Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
SOREN
The morning after Cassian had kissed me properly, I woke before he did and lay very still, listening to the house breathe around us.
The storm had deepened overnight. I could hear it pressing against the windows, not in sharp gusts now, but in a steady weight of snow and wind that made the old glass creak in its frames.
The world beyond the house had vanished into white.
No road, no bridge, no forest edge I could make out from where I lay in the nest. Just the mountain closing in around us, sealing us away from everything I’d run from.
I should have been frightened.
Even a week ago, I would have been. The idea of being trapped anywhere with an alpha would have hollowed me out with panic until I couldn’t breathe, but Cassian slept beside me in wolf form, one huge warm flank pressed along the outside of the nest, his head resting near my hip and one paw stretched across the blankets as if he’d put himself there to keep me and Asha from sliding out into the cold.
He wasn’t blocking me in. Not really. There was room to move if I needed it.
There was always room because he made sure of it, even asleep.
Still, my cat had curled into the warmth of him sometime before dawn, and my hand had found the thick fur at his shoulder, fingers buried there as though I’d been holding on all night.
I didn’t let go.
The kiss should have made everything more complicated.
Maybe it had. Maybe I was too tired to understand how much damage we’d done to the careful lines we’d drawn between us.
Cassian had kissed my forehead every night as though it was something safe and permitted, a kindness that asked for nothing back.
Then last night I’d asked him for more, and he’d gone so still I’d almost taken the words back.
But he’d waited. Asked if I was sure. Given me every chance to change my mind before he came closer and touched his mouth to mine.
I pressed my fingers deeper into his fur and closed my eyes.
He’d tasted of mint and snow, and somehow the kiss had been gentle and devastating at the same time.
Not claiming. Not taking. Not the hard press of an alpha deciding what an omega owed him.
Cassian had kissed me as if I was something precious he had no right to hold, and when I’d kissed him back, something inside me had opened so painfully that I’d nearly cried into his mouth.
My cat stirred, lazy and chilled beneath my ribs.
Ours, he said, with the smug certainty of someone who had decided this days ago and was only waiting for me to catch up.
“He’s not ours,” I whispered.
Cassian’s ear twitched, but he didn’t wake.
My cat huffed and tucked himself around Asha.
Still not close enough to term, Brec had said.
Not dangerous by itself, not hopeless, not a disaster waiting to happen if we were careful, but not enough.
Every day mattered. Every meal mattered.
Every hour of warmth and rest mattered. I rested my palm over the place she’d moved and waited until she answered me with another slow push.
“Morning,” I whispered to her.
Cassian opened one amber eye.
I froze. Ridiculous after everything, but fear that old didn’t disappear because someone kissed you softly in the dark. His wolfy gaze fixed on my hand still buried in his fur, then lifted to my face.
“Morning,” I said, quieter this time.
His tail thumped once to the side of the bed.
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, small and rusty and unfamiliar.
Cassian blinked, apparently offended, then lowered his head again with great dignity.
The sound of my own amusement startled me more than anything he’d done.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken and laughed before fear found me.
I couldn’t remember the last time morning had felt like something other than survival.
“You’re ridiculous,” I told him.
He huffed warm air against the blanket.
Asha moved again, and I rolled awkwardly, trying to find a position that didn’t pull at my back or put too much pressure through my hips.
Cassian lifted his head at once, alert now, and I felt the change in him.
Not panic exactly, but readiness. He was always ready when it came to me.
Ready to help, or back away if I needed that instead.
“I’m okay,” I said. “She’s just making her opinions known.”
His gaze dropped to my stomach, and something softened in his wolf’s face.
It shouldn’t have been possible to read an animal that clearly, but I’d learned him.
The angle of his ears, the stillness of his body, the careful way he watched me without demanding anything.
He stared at my belly as if Asha was already real to him, not just a risk or a responsibility or something hidden beneath my skin.
That undid me a little.
Cassian shifted, the wolf folding into the man in a smooth ripple of muscle and shadow, and I glanced away automatically, heat rising in my face because he never seemed to remember he was naked after he shifted.
Or maybe he did remember and didn’t care.
Either way, the air changed at once, filling with warm skin and wolf and the faint scent of sleep.
He reached for the sweats he’d left folded on the chair, dragged them on, and only then came back to sit on the very edge of the mattress, leaving space between us even though we both knew I’d slept half the night with my hand in his fur.
“How’s your back?” he asked.
“Ashamed of itself, hopefully.”
His mouth twitched. “That bad?”
“It’s not worse.” That was the phrase Brec had told me to use if I didn’t want Cassian hovering. Not worse. Still manageable. No pattern. No bleeding. Baby fine. We had a list now, taped to the inside of the wardrobe door where I could see it without feeling watched.
Cassian studied me for a moment, then nodded. “Tea?”
The question was ordinary. That was the dangerous part. Cassian asking if I wanted tea, the snow trapping us inside, the wolf sleeping beside my nest, the kiss still warm between us. It was starting to feel ordinary, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Please,” I said. “In my mug.”
“Your mug?”
“The fluffy wolf one.”
His expression shifted, grief flickering through him so quickly I might have missed it if I hadn’t learned to watch him. Then it became almost fond.
“That was Raff’s favorite mug,” he said, and I froze. That was a boundary I’d crossed, and I didn’t know how to take it back. “He bought it for me as a joke.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what to say. “It’s a great mug,” was all I could come up with.
He stood, but he didn’t leave straight away.
His attention dropped to my mouth, and the air between us changed so fast my breath caught.
I thought of last night. Of his hand at the back of my neck.
Of how careful he’d been until I’d fisted my hand in his sweatshirt and tugged him closer.
He looked as though he was thinking about it too.
Then Cassian bent, slowly enough that I could stop him if I wanted to.
I didn’t. His lips brushed mine, warm and careful, a morning kiss so gentle it hurt more than the one before.
It was over almost before I understood he’d given it to me, and when he straightened, his eyes were amber around the edges.
“Tea,” he said roughly.
“Please,” I managed.
“In the fluffy wolf mug.”
I nodded, and he left before either of us could make it more complicated.
I could smell fresh bread before I reached the bottom step, mingled with Cassian’s cedar forest, and waddled in on him flipping bacon in the old cast-iron pan he seemed to use for everything.
Snow pressed against the windows beyond him, the world outside little more than white and grey, but the kitchen was warm enough that I’d pushed my sleeves up before I’d reached the table.
I sat down, adjusting a pillow in the small of my back, and watched the steam curl out of my tea before speaking. He’d spoken with affection about Raff’s mug, and I wanted to know more. I wished I knew a good way to broach the subject, but in the end, things were simple.
“Will you tell me about Raff?”
Cassian stopped buttering the bread and set the knife down with deliberate care. After a long moment, he carried the plate to the table, sat opposite me, and wrapped both hands around his coffee as though he needed the warmth.
“What do you want to know?”
“Not just…” I searched for the right words. “I mean, I know he was brave.”
“He was.” Cassian nodded slowly, his gaze dropping into the coffee. “But the trouble is…” He rubbed his thumb around the rim of the mug. “I don’t seem to know how to tell people about Raff without telling them how I lost him.”
“I’d like to know.” I was half-lying—I wasn’t sure I could witness so much grief, but I wanted to try.
“Team Three was sent into a warehouse,” he began, his voice tight.
“It wasn’t the first omega trafficking operation we’d hit, and it wouldn’t have been the last. We’d cleared most of the building, pulled twelve people out alive, and the place was coming down around us.
Fire in the roof, smoke everywhere. Command ordered us out. ”
He stopped, his jaw tightening. “Then someone reported another omega inside.” Something changed in his face. “Command sent Raff back in.”
The words were quiet, but nothing about them was calm.
“They sent my pregnant mate back into a burning building, and they didn’t tell me.”
I gasped. Raff had been pregnant? “A baby?” I asked, and he blinked at me in horror as if he hadn’t meant to reveal that fact.