Page 71 of In This Iron Ground
“Olive—”
“It’s fine. Damien, I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will. Olive, you’re one of the best people I know. Courageous. Loyal. Determined. I know you’ll be fine. I’m just going to miss you.”
Olive looked at Damien. She leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“Me too.”
They pressed against each other. They could feel the world changing around them. Squeezing them out of places that they’d become comfortable with. The path they were on was suddenly turning, and they didn’t have another option but to go on.
Damien reached between them and threaded his fingers through Olive’s. She squeezed back.
They sat, looking at the shadowed landscape of their futures.
In the distance, the horizon was lightening. The sun was just reaching through.
PART TWO
CHAPTERNINE
College was both more and less than advertised. Damien found it was an odd combination of academic responsibility blurred with the sudden freedom of adulthood. In contrast to high school, the students of Eketon University didn’t seem to give much of a damn about what others were doing. You could go to the store in your PJs, juggle in the campus square, get drunk at two pm. Nobody batted an eye.
Damien’s worry about schoolwork followed him there. His body couldn’t quite forget being tied down in response to his failures. Those first few months carried an increase in nightmares. He started grinding his teeth in sleep, but even that was lulled back to normal as he got used to the new pressures of the nascent adventure that was college.
Damien had been terrified that the past would echo itself. That he would struggle to make friends as the people around him sensed that he was a little different. A little off. But everybody around him was packed tightly onto the same boat. Everybody was alone and wanting, and it made it easier to meet new people. Before he knew it, Damien was hanging out regularly with a few people from his dorm and a few from some of his classes. He had a room to himself, a luxury surprisingly common at Eketon, so he could always escape to a safe place when he became overwhelmed.
The ties he made weren’t the lasting bonds he hoped he had with Olive or the Salgados. It was a struggle to open himself up fully to people he couldn’t imagine telling about his past. But it was enough to settle his fears about being alone in that new world.
What surprised him the most was his own openness about casual sex. His soul was still with Hakan, and it eased the way for his body to explore the world without fear of getting seriously hurt. He couldn’t sleep with just anybody, the act too vulnerable for that, but he made a couple of friends that felt safe enough to have benefits with. The first time he had penetrative sex was painful and a little awkward, but it hadn’t been bad, and it had quickly gotten better.
In the beginning, he avoided Hakan as much as was feasible. He didn’t want to give the impression that he had chosen Eketon just for him. They had always had a separate group of friends, and Damien didn’t want to presume to have the right to insert himself into Hakan’s college life. However, he missed the pack like a severed limb. He could feel its ache as the moon gained shape and light. Hakan had been spending most of the full moons with a rag-tag group of wolf shifters, but after the first month, it became clear he wanted to spend them with Damien.
Damien had been a little floored. Such open invitations to spend meaningful time with people still surprised him.
They went to a large, witch-warded park. They chose a spot away from the other shifters and Damien looked away as Hakan undressed. It was different, somehow, with just the two of them. He watched as he transformed, however. The shift still fascinated him, even after all those years.
They ran together through the fields and trees. Damien had taken up running in the past year in order to try and keep up with the wolves. It never worked, of course, but it was a freeing experience to run for minutes on end without having to stop.
They raced between patches of darkness and silver light when they heard howling in the distance. They howled back, caught up in the tide of the moon.
Hakan looked at Damien with bright, werewolf eyes. Damien almost never dared to stroke any of the wolves, but he reached out and ran his fingers through the grey fur on Hakan’s massive head. Hakan closed his eyes and pushed his muzzle against his wrist. Damien could feel the wetness of his nose and gust of hot breath. He smiled, the moonlight seeping right into his bones.
When the night had howled and ran its way through, they returned to Hakan’s small loft together. They collapsed onto his bed, exhausted, heedless of the dirt they tracked. They curled around each other and Hakan breathed in deeply as their scents mixed.
Pack, Damien thought as he drifted to sleep.
**********
It was only a matter of time before Damien encountered another shifter.
Damien sipped at his drink, diluted with plenty of mixer so he could have something in his hands without getting drunk. He still disliked the feeling of losing control in a space filled with people he didn’t know.
He was scanning the room absentmindedly when Damien saw him. Broad, of Pakistani descent, maybe, with bushy eyebrows and dark, oval eyes. He was looking at Damien and the awkwardness of catching someone’s eye made Damien look away. But something niggled at him. He looked back at the guy, who hadn’t moved his gaze away. The stare wasn’t intense. It was almost playful.
As Damien raised his eyebrows, it was almost like sense memory. His body recognized something before his head did. Something about how the guy seemed completely sober, or the way he stood, with a casual confidence that wasn’t usual without an ounce of cockiness. The way he would tilt his head, sometimes, as if picking up a sound far away, or lift his nose a fraction. He’d seen those gestures before.
The guy made his way towards him. Damien tilted his body to meet him, the guy’s playful look contagious.
