Lover At Last(69)

Uh-huh, right, Zypher thought with an eye roll.

“You must remember, Elan, you are protected.”

As Xcor smiled more widely, it was with a full show of fangs, as if he were on the verge of latching onto the other male’s throat and tearing out his windpipe.

Good-byes were said shortly thereafter, and then Xcor ended the call.

Zypher spoke up. “All is well?”

Their leader’s head turned on the top of his spine, and as their eyes met, Zypher felt sorry for the idiot on the phone…and for Wrath and the Brotherhood.

The light in his leader’s stare was pure evil. “Oh, aye. All is very well indeed.”





TWENTY-FIVE


As the sound of unanswered ringing came through the landline, Blay held the receiver to his ear and sat down on the edge of his bed. This was weird. His parents should have been home this time of the night. It was so close to dawn—

“Hello?” his mother said, finally.

Blay exhaled long and slow, and shifted himself back against the headboard. Folding the bottom of his robe over his legs, he cleared his throat. “Hi, it’s me.”

The happiness that suffused the voice on the other end made him feel warm in his chest. “Blay! How are you! Let me get your father so he can hop on the other extension—”

“No, wait.” He closed his eyes. “Let’s just…talk. You and me.”

“Are you okay?” He heard the sound of a chair streaking across a bare floor—and knew right where she was: at the oak table in her precious kitchen. “What’s going on. You haven’t been hurt, have you?”

Not on the inside. “I’m…okay.”

“What is it?”

Blay rubbed his face with his free hand. He and his parents had always been close—ordinarily, there was nothing that he didn’t talk to them about, and this breakup with Saxton was exactly the kind of thing he’d usually bring up: He was upset, confused, disappointed, a little depressed…all the usual emotional stuff he and his mom processed in a two-way street of phone calls.

As he stayed silent, however, he was reminded that there was, in fact, one thing he had never broached with them. One very big thing…

“Blay? You’re scaring me.”

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

True enough.

He supposed he hadn’t come out to them with respect to his sexual orientation because your love life was not something most people shared with their parents. And maybe there was also a part of him, however illogical it was, that worried about whether or not they would look at him differently.

Take out the maybe.

After all, the glymera’s policy on homosexuality was pretty clear: provided you were never overt about it, and you mated someone of the opposite sex like you were supposed to, you wouldn’t be expelled for your perversion.

Yeah, ’cuz getting hitched to someone you weren’t attracted to or in love with, and lying to them about sustained infidelity, was so much more honorable than the truth.

But God help you if you were a male and had a boyfriend on the up-and-up—as he had had for the last twelve months or so.

“I…ah, I broke up with someone.”

Annnnd now it was crickets on his mother’s side. “Really?” she said after a moment, like she was shocked, but trying to keep from showing it.

You think that’s a surprise, guess what’s coming next, Mom, he thought.

Because, holy shit, he was going to…

Wait, was he really going to do this now, over the phone? Shouldn’t it be in person?

What exactly was the protocol here?

“Yes, I, ah…” He swallowed hard. “I’ve been in a relationship for most of the past year, actually.”

“Oh…my.” The hurt in her tone stung him. “I—we—your father and I never knew.”

“I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“Do we know her? Or her family?”

He closed his eyes, his chest compressing. “Ah…you know the family. Yes.”

“Well, I’m very sorry it didn’t work out. Are you okay…? How did it end?”

“It just died, to be honest.”

“Well, relationships are so very difficult. Oh, my love, my dearest heart—I can hear how sad you are. Would you like to come home and—”

“It was Saxton. Qhuinn’s cousin.”

There was a sharp inhale over the connection.

As his mother went utterly silent, Blay’s arm started shaking so badly he could barely hold the phone.

“I…I, ah…” His mother swallowed hard. “I didn’t know. That ah, you…”

He finished what she could not in his head: I didn’t know that you are one of those people.