Chapter 238

“It happened just how you described, Ari,” he murmurs, shaking his head as he recalls it. “Of all things, it seriously felt like someone threw a damn brick at my wolf.”

I smile a little, remembering telling him that metaphor at the club after Luca’s boxing victory but hating that it feels so accurate for my friend.

“It happened the first time at the boxing match. I knew he was there…instantly, as soon as he walked in.”

“Did you know who it was? Like, you could pick them out of the crows?” I ask, a little breathless with interest but not wanting to push him too far.

“I knew…the area…in the crowd. That something in me had suddenly turned to the Atalaxians. But I couldn’t pinpoint it at first.” Ben raises his hands to his temples and rubs them in soft, worried circles as he remembers. “But I wasn’t sure what precisely it was – my wolf insisted, of course, that my mate was there, but I mean – what the hell does he know.”

I smile a little as my wolf bristles inwardly, appalled that Ben would ever doubt his wolf. I smooth a hand over her fur and she turns to give my fingers a fond lick.

“So,” I say, hesitant. “What happened?”

“I felt…sick,” he says, raising his head and meeting my eyes. “Did you feel like that? Like…nauseous?”

“I didn’t feel nauseous,” I say, turning my head to the side. “But my center of balance was off. I couldn’t walk right – and it was just before we had to go have that first hand-to-hand fight.” I grin at the memory fondly, even though I wasn’t so happy at the time. “I think Rafe was worried I had a stroke because I couldn’t walk in a straight line.”

“God, no wonder you lost so spectacularly,” Ben says, laughing a little. “But it sounds about the same, though – both of our bodies responded almost as if we were seasick, like gravity and perception changed.”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling at him, glad to have someone who understands it now. I wonder, passively, if Jackson and Luca felt the same and make a mental note to ask them. “So, when did you figure out who it was?”

“After I came back to the fight. I have to admit that I didn’t…watch Luca a lot.”

I laugh a little, and he laughs with me.

“I spent my time instead,” Ben continues, “scanning the Atalaxians, trying to catch a scent. It was too hard, though. There was one that I…wanted it to be, maybe? More than knew it was? And he, too, looked a little sick and stood perfectly rigid and still, even though he kept his eyes on the fight.”

“And were you right?” I ask, anxious, wanting Ben to have the boy he wanted it to be with a desperation that almost surprises me. Ben, he’s such a good friend to me – I want him to have everything in the world that he wants.

“Yeah,” Ben says, raising his eyes to mine and fighting hard against a rather brilliant smile. “I knew for sure at the smaller meeting when Atalaxia declared that they were going to destroy us all. I mean, it was a shit day for everyone else, but my wolf wouldn’t settle down in my heart. We could smell him, in that small room, and we knew for sure that it was…” he laughs a little now and covers his face with his hand, embarrassed. “The cute one.”

I laugh, delighted, and Ben goes along with me.

“Wait, but did you guys…acknowledge each other? Did you figure out who he was? Did you ever get a chance to talk to him!?”

“I didn’t get to talk to him,” Ben says, dropping his hand from his face and leaning forward towards me now, not holding back now. “But…he looked at me, once, and I know he felt it, Ari – felt what I was feeling. We didn’t say anything – or express anything – but we…we knew what we are to each other. It was…amazing. I mean, terrifying, but…amazing.”

“Wow,” I breathe, likewise leaning forward, wanting to know more. “But which one was it?”

“I feel like you’ll remember him, Ari - you noticed him,” Ben says, nodding to me. “I saw you two lock eyes as well.”

I sit up straighter, surprised. “The one with the crown?” I ask, a little horrified at the idea. “Or – the one next to him?”

“The one next to him,” Ben says, nodding seriously, and I feel a whoosh of relief – because the one with the crown…my wolf raises her hackles at his memory. There was something wrong with him. But the one next to him – I suddenly remember the pulse that went through me when our eyes locked. Not a mating bond – no, I’d recognize that anywhere – but…a connection.

A real one I can’t explain.

“Did you find out who he is?” I ask, excited.

“Of course I did, Ari,” Ben says, leaning back in his chair and waiving a dismissive hand at me. “What do you think I did all midwinter? Actually, Rafe is the one who told me who it was.”

“Really?” I ask, my eyes going wide. “Does Rafe…know?”

“No, only you know,” Ben says, looking at me a little hard, and I nod quickly to reassure him that I’m keeping the secret. The stakes are high, after all, on this one. “But…I asked some questions about the Atalaxian delegation and got enough information out of him to figure it out.”

“Well come on, Benny,” I growl, smacking the table between us and making him laugh. “Spill! I’m dying here!”

“All right, all right,” he says, leaning his arms on the desk and grinning at me, I think enjoying himself more than he has in a while now that he has someone to talk to about this. “His name is Elias. He’s the son of a minor Atalaxian Prince named Calvin, their third child.”

My eyes go a little wide at the name, because I recognize it.

“What?” Ben asks, frowning at me.

“My mom knows Calvin, I think,” I say, nodding eagerly. “She really likes him – her one friend in Atalaxia.”

“Yes, that’s what Rafe said too,” Ben says, nodding. “Which gives me hope. It’s hard enough having a mate who is Atalaxian – if his dad is cool enough that your mom likes him, hopefully Elias has some progressive politics as well and doesn’t like…hate women. Or himself, for being gay.”

My face falls into a grimace then, thinking of how horrible it must be to grow up liking people of the same gender as you in a world where that’s a crime punishable by death. God, Elias – I don’t know him at all, but my heart already goes out to him. And for Ben’s sake on top of that, I want to do everything I can to help.

“So, what are you going to do?” I ask quietly. “What are we going to do?”

“We?” Ben asks, raising his eyes to mine a bit.

“Benny, you know I’m going to do everything I can to help you find your mate and keep him safe,” I say, a little fiercer than I usually am, putting my hands flat on the desk between us. “But I’m also sure that your clever little clockwork brain,” I point a finger at his forehead now, turning it in a circle like the shifting gears of a complicated machine, “is already turning with ideas. So? What do we do?”

Ben beams at me then, I think liking the metaphor as well as my instant, open offer of aid. But he sighs deeply and drops his eyes when he starts to think on what we’re up against. “Obviously, I want to get him out of there, Ariel. If anyone finds out about our bond – even if he is a minor prince or whatever – they will make an example out of him. But…I mean, I don’t even know if he wants to leave – would he give up his whole nation to start a new life here, with me? I mean, he’d be a…traitor to his world. To his family.”

My wolf turns anxiously in my soul at the mere idea of it, because if I had to choose between my mates and my country…

God, I don’t know if I could do it.

But then again, my country loves and supports me and wouldn’t kill me if my mate was a woman instead of a man. It is different.

I bite my lip, torn.