Four
Walker
I had a secret. I’d kept it hidden so well that sometimes I even managed to keep it from myself. But lately, I’d started to lose my grip on it.
Late at night, or when past memories haunted me, the words I’d kept hidden sprang up in my mind, demanding to be heard, to be realized.
I don’t hate Caelan.
I shivered as the words popped up in my head again and tried my best to ignore them. After last night though, they were more insistent than ever.
The trust Caelan had earned when I was a kid wasn’t so easy to forget, even after everything that had happened.
After Caelan had left the first time, I’d been heartbroken. But when he’d come back, I’d been overjoyed. Until he left again. When I’d realized this would keep happening, I’d decided I couldn’t deal with it. So I’d told him I never wanted to see him again, and though he’d visited a few times after that, I’d kept my promise and refused to see him.
Somewhere along the way, I’d convinced myself I hated him, and with the way he’d acted once he was back for good, it’d been easy to keep up the ruse. But things were changing now. And especially after last night, I found it harder to bring myself to act like I hated him. Last night, I’d been so fucking tempted to just climb into the bed with him and hold him, to protect him from the nightmares haunting him, which was all kinds of stupid and crazy. I needed to get a grip.
“You know what we need?” Ro’Shassz quipped.
“What?” I mumbled into my pillow, where I’d been trying to bury myself so I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.
“We need a change of scenery,” he said, and I sat up, my interest piqued. Getting away from Otherworld—from Caelan—might be a good idea. But where would I go?
“Any ideas?” I asked, and Ro slithered over to me.
“Glad you asked. Your dads are due to check in with the demons in the human realm. It’s time you got yourself a job, isn’t it?” he suggested, and I grinned.
“Yes, that’s perfect!” I exclaimed, grabbing Ro and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He hissed loudly, his forked tongue brushing my neck, and I pulled him off with a laugh.
He jerked away as soon as I let him go, slithering all the way to the other side of the room. “I told you to stop doing that,” he groused.
“And we both know you could stop me yourself any time if you truly wanted me to,” I shot back as I got out of bed. Today at breakfast, I’d ask my dads to let me go to the human realm. When I was younger, I hadn’t been a big fan of the human realm, but over the years, I’d grown to love it.
“You’re such a brat,” Ro’Shassz grumbled, and I chuckled.
“You love me anyway. Don’t you, Ro?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, leaving the room while still muttering.
I headed to the bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping inside. I was one of those rare creatures who liked taking cold showers—a fact Dad still hadn’t stopped mocking me about. I raised my face up, closing my eyes against the spray.
A memory from last night flitted across my mind, of Caelan in his bed, the sheets twisted around his legs, his bare skin on display.
I bit my lip as my cock started to harden and then snapped my eyes open. What the fuck! Shaking my head, I turned the water even colder as my skin heated up. Had I just been thinking about Caelan and…
Okay, he wasn’t bad to look at. His aqua blue eyes with cat-like pupils were unlike anything I’d ever seen, and his cat ears made him look equal parts sexy and cute. And sure, he had a physique I’d die for —though I didn’t get it even after dying, so fuck that—and his hair looked really soft to the touch. I had a distant memory of gripping it while I sat on his shoulders, and they’d felt pretty damn soft then.
Good lord, what was wrong with me? I needed to get a grip. This was Caelan I was thinking about. The same Caelan I hated.
“I hate him,” I said out loud, as if doing that would make it more believable. I rushed through the shower, needing to get out of my head. Ro’s idea sounded better with each minute.
I dressed in dark jeans and a green t-shirt, brushed my hair into some semblance of order, before I declared myself ready. We had a standing breakfast date daily, mostly because I wasn’t a fan of cooking for myself, and Da never minded cooking for me. And I was running late.
Ro’Shassz followed me as I grabbed my phone and closed the door.
“Damn, that smells good,” I mumbled at the scent of bacon that filled the hallway. Sometimes, I felt really bad for the rest of the Otherworlders, since they didn’t eat. Everyone should be able to enjoy the joy of eating.
“Okay, I’m going to do whatever it takes to convince them,” I muttered.
“That’s the spirit!” Ro added with a hiss, and I chuckled before opening the door to my dads’ suite. Here we go.
Caelan
I found Ro’Shassz outside Damien’s suite, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what that meant. Still, I had to know for sure. “Is Walker in there?”
“Yep,” Ro replied, and I sighed. Taking a deep breath, I raised my hand to knock, when Ro said, “Stop.”
“What?” I asked, raising a brow at him. “Don’t tell me Walker told you to keep me out.”
“Nah, I’m just being helpful,” he said before wrapping himself around my leg. Before I could ask what he was doing, I was inside Damien’s suite. “Shh!” he hissed before I could say anything, and I realized Walker and his dads were in the kitchen. We were in the small hallway between the living room and the front door, so they couldn’t see us.
“Listen,” Ro directed, and I frowned at him.
“Why are you making me eavesdrop on my friends?”
“Shh!” Ro hissed with a scowl, and I rolled my eyes before listening.
“I want to go to the human realm,” Walker said, interrupting Damien mid-sentence.
“You what?” Reece asked, and I could imagine Walker shrugging one shoulder as if what he was saying was no big deal.
“I’m old enough now, and I want to help run Otherworld. I thought I could go to the human realm and check in with the demons,” he said, and I raised a brow. Since when was Walker a fan of the human realm?
“And are you thinking of going alone?” Arty asked cautiously.
“I’ll have Ro,” Walker answered, and someone huffed.
“I don’t know, Walker. I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” Reece murmured.
“I’ll be fine. We haven’t had any trouble like before, have we? I can always come back if anything goes wrong.”
“Come on!” Ro said and slithered into the living room. Glad he wasn’t going to make me lurk any further, I followed him.
“Hey, everyone. Look who I found,” Ro said, and all four sets of eyes turned on me, three of them lighting up with smiles while the fourth narrowed.
“Hey, guys. Am I late?”
“Not at all. You might be right on time, actually,” Damien said, a glint in his eyes that I recognized very well. Uh-oh. He turned to his mates, and they had one of their silent conversations, while Walker and I did our best to avoid looking at each other.
“Walker,” Arty said once they were done, “you can go to the human realm.”
“Yes!” Walker hissed, but then Arty raised his palm.
“On one condition,” he added, and Walker waved it off.
“Anything.”
“You’ll take Ro’Shassz and Caelan with you,” he said, and my eyes widened.
“What?” we both exclaimed at the same time, and I glared at my best friend, who merely winked. Holy hell, I’d thought he’d be uncomfortable discussing Walker with me, and here he was, trying to set us up. What the fuck?
“I don’t need to take him,” Walker groused. “I’ll be fine with Ro.”
“Eh,” Ro inserted, and—Wait a minute. Was he in on this? He’d let me in and made me eavesdrop. Why?
“Walker, you’ve never lived in the human realm, not really. And unless you’re planning to return here every few hours, you’ll need someone who knows the lay of the land. You can stay at our apartment in Seattle while you’re there.”
“I don’t want to go with Caelan,” Walker argued, and I swallowed hard. Maybe coming here had been a bad idea. I already knew how much Walker hated me. I didn’t need to hear it again.
“And why is that?” Damien asked with a raised brow, and Walker huffed, looking anywhere but at me.
I wanted to say something, anything, but my voice had decided to desert me in the face of Walker’s ire.
“I just don’t, Dad,” he said, and Damien shook his head.
“Not good enough to ignore your safety, buddy,” he argued, and I watched as Walker’s hands tightened into fists at his side.
“I don’t want to go with Caelan,” he started in a measured tone, and I knew whatever he was going to say would shred me. I just knew it. “Because I hate him, okay?”
He turned on me then, and I stumbled back at the intensity in his eyes, at the way the green flecks in his amber eyes almost seemed to spark angrily as he spoke. “I hate you, Caelan, and I don’t want to be anywhere near you! Why did you even come back here? You should’ve—”
“That’s enough!” Walker and I both jumped, and his head snapped to look at Damien, eyes wide. Damien’s golden eyes were blazing, and I was sure Walker had never seen him as angry as he was right now. I was even more sure he’d never had that anger directed at him. “Walker, I know you were hurt when Caelan left, but don’t think for a moment you were the only one. You have no idea how much he has sacrificed for you, and the way you—”
“Don’t,” I interrupted before he revealed too much. I’d debated about telling Walker what he meant to me almost every night since I got back, but I always came to the same conclusion: it wouldn’t be right. He so very clearly hated me, and I didn’t want to burden him with this knowledge, not when he didn’t return my feelings.
“But, Caelan—” Damien started, and I shook my head.
“Please, Day. Let it go,” I said before turning to Walker. “If you don’t want me there, I won’t come. But please consider taking one of the others with you.”
Before either of them could say another word, I used my magic to hurry back to my living room, where I fell onto the couch and buried my face in a pillow, finally letting off the scream that’d been building in my chest.
Ro’Shassz
Okay, so step three might’ve gone a tad off the rails, but this might be good for them. I still didn’t understand why Caelan didn’t just tell Walker they were mates. It was a line I didn’t want to cross, but if Walker kept being such a dumbass, I might have to tell him.
The look on his face after Damien had almost blurted it out was interesting, though. I would have to figure out what was going on in his head.
Step : Wait and watch.