5. Nate #4
“Bryan would suit that,” I say, returning his smile.
Good to know that Cas didn’t grow up in a secretive cult that didn’t allow television.
Some of the shifters on the islands live as though they’re still in the 1800s, preferring the old ways to the modern era.
Declan is old-fashioned, sure, and we do a lot of living off the land, but we’re not stuck in the past quite like that.
Cas blows on his tea, steam wafting from the mug. His gaze darts around the room, taking in everything from the pictures on the walls to the knick-knacks on the shelves, scattered between battered paperbacks. “Why doesn’t the cabin sit on your pack’s lands?”
Ah. I should have known he’d ask. “This was my parents’ place,” I tell him. “This sits on their—uh, well, my, I guess, ancestral lands.” Wow, Nathan. Way to sound articulate.
“Are they…not around anymore?” There’s something in his voice, the careful control of it, that makes me think he understands the feeling of abandonment.
“My parents are alive. Just not here. Left the pack for pastures new when I was a teenager.” I slurp some tea as I think of how best to explain it. “There was an incident. They didn’t want to be around me after that.”
“Oh, Nathan—”
I wave a hand dismissively, unable to stomach the sympathy. “It’s fine, it’s nothing. What about you? What were you running from, Cas?” I struggle not to wince at the inelegance of my deflection.
Cas takes a big gulp of his tea, but I sit with the silence.
If there’s one thing I can do, it’s wait.
He takes an inordinately long time to swallow, and I find myself distracted by the bob of his delicate throat.
How I wish to place something there. A ribbon.
My hand. A collar. It’s so empty, crying out for adornment.
His pale flesh would look perfect all marked up for me.
Visions of red bruises sucked into his skin and indents of sharp teeth pass through my mind, and I shift in my armchair to hide how my dick has perked up at the thoughts.
Shit, I got distracted. Again. A common occurrence in Cas’s presence.
He’s giving me a baleful look. “Do you need to know?”
“Declan will, and I’m not sure he’ll let you stay if you keep quiet about it forever. If there’s something you’re hiding, it’ll be better to get it out in the open sooner rather than later.”
He puts the mug down on the coffee table so hard that liquid sloshes over the side. His cheeks are stained red and I see the tell-tale sheen of tears building in his eyes. “I don’t have to tell you anything,” he snaps.
“Okay. If you don’t want to tell me yet, that’s fine.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, slumping back on the sofa. He looks so small, all alone. Like there’s something—someone—missing from the picture.
“Look. I’m not asking to pry. I only…” I trail off, unsure of how to translate my deep-seated need to protect him into a sentiment that won’t scare him away. “I want to make sure there’s nothing in your past that we need to worry about.”
Judging by how his face falls, I didn’t find the right words.
I place my mug down gently and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees.
“By ‘we’ I mean you, too. Cas, we found you lying naked in a field, banged up like hell. You won’t tell us whether you belong to a pack, and you ran away the last time we asked.
You don’t seem to have any confusion about who you are, so Declan won’t believe that excuse.
” I make sure to hold his dark gaze. “He’ll expect answers.
I don’t want to see what happens when he tires of waiting. ”
Cas seems to shrink in on himself with every word. It tears at me to see it, but I have to warn him. Declan rules the pack with an iron fist, and I expect the only reason he hasn’t stooped to interrogating Cas yet is because he’s testing Kato, seeing how he’ll handle him.
And I don’t intend on letting it get to the point where it’s down to Declan. I have no standing in this pack, but I already know I’d defend Cas from him if pushed.
It should scare me, how quickly I’d throw everything away for this little omega. I want to go to him, to take him in my arms, say fuck it and carry him to the bedroom, throw him down and—
Bollocks. I really need to stop getting carried away.
He’s vulnerable and I’m busy thinking with my dick.
I stand up, dusting off my hands. “Let’s go fishing.
” Then, gently: “Take your time, Cas, but it can’t be forever.
All I can say is that confiding in me will be far easier than having it ripped out of you by Declan. ”
Cas swallows, looking up at me. “I can’t tell you. Not…yet. I need time.”
I nod. “That’s all I needed to hear. Let’s go. Fishing will help clear your mind.”
“Why? Because it’s so boring?”
“Tranquil,” I correct. “Meditative, even.”
He huffs, the spark that had faded at the mention of his past evident once more. “Those are just different words for boring.”
I let myself smile. It feels a bit foreign on my face because I don’t do it often enough. But when Cas smiles tentatively back at me, I make a mental note to do it more often.
“Right,” I say. “Waders on. Let’s do this.”
I take the fact that he doesn’t look completely miserable at my pronouncement as a win.