The older Alex's soft, maternal attitude kept the younger Alex from bolting out of the house. Her head was throbbing with the implications of the timeline shift and trying to absorb the shock of the brothers' counterparts.
The guest bedroom was large and airy with a four poster double bed in the middle and the walls painted soft lavender.
"The light switch is here and the fan switch is next to it. You adjust the speed of the fan by clicking the chain hanging down from it. Are you sure there isn't anything I can get you, dear? I used to love vodka martinis before the children came." The older Alex peered at her younger version's face with concern.
"No liquor. At least, not yet. My head might explode. I just need sleep." Alex flopped on the bed to prove her point.
"Here are some pajamas." The older Alex opened the drawer built into the bed frame under the mattress. She took out an oversized T-shirt and cotton shorts with a drawstring.
The younger Alex accepted them, not bothering to sit up, and her older counterpart left at the hint.
Alex wriggled out of her clothes and into the pajamas. Almost as soon as she changed, she fell into a deep sleep, her gift and her curse.
It wasn't an hour when the door cracked open.
"Alex?" Gabe asked softly. When there was no answer, he slipped into the bedroom. "Alex?" he asked a little louder, approaching the bed. Again, no answer, so he stood over her. "Alex?" he asked in an normal tone of voice.
Alex's fist connected with his muzzle and he fell back. He ducked her blast. Her legs fouled in the sheet as she leapt out of bed and she thudded to the ground, hands still blazing with white power.
"Alex, please. I won't hurt you." Gabe held up his hands and backed away. "I only wanted to speak with you."
Cale rushed into the room, sword at the ready. Alex scrambled behind the bed and looked between the two, expression wild, breathing ragged, and hands still flaring.
"I'm sorry to wake you, but there's no telling when you might be Called back and I must talk with you." The older Gabe stood respectfully back from the bed, hands still up.
Cale sheathed his sword. "My brother won't hurt you. We're here to help you. There is no one here to harm you. This is a safe house."
"Called back?" Alex looked at Gabe first, then at Cale. "Safe house?"
"Very safe," Cale assured her. "My brothers and I protect our Alex, as well as Rile's and her children."
"Children?" Alex inhaled deeply, her eyes calmed, and the power from her hand sizzled out. "The children: yes, this place is safer than home. Gabe, you would know about Callings. Is something wrong?"
"That depends on how you look at it. May we go outside to talk?" Gabe asked and then nodded at Cale.
"I'll tell Rile and Alex everything is okay." Cale turned and left.
"Sure, Gabe, let me get dressed. I'll meet you on the porch." She frowned at her hands when they trembled unfolding her clothes. She thought them traitors and told them to behave, that it wasn't their Gabe.
There is no 'my' Gabe anymore.
***
Alex and Gabe walked into the pine woods without a word. The wind had died but the crickets enthusiastically filled the night with noise. The sound was familiar and the pine scent was clean and soothing, so Alex followed his lead without question.
There are times when you don't question Gabe, any Gabe.
"I've been thinking," he said when they arrived at a pond's edge. "I'm sorry my counterpart failed you."
"Gabe, you....he....didn't fail me. There was no way of knowing about Morgan. If I had known it would make you feel this way, I wouldn't have told you."
"It's that, well, I guess Rile is right about me. If I had done the right thing, if I had gone out that night, then maybe...of course, I'm sure Alex, our Alex is glad what happened to you didn't happen to her. It's all for the best." Gabe looked over the water.
Alex couldn't talk for a moment. All her emotions swirled in her stomach and she couldn't think straight. At last one thought crystallized in her confusion, and she knew what to say.
"Gabe, I never regretted loving you."
There's no point in talking in the third person. He's taking this personally.
"If I could change one thing, it wouldn't be what you're thinking. I haven't told you everything. I did things, terrible things, to turn Gabe against me. I lied to him over and over and when he found out, it all fell apart. If I had been honest from the start, if I had let him find out about my past, then Brockner wouldn't have been able to set you...me...us...up like he did."
"Brockner? But Alex has worked for him for years. Are you saying he's a traitor?"
"I don't know about here. He turned on me within a few weeks. He must be different here."
"Alex, please tell me everything."
She hesitated.
"Please, trust me from the start." He sat down on a grassy spot at the pond's edge and patted the ground next to him.
He looked up at her with such an open expression that Alex sat down, close, but not touching, him.
She told him about Brockner, about working for him secretly, about both Morgans, about working secretly for Grange as well. She left out what Brockner had said about her powers.
She would regret that.
Gabe was silent at the end of her story for so long that Alex felt despair crushing her chest.
He knows what I am. Well, mostly. Enough for him to be wary. Run, Gabe, run for your own protection.
At length he spoke. "I used to wonder what would have happened if it had been me that you rescued."
"Would you like to find out?" She hated herself for saying it, for wanting Gabe so badly that she would use his counterpart shamelessly.
Another sacrifice of a Gabe to satisfy my heart. Why can't I stop myself? Why am I so desperate? So evil to drag down another brother?
"I have for years."
With a shock she realized that this Gabe was older than her, older than the Gabe she knew. She studied his face closer and saw the subtle silvering around his muzzle.
He's adult enough to make his own choices. I'm not misleading him. Much.
But she knew that she would have told him anything, done anything, to have him for her own, and she despised herself.
Wordlessly she held out a glowing hand and he took it. Alex looked down at Gabe's hand. The fingers were curled and twisted at odd angles.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Cla happened."
"She tortured Razz, too, but not like this." Alex stroked each finger, warming them and coaxing them a little straighter with her sparkling fingers. "Do they hurt?"
Gabe shrugged.
Alex turned over his hand in hers, so that his was palm up. Her power enveloped his hand and she kissed the base of each finger up to its tip. "It hurts constantly. Throbs," she said.
"But not anymore," he replied in wonderment.
"It's not a healing power." Alex felt the first pang of guilt at sharing in his happiness over the alleviation of his constant pain.
"I don't care about that. I care about you. How did you know they hurt?"
"I synchronized to your nervous system. It's part of my power. I feel what you feel and vice versa. Is that all right?"
Sure, tell him AFTER you use your power on him. Just like the other Gabe. Hypocrite: you attacked Rile for sharing in your glow and here you feed off the comfort of this poor counterpart. You really are the whore Morgan tells you are.
"What's wrong?" Gabe asked in alarm, her sudden sorrow driving deep into him. "What has hurt you? Are my injuries overwhelming you?"
"I shouldn't do this. I'm so sorry. I should have told you first about my powers." Alex shut down her power and tried to pull away.
Gabe tightened his grip on her hand as best he could. "Thank you for relieving the pain in my hands. It's been years since I've been pain-free. I don't wish you to feel so ashamed of such a gift. Please, continue. Perhaps the fingers will become straight and I won't be useless anymore."
"Useless?" Alex felt the same rage she had felt over Razz's abuse flood over her and felt the same shame and despair from this older Gabe as from Razz flooding into her. "You will never be useless. I will kill Cla and every last one of her counterparts for what they've done to you and Razz," she said through gritted teeth.
Gabe abruptly leaned forward and kissed her. Emotions flooded into her, swirling and diluting her rage to the point where Alex couldn't tell where his longing and desire stopped and hers started.
Her power sang through her and Gabe's hand became luminescent from where it touched Alex's. The glow raced up his arm like a wildfire. When it reached his chest, she embraced him and they flared together in a golden cocoon.
***
"I knew he couldn't resist." Rile stood at his bedroom window and watched the tiny shimmer from the edge of the pond.
"Don't be smug," Alex's rebuke was soft. "That poor girl. She's so young. Morgan tortured her and you know what else he did. I worry that she's rushing into Gabe's arms. After all, she's in love with her Gabe, not ours."
"My brother is ten times the Agama of his counterpart," Rile replied and crossed his arms over his chest, still staring out the window. "That Gabe never should have started anything with that Alex if he intended to leave her to become clan leader. Now my brother, he's honorable. He's never given himself to anyone. He endured torture rather than yield to Cla. He'll propose uniting to Alex. He knows that she's worth it, even if that other one didn't."
"I know. That's why I'm not out there stopping them. Now come here and I'll remind you of what you found." Her hand flickered as she patted the bed.
****
A/N
Are there any Gabe fans left? Here I wrote him as he could be.
If ever you're stuck in your novel, I highly recommend the writing exercise one of my teachers gave us: write your novel in a new genre. That gave rise to my alternate timelines. It's so much fun and the creative juices start flowing again!
My book My Guardian is a Bad Boy Dragon is a writing exercise of rewriting my book in pure romance genre . Please check it out ❤️✨❤️