Chapter 14
fourteen
RAE
Darius and Kat had both told me to walk into the house without knocking, so I did.
Uncomfortably.
With extreme hesitation.
"Hello?" I called out, my gaze flicking around the foyer. From the outside, the house looked extremely modern and uncomfortable, but the inside was decorated to look warm and cozy.
Callum appeared in the doorway of a room down the hall. He nodded once in greeting as a curly blonde wolf came padding out behind him with a massive yawn.
She headed straight to me.
I debated running for the door, but decided not to.
"Sable says she'll only shift back after you pet her," Callum informed me. His eyes narrowed when he saw what I was holding. "Is that from Kat's café? Did she ask for that? I told her I could get another cake."
"Darius said I had to try it with the latte," I lied.
Callum seemed to believe me. "Alright. Both of our mates have already warned me to stay out of your way, so you have nothing to fear."
With that, he disappeared into his office.
I set my drink and Kat's cake slice on a decorative table nearby just as the gigantic wolf reached me. I scratched behind Sable's ears, and she wagged her tail furiously, snuggling up close to me.
After a minute or two, she let out a sound that almost resembled a sigh. Then she licked my hands a few times—I tried not to wrinkle my nose—and stepped away.
She trotted back to the room her and Callum had emerged from. I wiped my hands on my shorts and grabbed the drink and cake again just as Kat stepped out. I'd never met her in person, but the pictures of her all over the news ensured that I knew what she looked like.
Her mass of blonde curls was up in a wild bun that tilted slightly to the side. She wore neon pink yoga shorts and a cropped white t-shirt. Her eyes were bright, her light skin tanned from the sun, and her smile was wide. "Hey. Sorry about Sable, she's a pain in my ass. I'm Kat."
"Nice to officially meet you, I guess." I strode down the hallway, hoping I looked more confident than I felt.
Her smile widened. "Yeah. Thanks for coming."
My gaze flicked to the room her and Callum had come from when I passed it. One of the doors stood open, and I realized it was an office.
Callum lifted a hand as we passed, and Kat called out, "Come find me if the pain gets too bad!"
"I'll be fine," he called back.
She rolled her eyes at me. "He likes to pretend the pain doesn't drive him insane when we're apart."
"I can still hear you, Kitten."
Kat held up a finger.
I waited.
She went back to the office, made a face at her mate, and shut the door.
Her cheeks were flushed as she turned back to me, and she fanned her face as she led me down the hall again. We passed a gigantic kitchen and a few other rooms on our way to another office.
This office held a huge desk with two computers on it, and two desk chairs. There was chocolate everywhere. Truffles, candy bars, brownies, cookies, and everything else I could think of, all of it packaged neatly or labeled with the name of some kind of shop.
"Callum and I work in the same office most of the time," Kat explained.
"It's easy for me to leave my feet on his lap or touching his while we're together so he doesn't have to deal with the pain.
We just take turns so neither of us is constantly trapped in the other person's space, though I don't think either of us would really mind that. "
She was still flushed.
I eyed her. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah. He just said something suggestive through the bond earlier to tease me. It affects me more when I'm nearing heat. I get extra horny. It's kind of fun, but also a pain."
"Is the mate bond weird?" I asked her.
"A little. I think it would be weirder for me if I wasn't a werewolf, but I already have Sable inside my head.
Merrily didn't really like it at first, but her and Grayson barely liked each other when they sealed their bond.
Liv and Niall have been obsessed with the bond since the beginning, but they were together for years before they found out they were mates. "
"What does it feel like?"
She considered it, taking a seat in one of the desk chairs and waving me toward the other. I sat down, handing her the to-go box of cake.
She opened it the box immediately, grabbing two plastic forks out of a drawer nearby and handing one over. "Try a bite."
"I don't really eat much sugar. It makes me bloodthirsty." Probably because I was only partially alive.
"This is worth the bloodthirst."
My lips curved slightly, and I accepted the fork, digging into the cake. The bite I had was good, but a little too sweet for me.
"The bond basically just feels like your minds are connected. It's a lot like having a wolf, but you obviously don't have to share a body. You can communicate mentally, and you can feel each other's emotions when they get strong. It's pretty intimate."
I nodded.
Having Darius in my head would be... a lot. I wasn't necessarily against it, but I doubted I'd ever really feel ready for it. I never felt ready for things.
"So? What do you think?" she prodded.
"About the bond?" I had no idea what I thought about that.
"About the cake."
Oh.
Right.
"It's good, but I couldn't eat much."
"Too sweet?" She reached across her desk, grabbing a few different packages in various shapes and sizes. "Here. Try these ones."
I made a face.
"Come on. Callum knows I'm eating chocolate obsessively right now. I need you to make a dent in that while I eat this, so he doesn't know that I had you smuggle cake.” Kat took a gigantic bite as she turned to her computer and pulled up some kind of security website.
When she logged in, she poked the keys with one finger, one at a time. I could've watched to figure out what her password was, but I didn't.
She'd invited me into her home and shared her food with me, so it would've felt wrong to break her trust that way.
I reluctantly opened a box of dark chocolate truffles. They were all different flavors, and after I scanned the label, I picked one that sounded decent.
As soon I bit into it, a groan escaped me, and I basically inhaled the rest.
Kat shot me a knowing smile. "Those ones are really good when you need chocolate but don't want something sweet."
I looked down at the box, suddenly far more interested in the contents. "No kidding. They're amazing."
"Eat all of them. Please. All I want is cake. I should've had you bring way more than this." She clicked around on the site before she pulled up a camera that showed the register in one of her cafés.
Darius was off to the side of the camera's view, but not by much.
"Hmm..." Kat clicked around, flipping through a few different views. She put her fork in her mouth for a minute so she could use both hands. "Can you drag Callum's screen over?"
I leaned across the desk and carefully pulled it through an ocean of chocolate treats. Kat handed me a cord, and I plugged it into the computer for her.
The screen lit up. After she typed for a minute, another camera's footage appeared on it.
We could now see Dare's interactions with the customers from the side, too, so we saw part of both of their faces.
He grinned at the man he was talking to, but it wasn't the kind of grin he gave me. It didn't reach his eyes.
I picked another truffle, and tried to eat it a little slower, so I could enjoy it more.
"We don't have audio," Kat said apologetically.
"That's okay, this is good. Thank you."
"Remember, if anyone asks..."
"We were hanging out. I saw over your shoulder."
"Exactly." She took another bite of her cake.
"Did you tell Callum?"
"Nah. I didn't think you'd want him to know."
I didn't.
Not really, anyway.
"He stalked me, though," she said.
I blinked.
"For five years. We met before my magic settled.
If he'd forced his way into my life back then, having him around often would've fucked up my connection to my wolf.
We spent my heats together, but that was it.
I watched what he was doing in the news, but no one tracks Callum the way they tracked Darius, so I didn't have much information. "
Huh.
"He had cameras everywhere except the inside of my home. So, of all people, Callum can understand the drive to stalk your mate. I can too. If there had been a tracking website, I probably would have had notifications set up so I knew every time someone posted something about him."
My lips curved. Just slightly. "Five years is a long time to obsess about someone."
"Felt like forever," she agreed.
"How did it go when your magic settled?"
"He announced that our wedding was in a few days and abducted me without telling me that we were fated."
I snorted.
She smiled. "It was ridiculous, but it eventually worked out for us."
The camera feed caught our attention as a woman leaned over the countertop. Even with our view from the side, we could see her cleavage spilling out of her shirt as she smiled at Darius.
My shadows rippled around me, flaring angrily.
I bit into a truffle more violently than I should've.
I'd seen the same thing happen dozens of times when I was watching him before. People flirted. He didn't interact.
He didn't even glance down at the woman's tits as he handed her a drink wearing a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Kat glanced at my drink. "Is that a chai latte?"
"Yup." I'd forgotten it was there.
"That sounds amazing." She picked up her phone. Then, after a moment, put it back down.
"Drink delivery services suck," I said. "I've tried them."
"I know. The ice melts, or the drink gets lukewarm."
After a beat of hesitation, I picked up my drink and offered it to her. "If you don't mind the germs..."
"Not even a little." She took the cup and sipped it before handing it back. I put it down between the computers.
"What happened after he abducted you?"
"That's a long story."
"I don't have anything else to do."
Kat launched into it while we watched Darius interact with customers. It was surprisingly fun, and her story definitely made me see Callum and the fae a little differently.
"What's happening with you and Darius?" she asked me, taking a sip of the latte we'd now almost finished.
I made a face. "That's also a long story."
"I don't have anything else to do," she tossed back.
I sighed, but told her everything that had happened between us.
The way I'd thought about him after the first time I met him at a meeting with his family, but refused to let my thoughts linger on it.
The conversation we had at his house when I stole his takeout food and he made me eat a corn dog.
The way I'd obsessed about him since.
The bargain on the roof of the brewery.
Him showing up at my door.
The hotel.
Callum, barging in.
Kat laughed so hard at my explanation of her mate's unexpected visit that she had to wipe away a few stray tears.
"They're all so unhinged," she said with a grin.
"I told Dare he was unstable with the corn dogs, and he agreed that he was."
"It makes life fun, though." Kat sat up suddenly. "Oh my god, I didn't tell you about the cheesecake."
"What cheesecake?"
"It's chocolate, and it's not sweet. I've been putting whipped cream on it, but without the whipped cream, you'd love it."
"I've probably had enough chocolate for today, but..."
"We can order lunch first. Chinese food?" She flashed me a grin, knowing I could never resist Chinese food after our hours of conversation. "You can't leave me. I'm surrounded by unhinged fae. I need someone normal."
"The fact that you think I'm normal is alarming."
"Exactly! Stay. Come on. We can get food for the guys too, since it's not that long until Dare's shift ends."
I sighed dramatically. "Alright, fine. Chinese food and cheesecake it is."