessly. "But have you tried sugg
Ethan was already in their bedroom when Matthew got back to the hotel. The younger vampire grinned at him happily and Matthew felt another pang of regret at his earlier behaviors. He could have been with his boyfriend hours ago, but instead he had acted like a jealous fool and wasted time on stupid insecurities that he should have gotten over weeks before."I missed you today," Ethan sighed, leaning over to peck him on the lips. "Alec said that you stopped by the wok and went looking for me after the council meeting, but I didn't see you. Did something come up?""Yeah," Matthew lied, wincing at how wrong the word sounded. Ethan was right, he couldn't just ignore his issues and keep Ethan in the dark. It wasn't fair to either of them. "Actually no, not really. I went to the training room to find you, but you were with Ady and I... I don't know, Ethan, I guess I overreacted a little bit. I went to Cammy for a while instead.""What do you mean, you overreacted?" Ethan frowned."I just...
"Sorry I'm late!"Matthew looked up at his boyfriend dryly, refusing to show how affected he had been by Ethan's absence. The two of them had been planning this date for weeks, but the younger man hadn't even managed to show up on time. Of course, Matthew understood that Ethan had a lot on his mind, but he had hoped that for once he could be his boyfriend's priority."Advin kept me late again," Ethan continued with a sheepish grin. Matthew steadfastly ignored the wave of jealousy that hit him at those words. "You know how he gets when we train. I tried to remind him that we had something planned for the night, but he refused to let me go until I beat him, which only happens like... One out of twenty times. Are we still going to that star-gazing thing at the observatory?""Of course we are," Matthew rolled his eyes. The younger Alpha had been talking about the event for over a month, which was why they had chosen this night for their date in the first place. "We should get going if we
(How Ethan and Matthew got together)"You have a choice to make. I will not ask again."The words hurt to say, but Matthew couldn't let this Alpha take over his heart, no matter how pretty he was. If Ethan refused to put an end to this sham of a promise he was planning, Matthew wouldn't chase him any longer.He breathed in deeply and ignored the pain that flooded his chest as Ethan remained silent. He lifted a hand, ready to go away at a second's notice, but then the gorgeous Alpha in front of him turned around and all thoughts of disappearing faded away.He should have left, should have given Ethan space and time to think about his offer, but one look at those sorrowful eyes was enough to stop him in his tracks. He was falling too fast for this Alpha, was putting himself through things he had refused to deal with for year's, and he didn't know how to put an end to it.(Didn't know if he wanted to put an end to it.)Matthew stayed silent, waiting for Ethan to speak up, to deny his fee