7. Kato
KATO
It’s sort of a cliché, you know—the whole the room went so quiet you could hear a pin drop thing.
Especially when you’re a shifter with super keen hearing and you’ve never known true silence in your life.
That’s the only way I can describe the effect Cas’s little bomb has on us, though: we are dead silent.
I can hardly hear anyone breathe. I think that’s because we’re all holding our breath.
I shift my gaze to exchange a glance with Nate, and he looks equally bewildered. We are, for once, on the same exact page. “Um,” I say. And then I can’t think of anything else.
“Breeding will kill you,” Nathan repeats slowly.
Cas nods frantically. He is the picture of abject terror where he sits on the floor, limbs akimbo, looking so terribly small.
It’s enough, almost, to pull me out of the near-frantic state of rut I’d been in moments before—a bucket of ice water over my head.
I have a sudden and fierce need to protect him from this thing, abstract as it is. Death.
“I’ve never heard of that,” I say. “An omega who can’t be bred.”
“I’m not—” Cas clams right up, trembling and biting his pink lower lip so hard it blanches.
Nathan turns to me with a gruff scoff. “Christ, Kato. Put some clothes on. You’re scaring him.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He picks up my jeans from the floor and shoves them into my arms before turning away, even though this is a conversation that could be had perfectly comfortably without clothes.
In Anchorage summers you’d hardly catch any of us in a shred of clothing.
Leave it to my uncle to moralize the concept of having a body—the most natural goddamn thing in the world.
But whatever. Fuck it. I pull them on and shove my half-hard dick down my pant leg—because Cas still smells so good, on the brink of his heat, and my wolf still wants him regardless—and zip them up. Careful not to catch on my knot, because that hurts like a motherfucker.
Nathan offers Cas his own clothes, but the omega shrinks away like he’s about to be smacked on the nose like a bad dog, so he backs off.
I think we both feel a little evil, standing over him like this—a virgin omega we’d come within seconds of deflowering before he cried foul.
I swallow hard at the thought of what we’ve just done and wonder how the fuck I’m gonna look Nathan in the eye in the morning. Fucking hell.
For the sake of not looming over Cas, I perch on the edge of the bed. It still smells like us—like sex, like his slick. I suppress a shudder. “Who told you that you can’t be bred?”
He doesn’t answer. He’s got his knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around them. He’s not looking at either of us.
“Is it just being bred specifically?” Nathan tries. “How do you get through your heats normally?”
“Well, he’s a virgin,” I say. “So obviously not with sex.”
The alpha scowls at me. “You’re not helping.”
Cas shakes his head furiously, then buries his face in his knees. “Can you guys stop?”
I give Nathan a helpless look and get back up because if I sit on this bed another minute I’m gonna go straight into rut, and that’ll be helpful to precisely no one.
The scent is too strong and I guess I’m not alpha enough to swallow it the way he is, because he’s acting like this is a normal, everyday occurrence—that there’s an omega cowering in the corner of the bedroom, you know, and we almost had a fucked-up three-way with him.
Yeah, right. Nathan’s practically a virgin himself. I’m convinced the dude does not fuck. He’s so cucked he lets other people fuck in his own house—both houses—before he does any fucking himself. Man, what a psycho. He’d rather watch me mate Cas than do it himself.
The thought of which makes my face hot all over again, of course.
There’s a long, lonesome howl off in the distance. We both lift our heads to listen but I can’t pinpoint whose it is, and neither can Nathan—he gives me a half-shrug. “What should we do?” I ask him.
“Give him his blanket,” he says.
So I grab the pink fleecy thing from where it’s bunched up at the end of the bed and reach over to hand it to him.
Unlike the clothes, he accepts this. He wraps it around himself, rubbing his face in the soft material, but he still seems content wedged in the corner between the bed and the wall, and I make no effort to extract him.
Nathan seems perturbed that he’s back there, but he can get over it.
“Better?” I ask Cas, and he gives me the tiniest nod. “Do you want some tea?”
“I don’t know.” He sounds so small. “Maybe. I suppose.”
Nathan’s off before I even have to ask, clomping away to the kitchen.
I listen to him rattle around in there for a few moments before sitting down gracelessly on the floor some feet away from Cas.
He doesn’t object, but he’s watching me with those dark, dark eyes of his.
The blue has faded, along with the rest of his half-shifted wolfy features.
It’s more than I can say for me—my fangs are still obtrusive in my mouth.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, though I can smell the answer. He may not be fully in heat yet, but he will be very, very soon. And when he goes—well, goodbye to all of this fastidious control. An omega at the peak of their cycle wants one thing and one thing only. Reduced to purpose and need.
“Bad,” he whispers. “I hate this.”
“Yeah. I can tell.” I try to smile at him. “We’re just trying to help, you know? Me and Nate.”
He hides his face in the blanket. “I know. But I can’t.”
“Did you present very late?” I ask him. “Is that how you’ve remained unbred this long?”
Because, really, I can’t imagine any other reason for it.
Once an omega presents with their first heat—in their mid-to-late teens, usually—their virginity doesn’t stay intact for long by necessity.
Heats are long, painful ordeals without an alpha to sate them.
In my old pack, there’s a roster of alphas for the express purpose of servicing young or unmated omegas to get them through their heats.
I haven’t a solitary clue how my uncle does things, but then, besides Adrian, there aren’t that many unmated omegas kicking around. The number of random-ass betas and unmated alphas skews much larger.
But Cas is in his early twenties. I can buy that he came into his first heat late—it wouldn’t be that weird; I’ve known shifters who presented later. Can even buy that he went through a cycle or two alone. But why would his pack let him? Because they knew he would die too?
Why, though?
To answer my question, Cas just shakes his head. Then he pauses, and nods.
“Presented late?” I say. “Yes?”
He nods again.
“When?”
He’s biting his lower lip again. “Recently.”
“How recent?”
“Last cycle,” he whispers.
Jesus H. Well, I’m right on the money then. “Your pack doesn’t…?”
“My pack is dead,” he snaps, then claps a hand over his mouth.
Nathan chooses this moment to return with the tea. He makes a face as he steps between us, bending down to offer the mug to the distraught omega. When Cas makes no move to accept it he sighs, almost imperceptibly, and sets it down on the floor in front of him instead.
Poor big dog alpha. He’s like a sheepdog amidst his flock—all tightly wound, wanting to herd us up off the floor with that same quiet intensity, because we don’t belong there, we belong up in the chairs.
There’s something about us down here that’s making him distinctly unhappy.
Makes it too obvious he has little control over us by allowing us to be where we aren’t supposed to be.
He moves to sit on the bed—and here again I have to either admire or envy his control. Because even being ten feet away from Cas is too close; he smells too good. It’s acid in my mouth.
I want to rest my head against Nate’s leg. I could, if I moved a bit. Could wrap an arm around his calf (muscular, I know, and freckled) and press my cheek to his knee. I miss it, all the casual touches of my old pack, all the intimacy that didn’t feel so loaded. There’s none of that here.
Although with Nate, it is loaded. Because I do want something from him. I want to rub my face in his jeans while he furls his hand in my hair, yanks my head back, makes me look up at him and give him my throat—
No, fuck. I don’t want that. Do I? No fucking way, right? It’s the omega’s fault—making me so stupid with arousal that I’d actually want anything to do with Nate like that.
Not consciously, anyway.
“Having a nice chat?” Nathan’s tone is clipped.
“Sort of,” I say. My gaze flicks back to Cas.
He drags his hand over his mouth, pulling at his narrow face and making his features appear briefly ghoulish, before he reaches out and picks up the mug. He wraps his fingers around it, holding tight like a lifeline. His dark eyes are bright, glittering with unshed tears.
“Listen,” he says. “I know how it sounds. But you have to believe me. I can’t be bred. I really can’t.” His voice is high and breathy, edged with panic, the words spilling from him faster the more he speaks. “Please, I can’t tell you why, but you—you have to—”
“Alright,” Nate says quietly. “Alright, Cas. We believe you.”
I almost say speak for yourself but the truth is, I believe him too. At least, I believe that he believes it. His terror tastes too real.
I would snake into the corner and gather him up if I could. If it wouldn’t scare him shitless. If it wouldn’t result in me trying to fuck him to death, apparently. I close my eyes and take a deep breath and that’s a mistake, because all I can smell is him.
And his heat, which is just his natural intoxicating scent, only dialed up to eleven.
Beyond, actually. Vanilla and almonds, so sweet it’s almost cloying, and I’m drowning or suffocating or both, but I like it.
Euphoric, almost, the act of scenting him, all of my senses opening up and reacting. I’m feverish with my need.