17Garret
He emerged from nowhere,just like he always did, his body uncoiling before he shook his shoulders, his hair tossing a bit in the last of the wind he traveled in.
The last of the wind that was him.
Elliot shook his shoulders, the dark lines of his tattoo twisting as though it was alive before it stilled, the bird returning to a different position. Just as it always did. He didn't even see me sitting there in his usual chair. He moved immediately toward the bureau, his fingers deft as he slid one drawer open and then another. I already knew what he was looking for.
"If you want it back, all you have to do is ask," I hissed into the dark and he stiffened, his powerful body alert as he faced me.
"I don't want it back, I just wanted to make sure you had it." He was trying to be strong, but as secretive as he was, I could still see through him. I knew him that well.
"Why would I throw it out?" I couldn't keep the pain out of my voice, and Elliot sagged, his shoulders shaking before he went back to the dresser.
"I don't know, because you have chosen another." He snapped the drawer he had been looking in shut with a bang that sent the bobble on the top shaking.
"I didn't choose another. I chose you both. When I came back smelling like her, you told me that I could. Or did I just imagine you talking about how the Alphas among your kind take multiple Omegas."
"You did not."
Even in the dark I could see the pain in his face, the lines deepening as he forced himself to stand taller. My heart ached to rush to him, to gather him in my arms and promise him all the wonderful things I had originally planned to. But I couldn't, not anymore. I had ripped all of that away, all those promises. That's why he was hurting. Not because the Omega existed, but because of what she had taken away.
It had been the last thing he said to me before he raced away, and it was those words that had clawed at my heart since. Not because he had spat them with such hate, but because he was right. I had promised him all those things, or I had been about to, and then I had asked him to keep an eye on her.
I had to fix this.
I stood, careful to move slowly so as not to agitate him and send him into his wind form again. Sylphs were the most powerful of the Lyrous the Fae had created, the powerful shifters that had hunted my kind for years. Elliot was no exception to that strength, although he was no hunter. I had to piece much of his history together, but based on some of the things he had whispered as he slept I would venture a guess he was one of their royalty. A powerful sylph, who had chosen me.
"I did not place my mark on her to replace you," I said, my heart cracking as the accidental truth of that hit me. I may not have intended to do so, but by marking her I bonded myself to her, something I could never give him without endangering both of us.
"So, what? You bonded yourself to an Omega without her permission. As a... a..." He ran his hand through his hair as he turned from me, his chest heaving. God, I needed to hold him. I needed to soothe it all away. "We would have found him, Garret. You didn't need to do this. I was close to finding Jett and Theon. You could have waited."
"Waited? But that would have given her to Aldric? You know wha...ah! What am I doing?" I stepped away with a growl, throwing my hands in the air as my temper threatened to break free. "This is the same conversation as before. We are talking in circles."
"Maybe that is because there is nothing else to say," Elliot snapped, moving to the dresser on the other side of my room and continuing his search.
I wanted to scream. I had been waiting here for hours, knowing he would come back eventually. But I had been waiting here to fix things, not to drive him further away.
"If I would have known this would happen I never would have bonded her to me. You mean everything to me, Elliot." I quietly crossed the room, resisting the urge to place my hand against his bare back and instead placed the circle of gold on the top of the dresser, right above where he was searching.
The ring looked so deficient against the expensive grain of the dresser. It was a simple ring of gold, the surface covered in scratches and dings from the generations it had been passed down through his family. His one and only heirloom, and he had entrusted it to me.
"I want to be with you, Elliot. But I also need to protect you. I am an Alpha, and I protect those I love. Those I choose, and I choose you, Elliot. I don't know what would have happened if Aldric had gotten his hands on her." It wasn't a lie. I didn't know, but I had an idea. She would have been gone in her first heat and our chance to face Theon would have been gone.
Bringing all of that up now was not going to help anything. Besides, I was well aware he already knew.
"I haven't seen her," I said as if it would make it all better, both of us still staring at the ring.
"I know," he whispered after a minute.
"You know?" I should be fuming. Leave it to a wind Lyrous to follow me. I had spent days wandering halls looking for him. Desperate to find him. And he had been following me, watching me pine.
"Yeah. You asked me to keep an eye on her, find out what she knows. So I did." He ran his finger over the edge of the ring before turning to me, the same broken pain in his eyes.
"You did?" I forced the words out through the rock in my throat.
"I did." His lips pulled up in the half-smile I always loved from him, the knowing smirk that spoke of secrets and always promised more tugging at my core. "She knows nothing about who or what she is, just like her brother. She's also scared out of her mind, has a smart mouth, a bad sense of humor and is obsessed with my dick."
"Your dick?" I nearly choked on the word.