Chapter 14
fourteen
KAT
We stayed five nights at the Honeymoon Hotel.
The "location" we were "visiting" switched three times a day, so we spent the morning in one, the majority of the day in another, and the evening and night in a third. The meals that appeared on the table in our room were straight out of those locations.
We were still supposed to be pretending that we were in love, so we couldn't do any work that required communicating with anyone else in any capacity, but we both had things to do that didn't involve anyone else.
So, we worked.
Ate incredible food.
Watched the hotel's video tours of different locations in the cities we were "visiting".
And maintained physical contact constantly.
Callum looked like an entirely new person by the time we left. His shoulders were more relaxed, his body was looser, and his eyes were brighter.
If I hadn't believed in his pain before—which I did—I definitely would've believed after.
He tried to start something with me every day, but when I asked him whether or not he was going to let me touch him, his response led to me turning him down.
It sucked for both of us. Me, even more than him, considering what I was refusing.
He seemed frustrated after the sixth time I rejected him. When I reminded him we were only together because we were fated, and asked him why the rejection bothered him, he said he didn't know. I took a shower, and left the door open so he could listen to me get myself off.
He'd been hard the entire rest of the day.
If fate handed you a dickish fae king, sometimes you had to be a dick right back.
We missed the second round of challenges during our work-filled honeymoon, but the third was on Thursday, so we packed our bags and headed out.
I wore a pair of floral-patterned shorts Callum must've bought for me.
I'd found them in my suitcase, which was indeed not only lingerie (though there was a significant amount of that).
There was a cropped t-shirt that coordinated with it.
Both were from my favorite brands, a fact that did not go unnoticed.
I thanked him, but wasn't over the top about it, and he told me not to thank him again. For anything.
The guy was so confusing.
I texted Jonah during the drive to the challenges.
Me
Dinner at the cafe on Water Street after the fights are over? Should be closed by then
Jonah
Hell yeah, it's been ages
Are you bringing him?
Me
Not sure yet
Seems likely, since he calls you my boyfriend
Jonah
In your dreams, maybe
Me
More like nightmares
Jonah
Hahaha
It's a plan
I sent him a thumbs-up and glanced up at Callum.
He still looked insanely calm. His hand rested on the part of my thigh left bare by my shorts, so I guess the physical contact helped with that.
"I'm going to meet up with Jonah for dinner at the cafe after the challenges," I said.
"No."
I narrowed my eyes. "We have a contract."
Callum's gaze flicked to mine in the mirror before returning to the road. He cleared his throat. "I would prefer you didn't meet with Jonah for dinner."
"Your preference is noted, and ignored."
"Kitten." There was warning in his voice.
I plucked his hand off of my leg and set it down on the middle console.
Like I said, being stuck with a dickish fae sometimes required dickishness.
"Jonah is my only real friend. Despite your inaccurate label for him, there has never been anything romantic between us. He's basically my brother. I would never tell you not to have dinner with Liv or Merrily, so you don't get to tell me not to have dinner with him." I looked out the window.
Callum clenched his jaw for a long moment. "I'm not comfortable with it."
"Why not?"
"I don't like the idea of you spending time alone with another man, even if there's nothing romantic between you."
"That sounds like a problem you need to work through, since we're only together to keep you out of pain. Are there any therapists who owe you a favor?"
The glare he sent my way told me he was not amused. "If you're going, I'm going with you."
"Was that a question?"
"Can I go with you to the dinner?" He had to grit the words out.
"I'd prefer a please, but yeah, you can come." I considered adding that he wasn't allowed to be an ass to Jonah, but Jonah could take it. He was kind of an asshole too.
Callum relaxed a little.
He was still more tense than he'd been in the hotel.
I lifted his hand again, setting it back on my thigh before I looked out the window.
Whatever we were was extremely weird at the moment, but oh well.
Callum's phone rang, sending a message across the car's entertainment system screen with Liv's name on it. He glanced my way, as if asking if I minded.
I hit the answer button for him.
"Hey," Liv said, not waiting for his greeting. "You guys are coming to the challenge, right? I don't want to sit by Mer and Dare alone. They're being weird again."
"They're always weird," Callum said.
"How?" I asked.
Liv launched into an explanation. "Merrily can't do physical relationships, so we theorize that she asks Darius to use his magic on her sometimes.
I think she spins illusions for him sometimes too, to help with his magic.
We don't know the extent. She says they keep each other sane, and that they're just close like me and Callum.
We think it's different after sex comes into play, though.
I'd rather stab myself in the gut than fuck Callum. "
"Well that's rude," I retorted.
"She's still in love with Niall," Callum said, the name rhyming with style. "Nothing she says can be taken personally."
I was pretty sure Niall was the name of the guy she'd been dating when I made my bargain with Callum. He was a painter who was famous even outside Rumor, and his relationship with Liv had been all over the news for years. People were obsessed with them.
According to the news, they'd parted ways peacefully.
"Fuck you," Liv said, telling me the news may have been wrong on that.
"You'd rather not," Callum drawled.
"Are you sure Merrily and Darius can't be soulmates?" I checked. Mostly because I was feeling unreasonable rage toward Liv for talking about having sex with Callum.
"They made a bargain over a pack of candy once to test it out. All of us did. That would've been an easy answer," Liv explained.
"Can you turn into soulmates later?"
Liv snorted. "Of course not. And actually, Callum, you never called in my favor after I bargained for those peanut butter cups you were eating."
"I'm saving it for a rainy day."
"It's always a rainy day."
"Then I'm saving it for a sunny day."
"Fine, keep it forever. I'm too used to it to want it gone, anyway."
Liv had endless energy, and I kind of loved it.
"Okay, random question," Liv said. "How likely is it that Jonah gets back together with Gwen?"
"I don't know. It probably depends on whether or not he wins the challenges. He's been saying he's over her for years, but he's never had another girlfriend."
"Does he do casual hookups?"
"Every once in a while."
"You talk to Jonah about sex?" Callum asked.
"When it comes up. You talk to Liv about sex." I gestured toward the screen with her name on it. "Jonah is kind of like my Liv."
Except if he ever got back with Gwen, our friendship would probably cease to exist. But whatever.
"Aww. I think that makes me and Jonah like fated friends or something," she said.
"Anyway, I might be semi-interested in hooking up with him.
It's time I get back on the horse, you know?
Maybe. A year and a half of abstinence after a breakup is a long time.
I'm thinking about moving on, with him. If he's interested.
But not if he's going to get back together with Gwen, because it would make things awkward at Cabinet meetings if they were mated but we had screwed, you know? "
I nodded. "Completely get it."
"I think I'm being pushed out of my own friendship," Callum remarked.
"Oh, shut it," Liv said, and I grinned.
"He only started fighting professionally because he wanted to train to kill Simon to get Gwen back, so I don't know.
Might be risky. He didn't sign up for the challenges right away, so maybe he really is over her, but he did sign up.
There are benefits to being Beta other than just access to the Alpha, though.
He could have a real pack again. We were both kicked out of ours, not just me. "
"Well, that's not helpful."
"I know. Sorry. You can come to dinner with us if you want, and see if you even like him."
"Fine. Don't tell him I'm considering using him as my first hookup post-Niall, though."
"We won't. We're meeting at the café right after we leave the pit, and picking up food on the way."
"Okay, it's a plan. I'll drive," Liv decided.
"No," Callum and I said at the same time.
Our eyes met in the rearview mirror for a second. It was kind of hot.
"We have Callum's car," I explained quickly.
"Dare just got here, he's waving me out of the car. Gotta go." Liv hung up.
"See, dinner won't be so bad. We can watch them flirt," I told Callum.
"Do you enjoy flirting?"
"I think everyone enjoys flirting." I looked out the window, watching Shifter Borough fly past us. There were trees everywhere, and—there it was.
A flicker of pride rolled through me as we went by one of my cafes, and I saw the nearly full parking lot.
Finding my soulmate in the ice king wasn't quite ideal, but that bargain had still been worth it to me.
"Why did you make sure my cafe succeeded?" I asked Callum. "We didn't really have a bargain, so you didn't have to."
"It mattered to you." He paused, and my chest warmed a bit. That was sweet. "And you would've realized something was going on if I didn't uphold the deal."
...there went the warmth.
Was Callum even capable of loving me?
God, I hoped so. I was bound to him forever, regardless.
There were still two-hundred men left in the competition, so it lasted hours, and was incredibly boring to watch.
Sable kept bugging me about wanting to shift, so partway through, I finally gave in and dragged Callum to the bathroom.
He took my clothes as I stripped, and to his credit, didn't look surprised or annoyed when Sable spent the second half of the day sitting at his feet. Sable kept licking him in random places. She licked Liv, too. She even licked the bottom hem of Merrily's pants, just once.
When she eyed Dare's hand, Callum's mind met mine. We hadn't used the mental bond in a few days, so being hit with that level of intensity again made my head spin a little.
"Tell her not to lick him,"
"Why?"
"She's mine."
Yeah... she was going to love that.
When I relayed the message, she rubbed up against Callum's calves playfully and set her head on his lap. He scratched behind her ears, relaxing in the uncomfortable folding chair.
"You don't care if she licks Liv or Merrily?"
"Liv and Merrily are not attracted to women, so no."
We didn't speak again for a few minutes.
"Gwen keeps looking over at you," Callum said.
I told Sable, and she lazily looked at our sister.
Sure enough, she was staring at us. Her eyes looked different, though.
"It's Audrey!" Sable's happiness was so powerful, it legitimately crashed into me. "She must miss us."
Shit.
When Sable got enthusiastic like that...
She was on her feet and trotting over to our sister almost instantly, ignoring my protest.
"Stay there. Sable just wants to see Audrey, Gwen's wolf. We're fine," I told Callum quickly.
"What?" he growled at me.
"Gwen's not looking at us. Audrey is."
"Werewolves are so fucking complicated."
"I know. Should've picked a different kind of immortal as your soulmate."
Gwen's eyes went wide, and she managed to stand before Audrey forced a shift. Her clothes stretched over her growing, furry form, looking painfully tight as an identical wolf with curly blonde fur replaced my sister.
Sable and Audrey collided, sniffing and bumping each other. They graduated to full on wrestling pretty quickly.
Losing control to your wolf was hardly a rarity in the orchard, though we did usually manage to get our clothes off before that happened.
One of the guards stepped in to continue announcing the challenges.
"None of the fighting wolves have had curly fur," Callum said into my mind while our wolves played. "Is there a reason?"
"It's rare for werewolves, but it doesn't mean anything."
"I assume it's part of the reason Simon wanted your sister."
"It is. It makes us kind of unique. I actually thought he was going to talk her into mating with him after he convinced her to end things with Jonah, but they never sealed a bond."
"Hmm."
Sable and Audrey played for at least twenty minutes before they collapsed next to each other, laying on the dirt halfway between Callum and the chair Gwen had occupied.
Sable nudged Audrey when Jonah went up to fight, and both wolves watched closely as he took down and knocked out the other werewolf without any kind of struggle.
Audrey lowered her head to rest on her paws, staring out at him.
Sable snuggled up closer.
"I invited them to dinner," she informed me.
I groaned inwardly. "Sable."
"Audrey said Gwen is scared, Kat. She needs us. Callum can protect her too."
"I don't want Callum to protect her too." The words were half true. I was possessive enough to want to keep him to myself, but I also still cared about Gwen enough that if she needed protection I could offer, I kind of wanted to help.
"Of course you do."
"Don't you remember what happened the last time Gwen was involved in something that belonged to me? We nearly lost the café."
"Simon was responsible," Sable reminded me.
"Gwen is the one who made the choice."
"She's your sister."
"Some sisters are better off as acquaintances."
"You miss her, Kat. Let go of the past and tell her that."
"What did Audrey say about dinner?"
"Gwen said no."
I rolled my eyes inwardly. "I told you, she's not interested."
"Maybe next time." She paused. "Gwen wants her to shift back. Do you want me to shift back? Audrey said Gwen thinks it looks bad if she's in wolf form for too long."
"She's a werewolf. How could that look bad?"
"That's what I said."
"I don't care if you shift back, but try not to make Gwen hate us any more than she already does."
Sable made a noise of agreement. A few minutes later, she trotted back to the fae, and plopped down at Callum's feet.
Gwen took over as the announcer again, with her clothes stretched out and disheveled.
Callum scratched Sable behind the ears, and she snuggled up close, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth while she got comfortable.