The Defiant Claim - The Claim: Book 2 [LGBTQ+]

A voice hollered into the storm, muted by the snow and carried away by the gusting wind. He couldn’t make out who it was or what was said, but he didn’t care either way. Too numb to care.

If the Goddess wanted him, She could take him. She alone could free Sam and send someone better for him. Someone who could heal Sam from all the pain and heartache he had caused him.

He deserves someone better.

“Mik!” Noodin’s voice cut through the wind, closer but still several yards away.

Groaning, Mik furrowed his brows and turned onto his side, trying to turn over onto his stomach to push himself up and crawl away. His skin burned in pain, his finger and toes already frozen numb.

Noodin was on him quickly, grabbing his neck from behind with thick rough gloves, twisting and pushing his back into the snow. Dressed in thick, warm furs, every inch of him was covered except for his face. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

“Maybe,” Mik grumbled, looking away for a possible escape route—not that he had the strength now to throw Noodin off him.

Huffing, Noodin pulled him up, but Mik had lost all feeling in his feet and Noodin had to hold him up. “Now is not the time to have an existential crisis.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason to keep living that doesn’t involve a mate who will never be able to forgive me and deserves better than I can possibly give him.”

Pulling him up and wrapping Mik’s arm around his shoulder, Noodin hauled him out of the snow. The wind hurtled its might at them, threatening to blow them over, but Noodin stood firm and solid, tromping with purpose back to the cabin.

“You have to find your reason for living,” Noodin stated over the howling of the wind. “Just because you’re lost now doesn’t mean you will be lost forever. You will find your purpose, your reason, for living when you obtain self-awareness.”

“I have self-awareness.”

“Do you? If you did, you would not reject your mate at every turn. He was created for you. Made to fit, perfect, and compliment you in every way. If you had self-awareness, you would not only accept him but love him without question. Yet you resist and reject him and your bond.”

Mik eyes and throat began to burn as memories of Sam flashed in his mind. The shy smile that brightened with his cheeks. Those attentive blue eyes that looked on with hope, regarded him with appraisal, and shone with emotions that he dared to share.

“I broke him beyond repair,” he whispered.

“You don’t know that for sure. Healing takes time, Mik. Have patience.”

“He tried to kill himself because of me.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“To free me.”

Noodin’s paused in his steps. A moment passed before he heaved a sigh and readjusted Mik’s arm around his shoulder. “Is that what he told you?”

“Yeah. He wanted to die to set me free of our bond so I could be who I was born to be and live my life as I saw fit.”

“And that’s why you’re out here now? Trying to offer him the same sacrifice?”

Hanging his head, Mik closed his eyes. “He deserves a life full of happiness. A life that I can’t give him and don’t deserve myself.”

Thrown to the snow, the air left his lungs with a whoosh and Noodin was on him. Claws ripped through the gloves that gripped his throat. Noodin’s canines descended as he snarled over him.

“Enough! What happened to the male who promised me that he would take care of Sam? Who promised me that he would change? Who told me that he would fight for Sam? Where is your fight, Mik? Where is that male who refused to give up?”

“How the fuck would you feel if your mate tried to kill herself to free you and you didn’t feel worthy of even having her as a mate?”

“I would prove to her that her life mattered to me and I would do everything to free her from those thoughts and feelings—not turn tail and run like a fucking coward!”

Mik’s lip curled. “I’m not a coward.”

“Then why were you running away? Not only from Sam but from your feelings!”

“I can’t accept him sacrificing himself for me! How the fuck do you think that makes me feel?”

“Fucking shitty, I bet! But that’s when you hold him close and tell him he’s wrong, not turn tail and run! Face your fucking fears and emotions, Mik! He’s male and you care about him and there’s nothing wrong with that!”

Noodin picked him back up and threw him over his shoulder, carrying him the rest of the way to the cabin in silence as the wind howled between the trees. He climbed up the steps to the front door and threw it open with ease despite the power of the wind.

“Face him. Face your fears. That’s how you find yourself and find your purpose in life,” Noodin muttered before he carried Mik into the cabin and closed the door behind him.

Warmth flooded over Mik as Noodin set him down on one of the wooden chairs in the kitchen. He stared up at the ceiling as he inhaled the smell of burning cedar from the stove a few feet away—and the all-familiar and comforting scent of his mate at the other side of the cabin. The snow and ice on his clothes melted, the fabric clinging to him, as he closed his eyes and drew more of Sam’s scent into his burning lungs.

“Alpha?” Sam called from across the room.

Noodin shed his boots and hung up his furs before filling the kettle with water and setting it on the stove. “Yes, it’s me. How are you doing, Sam? You okay?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, a sad, dejected sound.

“Well, Mik here is an idiot. I’ll leave it to him to explain to you what’s going on, but right now, I need to help him strip out of his wet clothes and into something dry before he catches a cold.”

Noodin marched across the cabin to the dresser and pulled out a shirt and a pair of sweat pants along with a towel. He set them on the bed and leaned down to touch Sam’s face and feel his forehead. He whispered something Mik couldn’t catch before he straightened back up and returned to Mik with the clothes and towel.

“How are you feeling? Can you move or are you still numb from the cold?”

A shiver coursed through Mik’s body. As the warmth of the room ebbed into his flesh, the coldness of the wet clothing blocked it. He pulled the hoodie and shirt underneath over his head and dropped them to the floor beside him. He shivered with the shock of heat now and Noodin draped the towel around him.

“Can you stand? I’ll help you take your pants off if you can stand up. The sooner you get out of those wet clothes, the better,” Noodin said.

Mik stood, his knees rattling underneath him as he shivered. Noodin turned the chair around for Mik to steady himself while Noodin stripped off his pants behind him. Mik dried himself with the towel before draping it around his shoulders. It offered a little bit of privacy as the older male guided him into the dry pair of pants and had him sit back down on the chair so he could pull the shirt over his head.

“Now go snuggle up with Sam under the blanket.”

Mik began to protest but Noodin interrupted. “His body heat will warm you up faster than anything else. Last thing you both need is you catching a cold because you can’t face your damn emotions.”