The room was cold. The central air had been on the setting below arctic for an entire day. Something about the cold, always was staggeringly centering. Quinn loved it that way, so much so that he had considered bricking up the fireplace all together. Just being done with it so he was never tempted to start a fire and curl up next to it. Sadly, to do so, came with removing the centerpiece of why he had loved the room in the first place. Snuggling there on the rug before the fire, within arms reach of wood pile that sat on the stunning antique iron wood holder, and also within reach of the andiron, where there were still half burnt logs from the night they passed papers on the house. Between the fireplace and the loft, he thought the place was absolutely perfect for himself and his fiance.

His fiance. Ex-Fiance.

The pain that came with those words, even when he just thought of it, struck him in the center of the chest with enough force to make him have to stop everything he was doing. Those quicksilver eyes went right to the nest he?d made in the loft and he snorted through his nose. Climbing the stairs he went to folding blankets and sheets. He hung them over the side to fold them easily. There were stacks and stacks building up all over the room, and after an hour of folding he had a very stash of blankets and sheets that he was carefully putting on the shelves of the linen closets in the hallway. Standing back, he rubbed at the back of his neck. He?d pulled all of this together for Levi, done all of it for him. Quinn had given Levi the only gift he had to offer, and given it freely and for the absolute wrong reasons, without question, and with minimal hesitation.

It had been hell, watching Levi die, spending days holding him while he vomited while he shook, bathed the sweat from his face innumerable times, carried him to the bathroom, those days were horrific, and to be the root of it all. It had nearly killed him. But the day following, that was one of the best he could remember, even with Levi?s hearing going all selective, he relished in it. The love they made, the way they chased after one another, the excitement of meeting his wolf, was gone with a single wish. Looking back now Quinn was relieved that Levi had gone back on it, had wished it away. But it was still painful down to the core of himself.

There was little one could do to stave that kind of pain. So when push came to shove, Quinn had learned to live with it and be glad for the moments he had with the more feral side of his fiance, nothing could change what had happened, and maybe it was the first wedge that came between them. The jealousy. Quinn had to work on it more than anyone else, he knew he was guilty of it. Mark and Levi were the kind of close that made him wonder if he was the consolation prize to the better man. Sometimes Levi looked at Mark the way that a man who wondered how different life could be looked at another person. But Quinn never held that against the Gypsy King. He was damn fine at repressing his feelings. Mark was a good man all the way through and he knew it.

Shutting the linen closet he listened for the sound of a muse doing what a muse does, typically listening to music much to loud pretending she can?t hear and see everything he said and did. He loved her for that. Hearing nothing, he didn?t bother going downstairs. Instead he pulled a bottle of scotch from the mantel and went to the loft to lay out in the empty space. The skylight was wonderful, and he watched the clouds pass outside. It was a long while before the silence began to suffocate him.

The silence, the pain seemed to assault him with it. There was a ringing in his ears and he couldn?t help but feel a little bit like he was not in control. Hurt bled into anger and anger into rage and he wanted to hate him, he really wanted to. He didn?t care that he had other places to be, he didn?t care that he?d only had so much time, he was pissed off. Did he have a right to be? Probably not. Did he seem to care? No. Fact was he was more stubborn than anyone he?d ever known, and he felt he had been slighted. To be fair, he was being a dick and he knew he was. Whoever said hell hath no fury like a woman scored had never met a gay scorpio lycan who felt he?d been betrayed.

The bottle hit the wall and he watched as the liquid and shards rained over him. The sound was like music, anything that wasn?t the silence, anything that wasn?t that deep seated feeling of alone. Quinn was beginning to feel the walls close in on him and he was terrified again. Panic was something to be avoided at all costs no matter who you were, but a lycan with a shortened fuse and a tendency of destroying everything he touches? The fear was for the fact that he may experience panic. The lycan leapt from the loft and landed in the now nearly sterile bedroom and went to the dresser a shirt torn from the second and he brought it to his nose and he took a deep breath. That panic didn?t subside and he felt as though his chest was going to cave in and he stared at himself in the dresser mirror, as if he was looking at someone else. It was him, but he felt outside of himself as the blood ran hotter through him and sweat broke out on his brow. The feeling was almost dissociative and it terrified him further. That ringing in his ears came back and was damn near deafening. Palms went to the top of the dresser and still holding that shirt he tried to grip the antiqued wood, as if anchoring himself there but somehow he felt as though he was losing all control, that something horrible was going to happen any second, but he didn?t know what it was.

There was a thickness to his throat and he wondered if he was able to breathe properly, the breath came short and he freaked out further. He had to run, to get into the open air, fight or flight kicked in and he had to go. The shirt dropped as he took off like a bolt, stairs were taken several at a time and he was to the door in less time than it took to so much as call out where he was going, not that he knew anyway. There was no method to his madness, no, he just ran and when his lungs burned, and his blood ran through him hot and thick as lava, he ran some more. Until all he could hear was the pounding of his feet and heart. Only then did he collapse onto his knees and scream, hands in his hair, fear controlling his mind, and pain nestled in the center of his chest.