Chapter 6 : All Three of Us

Gael’s POV

I slammed the door to our apartment open as soon as I returned. After leaving the library I practically sprinted back. I wished there was dinner waiting like I said in my lie if only to give me something to do to avoid the messy thoughts in my head.

I finally understood why Gabriel and Missael were so confused about what happened, and what they felt because it wasn’t what it was supposed to be.

When I handed her my phone our fingers brushed. It was a test, just a test. Had to check if my instincts would flare up on me, make sure some territorial thing going on between us wasn’t the reason for all this.

That sure as hell wasn’t the reason but I wished it was!

We touched, there was a small spark, and I practically lost it. Missael, okay, I always thought he’d feel the matebond first. Gabriel, it wasn’t necessary, but he was always going to find a mate, and he had enough luck for a fated mate. Me? Maybe, I was social enough for it.

All three of us, well we had hoped for it. It’d suck if one of us got left out or only one of us managed to find a partner, but all three of us!? Reacting to one person and not in the right way?!

What sort of tomfuckery was this?

“Gael—you okay?” Missael asked, and he didn’t need those empathic powers of his to see that I was very unleveled by what just happened.

“Physically, yes. Mentally, no. Emotionally, you tell me.”

“You’re panicking.” Missael deadpanned and yeah—that sounded about right.

“Gael, take a breath,” Gabriel ordered and I glowered at him, but did as he said, taking a breath, then another, slowly calming down. Not by much but, enough.

“What happened, did she do something?”

“Eleonore? No,” I snorted, shaking my head at the thought. One afternoon was enough to get a good read on her and she was the last person who’d ever try something let alone instigate something. Be it conversation or an attack…

What I felt from her didn’t feel like it was some sort of attack, and definitely not intentional on her part.

I…I don’t think she felt anything.

“She—I felt something.”

“You WHAT.” Normally Gabriel’s expression would be funny, but not right now, not after that.

“Felt something, not the jolt but probably a jolt thing you’ve got going on—that I have going on, apparently, and I am freaking out because I’m starting to believe it really is a matebond situation here, but she didn’t FEEL anything.”

“…How certain are you that she could be our fated mate?”

“I’d bet our whole pack.”

“…Fuck,” Missael whispered, and Gabriel nodded along. Fuck indeed. “All three of us?...she should’ve felt something, but she didn’t, doesn’t.”

“What if it’s one-sided…” I started hesitantly, and truthfully, something like that sounded like a nightmare but Gabriel shook his head.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. Even humans feel something. There are only a few reasons why she wouldn’t and none of them are good. Curses, blockers, suppressors.” He grimaced at the last one, and I felt like grimacing too.

Suppressors were just as they sounded, they suppressed anything supernatural or magical in a sense. Normally they were for muffling the effects of a curse or spell until a cure or solution was found.

An overdose could prove fatal though, and there was even less leeway when you WERE a supernatural being and your natural magic could be suppressed along with whatever you were trying to counteract.

“She doesn’t seem to be a part of the supernatural community, not with how she ran from us,” Missael pointed out.

“I don’t think we have enough information to work off of, I just managed to meet her today and instead of answers, I have questions, ALL the questions. I’d make a search engine cry, man.”

“I don’t think the internet is going to help with this. Just… continue to monitor her, see if you can figure anything out. Missael and I will try to—”

“Be patient.”

“Gael.”

“Missael, you know I’m right. If Dad catches wind of this he’s going to pull us and look for answers himself. He looks for answers, and I have a feeling that she’s going to run. Eleonore suspiciously didn’t tell me shit about her family when I asked, just her brother, and a father she was real shifty about, so no. Those are risks we can’t take. Trust me to do this, okay?”

“We do trust you, but waiting isn’t our strong suit, especially with the situation.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said softly. If I was in their shoes it’d probably kill me to wait.

None of us addressed the fact that if she was our fated mate, then she was the fated mate to all three of us. We needed to but… none of us wanted to, and I wasn’t going to do the hard part and get us started on that discussion.

“Fine,” Gabriel sighed harshly, pinching the bridge of his nose. Now he was the one taking a breath to calm down and I felt that. “We trust you, Gael, just… be careful. We’ll keep our distance, so we don’t scare her off, but report back to us with your findings.”

“Got it, and don’t worry, I’ll be the greatest wingman to all three of us.”

“Goddess, help us all.”

“Fuck you, I take that back, I’m wingmanning only Missy. Flounder with your awkward posturing.”

“Please don’t, I know you’re going to take every opportunity you can to embarrass me.”

“E tu, my dearest youngest baby brother? The betrayal, the pain!” I cried, making them both groan and that was better—better than the stress and worry we were all feeling.

If Eleonore was our mate—and I was really starting to suspect that with how natural it felt to be around her, my walls dropping so easily when she smiled or laughed—then what the hell was going on?

And…how were we going to make this work when it wasn’t just going to be three of us anymore, but four?

Could we make it work, or…were we just going to all crash and burn?

***

Eleonore’s POV

My campus life, ever since my supernatural meetings, had calmed down and had really mellowed out and allowed me to focus on my classes.

Charlotte, or Charlie as she told me to call her, was even taking the same math course as me so we took to studying together. Gael even joined us from time to time.

No more shifters, no more worries, just college and classes, and the classes, besides math, were amazing.

My preceptorial had turned out to be far more fascinating than I ever thought possible, and Mr. Werewolf had been leaving me alone, which was an added bonus. Things were finally looking up for me and I could pour my whole focus into the current topic of discussion.

“What defines a monster? Is it their unnatural shape? Their beastly nature? The 'other' and 'unnatural' we feel at the sight of them? Some would say yes, but it is far deeper than that, especially when we should ask not what defines a monster but what makes a monster. That’s why this course is ‘creating monsters’ instead of anything else.

“Today I’ve brought in a guest speaker, please welcome Professor Cross, he teaches the Greek history course, and the legends and folklore courses here at Oakwood. He’s here to tell you about monsters throughout literature. At the end of the presentation, I want a small essay on what you learned about what makes a monster.”

Professor Nathaniel Cross was a middle-aged man with slightly frizzy brown hair streaked with gray, sweater vests, and fancy little leather-bound books he said he used for ‘notes’ as he gave a presentation from them while our professor for the course manned a slide show.

He was quirky, he was strange, he was absolutely fantastic, and knew what he was talking about.

Was he in the know or was he just an enthusiast though? That was much harder to tell than you'd think when some people were obsessed with the idea of the supernatural. Halloween was more than enough to show that, but still.

The professor spoke about things he’d have to have done his research on to get such an accurate conclusion, so either way, he was the real deal with his knowledge if he wasn’t in the know.

I didn’t know much about the supernatural, let alone had much experience with it, but I could usually parse out what was real and what wasn’t.

“Two of the most prolific monsters throughout literature are vampires and werewolves. I don’t believe there’s a person alive who hasn’t heard about these two creatures. Prevalent in many different cultures and cropping up in all types of legends, what’s most fascinating about these two creatures is that they retain some semblance of a human form and are known to ‘shed’ such appearances for a more monstrous appearance.”

“Professor, if we’re questioning what makes a monster, would appearance count, or is that just a given?”

“An excellent question. What I need to ask you is if YOU find such an appearance monstrous. Many are fond of the strange and unnatural, to the point literature has taken a turn from placing these creatures from the horror genre into the romance genre, but do they stop being monsters because they are loved or is it their nature that makes them monstrous?

“Is their appearance alone that we find enough to label them a monster or is it something else? In this course, you are meant to figure out what YOU define as a monster and how we, as a society, label things as monsters. I believe that’s all we have time for today, but I’ll be around for a bit after classes if you have any questions.”

Everyone started to pack up their things, but I was slower than usual, inwardly sighing in relief when Mr. Werewolf left first. This was the perfect opportunity for me.

“Professor Cross? I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your presentation.”

“Of course, I’m always happy to answer any questions about my work.”

“I was hoping you could recommend some books to me about the topic. I'd like to learn more about the history of monsters and the supernatural in literature. The course has been very fascinating to me, so I’d like to continue to pursue the topic.”

“It’s always nice to see students become interested in new things. There’s a few in the library I can recommend to get you started.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

If I could find out more about werewolves then maybe I could figure out what I did wrong to receive so much attention during the first two days of school. If I did then I could keep it from happening again and avoid any more problematic interactions.

I really could not afford to have more of those and felt like I already used up my one call with Thomas. He hadn’t been able to get back to me and I couldn’t help but worry that it was because Father found out about us talking and put more work on his shoulders.

The books would help and hopefully, I wouldn’t have to worry about werewolves OR vampires anymore. I just… needed to educate myself a little bit, and I was thankful Professor Cross was helping me do just that.