6. Cato
Cato
“This is fucking dumb,” I snap as I make a third attempt at stitching two edges of leather hide. The needle goes through a full inch off target— again—and ruins the already half-fucked crisscross pattern.
Xeni leans over my shoulder, his stupidly long hair tickling my ear. “Well, that would definitely leave a scar,” he mutters. “And probably get infected.”
“Oh, would you get off my dick?” I swat his hair away and shove the leather aside. “It’s not my fault. My hands are too big for this delicate bullshit.”
“You’re holding the needle wrong,” Xeni says, reaching over to pick up the kit I abandoned. “Squeeze it any tighter and you’ll snap the damn thing.”
“Why are you so wound up, anyway?” Bash asks. “Second guessing your decision to play action hero?”
“No,” I answer immediately. “Anything is better than sitting around a campfire waiting for something to happen. I mean, I’m in here sewing, for fuck’s sake. Voluntarily. If that doesn’t prove there’s nothing to do here, I don’t know what will.”
Ego snorts from across the room. “There’s plenty to do here. I’ve barely had a minute to breathe since we arrived.”
“Yeah,” I argue, “because you’ve got your little girlfriend to keep you occupied.”
She arches a brow, barely looking up from her own neat stitches. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to make some friends. It might kill them from dealing with your cranky ass, but it wouldn’t kill you.”
“That would require people to actually like him,” Xeni says sweetly. “And a lot of things are possible, but that’s a miracle I’m not sure we’ll see in our lifetime.”
I flip him off, waving my finger in his face. “Elas likes me.”
“Elas likes to fight you,” Bash argues. “And besides, he likes everybody.”
I gesture at Xeni as he unwinds my shitty stitching job. “He doesn’t like Xeni!”
“Elas and I get along just fine,” Xeni says with a glare.
“He didn’t like you when you were trying to fuck his mate,” I counter.
He throws the leather unceremoniously back into my lap. “And I didn’t like you when you were trying to fuck mine!”
“You didn’t even know me back then.”
He flashes a snarky smile. “Didn’t have to. And besides,” he adds, tossing his hair, “we aren’t talking about me.”
Ego sets her leather aside, tapping her fingers against the table as she studies me. “You aren’t exactly putting in a lot of effort, Cato. Ever since we got here, you’ve had this permanent scowl going. Tall, red, and broody can be hot, but right now it’s honestly just kind of annoying.”
“I am not brooding.”
Bash shoots me an apologetic grimace. “You kinda are, though. Like, what was that whole thing with Aryn yesterday in the training circle? You were pretty damn obnoxious while he was out there fighting.”
“And you made sure he heard it,” Ego adds.
I bristle. “Constructive criticism isn’t obnoxious, it’s necessary. We’re going on a mission together, and I need to know I can count on him when shit hits the fan.”
Bash hums low in his throat. “There wasn’t a whole lot of constructive in the criticism from what I heard. You were going at him pretty hard.”
“For fuck’s sake, Bash, it was advice.”
Xeni drops onto Bash’s lap, nodding at the leather draped over my thigh. “Why don’t you save the advice for someone who needs it? Best I can tell, you and Aryn are pretty evenly matched. The only ones who can beat either of you are Elas and Ronan.”
“I could beat Aryn,” I grumble, snatching the needle while deliberately trying to pinch softer between my fingertips.
“Why don’t you like him?” Bash asks.
“Who said I don’t?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Xeni drawls, “maybe we got the hint from the way you talk to him like he’s a child.”
“Or how you complain about him all the time,” Bash adds.
“Oh… my… gods,” Ego says, slapping her palm on the table. “You think he’s hot!”
“What?” I demand. The needle pierces the hide and stabs straight into my finger. A fat bead of blood wells up, and I decide I’m done with this whole damn thing as I fling the kit across the room.
“Yeah, okay, maybe we’ll leave medical care to Taryn,” Xeni mutters.
“You do!” Ego crows, leaning forward onto her elbows. “You always get all growly and pissed off when you want to fuck someone.”
“I don’t want to fuck Aryn,” I argue. “I don’t even like the guy.”
“Don’t have to like him to want a piece of that fine ass,” Ego counters with an obnoxious grunt. “And he’s so fucking calm, you just know he’d take care of his partner. Gods, I bet he’d make me cry.”
“And what would Sprocket have to say about that?”
Ego shoots me a scandalous grin. “We’re not defining anything yet. As much as I’d like to pretend she’d invite him in for the fun, she views him too much like a brother. It’s a damn shame, really. But! If we’re talking about sex tears—”
“Literally only you are talking about that,” I grumble.
“—she made me come three times last night. I’m pretty sure I was weeping.”
“TMI, Ego,” Bash groans, though Xeni leans in like he’s ready for details.
“Completely unrelated,” she continues, “but do you know what squirting is?”
“I cannot,” I mutter, pushing to my feet and gesturing around the workspace. “This is clearly not going to work. It’s not like I’m going to be playing nurse, anyway. I’ll have more important things to do.”
“More important than treating wounds and, oh, I dunno, keeping people alive?” Xeni asks. “Sounds like an awful plan, but okay.”
I roll my eyes. “If you kill someone before they can cut you, then you don’t need stitches. Problem solved.”
“Yeah,” Bash says, “except the point of this mission isn’t to attack. It’s diplomatic.”
“I can be diplomatic,” I argue. “I can be downright charming when I need to be.”
The door opens and closes, stopping the retort brewing on everyone’s tongues. “Bash?” Aryn calls from the hallway. “Taryn said you were down here?”
Ego’s face lights up with pure glee. “We’re back here, Aryn!” she shouts, loud enough to make my ears ring.
He steps into the room wearing a skintight black sleeveless shirt. It molds against his chest like a second set of skin, making a damn display of his nipple rings underneath. When he spots Bash, his whole face relaxes into a smile.
“You know I’m not the best at stitches,” he says, gripping the back of his neck a little awkwardly. “I thought some practice might do me some good.”
“Not the best,” Xeni repeats with a snort. “Do I need to rehash all the times I tried to teach you in the past?”
“Hey,” Aryn says with a laugh that’s lighter than I’ve ever heard from him. “It got the job done, even if it wasn’t the prettiest.” He chuckles as he scans the room, but the sound dies when his copper eyes land on me. Those cat-like oblong pupils constrict, and his smile falters.
I turn away, clenching my jaw. Out here I already don’t have much that’s mine. Despite my insistence otherwise, I know I don’t have many fans in this village.
It’s always been that way.
A lifetime of being hard has made me unlikeable, and people are quick to point it out. Now Aryn’s in here making me feel like I’m intruding on the only friends I’ve got, and I’ll be damned if I let him ruin that.
I glance back and find him still staring. “Well, lucky you. Seat’s just opened. See you later,” I add in a mutter, tossing a look at Bash before heading for the door and pushing into the sunlight.
“Cato, wait,” Aryn calls behind me. I chew the inside of my lip, but stop and wait for him to catch up. When I turn, he’s wearing that same confused expression. “I didn’t mean to run you off. If it’s a bad time—”
“It’s not,” I cut in. “It’s fine. I was leaving anyway.”
“All the same, I didn’t intend to invade your time with your friends. I can come back later.”
I shift between my feet, so accustomed to people pushing back that I don’t know what to do with this. “I, uh… I’m not good at this medical stuff,” I say, gesturing toward the building. “And I don’t like not being good at things.”
His eyes meet mine, and the corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile as he nods. “Yeah, I can understand that. Last time I had to stitch someone up, it was a botch job. Left a nasty scar, and no one wants that.”
I jerk back, fingers automatically finding the pitted skin along my neck. “What does that mean?”
His eyes go wide and his hands fly up. “Nothing! I didn’t—”
“Best get in there and practice,” I interrupt, giving him my back. “Would hate for you to ruin someone else with a scar.”
“Cato, that isn’t what I meant.”
“It’s fine,” I snap. “I was finished anyway. Go figure out how to keep from mauling anyone else.” I storm off, half expecting him to follow. Fucking nice guys never know when to quit. When no footsteps come after me, my stomach does a weird flip, undecided if it’s relieved or disappointed.
Sakane jolts upright on the couch as I slam the door open. He clutches his chest, then narrows his eyes at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I mutter, shutting myself in the bathroom.
I crank the shower on and wait for the water to warm, then lean closer to the mirror.
My fingertips drift over the scars that peek through my beard, and I tilt my head to stare at the ones on my neck.
When I pull my shirt off, I trace the winding patches of pink, puckered skin across my shoulder and down my arm—the ones that mimic the flames that put them there.
“Nasty scars,” I mutter, letting the hurt slip through now that there’s no one here to witness it. “Who the fuck would want this?” I strip the rest of the way and step under the water, trying to drown out the way his words keep looping in my head.