Chapter 21 #3
“Because he would recognize bravery and determination, and he would have wrapped you in three blankets, filled the kitchen with food, and spent the rest of the evening trying to convince you this mountain was the safest place on earth. He saw every child as a gift, same as me.” He stared down at Raff’s grin, frozen forever in the photograph, young and certain of things that time hadn’t touched. “He’d have spoiled you and Asha”
I handed the picture back with the same care he’d used giving it to me. “Thank you for showing me.”
He set it beside the keyboard, and I got the strongest feeling that I’d been introduced to family.
We headed back to the kitchen, where the fire crackled softly, and another sheet of snow slid from the roof outside.
He made fresh tea, and I stared down at the battered green wolf mug warming my hands and understood why Cassian had kept it all these years.
It wasn’t because it reminded him that Raff had died.
It was because every chipped mug, every blanket, every book, every ridiculous little thing Raff had left behind reminded him how beautifully he’d lived.
“Raff sounds like someone who could have changed my life.”
“He tried to save everyone from the system,” Cassian said quietly.
“He was a free omega who grew up in Quebec, in a mixed pack that believed omegas were people before they were anything else. He had parents who adored him and made friends everywhere he went. He used to tell me he was one of the lucky ones, and he never forgot that luck wasn’t something every omega got to have. ”
He smiled, but sadness shadowed it.
“He hated injustice. Didn’t matter whether it was aimed at him or someone he’d never met.
He couldn’t walk past it. He challenged people when they made jokes about omegas, called out ORT officers who thought they knew better because they were alphas, and argued with commanders who treated rescued omegas like they were problems to solve instead of people who’d survived hell.
He hated what the SED stood for, wanted to fix everything, and he tried.
” Cassian shook his head, the smile lingering.
“Some of the attitudes inside ORT weren’t much better than outside it.
Most of the team were good people, but every organization has its bad ones.
ORT liked a beta on every extraction teams. They didn’t carry the alpha dominance frightened omegas reacted to, and they weren’t pulled around by omega scent or heats in the same way we were. ”
He paused for a while, his eyes bright with emotion. “But omegas… Goddess… there were alphas who questioned whether an omega should be operational, who thought he’d only got his place because someone wanted diversity on the teams, or that he’d become a liability the moment he bonded.”
His expression darkened.
“The worst part was that Raff never seemed surprised. He’d sigh, smile that smile of his, and patiently educate them until they either shut up or walked away. He always believed people could be better than they were.”
Cassian stared into his coffee.
“All he’d done was be born an omega, and people still found reasons to make him feel less. That was with a loving family, a good education, legal protections, and a badge on his chest. And then they sent him inside that warehouse and took him from the world. From me.”
His eyes lifted to mine, full of quiet sorrow.
“Then I see you, Soren.” He swallowed. “You didn’t have any of that.
You weren’t only marginalized or underestimated.
You were hunted, imprisoned, drugged, used, and taught that your only worth was what your body could give other people.
” His voice roughened. “I honestly don’t know how you’ve survived it. ”
I couldn’t bear the compassion in his eyes.
“Some days,” I whispered, “I’m not sure I did.
” I couldn’t stay still, and the chair scraped against the floor as I stood, one hand braced against the table until my balance settled.
My back had stiffened while we’d been talking, and Asha shifted low inside me.
I crossed to the window, drawn by the white world outside.
Snow drifted beyond the glass, swallowing the pines and the mountain beneath a haze of white, until my tears blurred the rest.
“Please don’t cry,” he murmured.
“I can’t stop.”
“Soren.”
I kept my eyes on the snow.
“I don’t know what to do with everything you’re telling me.” My voice barely carried beyond the glass. “I keep thinking about Raff, and how much you loved him, and…” My throat tightened. “I don’t know why that makes me want to cry.”
I heard his footsteps cross the kitchen, and he stopped beside me instead of behind me, close enough that I could feel his warmth without him touching me.
He held out one hand, and I took it, and when his fingers closed gently around mine, warm and so careful, he gave the smallest tug.
I followed him without thinking, letting him lead me back towards the table until he sat down again.
“Come here,” he said and patted his knee.
I pointed at his lap, then back at him. “I’m bigger every day now. I’ll squash you.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “You won’t.”
Cassian reached for me then, one arm sliding around my waist while the other steadied my shoulder.
He watched me, as if he was waiting for the slightest sign I wanted him to stop.
When I didn’t, he lifted me just enough that I found myself perched across his thighs.
Somehow between the last time I’d sat on his lap and this, I’d become bigger and increasingly useless.
Asha objected with a solid kick.
“Oh, honestly,” I muttered, shifting my hips. “We’re trying.”
Cassian laughed under his breath and adjusted his grip without a word, broad hands supporting more of my weight until I wasn’t balancing anymore.
There wasn’t enough room for me to sit properly because of my stomach, so I ended up half sideways, one arm draped over his shoulder while my legs stretched towards the empty chair beside us.
It wasn’t graceful. In fact, it was probably the least elegant cuddle in the history of cuddles, but it was perfect, and I buried my nose into his neck. He smelled of coffee, woodsmoke, and pine, all wrapped up in wolf.
Home, my cat whispered.
His chin rested on my hair, and neither of us spoke. His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear. One of his hands settled between my shoulder blades, rubbing in slow circles that weren’t trying to soothe me, yet somehow reached places inside me I hadn’t realized were still hurting.
The other rested across my side, never pinning me in place. Never stopping me from leaving. Just… there.
“I wish you’d known him,” Cassian said, so quietly I almost missed it.
“I think…” I smiled against his neck. “I think I’m getting to know part of him through you.
” He made a questioning sound, and I expanded.
“I’ve never met anyone who can talk about another person the way you talk about Raff.
” I lifted my head enough to meet his gaze.
“Every time you remember him, it’s like he walks into the room for a little while.
” I should tell him what I was feeling, right?
I reached up and brushed my fingertips to the rough stubble along his jaw.
“I think…” My thumb traced the line of his cheek.
“I think the man who’s holding me exists because Raff loved him. ”
Cassian closed his eyes. “I miss him every day.”
“I know.”
“I always will.”
“I know that too.”
“But he’d want me to be there for you when you need me.”
I rested my forehead against his again, tears still warm on my face.
He’d given me the worst part of himself, the grief he’d carried alone for three years, and all I wanted was to stay close.
To give him something back when there were no words big enough for what he’d lost. His breathing steadied against mine, his hand still holding mine, and neither of us moved away.
I didn’t know if I was comforting him anymore or if he was comforting me. Maybe it didn’t matter.
I tilted my head, and the kiss came as naturally as breathing.
I smiled up at him, and our mouths found each other with a familiarity that startled me.
It wasn’t urgent or desperate. It was simply the next thing that happened, as inevitable as his hand finding the small of my back whenever I stood or mine reaching for the warmth of his wolf during the night.
I was addicted to his touch and his taste, and my cat purred.
I sighed into the kiss, and Cassian cradled the back of my neck, his thumb brushing through my hair while mine rested on the center of his chest. His heartbeat was slow beneath my palm, solid and reassuring, and before I realized what I was doing, my own breathing had matched his.
Then something shifted.
It wasn’t the kiss.
It wasn’t Cassian.
Warmth bloomed somewhere deep inside me, low beneath my ribs, spreading outwards in slow waves until every tight, frightened part of me seemed to loosen all at once. My cat lifted his head as though he’d heard someone call his name from far away. I pulled back first, my breath catching.
“What? Cassian…”
He reared back. “What is it? Is it the baby? Is it time?”
I frowned, pressing a hand against my chest. “I don’t…” I shook my head, frustrated by the lack of words. “Something just…”
The sensation lingered, impossible to describe. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t desire. It wasn’t even emotion exactly. It felt as though something inside me had stretched awake after sleeping for a very long time. “I can’t explain it.”
Cassian had gone still, his eyes bright with emotion, his hand hovering over his heart.
“Try.”
“It felt…” I closed my eyes for a second, searching for the feeling before it slipped away. “Warm. Safe.” I laughed awkwardly. “That sounds ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It was like somebody reached inside me and my cat recognized them.”
For the first time since I’d met him, genuine surprise crossed Cassian’s face.