Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-six
KARL
Mate. Karl flinched like the word had hit him physically.
He shoved it away, ignoring his wolf’s sudden alertness.
His wolf didn’t know. It still didn’t understand what had happened last time, when Leon had lied, and Karl had been drugged and wrecked enough to believe him.
He’d never felt so stupid. Never felt so exposed.
He stared at Leon, waiting for the inevitable follow-up, cat-like and sharp enough to draw blood. But Leon wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t looking at Karl at all.
“What the fuck?” Karl said. Or maybe whispered. He wasn’t sure the words made it out right.
Leon didn’t answer, his gaze glued to the wall in front of him. He looked like he’d just peeled his own skin off, leaving him agonized and defenseless, so unlike Leon’s usual self that he was almost unrecognizable.
“You think this is funny? That it’s fair to keep doing this?” Karl’s voice was low and clipped, fury vibrating through.
Leon met his gaze, looking halfway between defiance and panic. “What are you talking about?”
“You said it before,” Karl said, the words tumbling out in his anger. “When I was half out of my head. And I—” His voice caught. “I believed you.”
Leon’s eyes widened. “You—?”
“I thought you meant it,” Karl bit out.
Horror filled Leon’s face. “I didn’t know—”
“No. You didn’t think.” Karl’s voice was practically a snarl. “And now you’re doing it again, like you get to just—say things. Like it costs you nothing.” He turned away sharply, breath ragged, ribs hurting. “Don’t say it again.”
He’d believed it then because some part of him wanted to. Because his wolf had surged forward like it had been waiting. Because for one brief, disorienting moment, the world had made sense.
Leon ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it sounded sincere. “If I’d known…”
But that was the point. He hadn’t known, and he hadn’t thought.
Karl didn’t answer right away. His ribs hurt. His pride hurt more. And underneath all of it, his wolf was still pushing at him, restless and agitated.
He didn’t want to hear another apology. He didn’t want Leon to try and explain. He just needed space and time to get his head on straight.
“Get out,” Karl said eventually, without looking at him.
There was a pause, then soft footsteps, and the click of the door.
Only when he was sure Leon was gone did Karl let his head fall back against the pillow and close his eyes.
But the silence didn’t bring peace. His heart was still thudding, far too hard, and then there was the word, the one he couldn’t scrub out of his mind.
He kept his eyes shut, breathing slow, steady, mechanical. The complete opposite of his thoughts, which were twisting in wild circles—what the hell was Leon playing at?
Before, Leon’s statement had been justified. That didn’t make Karl’s drug-hazed response sting less, but Leon’s claim had made sense. But this? This was just the two of them, with no one else to hear the words. Leon had nothing to gain, so why say it?
Karl opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. His wolf paced again, uneasy.
Leon hadn’t smirked, betraying that this was a cat idea of humor, incomprehensible to a mere wolf. He’d looked wrecked. So either he was playing a long game Karl couldn’t see… or he meant it.
Karl didn’t know which option scared him more, because, if he meant it—what did that say about his state of mind? It wasn’t possible for cats and wolves to be mates. Everyone knew that.
Or did they? Had they always just assumed?
Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to think about it. And he carried on not thinking about it, up until a more urgent necessity impinged on his awareness. His bladder was full.
He sat up and scanned the room. When Ruth had helped him before, she’d had a bottle, but he couldn’t see it anywhere.
And then he realized—even if he could see it, he had no way of getting to it.
Not unless he rolled out of bed and crawled.
He’d do that if that was what it took, but rolling out of bed might damage his leg further.
Might delay their pathetic, threadbare plan to escape. Might just cost Leon his life.
Karl gritted his teeth and lay there, waiting.
LEON
Leon strode away from the cabin, needing to put distance between him and Karl.
He should’ve known better. He did know better.
God, he deserved every bit of how he was feeling right now.
He dragged a hand through his hair, then again, harder, like he could scrub away the shame still rising like bile in his throat.
He’d thought—he didn’t even know what he’d thought.
That Karl would hear him and just accept it?
That Karl’s wolf would respond the way Leon’s cat had?
That Karl would roll over and wag his tail?
He huffed a broken sound that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t caught painfully in his throat.
“Fucking sap,” he muttered. At himself. At his cat. At the world.
Because this was what happened when he got soft. When he started thinking he could want something and have it. He ended up alone. And he knew it. Had known it for years, yet he’d still made the same mistake.
He climbed into one of the trees, from where he could still see the cabin, lamplight glowing through the window.
He wasn’t going to shift and amplify his cat’s confused hurt and insistence that he needed to go back to Karl, to his mate.
Instead, he settled on a thick branch that stuck out at a forgiving angle, his arms resting on his knee, his head bowed.
He was furious with himself for not seeing how his lie had landed.
He’d never even dreamt Karl might believe it, although he knew Karl had been scarcely conscious.
And the result had been cruelty past imagining.
To tell another shifter they were mates, to evoke all the promise and joy that was supposed to go along with that, then to wrench it away with a careless word…
Leon let his head fall back against the bark, eyes shut. He’d hurt Karl, so badly there weren’t even the words for it.
He wished he could be angry at Karl. His rejection of Leon’s declaration, of Leon, hurt deep inside in a way nothing had for years, but after what Leon had done to him, Karl had every right. He’d looked at Leon like he’d just stabbed him.
“You’re a fucking disaster,” he told himself.
He should go back in, apologize again. Make everything okay again by saying it was a mistake, that he’d been wrong. But the thing was—he wasn’t.
So he stayed there in the dark, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do.
Eventually, the cold started biting through his borrowed hoodie. Not enough to drive him inside, but enough to give him something else to focus on. Something that wasn’t Karl’s voice, tight with anger, saying don’t say it again.
He should stay out here longer, giving Karl space.
And not incidentally, give himself time to get past this, so that when he went back to Karl, there’d be no trace of anything in his face except the confident, perfect cat he was.
But his cat wasn’t prepared to wait any longer.
It was urging him to go back, to make sure his mate was safe.
He also knew that if he stayed out here, his brain would simply keep running in endless loops, round and round the same track, changing nothing.
He climbed down and made his way back to the cabin, each step deliberate as he ignored the clench of guilt and fear in his gut. He’d have to face Karl sooner or later. Might as well be sooner, get it over with.
Karl didn’t look at Leon, after the first sweep of his eyes to check it was only him coming through the door. He was tense and still in the bed, as if trying very hard to stay calm.
Leon paused just inside the doorway. “I can go again,” he said quietly. “Just came to check if you needed anything.”
Karl was silent for a moment. Then, low and tight, he said, “I need the bottle.”
Leon found it in the corner by the door. Checking it was clean, he crossed to Karl’s side and crouched beside him.
“I can help,” he said. “Or I can turn my back and leave it with you.”
Karl grimaced. “You think I’m gonna risk rolling off this bed and fucking up our plans?”
“No.” Leon’s voice was quiet. “I don’t.”
Silence stretched. Then Karl muttered, “Fine. Just don’t say anything.”
Leon didn’t. He helped without comment, without even meeting Karl’s eyes. And it hurt, somehow, that Karl still trusted him. That even now, he’d let Leon help him with something so personal. Leon didn’t know what to make of that.
Actually, he did—there was no one else to ask. That was the only reason.
When it was done, he cleared everything away, and washed his hands at the little basin in the corner. He didn’t ask if Karl needed anything else. Karl shouldn’t have to suffer his presence longer than he needed to.
He left, closing the door softly behind him.
KARL
After Leon left, the quiet settled back over him, heavy and suffocating. For a while, he didn’t think. Just listened to his breathing, slow and steady, holding on to that rhythm to quiet the clamor in his head.
But his wolf wasn’t helping as it prowled restlessly inside him, tail twitching, alert and hopeful. The moment Leon had walked through the door, it had whined in greeting. And when Leon had helped him—touched him—it had leaned into him, as if it had never doubted, never been hurt.
Mate, it said, confident and certain. As if it had made its choice long ago and was waiting for him to catch up.
He hated that. Hated how sure it was. Hated how… right it felt.
He closed his eyes. Because the truth, the ugly truth that was starting to slide in beneath the pain and the anger and the shame, was that he knew too.
Maybe not in words, but in the way he’d started to listen for Leon’s voice, to want his presence.
The way Leon’s constant grooming and smugness no longer annoyed him.
Not really. And the occasional mischief in his eyes—he used to detest it, but now, somehow, he didn’t.
Karl had felt all of that and told himself it was nothing, reminded himself that Leon was smug, superior, and reckless. But when Leon had touched him just now, matter-of-fact yet gentle, it had felt right. He hadn’t wanted him to leave.
And now he was lying here, alone in the dark, his body broken, the truth circling closer than he could stand.
His wolf stirred again, nudging at the place where all his certainty used to be. Mine, it said. And Karl had no argument left.
Mate. The word still felt impossible. Wrong, like it belonged to someone else’s life. Someone softer, someone free.
But it was Leon. It had always been Leon. From the moment Karl had first seen him—annoying even from a distance, all cheekbones and tight jeans and awareness—he’d known there was something there.
Didn’t matter how long he’d fought, it had still come to this in the end. Of course it had. Leon was his mate.
He didn’t have to be alone anymore.