Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ronan loomed in the doorway to his office, his shadow falling across the room as Griffin sat in darkness.
“Where’s Beau?”
“Sleeping. In the lounge.”
He’d succumbed to exhaustion as soon as Griffin had managed to get him upstairs. The lounge, where the alpha felt most comfortable, seemed like the best place to settle him.
He knew why Ronan was there. Knew that the alpha had heard every word from Beau’s lips and had put two and two together.
“Are you going to tell him?” Ronan asked.
Silence was his refuge, but only for the briefest of moments.
“I think I have to. I don’t believe…” He swallowed hard. Tried again. “Our relationship won’t survive a secret like that.”
Ronan sank into the chair opposite him, regarding him with dark, knowing eyes.
“Will it survive the truth?”
“I’ve done many things in my life that I’m not proud of.”
“It’s not your life we’re talking about.”
Griffin held up a hand, a request for silence so he could put his thoughts into words. Right at that moment, it wasn’t an easy task.
“I have learned to forgive myself for the terrible things that I did. And I can forgive Beau for something that, when it comes right down to it, he didn’t have a choice over. That… that won’t be the hard part.”
Ronan nodded as if he’d known what Griffin was going to say.
“Will he be able to forgive himself?”
Swallowing did nothing to stop the tears that escaped and slid down his cheeks.
“If he can’t, I’ll lose him.” His lips twisted into a smile, but there was nothing pleasant about it. “Ironic, isn’t it? That I’ll end up in the exact same position as he was, forced to choose between killing someone I care about or risk them bringing harm to others.”
He pressed his hands over his stomach as if cradling the life that grew in there and let the tears fall. A moment later, he felt the press of a hand to his shoulder. Ronan didn’t speak. There were no words to fix this.
When Beau woke, they curled up on the couch together, watching the sun set. Beau had both his arms around him, his hands over Griffin’s belly. Griffin decided this was as good as time as any for the worst conversation of his life.
“Beau?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s something I have to tell you. It’s about what you told me. About… about Andrew.”
The alpha tensed for a fraction of a second before relaxing, his hands stroking soothingly across Griffin’s abdomen. He took the silence as an invitation to continue.
“Do you remember when I told you about my brothers?”
Beau nodded against him but coupled it with words. “Yeah. They were both sold like you, right? You looked for them and found one, but he’d already died.”
Griffin had deliberately kept it vague before, not wanting to upset Beau or have the alpha think he had a reason to resent his past as a fighter.
“He… he was a fighter, like you. I was told he fought with an exclusive private fighting ring and that he died fighting a bear.”
Another reason not to tell Beau, on the slim chance they’d been opponents in a fight. Little had he known the truth was worse, so much worse.
He felt rather than saw Beau still, the alpha not even breathing. This was so hard. But it had to be done. They’d never move forward if they couldn’t see what lay behind. No matter how painful.
“His… he was a leopard shifter. His name… his name…”
“Andrew,” Beau said, his voice hoarse. He was breathing again, deep ragged breaths that sounded like they hurt.
Griffin twisted in his arms until they were face to face, eye to eye, and tear to tear. They stayed like that for the longest time, as the last of the sunlight disappeared, leaving them in darkness.
“He was your brother,” Beau said finally, his voice catching.
“He was your brother too,” was all Griffin managed before he buried his face in the crook of Beau’s neck and sobbed.
It was when he felt Beau’s fingers carding through his hair and heard the rumbling of the alpha’s soothing words in his ear, that he knew they were going to be okay somehow. They would grieve this loss, like their first loss, together.
Beau woke to the early morning sunlight just peeking through the windows. He was lying on his back on the couch with Griffin curled into his side. The omega still slept, and Beau wasn’t ready to wake him. He knew now what had broken him, why Beau had taken flight leaving only the Beast in his place. The pain in his chest was like a knife when the full gravity of it hit him. Drew wasn’t just the boy he’d grown up alongside, the fighter he’d stood back to back with. He was Griffin’s brother. Much loved and much looked for.
“I was never going to find him,” Griffin said suddenly, and Beau realized he’d said some of what he’d been thinking out loud.
“I see that now,” the omega continued. “Even if you hadn’t… they would have. Someone would have. I don’t blame you, Beau. Any more than I blame myself. We were reacting to situations beyond our control.”
“I’m still so very sorry, Finn.”
“I know. And so am I. You know, if I’d told you about Drew earlier, it might have brought your memory back sooner. Saved you going through those weeks of nightmares and all that fear of turning feral again. It’s gone now, isn’t it?”
Beau was surprised to find his mate was right. That lingering fear that he’d lose himself at any moment had been pushed aside by the weight of the pain he’d finally uncovered.
At first, he couldn’t have said that it was better. But then he remembered what Finn had said about sadness and sorrow. Time, time would… not erase it, but change it, make it something easier to carry rather than something that weighed him down and dogged his every step.
“There’s one question I’m really hoping you can answer,” Griffin murmured. “But it’s okay if you can’t.”
“What question?”
“Why did Drew run?”
Beau reached out and cupped his mate’s cheek, remembering clearly his and Drew’s whispered conversation, hidden beneath the roar of spectators the day that Drew took off.
“He said he had to go find his brothers. That they were counting on him. And he wouldn’t let them down.”
Griffin’s eyes closed as he took in a shaky breath. “We have to finish what he started and find Michael.”
Beau pressed a kiss to his cheek. “We will. I know we will.” He didn’t know how or when but they’d make it happen.