22. Kato
KATO
I’m back in the machine shed. Yes, the same exact one that Nate and I had been locked away in only…
what, days? a week? before. It still smells like us—if only faintly—and that only makes me miss him more.
The pain seizes my heart, makes it stop, skip a beat or ten, before slowly coming back to life. I force myself to breathe.
It’s midnight-ish. All the bustle of the day has finally died down. All’s quiet on the western front but for my immediate jailer, who is none other than Patrick, the chicken-eater himself.
I manage to spare a feeble thought for poor Magda, now that I’ve sobered up. Hope I didn’t scare her too badly.
That’s all I can spare before my thoughts are swamped by my mates again.
It’s hard to think of anything else, even with the mate bond dampened to almost nothing.
I keep trying to reach for them, wrap them around me like a blanket for some small comfort, but there’s just a whole lot of nothing.
My heart stumbles, stutters, falls flat on its face, and I swallow hard.
God, I just want them. Nothing sexual about it; I just want them here with me, or me there with them, sleeping in one big puppy pile.
I want to be sandwiched between them, skin against skin, our scents overlapping.
I want it so bad it threatens to tear me to pieces, the way it aches.
I’m all hollow inside where they should be, mate-shaped holes left empty.
I hope they’re okay. Without me. Nate’s got it all figured out, I’m sure. Keeping little Cas safe. And the baby that might be growing inside him—a tiny ticking time bomb. Either mine or Nate’s, but both of our faults anyway.
No. No, can’t think of that. Ignore that, at least for now. One problem at a time. Survive all this first. Concentrate on surviving that part later.
And my wolf is a restless thing, glowering up at me and wondering why.
Why we’re here, why his mates are nowhere to be found.
Only a matter of time before he starts to tear at my insides, too, the way it does when he’s kept from something he wants too much—an omega in heat, an overdue shift, a hunt.
Right. Gotta get the fuck out of here. Moping at my uncle’s may have been all fun and games but here in the shed that still smells of my mate’s skin is nothing short of torture. No one’s going to rescue me; my mates will be murdered on sight.
I thump the door. “Patrick. C’mon. This isn’t necessary.”
“Alpha’s orders,” he chides me from outside.
“Aren’t you bored, though? Must be a million better things to do. Like…” I try to remember desperately what Patrick is into other than getting high and eating people’s chickens. “Uh…watching hole streamers?”
“Well, yeah. ’Course. This shit ain’t exactly riveting.”
“You know what would be interesting?” I wheedle.
“Ohhhh no. No way. If I let you out, I’ll be in there. Your uncle’s in the foulest of moods now the fair’s come round. No way I’m testing him. I’m liable to lose my damn head.”
I wonder if he’s lit. In fact, now that the windows have been washed, I can peer out and see him lighting up a roach. Seconds later, the skunky stench of weed permeates my nostrils.
I run my tongue over my teeth, savor it for a moment, then wander down the length of the barn.
Though the outside might’ve been spruced up, the inside is still as dusty and untouched as ever, ancient tractor parts still heaped here and there.
The scent of old motor oil soon overpowers what Patrick’s smoking, though it’s not altogether unpleasant.
I was always that kid who loved the smell of gasoline.
From the floor I pick up an old, rust-eaten piece of metal. Once upon a time it might’ve been an oil pan, but now it’s irregular and misshapen. It’s heavy, though. And perfect for punching through a window.
The windows themselves pose a problem, though.
They’re awfully small. And while I’m not as buff as Nathan, I’m definitely not as petite as Cas.
I’m not sure I can wedge my shoulders through the frame, and even if I can, there’s the whole issue of doing it quickly enough that Patrick can’t catch me. My wolf is even wider.
I wander back over to the door to watch him. He’s plunked on the ground, smoking and watching Shiftsta clips on his phone. I even briefly catch sight of that fucking omega influencer hawking Bond-B-Gone before Patrick scrolls away.
“Gettin’ tired of seeing that shit everywhere,” he mumbles. “Imagine having a mate you even need it for.”
Well, I’ve got them in spades and I’ve never wanted them back so damn bad in my life.
I wait a good twenty minutes for him to get more high.
It would be better to wait longer, see if he smokes even more, but that’s all the patience I have before I can’t take it any longer—the scent of my mate in this shed, the confinement, and the sounds of the stupid fucking reels as he scrolls through them at warp speed. I can’t deal a minute longer.
I smash the oil pan through a window. The glass shatters without much fanfare; it’s parchment thin, crumpling like nothing.
Without waiting to see if Patrick noticed, I shove myself through.
It’s a tight fucking squeeze and the edges are sharp and scrape my arms and T-shirt, but I ignore all that because it’s not too bad.
I kick and squirm until I’m finally dumped unceremoniously out onto the other side.
“Hey! He’s loose!”
It’s not Patrick. It’s another alpha, one I don’t know the name of, not off the top of my head.
And then there’s suddenly more, the darkness like a clown car full of alphas.
There are too many fucking alphas in this pack and they’re all converging on me at once it seems, a lot of shouting and growling and snarling.
But I’m not drunk this time. When I shift, it’s effortless, almost elegant. When I run, it’s swift and purposeful. And once I’m beyond my uncle’s territory, alphas snapping at my heels, there’s nothing to stop me or hold me back.
I’m not so good at a lot of things. But I can run.
I put my head down. I keep fucking running. I don’t even know where I’m going—can’t go to Nate, can’t lead them all there, not yet, but somewhere else. A wild goose chase until I lose them, somehow. They have to give up eventually, right?
There’s nothing but the sound of my panting and the wind in my ears. I can’t even hear their furious hunting song anymore.
It occurs to me, hours later, after breaking into a nearby village’s liquor store, that I’m not being followed. Not anymore, anyway. I don’t smell Patrick or Harry or Graham on my trail, don’t hear the ominous hunting chorus of alphas in the distance.
That’s okay. Means I can drink in blessed fucking silence—just a fifth of cheap vodka, no great loss to the store in question, I’m not that big of an asshole—for the first time in about twenty-four hours.
Up atop a knoll of long, tufted grass that brushes my arms and tickles my skin in a maddening kind of way, sipping out of the bottle beneath a scrap of moonlight.
If I was a teenager, this would be exciting. Instead it’s just sad.
And I’m drunk.
And I’m lonely.
And I wonder if they’re even thinking about me, the way I’ve been thinking about them, my mates.
If I’m under their skin the way they’re under mine, even with the mate bond a mere echo of what it should be, the suppressant still making its rounds in my veins.
If they even give a quarter of a shit about me or if they’re happy to be rid of the problem.
Because I’m the one who started all this, wasn’t I? Maybe Nate wouldn’t have given in if I hadn’t. Maybe if I’d been stronger. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
But then someone else would’ve mated Cas and that’s an unbearable thought, too. No, fuck that. I can’t stand the thought of Harry or Graham getting to him, or any other jackass alpha in this pack, for that matter. None of them are good enough for him.
So it’s just them, I guess. Nate and Cas. Alone. Together. At the fuck shed or whatever. Nate’s stupid cabin. Probably screwing each other’s brains out. Without me.
My eyes flicker shut. I try not to think about it.
The mental image of them fucking without me like I don’t even exist. Like I don’t matter.
Like there’s not a whole third of them missing out here just fucking suffering, alone, unwanted by literally anyone, and I can’t even feel if they are or not because my uncle is a goddamn psychopath and what is that all about, anyway?
Why is he blocking the bond with his own goddamn mate?
I remember when he picked Eden at the tender fuckin’ age of sixteen, a literal child bride.
We flew here for the wedding. My brother Kai and I thought it was fucked. I still do.
I do try, though. To feel them. Nate and Cas.
Again, with effort, I consciously reach for the tethers that bind me to them but all I can feel is that they’re there.
I can’t feel them, or their emotions, any sensation at all.
Or even if they’re okay. But I’m alive, so they must be. Relatively, at least.
Maybe Dec was right. Maybe the stupid suppressant was a kindness after all. Because if I was sitting here, feeling them fucking—
My eyes pop back open and I turn my head towards the direction of Nate’s cabin, nostrils flaring.
Realizing through the drunk haze that there’s nothing, actually, stopping me from going to them now.
The alphas who were tailing me have gone, so it’s not like I’d be leading them to my mates.
My lips part and I scent the air, just to be very, very sure, but I can’t smell another wolf for miles.
Sure, my sense of smell isn’t the greatest when I’m wasted but I’d know the musky scent of pack, at least.
I finish off the vodka and shift. Especially disorienting when drunk, the feeling of filling out an entirely new shape, but I manage it without throwing up. My paw hits the empty bottle and it goes tumbling down the hill as I wobble in the direction of the cabin.