Page 114 of Gift from the Nexus

I guess that’s the sign Lucas and his Nexus is here.

“Yeah, and Willow’s confidence in this seals it for me.”

The asshole shoots me a knowing smirk. Since the mental connection has firmly snapped into place, he loves to call me out on shit. He doesn’t always do it out loud. He likes to let me know privately he knows what’s running through my mind.

And fuck, so does Draken.

The shit that filters in from him is wild.

“Tillman. Corentin. We got here as soon as we could. Is everything okay?” Lucas asks after he and his brothers shake our hands.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. We just wanted to talk to you in person about something. Sorry for the last-minute notice and if we worried you at all,” I tell him. Everyone gets nervous when we call them here. You’d think it’d be the command room that has that effect, but no. Everyone treats that room like a retreat compared to here.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“We’d like to offer you the combat instructor position here at the academy,” I say, cutting straight to the point.

His eyes widen and his posture relaxes as he realizes he isn’t in any kind of trouble. Although he stays tense as he lets my words sink in. His brothers bounce back faster than him, smiling and squeezing his arms like they’ve accepted the position for him. Which is a good sign.

“That’s amazing, but what does this mean for my Nexus? I don’t want to be separated from them.”

“Of course not. They’d be here with you. It’d be much like how Ry’s Nexus functions. Jamie is an intricate part of the lab here, but San and Nikoli work closely to Ry. They don’t have the second-in-command title, but they’re shown the same respect. Your brothers would have the same. We’ll find roles for them in a capacity that best suits their abilities. Whether that’s helping you, the E.F. recruits, instructing their own classes, whatever it may be. You’d have a Nexus house here on campus. This would become your permanent station,” I inform him. I’ve given offers like this multiple times and I’m always prepared for the fearful questions.

Most Nexuses would be worried about being separated, but we’d never allow that. I’d never move anywhere without mybrothers, so I’d never expect any of our instructors or E.F. members to do that either. We even make it a point to give students their own homes together if they have a fully formed Nexus.

Nodding at Tillman for him to continue, he picks right up, explaining the position. “Your job would move from being on the front lines and manning missions, to teaching combat skills in all variations. Rather than enforcing soldiers, you’ll be preparing the students who either plan to join the E.F. or those who just simply want to learn how to defend themselves. I can’t promise with a war like the one we have going on, you’ll never have to step into a fight again, but for the most part, you’ll be coming out of active duty and entering the beginning training stages for the gifted coming into the academy.”

“I…can I talk it over with my brothers?” he asks.

“What the hell is there to talk about, Luc? This is fantastic. No more moving around. No more fighting. We’ve been holding out on bonding with a Primary because of our situation. Now we won’t have to,” one of his brothers chimes in encouragingly.

I keep my blank but relaxed mask in place, hiding my own excitement over this. Not that I’m trying to come across as a hard-ass or anything, but I don’t want him to feel pressured by my own hope. This is completely up to him.

“There’d be no more traveling, no more missions or recon, or anything like that for the most part. No more thrill of the fight. You all are really okay with that?” Lucas asks them. I hear the subtle hope in his voice, but he’s trying to hide it in case one of them doesn’t agree.

“Yes,” the three of them echo.

His breath whooshes out of him and a slow smile spreads across his face when he looks at me and Tillman.

“I accept.”

Dropping the mask, I return his smile and stand to shake his hand. Typically, interviews are a lengthy, formal, nuisance of a process, so I’ve got to say, this way was far easier and enjoyable.

“Fuck, I thought you two were sending us off on some crazy-ass recon or possibly firing me,” Lucas says with a laugh after we finish congratulating him.

“Well, this isn’t typically how Corentin would run this process, but we’re on borrowed time with the Forest mission coming up. We’ve been struggling to nail down a trustworthy person for this position and our Primary’s the one who said she thought you’d make a great fit. It sparked some urgency, and our minds were made up before I called you,” Tillman says.

“Please give her my thanks for the recommendation. You know we’ll always be enforcers through and through, but honestly, we’ve been getting lonely. We made a pact years ago that we’d never take a Primary while being in the service. We’ve just seen what it does to people when they’re broken apart and we weren’t willing to put our Primary through it,” Lucas tells us seriously.

His comment, although doesn’t fully surprise me, it does make me think about how many Nexuses feel the same way. How many of them are holding out because they don’t want to get into a committed relationship in the middle of a war. There aren’t many E.F. Nexuses who have Primaries.

That thought makes me even more eager to end this.

Everyone, mostly anyways, deserves the feeling of a completed Nexus.

We run through a few more basic formalities, and they eventually leave with the plan of packing up their current belongings that are at Crestwood academy and moving here by tonight. Tomorrow, Tillman will start him fresh in his new position.

“That went better and faster than I expected,” he says after he returns from walking them out of my office.

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