Chapter 19 For You Alone #3
Koa’s shadow hunched over the kitchen island. Bro was always lurking like some broody anime antihero. Metal hissed against metal as I entered, his shoulders blocking whatever shiny thing he was fondling tonight.
As the wolf headed for his water bucket, I drifted closer and saw the freshly etched letters on the handle of Ko’s favorite dagger. Serafina in a looping script that didn’t match his usual brutalist aesthetic.
“Oh, ho!” I vaulted onto the counter beside him, picked up the cookie jar, and sighed to find it empty. Guess I shoulda expected that. “So you finally named your stabby girlfriend! That’s either creepy or weirdly sweet.”
“Told you she loves me.” He stroked the blade with disturbing tenderness, his thumb brushing the blade’s spine like a lover’s jawline.
“Uh-huh. And what does our beloved think about you getting frisky with cold steel?”
“She’ll understand when this opens Arabesque’s throat.” The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t look up from polishing the hilt, black hair falling across eyes nearly as dark.
Laughter died in my throat as the kitchen door opened and Cas emerged like a sleepwalker who’d fist-fought a hurricane: eyes a little wild, blond strands escaping his ponytail, sweater missing, black t-shirt askew.
“She asleep?” Koa sheathed his dagger.
Cas blinked at the fruit bowl.
“Changed bandages. Debrided wound. Replaced sutures. Administered antibiotics.” The words fell like sterilized instruments onto stainless steel.
“Replaced, administered, blah, blah.” I mimed jerking off with one hand. “Tell us the part where you played doctor for real.”
The barstool creaked as Ko leaned forward with wide eyes.
“Did you fuck her?”
Air whistled through my teeth. Even Brumous froze mid-slurp, and Cas’ ears flushed crimson.
“What? We’re her mates, and she’s our beloved,” Ko shrugged. “It’ll happen when she’s ready. I talked with her about it during our secret chat—”
“Koa. Our girl can barely lift a fork right now,” I decided to intervene after a glance at Cas’ face. “Unless you’re into Victorian maiden roleplay—”
“Just wondering when we’re going to stop pretending we don’t all want to pin her to the nearest flat surface.” His grin showed too many teeth.
“Speak for yourself, horndog,” I tried, but my laugh came out strangled.
“Bullshit. You think we don’t know you jack off listening to her murmuring in her sleep?”
“As if you don’t do the same—”
“Stop it.” Casimir’s fist hit the island hard enough to overturn the knife block.
“What do you want me to say? That she bit through a washcloth trying not to scream? That I had to watch her cry as I hurt her?” His breathing jagged, he scrubbed both hands down his face.
“Volunteer next time. See how arousing you find it.”
Brumous whined. Ko’s grin fell.
“Hey.” I slid off the counter.
“Don’t.” Cas flinched when I gripped his shoulder.
For three heartbeats, he stood rigid as a cadaver as we hovered in that fragile limbo between ribbing and ruin, then he collapsed into me, shuddering breaths burning my neck.
Koa’s arms encircled us both, sandwiching Cas in a brotherly vise.
We stood tangled like that, three parts of a broken mechanism trying to fuse.
“What aren’t you saying?” Ko’s voice softened to a blade’s whisper.
And Casimir trembled. Actual full-body shakes.
Night’s teeth! What happened between him and our beloved?!
When he finally spoke, the words fell like shrapnel.
“Said she loved me.”
Brumous’ tail thumped uncertainly against the fridge. Koa’s grip tightened. My ribs felt full of static electricity. I pulled back just enough to see Cas’ face. Raw anguish twisted features normally carved from marble.
“Say that again.” Ko’s eyes went darker than a starless sky.
“She said, ‘I love you, Simmy.’ While she…” Cas straightened slowly and swallowed hard, the apple in his throat bobbing like a buoy in storm waves. “While she was falling asleep.”
“You realize she shouldn’t be capable of saying that yet, right?” I demanded. “Let alone feeling it? After what those bitches did to her—”
“I know.” His jaw muscle jumped. “Which is why it doesn’t count. Delirium speaks louder than truth.” Defeat clung to him like swamp rot. “Doesn’t matter.”
Koa moved faster than a bloodhound spotting prey. His palm cracked against the back of Cas’ skull with a sound like a watermelon splitting.
“You dense fang-rotted fucker! She looks at you with stars in her eyes! And you—”
“Whoa!” I wedged myself between them, Brumous diving under the counter with anxious whines. “Violence isn’t the answer unless it’s really funny. Which this isn’t.”
Cas rubbed his head, glaring at both of us, and I grabbed Koa’s wrist before he could land another blow.
“But yeah, Cas. You realize what this means?” My pulse thundered in my ears as Ko yanked free of my hold. “First person she’s trusted since her dad croaked. First person she’s let close enough to hurt her. And she hands you that.”
Cas sank onto a barstool, elbows on knees.
“Don’t deserve it,” he rasped. “Her trust is fragile. Like moth wings. If I crush—”
“Mahalo,” Ko growled, yanking open the freezer. Ice cubes clattered into a dish towel. “Gratitude. You should be choking on it. That girl looked into your abyss and planted roses.”
“Since when do you garden?” I snorted.
“Since Arabesque tried to turn her into compost!” He slapped the makeshift cold compress into Cas’ hand, but Cas didn’t apply it to his head. Instead, his gaze drifted toward the living room.
“She deserves better than us,” he whispered.
“Cruor! You think we don’t know that?” Koa slumped onto a barstool with his head in his hands.
I pulled my hood up to hide the burn in my eyes.
“We aren’t worthy of her.” His admission came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. “But sanguine mortis, I want to be.”
Koa’s head snapped up.
“Finally. Some sense.” He stalked over, gripping Cas’ shoulder hard enough to bruise a mortal.
“We were raised by monsters to be monsters to kill monsters. But Seri?” His free hand gestured wildly toward the door.
“She’s life insisting on blooming through concrete.
So yes, you’ll feel unworthy. We all will.
Now shut up and let her love us, anyway! ”
Brumous, who had been quietly observing from under the counter, suddenly let out a high-pitched bark, and we all turned to look at him.
Walkies excepted, he usually didn’t engage with us too much when Seri wasn’t around.
It was like all of his confidence stemmed from her.
Now, though, his blue eyes stared into our fang-rotted souls as if willing us to understand something.
“You know, I think he’s agreeing with you, Ko,” I murmured.
And when Brumous nodded his head in a violent sneeze, I was sure of it, no matter how much Cas insisted the wolf was too fractured to hold a thought in his scrambled brain.