Chapter 26
twenty-six
KAT
The next handful of days went by quickly.
I checked in with my new employees, and when I was satisfied that they hadn't screwed anything up, I drove to each of my cafes to make sure everything was going okay.
It was.
Whatever Elle and my new people had done, everything was running much smoother than it ever had before, and it was a massive weight off my shoulders.
It occurred to me that Callum had proven how much I mattered to him by forcing his way into my business even before I really knew him.
All of the paperwork was in my name, so he had no legal power over any of it.
But he'd seen me struggling and called in a favor he could only use once, just so I wouldn't be under so much stress.
I guess there were more ways to show that someone mattered to you than I had ever really considered.
Callum went with me to my cafes the majority of the time, but he had other work to do too.
We were never apart for more than an hour or two, and he brought me some new form of chocolate every time we were apart.
He must've had someone running around the city for him, because everything he gave me was from a different shop, and most of them were nowhere near each other.
Truffles from a pixie-owned candy store.
Ice cream from a vampire-run shop.
Pie that was made by the centaurs.
Chocolate croissants from a bakery the monsters owned.
Enchanted cookies from the spellcasters.
Mousse made by the angels.
Chocolate cheesecake from the sirens.
We attended the world's most uncomfortable family dinner halfway through the week, and it was... fine. Gwen told our parents what had happened with Simon, and I tried to be supportive while they all cried and hugged each other.
They hugged me, too.
Thank god Callum was there to hold my hand, because at one point, I was seriously considering making a run for it.
Maybe after heat, I'd be more interested or more able to try to reconnect with everyone, but at the moment, I was in survival mode. All I could really think about was chocolate and my mate and sex.
We had a lot of near-sex, because of that.
A lot.
Callum did, in fact, prove himself insatiable, and I sure as hell wasn't complaining.
After a challenge where I spent the entire thing sitting on Callum's lap, sweating like crazy even with the help of his magic (outside of a short trip to the car, where I rode his fingers to take the edge off), I was forced to accept that heat was coming in hot.
Sable couldn't take over when I was this close to heat, and she was so sleepy that communication was hit or miss. When heat really hit, I wouldn't be able to talk to her at all.
I'd have to go through it alone.
At our dinner at the café, Jonah warned me with the pack link that I didn't have long.
Everyone there could see that I was so hot I was dizzy and wobbly, and they mostly left me alone. When I caught Liv's gaze, she nodded, understanding what I wasn't saying.
Callum held me close through the meal, his blissfully cold magic wrapping around me and radiating to the point where almost everyone else in the cafe had been wearing sweatshirts. Darius was the only one who didn't.
We were both quiet on the drive home. Callum's grip on the steering wheel was tight, and there was frost climbing beneath his hands again.
He knew the situation.
No amount of oral or finger-banging had helped ease my need for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, even when I wasn't fully in heat. What I'd been told about mated pairs was definitely correct.
Tears burned my eyes when we got home and I found our kitchen table covered in a spread of chocolate fondue with sliced fruit and baked goods to dip in it.
He was doing everything he could to make this easier for me.
Callum sat me on his lap and held me close while I tried to enjoy it. He didn’t eat.
Heat was hanging heavily over my head, clouding my mind and making me desperate to curl up in my nest with Callum. Naked.
So, so naked.
I needed him so badly.
"Thank you," I murmured into his mind, when my stomach was so full that I couldn't handle anything else.
"Don't thank me. I can't take care of you the way a male werewolf could." He had to grit the words out.
"It's okay. I don't want you to be a werewolf." I leaned back against his chest and closed my eyes, trying to soak in the last few minutes I had with him before my personal hell began. "I love you just like this."
His body stiffened.
The stash of snacks and drinks he'd collected for my heat (in an attempt to make up for his lack of werewolfism) filled not one but two rolling carts on my side of the bed.
I didn't have the heart to tell him I probably wouldn't be able to eat any of them without him there to fuck me into a few minutes of relief.
He'd included cooling potions and pain relievers from the spellcasters in the cart. I didn't have the heart to tell him that heat's magic would prevent them from working, either. I was pretty sure he knew but was still desperate enough to try.
He must've unbuttoned his shirt while I was eating, and pulled mine up, because my bare back was pressed to his equally bare, strong chest as I leaned against him.
God, I loved the way he felt against me.
The urge to touch those muscles was so consuming that I had to place my hands on the edge of the table to stop myself.
He breathed out slowly. "Kitten..."
"You're a good mate."
His arms wrapped around me, tightly. "I'm not."
I patted his arm lightly, my eyes still closed. "Don't be mad at me."
"What could I possibly be mad at you for?" His voice was low, and even in the haze of my incoming heat, I could feel the emotions bleeding through our bond.
He felt guilty.
Intensely guilty.
"It's not your fault. None of it is your fault." Tilting my head, I pressed a kiss to his collarbone.
The front door opened, and Callum's head jerked to the side as he attempted to see who was there.
"It's your family."
"Why do you know that? What did you do, Kat?"
I didn't reply.
Liv, Merrily, and Dare walked into the kitchen together, and Liv went straight for the chocolate fondue. Dare followed her.
"Why the fuck is he in my house when my mate is going into heat?" Callum gritted out. "Why are any of you here right now?"
His grip on my waist tightened just before Merrily pulled her hand out of her sweater and set it on the side of Callum's throat, stunning him with her life-draining magic.
When he shoved her hand away, Darius slammed his fist into Callum's temple, knocking him out cold with a chocolate-drowned strawberry in his other hand.
My eyes burned as my mate slumped behind me, and I whispered, "Don't hurt him."
"He'll be fine," Liv promised, slipping her arm around me and helping me to my feet. Darius popped the strawberry in his mouth and grabbed Callum.
Everything blurred around me, thanks to either heat or my tears.
"We'll get him to the containment room," Merrily promised. "Good luck."
"Thanks." My whisper was barely audible.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Liv murmured, as she helped me down the hall.
"He's going to change his mind as soon as your pain hits.
You know that as well as I do. If you're right about his magic not being able to hurt you, there's no reason to suffer through this.
And even if you're not, a little bit of pain would be worth it to soothe the heat. "
"It needs to be his choice. I don't want heat to make that decision for him. He could regret it."
Liv eased me onto my nest, preventing me from collapsing immediately into a ball of sweat and misery. I hated that her scent was in my space, but there was nothing I could do about it.
"I get it. Thanks for protecting him, Kat."
I pulled the blankets up to my chin, breathing Callum's scent in deeply. "Don't listen to anything he says. I'll come for him when I've recovered. He'll be in bad shape."
"So will you."
"I'll be fine, Liv."
"Jonah said it's going to be hell."
"Jonah needs to keep his mouth shut."
Liv sighed and tugged my wild, damp curls out of their bun.
Half of the hair had already slipped out, so she quickly braided it upward from the base of my neck before tying the bun at the top of my head again, a little tighter.
"This should last longer. If you need anything, just let me know.
I've tried to talk him into going for it a dozen times now. This isn't fair to you."
"Life isn't fair." I managed a small smile. "Get out of here. Lock the doors. Make sure Jonah doesn't die in the challenge I miss."
"We both know he's going to win those things, and I'm going to lose my new friend to your sister."
I rolled my eyes.
She patted my face. "Don't melt right after you've finally thawed him. I don't want to deal with Callum alone anymore. He's happy with you."
With that, she walked away, closing the bedroom door behind her.
I shut my eyes and braced myself for the pain.
It set in slowly, but fuck, did it set in.
Within a few hours, I didn't have the capacity to be glad that Callum was safely away from me anymore.
He was all I wanted.
All I needed.
All I could think about.
My body burned for him.
I was on fire.
On.
Fire.