22. Kato #2
I get turned around a few times, I guess. It takes me a while.
But it comes into view eventually, sorta tilting on its axis as it does, along with the rest of the world.
I have no sense of the time or how long it took me to get here.
It could be midnight. Could be nearly dawn.
I can’t see much through the thick treetops above me. A glimpse of starlight, nothing more.
I throw my full weight against the front door.
It’s more satisfying to do that as a wolf.
The thick, solid wood shudders and groans, and I do it again for effect before I stumble off the porch, rolling onto my back.
The pose is less dignified when I shift back to human, but it’s not like anyone’s come to fuckin’ get me. Where the hell are they?
“Nate!” I holler. “Cas! I know you’re in there! Wake the fuck up!”
An eternity later, a light flickers on through the window and they still haven’t opened the door so I get up again, crawling back onto the porch.
I bang a fist on the door and yell “Wake up” or at least try to, but my tongue feels like cotton and my mouth is so, so dry. It comes out all mushy, incoherent.
I try the knob. Locked. “Wake uupppp,” I groan again. “Wake the fuck up, Nate, you fucking asshole!”
The door suddenly pops open and I’m face to crotch with the asshole in question, shirtless, clad in only a tiny pair of boxers that hardly contains his fucking situation.
Cas is a few steps behind him, delicate in a giant sleep shirt—one of Nate’s shirts.
I recognize it. The sight stokes my already inflamed anger.
“Kato?” he says, astonished, reaching for me.
“What?” I jerk away and grab onto the doorframe, dragging myself upright. “Didn’t you miss me? Or did you already forget I exist?”
“Of course we missed you.” Cas ducks under Nathan’s arm. “We thought—”
“Oh, you’re a we now?” I say nastily.
Nathan lifts his chin. “Are you drunk?”
I ignore the question. I’m too busy scenting him, which is difficult because all that vodka’s dulled my senses considerably. Would be easier if I shifted back but that‘s more effort. I don’t want to lose the upper hand by throwing up.
(Do I even have the upper hand?)
I lean in so close that Nate seems to think I’m about to kiss him—he’s reaching for me again, trying to pull me into his arms—but I plant a hand on his chest, keeping him from coming any closer.
The pulse in his neck, usually steady, jumps beneath his skin, and I gotta wonder what it is he’s so afraid of right now ’cause I know it ain’t me. Right?
“Did you fuck without me?” I say.
“Kato,” he tries. “It’s not like that. We were—”
I seize Nathan’s shoulders and shove him away as hard as I can. He’s such a brick shithouse of a wolf, only taking a few surprised, staggered steps back, so I have to do it again, but this time he grabs my wrists. “What are you doing?”
“Fuck you,” I snap. “Fuck you both.” And I try to snatch my hands back, but he’s holding on too tight.
From the corner of my eye I see Cas sidle back and maybe it should’ve been enough to draw me up short but it’s not.
It just makes me—sadder? Madder? Both, some despairing fury overtaking me, and this time when I wrench myself away from Nate, I succeed.
“Kato,” he tries. “Let’s sit. We can talk.”
“You just couldn’t wait, huh? Till I was out of the picture.”
“That’s not true,” he insists. “Kato, listen–”
“I’m done listening, Nathan!” I shout into his face.
“I’ve been fucking listening and listening for the past, shit, week now, listening to everyone—my uncle, his dipshit flunkies, his pathetic mate; I’ve laid there listening to them day in and day out all by myself because you and Cas were out here having a—what, like, a goddamn honeymoon? ”
“Kato.” Cas lays a hand on my sleeve. “Love. Please.”
I shrug him off, sidestep like he’s something venomous. “I see you’ve picked your favorite. Little ghost.”
He raises his chin, his pretty face scrunched and entirely unaffected by my words. “And what of you and Nathan mating while we were all separated?”
A logical backhand. Should sting just as bad. Should rip me back from the ledge. Except all my sense has dislocated already. It’s gone out the window, a concept that no longer exists. “That was before,” I snap. “Before we were all a…a we.”
His dark eyes remain trained on my face, contrasting sharply with his pale, furrowed brow. I hate that I think he’s so pretty, even now.
“Whatever,” I say. “It’s fine. I guess I’d pick the hotter one with the bigger cock too if I were you. Survival of the fittest, right? He can be the one to knock you up. Bet he penetrated your womb no problem.”
“Kato.” My name’s a wounded snarl in Nate’s throat, his face more devastated than I’ve ever seen. “Stop. It’s not what you think.”
It’s got an edge of suggestion, that word. Stop. It flickers in my head like a buzzing neon sign. Makes me think about actually stopping. I don’t, though, because I don’t have to, and fuck him. Fuck both of them.
I push past them both, further into the room. Cozy with all its bullshit and ephemera, all the pictures on the walls either put there by Nate or his parents, who fucking knows. Ugly. All of this is ugly. And it all reeks.
“You fucked without me,” I say. “Didn’t you?”
Before either of them can say or do anything, I seize a painting of some godforsaken moor off the wall and dash it to the floor. The wooden frame promptly splinters, punching a hole through the canvas.
It’s a good start, but not enough. I grab a painting of some fish in a stream next and throw that on the floor too.
And I’m just stalking through the whole cabin finding things to grab and smash: a lamp, a coat rack, an empty mug that needs washing out, a glass of water, grabbing and smashing and I’m yelling too, louder than the smashing, and I think they’re both saying things but it’s drowned out by all the yelling and smashing and then—
—there’s just a mess. It’s a mess.
Everything’s ruined.
There’s tears on my face. I don’t remember crying. “You fucked without me,” I say again, except I’m whispering. And I’m hoarse. “You did it without me.”
They both stand in the wrecked living room. They both think I’m a monster. I don’t need the bond to know that; I can just tell. The looks on their faces before they smear through the film of tears.
I’ve fucked up again.
My shoulder crashes into the wall just as Nate starts picking his way through the broken mess, and I slide all the way down until I’m sitting on the floor. My eyes are squeezed shut by the time he kneels before me.
“I’m gonna be sick,” I mumble.
“No, you’re not.” The alpha’s fingertips skim my face and I open one teary eye to look at him. “You’re fine. I’m here.”
He sure is. Jesus, he really is. One of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen in my life, one I’ve been begging for attention since the minute I landed here, and never was I good enough. Could never really break through that rigid, self-important exterior of his that drove me almost to insanity.
Well, till now. And now I’ve gone and messed that up too.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’m sorry for pushing you away all this time. But we did not fuck without you.”
I gulp, hardly daring to believe that could be true. That they could want me when they could just have each other. “Oh,” I whisper. “You fucked up. Mating me. I’m a fucking disaster.”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “And yet I love you anyway.”
My heart threatens to explode then and there before it suddenly seizes up. I feel like I can hardly breathe. My voice halts and breaks with every attempt to speak. “Nate, I—” Love you too. “I’m sorry, I—” Love you. I’m in love with you. “I’ve ruined—”
“Nothing’s ruined.” He takes my face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Kato.”
“But I fell the fuck off.”
His lips brush the corner of my mouth. “And you’ll get back on.”
“And I—don’t want you fucking without me. Even though I’ve done it to both of you, I don’t—”
“Kato. We can talk about it later.”
“I love you,” I whisper helplessly. “I think I’ve been in love with you this whole time.”
“I know,” he says.
I don’t know when it happened but Cas is at my side, pressing into me. His lips touch my wet cheek. “Let’s go to bed,” he suggests softly. “It’s late. And you need to sober up before we can have a productive conversation.”
“The mess—” I’m suddenly fixated on that, what I’ve done.
“The mess will keep,” he tells me firmly.
The mess does keep, I guess.
But I feel like a fucking asshole now. Especially as I’m sobering up, which happens pretty fast as a shifter. That’s the problem, staying drunk for long—you have to keep drinking to chase that sweet oblivion of feeling nothing. Or at least feeling less. It’s hard.
So as we all tuck into Nate’s bed that barely fits the three of us—we’re practically on top of each other, which I secretly love—I’m starting to feel the guilt and self-loathing all over again. And wishing I had a drink to chase it all away.
Guess it’s the least I can do, though, for coming in and ruining everything. Sitting with it. Feeling it.
So I do, sitting with it and feeling it until the small hours of the morning, staring at the ceiling while my mates sleep.
I still can’t feel them; I don’t know when the stupid bond suppressant is supposed to wear off, but it’d be nice if it wore off faster.
I want to know, without knowing, how much my bullshit bothers them, how mad they are that I came in and destroyed half of Nate’s little cabin.
But it’s probably better if I don’t. Some things are better off not knowing.
And I’m keeping an ear out for the pack too, coming to retrieve me. Drunk me was wrong. It’s not like it’ll be hard to track me here; this is the most predictable place on earth for me to wind up. Where the fuck else will I go, back to the US? My own pack doesn’t even want me.