What am I doing?

Even as he raced into the woods that surrounded Miracle, Chadwick knew it for the mistake it was.  What he didn’t understand was why he was doing it, or why he wasn’t stopping and going back to Saber.

He may not have been able to admit it out loud, but Chadwick had wanted Saber to claim him.  He’d even been excited when his mate had manhandled him.  But all that changed the moment Saber reached for Chadwick’s pants.  Images of Saber fucking him, or actually having to take it up the ass, scared the crap out of Chadwick.

He’d never once even considered letting someone top him.  Until Saber.  That right there was what had terrified him the most.  Chadwick had actually wanted what Saber was going to do to him.  Even now, just thinking about it had his hole clenching with need.

No man would allow another man to violate him that way.  His father’s voice taunted him.

For years, Chadwick had ignored his father’s bigoted views.  At least he’d thought he’d ignored them.  Maybe he’d been listening more than he’d thought.  Was that why kept running from Saber?

Hands grabbed him from behind and spun him to face a very pissed off Saber.  Yet, even as confused as he was and angry as Saber was, all Chadwick could pay attention to was the chiseled perfection of his mate’s chest.

His mouth started to water for a taste of that darkly tanned skin.  Clearly Saber spent a lot of time outdoors without his shirt on.  Thoughts of all the men who followed Saber seeing his mate’s perfect body sent jealousy surging through him.

“Stop fucking running,” Saber yelled at him, his hands gripping Chadwick’s arms like a vice.

“Stop fucking manhandling me,” Chadwick yelled back, as anger flooded through him from the tone in Saber’s voice.  He was done taking orders from anyone other than his Alpha, Edrick, and even then he only occasionally listened.  “You aren’t the boss of me.”

Saber’s grip only tightened as he was dragged right against that hard body of muscles, causing his dick to surge back to life.  “No,” Saber spit out.  “I’m your mate.”  The words came out like a shot.  “As such, I deserve an explanation.”

“I don’t have one,” Chadwick yelled before he could stop himself.

Saber’s firm lips twisted into an ugly snarl.  “That’s not good enough.”

“Too fucking bad,” Chadwick snarled back.  “Because it’s the truth.”  Sadly, it was.  He had no idea why he was acting like he was.  There was something inside of him that was triggering his fight or flight instincts.  Except staying and fighting wasn’t actually in the equation.

He’d swore to never cower or hide if he ever managed to escape from his old pack.  Yet, there he was, free, and what was he doing?  Running like a little girl.

Disgusted with himself, he yanked from Saber’s grip and started pacing.  So agitated his hands flailed around as he said, “I’m a coward.”  The moment the words came out of his mouth, Chadwick knew them for the truth they were.  “I’m a coward,” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

But it still wasn’t enough.  There was so much hate bubbling up inside of him that he was desperate to purge it.  “I’ve hidden who I was since I was five fucking years old.”  He whirled to face Saber.  “Five. Do you have any idea what that was like?”

Saber took a step toward him, but Chadwick threw up his hand to stop him.  “No.  Don’t come any closer.”

It most likely wouldn’t help, but Chadwick needed to get it out.  He needed for someone to know that he hadn’t always been this way.  “We used to play cops and robbers, knights storming the castle and any other fighting scenario we could.”

“Who?” Saber asked as he stood there listening.

“Edrick, Lucca, Hudson, Kellach, and myself.”  He smiled as he remembered some of his childhood.  “We were inseparable, even at that young age.  Hardly a night passed that we weren’t spending at each other’s homes.”

A tear dripped down his cheek as he thought about how all that changed with one careless statement.  “We had been pretending to storm the castle, which was a fort we’d built in my backyard.  I was the one who needed to be saved from the dragon who was holding me prisoner.  Edrick was the dragon and the others were losing.”

He chuckled as the memories of their innocent playing filtered into his mind.  “Even back then, Edrick was better than any of us at fighting.  He was born to be a leader.”

Saber nodded.  “Makes sense.  Most Alphas are.”

Unfortunately, that sweet memory would morph into something far more sinister than any five-year-old should have to endure.  “I was laughing at their antics and announced my mate would have done whatever it took to beat the dragon if he were here to save me.”  A part of Chadwick wanted to smile as he knew, after meeting Saber, how true that statement was.

It was what happened after that turned his world upside down.  “My mother must have been outside, because she was suddenly there insisting that we never breath a word that I said my mate would be male.  She warned us that if anyone ever found out, I would be killed.”

As a shifter, fear of discovery by the humans had been something Chadwick and the others had grown up with.  But that had been humans, not his own kind, his own pack.  “I didn’t believe her even though we promised to never tell another soul or mention it ever again.”

Ice formed in his veins.  “My father was one of the Alpha’s enforcers and on a mission at the time.  But when he came back, I was determined to prove my mother wrong.”

He glanced at Saber, cringing when he saw the pity in his mate’s eyes.  “Even at that age, I knew to tread lightly, just in case my mother was right.  So instead of announcing I knew my mate would be a man, I asked my father if two men could be mates.”

A choked sob exploded from his throat as the memories of that moment flooded him.  “I was thrown across the room.  The impact of hitting the wall had knocked the breath from my body, as I slid to the floor in a heap.”  His hand went to his neck unconsciously.  “Before I could catch my breath, my father had wrapped his hand around my neck and squeezed until I couldn’t get air.”

Tears blurred his vision as he looked over at Saber.  Incensed at what had happened he yelled, “He threatened to kill me if I ever mentioned anything as disgusting as two men together ever again.  My own father had nearly killed me for just bringing it up.”

Throat raw from yelling, Chadwick started coughing uncontrollably, sinking to his knees.  “My own father would gladly kill me for being gay.” He glanced up at his mate.  “How fucked up is that?”

But the rage that lived within him for so long hadn’t diminished.  “I was five,” he screamed, “and my own father would have killed me if I had admitted that I knew my mate would be a man.”

Arms were suddenly around him, pulling him into Saber’s lap, who had sat down next to him.  “I’m so sorry, Kitten.  No one, especially a child, should have to go through that.”

The tears that had started streaming down his face, wouldn’t stop, but neither would the words.  “Since that moment, I have been hiding who I was from my family, my pack, even my friends.  They might have known I was gay, but I refused to show anyone anything else about me.  I stopped playing.  I stopped interacting, expect when necessary.”

He curled further into Saber’s arms.  Now that he was there, Chadwick didn’t want to be anywhere else.  He needed this man more than he had ever imagined possible.  He just needed to get out of his own damn way.  “Hell, I stopped joking, laughing, or even talking.  The only time I felt at all safe was when we were training.”

Saber’s large hand stroked up and down his spine, helping to calm Chadwick’s frayed nerves.  “Train for what?”

“The day the pack found out we were gay.”  He just wished they hadn’t stayed until that happened.  Maybe then he wouldn’t be so fucked up in the head.  “So when you ask me to be myself, it’s not that I don’t want to.  I just don’t know who that is.  I don’t know how to be anything but the coward who hid who I was since I was five.”

Saber placed a finger under his chin and tilted Chadwick’s head up until their gazes met.  A strength Chadwick wished he had was there in Saber’s dark eyes.  “You are not a coward,” his mate insisted, but Chadwick knew the truth.

“Really?” he asked sarcastically.  “What do you call it when a forty-six-year-old doesn’t even know how to be honest with his own mate because he’s too afraid you’ll turn your back on me like my father did?”

It wasn’t until he said the words that Chadwick even realized he’d felt like that.  Saber was nothing like his father.  Then again, it wasn’t until Chadwick brought up two men being mated that he understood his father was anything other than the hero Chadwick had always thought he was.

Saber placed a soft kiss to his lips.  “A survivor,” Saber whispered when he lifted his head.  “You, my sweet and feisty kitten, are someone who will do whatever it takes to survive and that isn’t something many can say.”

Chadwick wasn’t so sure about that, but he had to admit, he liked that his mate thought so.  Hope for their future filled him and Chadwick sat up straighter, so they were eye level.  Then he leaned in for a kiss.  He was still scared, but admitting it to his mate alleviated the bone deep fear that had been causing him to flee.

The clang of a bell from the direction of the house reminded him what was about to happen.  In a few short hours, Saber was going to go into that ring and battle to the death.  Chadwick had every confidence that his mate would win, but as he’d learned from years of fighting, nothing was ever certain.

The fear of losing his mate without even being mated far outweighed anything else, like worrying that Saber might turn on him one day like his own father did.  Now that he had a better understanding of what his problem was, Chadwick was ready to face it.  To take his life back.

“I want to mate with you.”  Just saying it was enough to lift any lingering worries he’d had about allowing Saber to penetrate him.  It might be something his father had thought unmanly, but Chadwick wasn’t his father.