11. Nate
NATE
Clarity crashes over Kato’s face as I stare at him, his lips painted red with Cas’s blood.
From his mating bite.
I wipe at my own mouth, the sticky wetness there confirming that Kato wasn’t the only one to bite the omega.
Our omega. It shouldn’t be possible. But there he is, lying in my lap. Twice bitten, twice claimed. The other alphas—the ones I fought—this is what they would have done. They’d have taken Cas and fucked him and mated him, just like Kato and I have now.
Cas begged for it. Whimpered and pleaded and presented for us. I’ve never been an alpha who caves to his instincts easily, and yet here we are—the three of us tangled on the bed, the unbreakable tie between us as stark as the fresh bite marks on Cas’s neck.
I reach out. He’s trembling, body wracked with the aftereffects of the claim.
Despite the open wounds my teeth have left in his neck, my touch seems to soothe him.
He relaxes as my fingers find the mating mark, stained scarlet from his blood.
It’ll scar his pretty neck, on display for anyone who so much as glances at him.
It makes my chest warm with pride, my heart beat faster even as I take slow breaths to steady myself. Cas nuzzles into my touch, hissing a little as he presses the bite to my palm.
Inexplicably, I think about how the sheets will have to be burned after this. That shouldn’t be my first concern, but apparently my brain isn’t ready to face this new reality I find myself in.
“You bit him too,” Kato accuses. I lift my gaze to meet his eyes. His chin juts out mulishly, his expression guarded.
“Yes,” I murmur. “It would appear so.”
Black threatens to creep in at the corners of my vision as I’m reminded of Cas’s warning: I can’t be bred. If you do, I’ll die.
I look at where Kato’s cock is still buried inside Cas, his knot locking them together.
“Did you breach his womb?” I ask, trying to remain calm when I feel like I’m going to fall apart at the seams. Physical strength has always been something I’ve relied upon, but muscles are no good to me right now.
My emotions are threatening to spill over, my blood still running hot from the fight and the unforeseen rut I’d fallen into, the one I seem to have snapped out of just as quickly.
Kato’s eyes widen. He presses a hand to Cas’s lower back, feeling around.
I can’t help my face contorting into a grimace. Does Kato know how omegas’ bodies work?
“I don’t think I breached him,” Kato says. “I’d know if I did, right?”
I rub the heels of my palms into my eyes until sparks of light burst across my vision. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine—
“Yes,” I hiss as I remove my hands from my face. “You’d know. Because your cock would be inside his womb right now.”
Kato bares his teeth at me. “Fuck you, Nate.”
Cas whimpers. Fuck. I’d almost forgotten he could hear us—thought he was still away with the fairies in his post-orgasm stupor.
His skin is hot to the touch, so his heat’s not over.
Water. He needs food and water to recover.
My mind’s all jumbled up, a million discordant thoughts all competing for focus.
If he dies, I’ll die, too.
He’s far too young to face such a thing. Hell, I am too.
I move out gently from under Cas, groaning as my muscles protest. I’m all banged up from fighting and fucking, from pushing my body to its limit.
“Where are you going?” Kato asks, voice pitched high in alarm.
“Food and water. Cas needs it. So will you and I, for that matter.”
“Nate, we’ve got more to worry about than some fucking snacks.”
I take a deep breath as I make my way to the kitchen. “Omegas in heat need to be looked after.”
“We won’t need food if we’re all dead,” Kato points out helpfully.
My steps falter at the doorway, and I press a hand to the doorframe to steady myself. “We’ll deal with that...sometime,” I respond, waving a hand in the air as though I can make his words disappear by sheer will.
“Don’t suppose you’ll be willing to bring me some of the whisky you have stashed here?” Kato asks with a self-conscious laugh.
I don’t dignify that with a response. I stand at the sink on unsteady legs and fill a glass of water, holding it under the tap long after it’s necessary. Not half full or half empty, the glass runneth over.
Two alphas. One omega. I’ve never heard of such a thing. No omega needs two of us. Will one of our marks fade in time, Cas’s skin reverting to its unblemished state as if it never happened at all? And if so…will it be mine?
My fingers turn numb from the icy water running over them. I lift the glass to my lips and gulp it down, realising how parched I am, the liquid so cold I can feel it travel through my body. The shock of it clears the haze that’s descended.
We mated Cas. The omega whose heat sent half the alphas in the pack into rut. The omega whose life is now tied to mine and Kato’s. The one who told us he’d die if he was bred.
And we did it anyway.
Kato did it, an insidious little voice in the back of my mind says.
Which isn’t fair. I could have stopped it, could have wrenched him off, fought to keep him from making this grave mistake.
I participated as much as he did. Part of me wants to storm into the bedroom and take Kato’s place in Cas’s hole, plunge inside him myself, deposit my seed deep in his womb, plug him up to keep it in there and—
I place my hand to my head, feeling the pulsating heat emanating from it. My unnatural rut isn’t over—far from it. I wouldn’t be thinking about fucking Cas again with the spectre of death looming over me if I were thinking rationally.
I refill the glass and grab a few of the high-calorie energy bars I keep here for Adrian.
Whenever I thought about taking an omega mate, I’d planned on providing something special for our first heat together.
Instead of a handmade charcuterie board—one I shaped and sanded and treated myself—Cas is getting protein bars that were bought with another omega in mind.
It’s not what I envisaged, and not what he deserves.
Cas is young and sweet and precious and should be treated as such.
It makes my wolf ashamed, not providing adequate sustenance for his mate.
He’s urging me to hunt, to find something more appropriate for a new mate, something that befits his standing in my life.
My teeth grow in my mouth as I consider it—stalking and killing the biggest stag I can find and bringing it back to present to Cas—but a whine stops that idea in its tracks. I stride back to the bedroom in time to see Kato pull out of Cas, his knot deflated.
Cas flops back on the bed, limbs sprawled. He’s sweaty and flushed, bloodstained and covered in cum.
He’s lovely. And mine.
Kato gusts out a loud breath, and I mentally correct myself. Cas is ours.
I study Kato as he lounges on the bed, skin glistening with sweat, highlighting the dips and grooves of his muscles.
The sudden urge to lap it from his skin hits me, and I take a step towards him before I can reconsider.
It’s only his reaction—eyes widening, muscles contracting as he tenses—that stops me.
“Nate?” he asks.
“Water,” I grunt. “Help me with Cas.”
Kato looks dubious but does as I tell him, lifting Cas enough that I can press the glass to his lips. He barely opens his eyes, but he swallows obediently, like the good boy he is.
“So,” Kato drawls after he takes a swig from the glass, his lips pressing precisely where Cas’s had, “are we going to talk about this?”
I don’t want to. My head is still fuzzy, the edges of the room blurring. Rational thought feels out of reach. “Food,” I say, brandishing the energy bars.
“You’ve gone all caveman,” Kato comments as he unwraps a bar.
I laugh, and Kato’s brows knit together.
“Okay, seriously,” he says, “you’re acting weird.”
There’s a buzz under my skin as I watch him break off little chunks and pop them in Cas’s mouth. I almost expect Kato to chew them up and feed him that way, like a mother bird to her tiny screaming chick.
“Nothing about this is normal,” I say, somehow managing to find the words. “Not his heat. Not us fucking him like that. Not the weird pseudo-rut we’re in.”
Kato pauses chewing. “All those other alphas went feral too.”
“Swallow your food before speaking.”
“All right, dad,” he says, before making a show of swallowing and opening his mouth wide. “Happy?”
“Not particularly.”
Kato glances at Cas curled up on the bed, hugging a pillow. “Do you think his heat is over yet?”
I shake my head. “No. I can feel it building again—can’t you?”
He screws up his face in concentration. “Maybe.”
“It’ll come.” I’m certain of it.
“What do you think will happen when it does?”
Sighing, I sit down on the bed and place a gentle hand on Cas’s bare back. He snuggles into my side, his skin warm against mine. A contented sound bubbles out of him and I stroke my hand down the bumps of his spine, counting each one.
I lift my gaze to meet Kato’s. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do but fuck him through it again. Whatever is going on, whatever’s making his heat this way, we’re slaves to it. So is he, for that matter.”
“And if we don’t?” Kato asks, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“I don’t think he’d survive it.”
“So it’s die, or die,” Kato remarks, pressing his tongue into the side of his mouth.
I look at our omega, lying there on the bed. So small, and yet he has the ability to destroy us both. He might have already.
As though he knows we’re talking about him, Cas whines, high and reedy. My hands ball into fists.
The next wave is coming.
In a blink, the world narrows its focus.
Cas. Cas. Cas.
It’s only him. All I can think of, all I desire.
I’ve never had a rut like this before, never felt the need to bury myself inside of anyone as much as I need to with Cas. If I can’t fuck him, I think I might vibrate right out of my skin. His scent calls to me, a siren song beckoning me to my own destruction. I want to drown in it. Drown in him.